Heart and Sole (8 page)

“Derrick, please.” Maddie held up a hand to halt the verbal diarrhea. Uncle Al was pushing seventy. He’d done everything possible to keep the company afloat. All he wanted to do now was enjoy his grandkids and fish every day. He deserved to, and the company deserved a fresh start.

And by default, that happened to be with her at the helm.

“Well, you haven’t exactly had a track record of success—”

Maddie clenched her hands into fists. Knowing her brother, he was going to illustrate his point with Crayola-colored examples of her past incompetence. She would not stand here like she was thirteen and suffer through it.

“I have a great job now, Derrick.”

“
Had
is what I heard.”

She took a sip of tea, wishing she had what Grandmeel was having. “I’ve made some difficult decisions, but I believe they’re good ones.”

He snorted. “Yeah. Like the website design start-up that failed after you borrowed money from Mom and Dad. Or that deadbeat rodeo wrangler.”

Oh, God, no
. Okay, so the start-up had tanked, but she’d paid every penny back. But why did he have to bring up her failed engagement from a year and a half ago? Maddie’s face heated. Derrick was playing dirty, in front of Nick. Why now?
Especially
now, when she needed solidarity and support from her family.

Nick’s brow raised in a question, but maybe also in judgment. Soon he’d know all about her past mishaps and mistakes, and he’d gloat too.

Derrick took a swig of beer and sighed heavily. “I’m sorry, but I think you’re foolish to quit the best job you’ve ever had to come back home and try to run the business. You need to find someone more competent, or we’re just going to lose it all.”

Maddie looked at her mother. She was biting the inside of her cheek, a sure sign that she was upset. Maddie needed to be mature and change the topic before the truth came out about her dad, but her tongue seemed stuck to the roof of her mouth. Why, oh why was she one of these people that thought of snappy comebacks and shutdowns two hours late?

Before Maddie could un-velcro her tongue, Nick spoke. “Actually, I believe Maddie’s more than qualified to step in, and she’s got a good plan. Trouble is, even the best plan may not be enough at this point to save the business.”

Whoa
. Say what? Nick had just defended her. Shut down her bully brother. Wow. The enemy wasn’t so…enemous.

Maddie’s mom gave Derrick a little shove. “Why don’t you go help Jenna with the boys?”

Derrick frowned at Maddie but did as their mother said.

“I think your grandmother is right,” Nick said. “I’m happy to get a room at the B and B.”

Grandmeel gave an I-told-you-so smirk, but Maddie’s mom patted Nick on the back. “You’ll stay with us. We positively wouldn’t have it any other way. Now let’s sit and enjoy these cookies while they’re fresh out of the oven.”

Maddie handed Nick a sweet tea and a cookie, which he took with a huge grin. Despite her resolve, it made her feel all melty inside—just like the chocolate chips—and helped erase some of her embarrassment at her family’s antics.

As she sat on her parents’ deck, a voice in her head niggled.
This is not real
. Nick was not here to offer advice or to analyze where the business was turning south. He was here because she’d paid for him to be, with all her money and some of Cat’s. She could not allow herself to get lulled into thinking otherwise.

Grandmeel with all her iciness was the only one with a real handle on this wacky situation. Yet Maddie’s heart rebelled, begging to get caught up in the fantasy.

That was what had always gotten her into trouble in the past. Her stupid heart, so quick to trust and believe. Her family would shake their heads and think,
There she goes again. Following her impulses instead of her sense
.

Maddie knew that heart could not be trusted. She looked over at her grandmother and tried to adopt her same strict posture. If she didn’t shove that same steel rod up her backside, she would ruin the one chance she had to save her family.

The little boys greedily grabbed for cookies, and Jenna gave them each a juice box. Maddie noticed they now wore swim trunks as they padded across the deck in their bare feet to sit in the corner near a pile of action figures and toy cars. Hughie, smart dog that he was, eagerly followed the trail of cookie crumbs behind them.

The tea tasted like home, the cookies were comforting in their warm deliciousness, and Maddie finally felt herself relaxing.

Until Derrick spoke again. “So, are you two back together?” He always was as subtle as an eighteen-wheeler blasting around the curves of a mountainous West Virginia highway.

“No, we are not.” Maddie decided to stomp this one down fast before it grew into a disaster. “Nick is here to see his grandfather.”

“Well, I remember
that thing
you two had in high school.”

Ah, yes,
that thing
. That combustible, explosive thing that flared and burst brighter and louder than fireworks over New York Harbor. And left her heart charred and shattered for years.

Derrick stood, probably just to intimidate further. “Just to be clear, Nick can sleep in the family room.”

Who did Derrick think he was, anyway, her father? Suddenly the reason for his bad cop routine became more obvious. Maybe he was trying to step in for Dad. In his usual blunt scary way. It was half touching and half horrifying.

“I’ll sleep anywhere,” Nick said, unfazed. “Couch, floor, anything’s fine.”

Derrick slapped Nick on the back a little too hard. “Just not in my sister’s bed.”

Maddie choked on her sweet tea. She used the coughing and sputtering as an excuse to head into the house for a real drink.

Where the hell was the scotch? It had always been in the liquor cabinet in the family room, but her mom must have moved it out of reach of the little kids. She headed to the tiny pantry off the kitchen, where she strained on tiptoes to wrap her fingers around the bottle.

“Want me to reach that for you?” a familiar masculine voice asked from the pantry doorway.

Nick.

He leaned casually against the painted doorframe, arms crossed, biceps in full view. Seeing him all strong and tall and handsome, relaxed and still half wet, fired up a hormone storm inside her that made her want to do something really crazy like wrap her body around his hard toned one and drag him down among the Diet Coke cans and the tin of dog biscuits without a second thought.

Funny how your own family could make you want to run screaming into the arms of the enemy.

“Only if you’ll join me.” She tried to sound cool and in control but she was anything but.

“Oh, I’d love to join you.” He flashed a devilish grin that made her pulse jump and stepped up close behind her in the tight space to reach over her head. She vaguely registered the bag of flour at eye level because most of her focus was on the hard muscular body pressing her into the shelf.

“Hurry up,” she said, mainly to distract herself. “I need it fast before my mom discovers I’m drinking in the closet.”

Nick was in no hurry. His left hand skimmed down her arm as his right grabbed the scotch bottle from the shelf. She felt his wet shirt and his belt buckle press into her back. “I can give it to you fast,” he whispered low and throaty. “Help you release all that pent-up tension.”

Dear God, did he really just say that? Before she could protest, his hand snaked to the back of her neck. The shock of his touch made every nerve ending stand on end. His fine, long-fingered hands massaged her neck gently, expertly, and oh, my, he had magic hands. Even better than alongside the highway. Within ten seconds she wanted to loll her head backward and moan from sheer pleasure. He kneaded between her shoulder blades, diffused the tightness in her trapezius, her shoulders, her neck. Slowly her mind stopped replaying the horrendous scenes from a few minutes ago.

“So tense.” Nick
tsked
, as if he had just the remedy to fix it.

She could only nod like a boneless heap of jelly under his pliant fingers.

“Take a deep breath. You handled them well.”

“Why are you…” She shook her head against the haze of lust. “Why are you doing this?”

She turned around so he had to break contact. She stood with her hands behind her, gripping onto the pantry shelf. He was very close, his eyes darkly twinkling, molten with desire.

In the kitchen, the screen door slammed. Hughie barked. Voices and laughter followed.

Nick handed her the bottle of scotch and shrugged. “Guess you’ll have to wait for later.”

“For what?” she asked groggily.

“For more massaging. Or that drink. Or for whatever else you might need.” He turned and left, leaving her breathless and shaking.

Maddie pulled off the cap and took a drink from the bottle, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as she let herself slide slowly down the pantry wall.

Yep, she had her hands full with her family and with the business she’d come here to lead. Nick was supposed to be the enemy, yet he’d handled Grandmeel and Derrick and stood up for her in front of her family. Then he’d offered her—what?—comfort and humor and oh, hell, the best damn massage she’d ever had.

How was it that the one man who could take their company down appeared to be the only one who seemed to believe in her?

She stood and struggled for sanity, gave herself a good hard smack on the forehead. Getting turned on in the pantry by the man that was going to ruin her family was really bad. Almost as bad as ever thinking bringing him home was a good idea.

Chapter Eight

Okay, the pantry was a mistake.

Nick should have stayed outside. He could handle himself with the Relatives from Hell. Besides he’d always liked Maddie’s mom.

Except Maddie got to him. He’d felt her pain, standing up to her grandmother and brother. She was doing her best in a bad situation, and he’d felt an overwhelming urge to comfort her, make her laugh. Kiss her until she forgot all about her crazy family and all the insane pressure she was under. She needed defenders. Hell, where was her father?

He reminded himself again to keep it professional. He’d let his emotions override his sense again, as seemed to happen whenever he was around her.

An hour later, the idea of having dinner with his grandfather sounded like the perfect escape. Plus, he needed to complete his mission—put his grandfather in charge and be done with this once and for all. Nick drove through the tiny town. Downtown Buckleberry Bend was decked out for the Berry Festival like a present wrapped and decorated for a special occasion. Banners looped languidly across Main Street and colorful flowers burst out of baskets hung from the wrought iron lampposts.

Vendor booths were set up in the park and all the shop windows were adorned with red, white, and blue—the pancake house, the five-and-dime, the antique shops and small art galleries, the main store for Kingston Shoes. Even the coffee shop where all the old-timers ate breakfast and hung out in rocking chairs all afternoon displayed enticing wares for the street traffic.

Nick stopped at the B and B to inquire about a room, but they were booked for the holiday. Maybe he would stay with his grandfather, just text Maddie it was better that way. He needed to get some distance between the two of them before he did something really stupid. Under the same roof and just a set of stairs away, God knew what could happen.

The shops soon ended, replaced on the outskirts of the town by the shoe factory and farmland where the corn was knee high. Nick drove across railroad tracks to the tiny neighborhood where he grew up.

The car crunched up the gravel drive to the side of a little white box of a house set behind a garden of blooming geraniums. An American flag hung proudly from the front porch. Behind the wheel, Nick scrubbed his hands over his face. This place held a mixed basket of memories, good and bad, but tugging in his mind was a persistent thought that had nothing to do with his upbringing.

The rodeo wrangler.

He resisted the urge to call one of his men, send him to Texas, and punch that all-talk-no-work cowboy right in his gleaming bleached teeth.

Why did Nick ever agree to come back here? He could take the condescending brother and the suspicious grandma, but it seemed Maddie frightened him most of all. No other woman had ever made him feel like that.

The day she was supposed to get married, he’d gotten drunk, sat around all day watching football and washing down salsa and chips with beer. Then he went and broke up with his girlfriend-at-the-time. That was probably the only good thing he did that day. He’d had a fiendish impulse to hop in his car, drive to North Carolina, and tell Maddie all the things he should have said long ago. Only common sense stopped him, and the fact that he was too damned drunk to drive.

Nick shook his head hard to clear it. Nostalgia did that to you. Ripped out your guts and forced you to remember things best left covered with cobwebs in the very back of your mind. Seeing Gramps would be just the thing to get his mind straight and drive thoughts of Maddie from his mind. His grandfather, after all, was the reason he’d invested in Kingston Shoes in the first place.

“Well I’ll be a son of a—”

Samuel Holter’s imposing figure filled the doll-house doorway, but Nick wasn’t intimidated. He was just as tall and broad. The two could have been father and son instead of two generations apart.

“Wish you’d let me replace that damn unsafe rust bucket in the driveway,” Nick grumbled. He hugged him even though he knew Gramps wasn’t much into physical contact. His grandfather eyeballed him up and down like an astute mother capturing every detail of her prodigal child come home.

“Want some dinner?” His grandfather tossed the words over his shoulder as he moved into the house.

“I’ll take a beer if you have one.”

The living room was tidy but sparse, exactly as Nick remembered it—a dull brown La-Z-Boy chair with a couple empty Coke cans strewn on a small table, a beat-up old couch, plain walls hung with cheap landscape paintings of lakes. The only change was the giant-screen TV in the corner—a gift from Nick last Christmas.

“Game’s on. Want to watch?”

“Who’s playing?”

“Braves and the Phillies.”

Nick nodded and took a seat on the couch. The old man seemed to be holding up pretty well. He looked fit and trim and just as ornery as ever.

Gramps returned from the kitchen a few minutes later with two beers, a bag of chips, and something in a bowl.

“What’s this?” Nick stared down at a beige dip flecked with bits of red peppers that smelled powerfully of cumin.

“Hummus. Have some. I made it.”

“Okay.” He
made
it? There was a time when Gramps’s “making” something consisted of peeling off the plastic wrap and nuking it for six minutes. Nick took a reluctant taste. To his surprise, it was snappy with lot of bite. Just like Gramps.

They sat there in silence, watching the game. The Phillies were trampling the Braves and Gramps was not pleased. Nick knew well enough not to interrupt, but he couldn’t concentrate on the stupid game.

Thoughts of Maddie rolled through his mind. They should have finished what they’d begun in that camper because he couldn’t think of much else besides getting her naked and sinking into her softness over and over. He wanted to lay her down on that pink chenille bedspread in her old room and do everything he should have done when he was eighteen.

From the time his grandfather wanted him to stay and commute to college, build up to manager in one of the local stores, Nick feared he’d too become a man with broken dreams, stuck selling shoes in the middle of Nowhereville. He wanted to become something, someone. He wanted out.

Don’t get entangled with those Kingstons. You get that girl pregnant, and there’ll be hell to pay. It could never work with someone like her. Rich girl and a poor boy. What are you thinking?

He’d broken her heart to protect her from a nothing life. Little did he know he’d broken his own as well.

Nick fidgeted on the lumpy couch, making a note on his phone to ship in a new one. And a new Laz-y-Boy, too.

“Old man, I need to talk to you.”

“Yeah, what for?” His grandfather narrowed his brows, thicker, bushier versions of his own. He felt certain his grandfather had been a lady-killer in his own time, but somehow he’d ended up alone after Gran died all those years ago. Maybe Nick should find out why, or he’d end up the same way.

He stood and lifted the remote from the arm of his grandfather’s chair.

“It’s the top of the seventh,” Gramps said with justifiable outrage.

“Geez, it’s not the seventh game of the World Series. I’ll DVR it for you.” Nick punched buttons, but Gramps grabbed the remote back and kept watching the game.

“That guy was out, I tell you. What a bad call. Let’s see the instant replay. Told you that ump’s an idiot.”

Nick would just have to talk over the racket. He got up and paced. “Why won’t you let me get you a better place to stay?”

Nick’s grandfather kept one eye on the game. “I like this one just fine, thank you very much.”

“I can buy you ten of these houses, you know that, don’t you?” After the feud, Gramps had worked in the next town over but had stayed here to be close to Gran’s aging parents. He’d never left Buckleberry Bend.

“Of course I do. But I like this house and besides, the new TV you bought me suits just fine. What’s really bunching up your shorts?”

Nick breathed deeply. The old man could not show affection if he was threatened at gunpoint. He knew Gramps loved him. Yes, he knew. But just once he wanted to hear,
I’m proud of you, boy
.
You’ve done very well for yourself
. Instead, Gramps offered a stream of curt little phrases that could be taken a million different ways.

Nick had learned long ago not to expect any gushing. Gramps didn’t do much ball-playing or PTA-attending, but he did encourage him to study and work hard. Even if they’d lived like two single guys in a bachelor pad, eating TV dinners and doing all the chores on an as-needed basis. But today he’d come for answers.

“I need to talk to you about the Kingston Shoe Company.”

“Okay.” Gramps’s voice was flat but he looked like he’d rather have his brand new TV taken away forever than talk about the past.

“It’s in big trouble. The family is doing drastic things to save it.”
Like selling their stocks to me.

“Why are you telling me this? I washed my hands of all that business a long time ago.”

“I want to know what happened.”

“Things happened the way they did, and there’s no undoing any of it.” He pointed at the TV. “Oh, will you look at that? He walked another one!”

“Is it so horrible you can’t even talk about it?”

“Sometimes people disappoint you, Nicky. Even the ones you trust the most. That’s all I can say.”

Nick looked at the man who raised him. He was tired of cryptic lines about never trusting anyone. He wanted answers, but Gramps was not a talker. Plus, the past was painful. For all of them.

“I’ll get us another beer.”

Nick wandered through the tiny linoleum-covered kitchen and into the garage to grab some beers from the extra fridge. A long pop-up table covered with charcoal and pastel drawings sat in the middle of the immaculately swept cement floor. Another table held strips of leather, ribbons, a variety of shoemaking tools, and wooden shoe lasts, some covered with material that made them look just like real shoes and that matched more drawings scattered nearby.

Nick sat down at a surprisingly expensive chair, one of those ergonomic models that probably cost several hundred dollars. The jerry-rigged lighting on top of the workspace was complex too. There was even a fancy electric heater, the kind he’d seen car mechanics use, suspended from the ceiling.

Drawing after drawing, shoe after shoe. Stilettos, flats, loafers. Complex engineering-quality drawings of soles and samples of funky materials to impact shock and affect balance. It was clear his granddad still hadn’t given up on his dream. A dream he’d almost realized once. Just when he would have finally made it to New York…he’d gotten a five-year-old boy to raise. Gramps had made a good life for them. He’d provided everything a boy could need, and he never did make it back to New York. Now Nick wanted to give back.

“What’s taking you so long?”

Nick looked up to see his grandfather standing in the doorway. He didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, but he longed to be let in. “I got sidetracked.” He picked up a stiletto, red and sleek, with an intricate flower embellishment. It was pretty, elegant, streamlined.

“This is a beautiful shoe,” Nick said, hoping his grandfather would take the bait and discuss his work.

His grandfather walked over and fingered the tip. “Not just beautiful, Nicky. Easy on the feet, too.”

“Maybe you should market it.”

“Maybe I should.”

“I have contacts in New York. I could help you—”

Gramps laughed softly. “I’m seventy-two years old. I think the gravy train has come and gone, son.” He stacked some scattered papers and turned to go.

“I came here with Maddie Kingston for the weekend.”

His grandfather turned back around. Those thick brows lifted again, but he didn’t say a thing.

Now was Nick’s chance to tell his granddad he was buying the company so Gramps could have his final chance at success, at realizing his dream. But all Nick could see was Maddie silently trying to reassure her mother, that look of worried concern creasing a frown between her smooth brows as Derrick told him,
Thanks for coming to help Maddie with her crazy scheme.

Except it wasn’t so crazy. She was trying to bail out her family. Who could blame her for that? Nick opened the beat up fridge and grabbed two ice-cold beers, handed one to his granddad. It would be great to watch the rest of the game and forget about his problems.

“Sorry to hear about her father,” his granddad said out of the blue.

Nick snapped to attention. Shut the fridge door. “What?”

“You don’t know what happened?”

Nick must have looked as incredulous as he felt. A wave of nausea churned his stomach.

“Stroke,” Gramps said. “Two months ago. Pretty severe. He’s still at the rehab hospital.”

Nick’s heart tapped out a staccato rhythm that made it hard to hear. “Have you seen him?” A stroke? How could that be? He was only fifty-ish.

Puzzle pieces clicked into place. No wonder why Maddie quit her job…and planned to take charge of a company without any business experience under her belt.

Her dad was sick.
How sick?

“Not my place to go,” Gramps said.

Of course not. The feud. Nick wanted to tell his grandfather that was precisely why he should take the opportunity to go see Henry Kingston.

“Are you involved with her?” his grandfather asked.

Nick barely heard the question. “With Maddie? No. She…needed my advice. Now I understand why.”

“You’re offering business advice to them?”

“She’s my friend, and she asked me, Gramps.” Now Nick was the one who didn’t want to talk.

“Well, the whole thing’s unfortunate. I wish them well.”

As Nick followed his grandfather back into the house, he wondered why the hell Maddie hadn’t told him about her father. She’d taken a huge risk quitting her own job to take on this burden, without help. No one with a grain of business sense would ever have done it. The whole thing made him feel physically sick.

“We can order a pizza and watch your Phillies finish pummeling the Braves,” Gramps said.

“Thanks, but I’d better be going.”