Mick walked from the bedroom and made his way into the kitchen. He wore his Levi’s low on his hips and his hair was tousled from her fingers. “Are you embarrassed about something?” he asked as he moved behind Maddie and wrapped his arms around her.
“Why?”
He took the bottle from her hands and raised it to his lips. “You practically ran out of the bedroom and your cheeks are red.” He took a long drink, then handed it back to her.
She looked down at her feet. “Why would I be embarrassed?”
“Because you shouted, ‘I love you,’ in the throes of passion.”
“Oh, God.” She covered the side of her face with her free hand.
He turned her, placed his fingers beneath her chin, and brought her gaze to his. “It’s okay, Maddie.”
“No, it’s not. I didn’t mean to fall in love with you.” She shook her head and insisted, “I don’t
“Why?” He softly kissed her lips and said, “I’m in love with you too. I didn’t think I would ever feel for a woman what I feel for you. These past few days, I’ve been wondering how you felt.”
She took a few steps back and his hands fell to his sides. This should be the best, most euphoric time of her life. This wasn’t fair, but as she’d discovered as a five-year-old child, life was not fair. She opened her mouth and forced the truth past the horrible clog in her throat. “Madeline Dupree is my pen name.”
His brows rose up his forehead. “Madeline is not your real name?”
She nodded. “Madeline is my name. Dupree is not.”
He tilted his head to one side. “What is your name?”
“Maddie Jones.”
He looked at her, his eyes clear. He shrugged one bare shoulder and said, “Okay.”
She didn’t for one second believe he meant “okay” like he was okay with who she was. He wasn’t connecting the dots. She licked her dry lips. “My mother was Alice Jones.”
A slight frown creased his brow and then he jerked back like someone had shot him. His gaze moved across her face as if trying to see something he’d never noticed before. “Tell me you’re making a joke, Maddie.”
She shook her head. “It’s true. Alice Jones isn’t some face in a newspaper article that caught my attention. She was my mother.” She reached a hand toward him, but he took a step back and her hand fell to her side. She hadn’t thought she could be in more pain; she’d been wrong.
His eyes stared into hers. Gone was the man who’d just told her that he loved her. She’d seen Mick angry, but she’d never seen him so coldly furious. “Let me see if I’m getting this right. My father fucked your mother and I’ve been fucking you? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“There’s no other way to see it.” He turned on his heels and moved from the kitchen.
Maddie followed him through the living room and into her bedroom. “Mick—”
“Have you gotten some sort of sick pleasure out of all this?” he interrupted her as he picked up his shirt and shoved his arms through the sleeves. “When you came to town, was it your intention from the beginning to totally screw with my head? Is this some sort of twisted revenge for what my mother did to yours?”
She shook her head and refused to give in to the tears that threatened to fill her eyes. She would not cry in front of Mick. “I didn’t want to get involved with you. Ever. But you kept pushing. I wanted to tell you.”
“Bullshit.” He pulled the shirt over his head and down his chest. “If you’d wanted to tell me, you’d have found a way. You had no problem sharing every other detail of your life. I know you grew up fat and lost your virginity at twenty. I know you wear different scented lotion every day, and that you keep a vibrator named Carlos next to your bed.” He bent forward and picked up his socks and shoes. “For Christ’s sake, I even know you’re not a butt girl.” He pointed one of his shoes at her and continued, “And I’m supposed to believe that you couldn’t work the truth into any conversation at some point before tonight!”
“I know that it’s no consolation, but I never wanted to hurt you.”
“I’m not hurt.” He sat on the edge of the bed and shoved his feet into a pair of white socks. “I’m disgusted.”
She felt her anger rise up and she was amazed she could feel anything beyond the deep mortal pain in her chest. She reminded herself that he had a right to be furious. He had a right to know early on whom he was getting involved with instead of after the fact. “That’s harsh.”
“Baby, you don’t know harsh.” He glanced up at her, then looked down as he put on his black boots and tied the laces. “I spent an hour tonight trying to defend you to my sister. She tried to tell me not to get involved with you, but I was thinking with my cock.” He paused to let his gaze rake her up and down. “And now I have to go tell her about you. I have to tell her you’re the daughter of the waitress who ruined her life and watch her come apart.”
He might have more right to be angry than she did, but hearing him call her mother “the waitress” and worrying more about his sister than her scraped her raw emotions and pushed her over the top. “You. You. You. I am so sick of hearing about you and your sister. What about me?” She pointed to herself. “Your mother killed my mother. At the age of five, I moved in with a great-aunt who never wanted children. Who showed more love and affection for her cats than she ever did for me. Your mother did that to
“If your mother hadn’t been sleeping around—”
“If your father hadn’t been sleeping around with about every woman in town and your mother hadn’t been a vindictive bitch with a healthy dose of psychosis, then we’d all be happy as clams, wouldn’t we? But your father was sleeping with my mother and your mother loaded a pistol and killed them both. That’s our reality. When I moved to Truly, I expected to hate you and your sister for what your family has done to me. You look so much like your father that I expected to loathe you on sight, but I didn’t. And as I got to know you, I realized that you are nothing like Loch.”
“I used to believe that until tonight. If you are anything in the sack like your mother, then I get why my dad was ready to walk out the door and leave us for her. You Jones women drop your clothes and the Hennessy men get stupid.”
“Wait!” Maddie interrupted him and held up one hand. “Your dad was going to leave? For my mother?” Her mother had been right about Loch.
“Yeah. I just found out. Guess you have something to put in your book.” He smiled, but it wasn’t pleasant. “I’m just like my dad, and you’re just like your mother.”
“I am nothing like my mother, and you are nothing like your father. When I look at you, I just see you. That’s how I fell in love with you.”
“It doesn’t matter what you see, because when I look at you, I don’t know who you are.” He stood. “You aren’t the woman I thought you were. When I look at you now, I feel sick that I fucked the waitress’s daughter.”
Maddie’s hands clenched into fists. “Her name was Alice and she was my mother.”
“I don’t really give a shit.”
“I know you don’t.” She stormed out of the room and into her office, only to return a few moments later with a file and photograph. “This was her.” She held up the old framed picture. “Look at her. She was twenty-four and beautiful and had her whole life ahead of her. She was flighty and immature and made horrible choices in her young life. Especially when it came to men.” She pulled the crime scene photo from the files. “But she didn’t deserve this.”
