Kate Hoffmann - The Mighty Quinns - Dermot-Dex

“I need to find work,” he said. “I can’t keep sponging off of you.”

“You’re working for me,” Maddie said. “You’re like my bodyguard and tour manager and traveling companion all in one. I can pay you.” She drew a deep breath. “All right, let’s just get this whole money thing out of the way.”

“Money thing?”

“Yes. You always come back to it and I want to put it all out on the table. How much do you need to make? Now, think carefully because I want it to be enough so that we never have to discuss this again. And I don’t ever want to hear you whining about how much we’re spending. We spend what we spend. End of story.”

“I don’t need you to pay me.”

“But you said you had to find work. And I want you to work for me. For as long as you can.” She paused. “Six weeks. How much would that cost?”

“Six weeks?” Kieran said.

Maddie smiled. “All right. Six weeks.”

“I have to spend some of that time in Bitney.”

“We will. We’ll go there after New York.”

A knock sounded on their cabin door and Maddie jumped up to open it. The attendant stood outside. “Dinner will be served in an hour. Is there anything I can get you?”

Maddie shook her head. “We’re fine. How long before we get to New York?”

“Arrival time is 10:00 p.m. tomorrow night,” he said. He turned to leave, then stopped. “By the way, you might be interested in knowing that we have a celebrity on the train. Some country singer named Maddie West. I don’t know who she is, but some of the passengers said they saw her get onboard. If you see her, let me know. They all want an autograph.”

Maddie swallowed hard, her spirits falling. “I’ve never heard of her,” she said.

“Well, we don’t often have celebrities onboard. They usually fly.” He shrugged. “If you need anything, just call. I’ll be back to turn down your bed later.”

“Thanks,” Maddie said. She shut the door behind him, then turned to Kieran. “We have to get off this train.”

“Why? There’s no reason. We’ll just stay in our cabin and get off at Cincinnati, like we planned.”

She shook her head. “No. I want to get off at the next stop.”

“Maddie, no one has to see you. You’ll be fine.”

She cursed softly. “You told me you wouldn’t argue. That we’d go wherever I wanted to go.”

“I know I said that,” Kieran countered. “But this is crazy.”

“Well, so what. I’m crazy. You knew that from the start so don’t act so surprised now. I don’t want to be trapped on this train. We’ll get off at the next stop and we’ll figure out what to do from there.”

“You can’t run forever,” he said.

“I can try.”

“I thought you were going to call your mother and let her know you were safe.”

“I don’t want to talk to her,” Maddie said, leaning back against the door. “I know what she’s going to say to me. She’s going to tell me I have to get back in the studio and work on the next album. And then, she’s going to tell me about the tour she’s been planning for Japan and Australia. She thinks I don’t know about it, but that I won’t be able to say no if it’s all planned. That’s what she does. She makes it so I have no choice. But now, I have a choice and I want to get off this train.”

“All right,” Kieran said. “We’ll get off at the next stop.”

Maddie nodded, relieved that he finally agreed. Everything had been so perfect, she didn’t want to risk spoiling it all. If he saw—if he knew—what her celebrity life was like, he’d run in the opposite direction as fast as he could.

“How long do we have?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I could ask the attendant.”

“No. We’ll just get off.” She sat down next to him. “I’m sorry. I know you should have a say in this, but you don’t know what it’s like. It’s overwhelming. Everyone wants something—an autograph, a photo, a chance to say hello. And I can do that, I love to do it, when I’m in the right mood. But I don’t want to do that now. I don’t want to smile and be nice. I just want us to have this time alone.”

“All right,” Kieran said.

He held out his hand and Maddie snuggled against his body. “I’m a bad person,” she murmured.

“Yes, you are,” he said.

Maddie pushed back, shocked by his glib agreement. Kieran chuckled, then dropped a kiss on her lips. “You pay me to agree with you, Maddie. I’m just doing my job.” He paused, then kissed her again, this time lingering over her mouth, his tongue tracing the crease between her lips. “You’re not a bad person, Maddie. You’re the best person I’ve ever met.

The best.”

He always knew exactly what to say to her to make her feel better. “I don’t want to seem ungrateful,” she said hesitantly. “Because I’m not. These people who buy my CDs and come to my concerts, they’re just wonderful. They’ve made my life what it is. But sometimes, it doesn’t feel like it’s my life. It feels like theirs. And I get … resentful. And then guilty. And then depressed. It’s just one big pile of negative emotions.”

“That’s understandable,” he said. “You deserve to have a life outside your profession. Everyone does.”

“You always say the right thing,” Maddie said.

“I’m just telling you the truth. Now, don’t you think you should call your mother and tell her you’re all right?”

Maddie shook her head. “She’ll just yell at me and tell me I have to come back. I’ll feel guilty and then I’ll give in. You don’t know my mother. She knows exactly what buttons to push.”

“But she is still your mother. She’s probably sick with worry.”

Maddie knew that contacting her mother would be risky. She’d have to turn on her phone and no doubt there’d be hundreds of texts and messages waiting for her. They saw each other every single day and she still managed to send Maddie ten or twenty texts each day.

“She’s like this dark cloud that hangs over me all the time. And I kind of like being out in the sunshine.”

“Then get rid of the dark cloud,” he said.

She held her BlackBerry out to him. “You do it. That way, I don’t have to look at the messages. Just tell her that I’m fine. I’m taking a break and I’ll call her next week.”

“All right.”

Maddie waited as Kieran typed in the text. “Send,” he murmured. He glanced up. “Do you want to wait for a reply?”

She shook her head. “No. Just shut it off. I’ll deal with it later. Hopefully, she won’t send the FBI after us.”

Kieran gave her a dubious look. “She’d do that?”

“You don’t know my mother. I’m sure she’d try her best to avoid a big scandal. But if it’s the only way to get me back, who knows what she’ll think of.” She drew a deep breath and let it out. “I do feel better now. That dark cloud is gone.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Thank you.”

“I’m just here to please,” Kieran said with a wicked smile.

“Then you better get to work on that. We don’t have much time left and I’ve never done it on a train.”

KIERAN GRABBED MADDIE’S hand as they jumped off the train just a few moments before it began to pull away from the station. He glanced around. The station wasn’t much, just a small shack not much bigger than a one-car garage. There wasn’t even a ticket agent inside. “Well, this is strange,” he murmured.

“Where are we?” Maddie asked.

“Dyer, Indiana.”

“Maybe we should have waited,” she murmured, taking in their surroundings.

“No, it’s all right. There’s a phone booth over there. We’ll find a car rental place and give them a call. They’ll bring a car over and we’ll be on our way.” They walked over to the phone booth only to find that the phone book was missing.