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When he finally rolled onto his back, Maddie sidled up against him, resting her head on his chest. His heart was still racing from exertion and she lay there listening until it finally slowed to its usual, steady pace.
Her lids were starting to get heavy. It was late morning, hours past when she normally started her day, but she hadn’t slept very well last night. She gave in to the lure of the sandman and fell asleep in his arms. She didn’t know how much time had passed when the sound of Emmett’s voice jerked her back to consciousness.
“It’s my turn to go to work.”
Maddie whined and clung to him. She didn’t want him to go downstairs. She wanted him here, all to herself.
“I know,” he said. “I don’t want to go downstairs, either, but there’s a big game on this afternoon. You can hide in the bar today if you want to. No one will expect to see you there. Or you can stay up here. Either is fine with me.”
She sighed and let go of him. “If you insist,” she said. He got up and disappeared into the bathroom. Knowing there was nothing she could do to entice him back into bed, she gave up and started dressing. As much as hiding out in his apartment all day appealed to her, she wouldn’t. She would go home and face whatever awaited her there, now that her resolve was steeled by time with Emmett.
When she headed to the kitchen, she noticed his coffeepot on the counter and thought she’d brew a pot. He could probably use it after being up so late with the Halloween crowd.
She hunted down the coffee filters and grounds, loading a pitcher of water in the reservoir and turning it on. As it started to perk and bubble, she leaned back against the counter to wait. After a few minutes, when the last drop of coffee fell into the pot, she opened up a few cabinets to hunt for mugs. She found two and sat them on the counter, sliding a stack of papers out of the way so she didn’t get them dirty.
All the paper slid easily except for one that drifted off the top. She picked it up, moving to put it on the stack, but hesitated as her eyes narrowed in on all the zeros.
It was a check for twenty-five thousand dollars made out to Emmett. That certainly wasn’t pocket change or standard payment for a bookshelf in Connie Jackson’s den. Whatever this was for, it was something big. Good for him. She sat the check back on the top of the pile, finally seeing the text in the memo line that her thumb had covered before.
Payment from Adelia Chamberlain, Acct#007568
That’s when her blood turned to ice in her veins. She picked the check back up and examined it more closely. It was a certified check from Rosewood Bank, dated early last week. The check didn’t notate what the money was for and the To: line had been handwritten in, instead of typed in by the bank. That was odd. Why would her grandmother have a check cut for twenty-five thousand dollars and leave the recipient line blank? If she dropped it, anyone could pick it up and fill in their own name. Unless she didn’t want anyone to know she was giving the money to Emmett. Like Maddie.
Lydia’s taunts rang as loudly in her head as though she were standing next to her in the kitchen. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you if all of a sudden he’s building bookcases for your grandmother or something.”
Or a cedar closet. Or maybe nothing at all. Maybe this was some kind of ridiculous pity loan that he’d managed to talk her grandmother into. Business at Woody’s seemed to be doing okay, but what did she know? Emmett could have other things going on in his life that she had no clue about.
Either way, she was going to find out the truth. Her whole life men had been using her. She’d thought Emmett was different. She thought that she might really, truly be in love with a guy who might return her affections. If this check was what she thought it was, she would know for certain that she was a damn fool.
And she’d never trust her heart again.
He needed to tell her the truth. Emmett rinsed the shampoo from his hair and continued to argue with himself on the subject. It had been hard to lay there and listen to her tell him that he was the only one she could trust when he knew that he was keeping so much of his life a secret from her. After finding out about her father, she would be sensitive to anything like that. He needed to just clear the air and make sure there wasn’t anything that could come back and ruin what they had. That was the last thing he wanted to do.
He didn’t know why it bothered him so much to confess the truth about who he was. He could ask her not to tell, but he wasn’t sure how long it would be before everyone knew about him. She was paranoid about people just using her for her family’s money, and he knew what it was like. People were always coming to you with investment opportunities or sob stories. Some people felt entitled to a share of what he had. And even the folks who didn’t want or need his money would treat him differently just because he was wealthy.
Why couldn’t he just stay Emmett the bartender—the easygoing, fun-to-talk-to guy?
As Emmett turned off the shower, he decided to tell her. She didn’t want
any more secrets in her life, so this was his chance to be honest and explain why he didn’t want anyone to know. She’d understand and help keep his secret as her grandmother had, he was sure of it. He slipped out of the shower and dried off. Wrapping the towel around his waist, he walked into the bedroom, expecting to find Maddie still lying there. The bed was empty.
The scent of coffee caught his attention and his stomach growled. He traveled down the hallway and past the kitchen where he found Maddie sitting on the couch. She was hunched over, resting her elbows on her knees and staring at a slip of paper in her hand.
He took one step closer before he realized what she was holding. It was the check her grandmother had given him last week. Damn it. He didn’t realize he’d left it out. He should’ve deposited it by now. With a sigh, he shook off his worries. That was just a segue into what he wanted to tell her anyway.
“I guess,” Maddie said, “that I shouldn’t be surprised. After what happened last night, I should know that even the people closest to me can’t be fully trusted. If you can’t trust your own father, why should the bartender I’ve been sleeping with tell me the truth?”
This was what he was afraid of. “Maddie, I can explain.”
She shook her head sharply. “I don’t want you to explain, or rather, I don’t need you to. Lydia, of all people, told me what you were really up to two weeks ago. I didn’t believe her, but given that she’s a weasel of a liar, she probably recognized deception when she saw it.”
“Deception?” Emmett said, his voice rising in pitch. “You’re really going to take what Lydia Whittaker said about me at face value? I can assure you she doesn’t know a thing about me.”
“Apparently I don’t, either.” Maddie stood up. “The man I thought I knew wouldn’t use me to bilk money out of my grandmother.”
Emmett planted his hands on his hips. “You think I’m bilking your grandmother? That I’m playing some kind of angle on Adelia Chamberlain? Is that even possible? The woman is like a cardsharp in a white wig.”
Maddie ignored him, a frown deepening the lines of her forehead. “My granny is a good person. She’d do anything for this town and its residents. If you showed up on her doorstep like a lost puppy and told her that commissioning a woodworking project would give you the money to take me out and treat me nicely, she’d do it.”
