Maddie and Wyn (13 page)

Unbidden, thoughts of Wyn and last night popped front and center in Maddie’s brain, and heat bloomed on her skin. “I don’t know about that.”

Reaching across the table, Ernie squeezed her hand. “You have plenty of time.”

The hairs on Maddie’s neck rose, and she squirmed under Ernie’s innocent scrutiny.
Don’t even go down that Wyn road right now, girl.

Winding her thoughts backward, to what she’d originally wanted to talk to Ernie about, Maddie bluntly asked, “Do you know if the previous owners of the house had anyone die in it?”

Ernie’s brows went up. “Other than Stavros’s wife? I don’t think so. The owners before Stavros and Lena, definitely not. One of my cousins worked for them, so I know that history for sure. I’m not one hundred percent certain about the original owners who built the place. I could ask my wife’s mother. She’s still around and her mind is like a steel trap.”

“If you don’t mind, that would be great.” The other information Ernie had shared took a second to register, but when it did, her heart sank. “Mrs. Corsini died in the house?” Photos she’d glanced at in passing a thousand times in this very garage, not to mention still in her home, filled her, and she started to wonder if she’d ever truly gotten a clear image of the fleeting sightings of the woman in her garden. “I never knew that.”

“Yes. Lena was a wonderful woman.” Ernie’s voice gentled, and a smile returned, almost bringing a soft glow to the surface of his mahogany skin. “Very kind. Always treated me like a man of means equal to her husband. Looked me in the eyes. Shook my hand back during a time when it might shock you to know some folks still wouldn’t. Lena never fully recovered from that terrible stroke, and then a clot eventually got her, right in the middle of the day, right in her kitchen.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

No matter her anger at Wyn, Maddie couldn’t help but put herself in Mr. Corsini’s position.
To lose Wyn so suddenly, to be the one to find him…
Maddie went cold, and her heart bled straight out onto the concrete floor.

Maddie rubbed her arms, chasing away goose bumps, even though the garage was a bit stuffy and warm. “Mr. Corsini must have been terribly heartbroken.”

“Yes. And Nico was almost a teenager, showing interests that weren’t in Stavros’s wheelhouse, and they butted heads some. After Nico left to go to school, it was hard for Stavros.” Ernie’s gaze clouded, looked far away then, perhaps drifted back to a time before Maddie had known this place even existed. “That’s when the garage became his life, his family, whereas before that it was the means to support his family and make them happy.”

“You two were close.” This time, Maddie squeezed his hand. “More than I realized.”

Ernie nodded. “Stavros treated me well. He offered me respect and a wage I could live on at a time when a lot of employers still addressed me as ‘boy’. I’ve had my share of those who looked down on me to know how rare a boss and man Stavros is.”

Maddie nodded too, empathizing with Ernie, although for herself her affection had a basis in Mr. Corsini’s gender blindness rather than color. “I know Mr. Corsini is so happy now,” she mused, “so I don’t begrudge him a minute of this second lease on life he’s getting with his new wife, but I do miss him.” A fizzy twist coiled up in Maddie’s belly, and she felt a little bit sick. “And I worry I can’t live up to his legacy.”

“You don’t need to worry about that, sweetheart. You’re doing just fine. Okay—” Ernie gathered the remnants of his lunch, “—I’ll be getting back to work. That new boss,” he winked at her as he threw away his trash, “she’s a real hard ass, you know.”

Maddie laughed and shouted, “Damn right she is,” but the moment she was alone, Mr. Corsini’s late wife took front and center in Maddie’s thoughts.
Could she be my ghost?
Maddie would have to look closely at a picture of the woman, and then she’d have to do her level best to focus on the figure in white the next time she saw her. Then, if correct, she would have some concrete information to give to Wyn and maybe he would believe her.

Wyn.
Maddie squeezed her eyes closed and tried to shut him out, but flashes from last night invaded her mind, giving her no escape. The feel of his hard, hot body still lived in her fingertips, tempting her with fantasies of touching his warm, firm skin again. And the way he’d touched her…Maddie swallowed a moan and clenched her thighs as her pussy awakened for him right in the break room. Nobody had ever touched Maddie in so intimate and sexual a manner before. She’d gone on dates during those years she and Wyn had become friends, and while she’d had fun with some of the guys, in her heart she’d known she could never love them, and so she’d never gone farther than kissing and the lightest of petting.

Pretty much everything she’d done with Wyn in the garden had been a first for her; not only what he’d done to her, but the way she’d let go of herself and responded so completely to him. She’d wanted to lean into him and show him who she’d secretly been all these years under the sarcasm and biting comments. Then for him to treat what they’d done together so flippantly…

No. Don’t even think about him. Control what you can, and worry about nothing else.

From now on, Maddie would remind herself that they were living in her home, not his. She would reclaim it, and Wyn would have to worry about dealing with her.

Starting tonight.

* * * *

Remote in hand, Wyn threw himself down on the couch and flicked on the TV. The local news filled the screen. Not in the mood to be angered or depressed, Wyn started flipping through the channels, looking for something to grab his interest until he could motivate himself to make something for dinner. If tonight was anything like the previous two evenings in Maddie’s home, he would be dining alone.

After going through hundreds of channels—Maddie seemed to have every channel invented—Wyn pulled up the DVR listings to see what she had stored to watch.
Holy Mother.
Dozens of shows were recorded, many with multiple episodes, as well as some movies and even a few talk shows. Everything from
The Walking Dead
to
Sherlock
,
Scandal
, and
Black-ish
, to
True Blood
and
Supernatural
and
Love It or List It
.

The films on tap ranged from low budget found-footage horror to classic John Hughes movies from the eighties to foreign melodramas. Scanning deeper into the list, Wyn smiled as the animated film
Ice Age
showed up, with a Save icon next to it. That movie had shown up at a dollar theater in town years ago, and when Wyn had admitted he’d never seen it but kind of wanted to, Maddie had dragged him into the place, where they’d had the whole damned theater to themselves to watch it. Thinking back on that afternoon twisted inside Wyn, bittersweet, recalling how good they were together before everything changed to crushingly bad.

Maddie had a way of creating one-of-a-kind, memorable days out of nothing anybody looking in from the outside would think was very interesting or special. She’d used seeing
Ice Age
as a jumping off point to create an entire weekend of snowy fun…

* * * *

…Deep into one of Maine’s snowmobile trails, Wyn hooted to the sky as he leaned his weight all the way to the side of his snow machine, pulled off the throttle, and executed a sharp bend around a cluster of trees. Just a few feet away, Maddie, on her own sled, shouted as she executed the turn to perfection too, and then picked up speed as the trail straightened over a long stretch of snow-covered land.

Bright, nearly blinding sunlight beamed down onto the blanket of pure white snow and the crisp, frigid air stung the lower half of Wyn’s face not covered by goggles.

Maddie sped up alongside him, shouted, “You’re going down, sucker!” and pressed full-tilt on her throttle, shooting past him into the open field of snow.

His competitive juices igniting into a full inferno, Wyn roared, “Never!” and gunned the gas on his snowmobile too. He stood up on the sled to get even better control over the vehicle as it moved on the loosely packed snow and shot past Maddie in mere seconds.

For the entire span of the open space, Wyn and Maddie traded the lead position, each shouting taunts and jabs at the other along the way. Wyn couldn’t do it with a straight face though; he laughed the whole way, and Maddie smiled as big as he’d ever seen in between each insult too.

When they reached the other side of the clearing—their predetermined spot to stop for a snack—Wyn squeezed the brake handle and brought the sled to a sliding stop. Before the motor had a chance to completely die down, he dived off the machine onto the white-covered ground and scooped up a mound of snow, prepared to take this competition to another level.

Sprawled on his side, Wyn packed the fluffy white stuff into a ball, but as he aimed, Maddie yanked off her goggles and threw her hands into the air. “Hey, hey now. We already have a snowball fight in our past.” A light in her eyes took Wyn straight back to that night they’d so inappropriately kissed, and his gut clenched with the still-forbidden need. “Let’s try to be original.”

Arm falling to his side, the ball plopping into the snow, Wyn rolled onto his back and muttered, “Fair enough.”

His muscles going lax, Wyn looked up, studying the twinkle of sunlight through the tall, barren branches of trees. He exhaled, taking a moment to soak in the beautiful day, when at the exact same moment Maddie launched off her snowmobile and pushed a pile of snow in his direction, using the momentum of her body, and buried him to the waist in a wash of white.

Wyn screeched in an octave he’d never used in his life. Before he could cry foul, Maddie, on her knees, swooped more snow in the wingspan of her arms and dumped it on his face and chest, covering him from head to toe in snow.

Giggling in somehow the throatiest, sexiest damned way, Maddie wiped snow from his eyes. With a blink Wyn could see her leaning over him, wearing a triumphant smile. “I mocked your snowball attempt, but I never said I wouldn’t bury you in snow another way.”

“Fuck.” Glaring, but warmed in his core, Wyn spit snow out of his mouth. “I walked right into that.”

Maddie arched an eyebrow comically high. “Yeah you did.”

With that said, she pulled him upright to sit, bit off her gloves, and began brushing off the snow she’d dumped on him. She flitted her fingers—although maybe flitted wasn’t the right word for someone with such vitality—over his arms and chest, pushing off clumps of white powder from his clothes. She swept her hand across his stomach and then moved dangerously lower.
Fuck.
With her hand an inch from his lap, Wyn sucked in a breath—if she touched anywhere close to his cock Wyn would be hard in a second, he knew it—and Maddie shot her gaze up to his and whipped her hand away.

Clenching her fingers, Maddie mumbled, “I’ll let you get the rest,” and darted her focus everywhere but on his body.

“Good idea,” Wyn replied, charmed by her sudden nervousness, something she rarely let get the better of her.

While he finished cleaning himself off, Maddie jumped up and began rifling in the pack on the back of her snowmobile. By the time he pushed to his feet Maddie had a power drink and energy bar in hand for him.

After grabbing the goodies, Wyn took a seat on his sled. “Thanks.”

Maddie raised her bottle in salute. “No problem.”

They both munched in companionable silence in between taking sips of their energy drinks. As Wyn downed the dry, flavorless bar he tried to keep his attention on the glory of nature surrounding them and not continually straying to the woman next to him. Christ though, her cheeks were wind-reddened and wisps of her dark hair had come free of her loose braid and knit cap, the strands damp with perspiration. The whole package was sexy rather than off putting. And somehow her snow gear fit her to perfection and enhanced her curves rather than turning her into a shapeless blob.

She licked her lip, grabbing a crumb from the corner of her mouth with the tip of her tongue.
Damn.
Wyn pictured her grazing the head of his cock in that same darting way, and heat flared in his shaft and pulsed in his balls. Just as fast as the slam of desire hit him, Maddie started to stand but instead lost her footing and face planted into the snow—to which she immediately rolled onto her side and busted out laughing. A pleasant warmth twined down Wyn’s middle, calming the flash of threatening fire.

Shifting forward, Wyn smiled from above her just as grandly as she’d done to him. “You all right down there?”

Shaking herself off, Maddie pushed her knit cap up from where it had fallen half into her face. “I’ve hit the ground harder while tripping over my own feet. I’ll live.”

As Wyn extended a hand and hauled her to her feet, he glanced toward the thickening forest of trees. “What happens if we keep going the way we have been so far?”

“After another couple of miles there’s supposed to be a place where you can park the snowmobiles, get a wildlife map, and hike for a bit and see what animals you can spot.” With a quick look up at the sky, Maddie pushed her coat sleeve up to check her watch, and then frowned. “We might be pushing the time though. The sled place doesn’t like the rentals to be out after dark.”

Wyn took note of the mid-afternoon hour too. “We can shoot straight for the animal trail tomorrow, if you want, and that’ll give us lots of time. If we head back to the lodge now we can probably get back in time to challenge some suckers to a pool match in the game room before we have to think about what we want to do for dinner.”

Throwing her hands on her hips, Maddie dropped her jaw in the most comically exaggerated manner. “You? A cop? Suggesting we do a little hustling?”

Stepping in front of her, Wyn grinned slow and easy. “You don’t know everything about me, honey.” He closed her mouth for her and added in a soft tone next to her ear, “Not yet anyway,” before heading back to his snowmobile.

“Mr. Ashworth.” Very inelegantly, Maddie hoisted her booted, ski-suit-covered leg up on the seat of her sled in a Mrs.-Robinson-familiar pose, and batted her eyelashes. “You’re trying to seduce me. Aren’t you?”