Brenda Novak - Cold Feet

“How much is it costing you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Waste your money, then. I don’t care,” she said. “You’re so stubborn. I don’t know why I married you once, let alone twice.”

He thought she might hang up in a huff, but she didn’t. “Are you going to give me directions?” she asked after an extended silence.

A quick glance at the clock told him it was even later than he’d realized. But she’d said she had something to show him. “What do you have?” he asked.

“You’ll see.”

If she had a lead, he needed to know about it as soon as possible. He told her how to find him. Then he got up, dressed and put on some coffee.

Across the yard, he could see that the lights were still on in Madison’s house, and he wondered what she was doing. Earlier, it had looked as though she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders….

Guilt about masquerading as a random renter flickered inside him. He could already tell Madison wasn’t the ice princess he’d assumed from her television interviews and that one strongly worded letter. Her behavior wasn’t strange, either, like her father’s. Actually, she seemed pretty…normal. And there was no question she’d been through a lot.

Leaning against the wall, he stared out the window at her light. She might be nice. She might even be one of the most attractive women he’d ever met—but being nice and attractive didn’t change the fact that the truth had to be told.

M ADISON COULDN’T SLEEP . She was tired yet wound up, and didn’t dare take a sleeping pill, for several reasons. Brianna could wake up in the night. Johnny, or whoever had been with him, could come back. And she wasn’t yet comfortable with having a stranger living on her property. Especially one who knew she and Brianna were alone. Caleb Trovato’s credit references had checked out; he seemed like a pretty solid citizen. But still…

Pulling out her sketchpad, she sat at the kitchen table and began to draw. She had tons of paperwork to take care of. She needed to review the purchase offers her agents had generated in the past week. As their broker, she was liable for any legal repercussions if they made a mistake. She also needed to revise the independent contractor agreement she was having her agents sign when they came to work for her, decide whether or not she was going to hire the young woman she’d interviewed this afternoon, and review the lease for the new copier she was buying for the office. But she was too tense to delve into work-related matters tonight.

Because she couldn’t forget Johnny, she drew his eyes. Because she was worried about Brianna, she drew her daughter’s full lips. She even sketched Danny’s angry brow—something that had come to symbolize their relationship. The scratch of her pencil and her intense focus usually eased the stress knotting the muscles in her back and neck. But nothing seemed to help tonight. She still felt as though she were walking a tightrope with the ground frighteningly far below.

Her eyes slid to her briefcase. The urgency to make her business successful was part of the problem. Sales weren’t going nearly as well as she’d hoped when she’d purchased South Whidbey Realty. She knew she was crazy to be wasting time while Brianna was sleeping, but Madison simply couldn’t face the work she’d brought home with her.

Flipping to a new page, she considered drawing her mother’s hands. But anything to do with her mother reminded Madison of her father, and she didn’t want to confront her doubts about him. Not right now. Not in the middle of the night with the clock on the wall ticking and the rest of the house so silent.

She sorted through the faces she’d seen lately: an obese woman with beautiful blond hair she’d met at Brianna’s school; a wiry, angular man who’d just started doing the janitorial work at the office building where she leased space; a baby she’d seen at the mall. None interested her enough to attempt them. But the gruff old man who worked on the ferry seemed to have potential—

A car pulled into the drive, and Madison’s heart began to race. Was Johnny back? What could he possibly want now?

Dropping her pencil, she went to the window, but the car that parked behind Caleb’s Mustang didn’t look anything like the one Johnny had been riding in earlier. This car was a late-model Honda. And the person getting out of it was a woman—a tall woman who wasn’t approaching her house.

A moment later, Caleb Trovato’s door opened and he stepped out under the eaves. His broad shoulders blocked most of the light spilling from the cottage behind him, but Madison could see that his visitor was blond and most likely very pretty. Was she a friend? A lover? Coming this late she could even be a call girl.

No, Caleb would have no need to hire a prostitute, Madison decided. He probably had more female attention than he knew what to do with. He was ruggedly handsome. More than that, he carried himself with the sort of beguiling indifference most women found so appealing.

Most women, but not Madison. She’d trusted her father. She’d trusted Danny. She would have trusted Johnny and Tye, except they’d never let her get close enough. For some reason, when it came to men, she wasn’t a very good judge of character. Which meant she was better off alone.

Even if she wanted a new love interest, how could she get close to anyone while guarding her father’s terrible secret?

“T HIS IS A CUTE PLACE ,” Holly said.

Caleb stretched out on the couch and flipped on the television. “Thanks.”

“How did you find it?”

“I stumbled across the For Rent sign.”

“So you leased it?” She snapped her fingers. “Like that?”

“Pretty much.” He waved to the chair at the end of the couch. “Sit down and show me what you’ve got.”

She didn’t move toward the chair. “If you didn’t want to stay with your mother or me, why not get a hotel? That’s what most people do.”

“Does it matter?” he asked, trying to head her off. She’d brought up the Sandpoint Strangler a number of times and was already frightened that Susan’s disappearance might be connected. He didn’t want to fuel her fears by admitting he suspected the same thing. At least until he had more to go on than gut instinct and a few wild coincidences.

She shook her head as she gazed around. “I just never expected it.”

He buzzed past a commercial for dandruff shampoo. “Don’t make a big deal out of it, Holly. Now I have a place of my own while I’m here. That’s it.”

“And the downside is you’re paying by the week?”

“ Forget the cottage.”

At the irritation in his voice, she propped her hands on her hips and faced him. “Why’d I have to fall in love with you?”

Caleb had asked himself the same question about her, many times. She’d just been so…lost when he met her. And he’d always been a sucker for a woman down on her luck. He liked feeling needed, liked taking care of others. Unfortunately, she’d exploited that tendency to its fullest. “I wish I knew.”

“I’ll never understand you or what happened between us—”

“That’s the beauty of being divorced,” he interrupted. “We no longer have to analyze what’s wrong with us. No more teary talks that carry on through the night. No more debilitating guilt. Surely you’re as relieved as I am.”

“But we loved each other.”

Caleb scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “We just hated each other more.”

“I never hated you,” she said.

“God, Hol, would you let it go?” He blew out a sigh, hoping some of his frustration would go with it. “We couldn’t be together for more than two days in a row. Now, do you have something on Susan or not?”