Blackbird Lake Read online

  Chapter Three

  Madison punched the doorbell. Still broken, just as it had been when she stopped by three days ago.

  Brady, come on. Have you even been home since then?

  She rapped on the door until her knuckles reddened. Called Brady’s name.

  Damn it, where could he be?

  Only a deep, cool silence enveloped the clearing as the first crystal stars popped out in an amethyst sky.

  Worry bit through her. She hadn’t spotted him in town even once since he got out of jail for decking her grandfather’s deputy. As far as she knew, no one else had seen him, either.

  She’d slipped a note under his door after she learned what had happened to Cord. She’d come by again when she heard about Brady quitting his job with McDonald Construction. But there was no way of knowing if he’d even been back to find her note.

  Not that he’d care.

  She was probably the last person he’d expect to hear from. They hadn’t exactly been friends for years now, not since the seventh grade. They hadn’t even spoken to each other since that day he’d gotten so mad at her years ago.

  But before then—when they were kids—Brady had been her best friend. He was the one who’d always told her she had to stand up to her mom if she didn’t want to go the pageant route. He’d actually told her mom himself, when Madison hadn’t had the courage to do it. He’d spoken up for her—not, she thought ruefully, that Mabelle Jane Cullen had listened.

  Pushing the memories of those days from her mind, Madison vaulted back up into her Silverado and roared out onto the road. Driving toward Lonesome Way and her small apartment on the edge of town, she knew she had other matters to worry about—like making it on time tonight to the last rehearsal with Eddie and the guys before the gig in Big Timber, and having to get up on that dumb stage at the Double Cross Bar and Grill within a matter of weeks and sashay across it during the charity dating event. In front of practically the entire town! Then stand there while men bid on her for a date, like a cow at auction or a painting or a piece of furniture on sale at eBay.

  She loathed being the center of attention, detested being center stage. And she had all along, all through those awful pageant years.

  Now, playing keyboard with her country band, the Wild Critters, in the shadows of a dimly lit bar—that was different. She loved it. It was music, for one thing, and music was in her blood. For another thing, no one was paying attention to her. She wore her jeans and a T-shirt every night, and no makeup, and was tucked comfortably away from the lights, with Delia and Eddie front and center, belting out the music, while Steve showed off his riffs on the drums.

  The charity auction was a totally different thing. An ugh thing.

  But since she volunteered every other weekend at the Lonesome Way animal shelter, she knew as well as everyone in town how badly the new facility was needed.

  That didn’t make her any more eager to climb onto that stage, but it did put things in perspective. And, she reminded herself, it was a minuscule problem when she compared it to what Brady was going through, losing both his parents, and then his brother and his job.

  He needs help, she thought. He needs to know someone cares.

  But that someone shouldn’t be her. Just because they’d been friends when they were kids didn’t mean he wanted her butting into his life. Or nonlife, as the case may be.

  I’m so done. Madison drew a determined breath as she passed a raccoon scuttling along the side of the road. Brady will just have to figure this out for himself.

  For years now, he hadn’t given her more than a passing nod when they’d seen each other. And not even that when she bumped right into him as she was coming out of Benson’s Drugstore. He’d just kept on going like she was a ghost or something.

  So what makes you think he wants you getting into his business now?

  Nothing. And starting now, she told herself, setting her jaw as the Chevy rattled back toward town over the darkening country road, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

  Chapter Four

  Carly changed Emma into her pink bunny pajamas, laughing as her pint-sized dynamo squirmed with buoyant energy in her arms.

  “Coookiiiie!” her daughter exclaimed.

  “You already had a cookie.” Carly did up the last of the buttons and lifted the pink-cheeked toddler into her arms. “How about some yummy grapes?”

  “Gwapes.” Emma’s round little face lit up. She was a child easily pleased. Her wispy reddish blond hair flew across dark-lashed deep blue eyes as she tried to squirm out of Carly’s arms, hoping to make a run from the nursery to the kitchen.

  “Gwapes!” she shouted gleefully to no one in particular.

  Carly swept her daughter close and inhaled the scent of her. A calming scent. Baby shampoo and Dreft. Emma’s head immediately plopped onto her shoulder and the little girl wrapped her arms tight around Carly’s neck.

  That was Emma for you. A rock-’n’-rolling toddler one minute and a cuddle ball the next. Carly’s heart swelled with an overpowering love that made her breath catch in her throat.

  “I love you, pumpkin, you know that, don’t you?” Carly whispered, stroking her fingers through that fine, soft hair. “How much do you think I love you?”

  “Dis mush!”

  Emma’s head shot up and she held her arms out wide and Carly had to laugh as she murmured, “You’ve got that right, baby.”

  Emotions swamped her as she set Emma down. Emma took off like a shot, racing with a wobbly gait toward the stairs and the kitchen, Carly right on her heels.

  She washed four red grapes and cut them in fourths, then set them on Emma’s little Playskool table in the corner and watched as her daughter plopped on the floor and ate the grape sections one by one.

  Somehow, Carly had managed to get through her first moments home this afternoon without falling apart in front of her daughter and Madison. She’d done well enough that Madison hadn’t seemed to notice anything amiss when she’d filled Carly in on Emma’s day, what stories she’d read to her, what games they’d played, what Emma had eaten for lunch. Carly had taken it all in, her mind racing all the while, and she’d needed to suppress a sigh of relief when Madison finally shrugged into her worn suede jacket, told her that it would be no problem switching days with Martha, then gave Emma one final hug before grabbing her guitar and heading out the door toward home.

  But Carly was a wreck the entire time and she still was as she readied her daughter for bed. She hadn’t felt this awful clenching tightness in her chest for years now—or that sense of horrible uncertainty over what troubles tomorrow might bring. Ever since the day Social Services had whisked her away from the noisy and indifferent jumble of her relatives’ homes, her life had gradually become blessedly steady and calm. All of the turmoil, confusion, and loneliness of those six years after her mother’s death had begun to fade away the day Annie Benton became her foster mother.

  Now, carrying Emma through the airy hall of the old Victorian back to the nursery, Carly couldn’t help glancing at Annie’s favorite quilt. It was folded over the blue-and-cream-striped sofa in the living room. Merely the sight of the simple log cabin quilt with its vivid squares of periwinkle, rose, lavender, and yellow calmed her. That quilt and the fairy tale quilt hanging in the nursery, as well as the exquisite Dear Jane sampler Annie had sewn long ago, and which held a place of honor folded at the foot of Carly’s own bed, always evoked a flood of wonderful memories. Memories of Annie.

  Every time she saw or touched one of Annie’s quilts, comforting memories of her slight, soft-spoken foster mother circled gently through her head.

  Annie, that first day, so calmly opening her door and her heart to a lost, lonesome child.

  Annie, with her fluffy, graying hair, her thin, bony face, and serene brown eyes, quietly leading Carly into a spotless sunlit kitchen where Mrs. Smiggles the cat perched on a windowsill.

  Annie had served Carly a glass of freshly made lemonade and a chicken salad
sandwich that first day, while she told her all about finding Mrs. Smiggles in a trash can. The poor thing had been mewling her scared little heart out. Annie had scooped her out of there and taken her home, and they’d been together ever since. Annie had also told Carly that first day, that first hour, that she was home now, too, and she would soon see—everything was going to be all right.

  And it had been.

  Of course, Carly hadn’t believed anything would be all right again, not at first. Ever since her mother’s death, Carly’s life had spiraled into an endless cycle of loud people and frequent moves, of confusion and, most of all, loneliness. Cousins, great-aunts, and a half sister of her mother’s had all taken her in reluctantly for short periods of time, passing her around between them like last week’s leftovers. Letting her live with them in crowded apartments or cramped trailer homes filled with their own children or grandchildren and piles of laundry. She’d found herself surrounded by yelling voices and noisy squabbles—until someone else came along who could better afford another mouth to feed for the next few months or years.

  By the time she was ten, Carly couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt like she belonged somewhere. Anywhere.

  Nor could she remember a place she wanted to be.

  But once she was in Annie’s home, set back on a shady street in an old, shabby, but safe neighborhood, all that had begun to change.

  Life with Annie had been comforting, stable, filled with quiet talks, homemade cinnamon cakes, and a tranquil sense of belonging. Annie was a quiet woman, a homebody with no children of her own. She taught Carly how to quilt and how to bake everything from lemon squares to carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. She took her to the library every week, and Carly brought home stacks and stacks of books, mostly fiction—mysteries and ghost stories and gothic tales of castles and orphans.

  And several times, including the first summer Carly lived with her, she’d taken her on a trip. To Montana—to Lonesome Way. There they’d visited Annie’s first cousin, Martha Davies, owner of the Cuttin’ Loose hair salon.

  After all the rough, run-down city neighborhoods she had lived in, the cozy, close-knit little town of Lonesome Way had seemed like a magical fairy-tale place to Carly.

  It still did.

  But especially back then, the tiny Montana town nestled in the shadow of the Crazy Mountains struck Carly as picture-perfect, with its astonishing canopy of pure blue sky, its rugged open spaces, and its endless vistas of sage-scented hills and pastures.

  Then there were all of its charming Main Street shops, the park, the flower-bordered streets, and the friendly people stopping to chat with each other in the town square.

  The spring morning she’d spotted a doe and two fawns picking their dainty way into Martha’s garden, staring at her as she sat on the back porch steps, and then nibbling calmly at some shrubs before Martha rushed out to shoo them away, she’d been completely enchanted.

  She’d never felt as peaceful, as far removed from her turbulent childhood as she did when she and Annie visited Martha in Lonesome Way.

  Of course, there had been that one altercation, Carly thought, as she reached the nursery with Emma in her arms. The fight she’d witnessed on Main Street the first time she’d ever laid eyes on Jake Tanner.

  Carly had just turned eleven that summer. Perched on a bench outside of the Cuttin’ Loose, she’d been daydreaming while inside Martha snipped away at Annie’s wet gray hair. Suddenly a fight had sprung up between a few boys standing outside of Roy’s Diner.

  Well, not a fight exactly. It was more like three tough-looking young teenagers picking on a fourth boy, one who was shorter, with narrow shoulders. He looked to be about a year or two younger than the others—or else he was just small and skinny for his age. They began shoving him back and forth between them, laughing all the while. The boy yelped as the tallest of the three smacked him suddenly in the face. He tried to break free, to run, but they closed in, surrounding him.

  Desperately, he swung a fist at the closest of the bullies, but the blow missed its mark and suddenly he was shoved hard by one of the bullies and careened sideways. He tumbled facedown clear off the sidewalk and into the street.

  Carly remembered gasping in alarm. The bullies reminded her of her cousin Phil, who’d always been smacking someone in the neighborhood around. Phil had never hit her, but he’d shoved her hard more than once and he’d gotten a kick out of locking her in Aunt Gertrude’s closet for hours at a time. Panic had overwhelmed her whenever he stuffed her into that closet. The darkness, the hanging clothes, the smell of mothballs left her feeling like she couldn’t breathe.

  And no matter how much she cried and pleaded and screamed, he wouldn’t let her out, not until Aunt Gertrude came home from her job at the Quik-Mart.

  Thinking about Phil, her breath had hitched in her throat and she felt for one dizzying moment like she couldn’t get enough air. But the boys were taking turns kicking the fallen kid in the street, taunting him, and before she even realized what she was doing, she forgot about Phil. The breathless feeling evaporated as she sprang up and shouted, “Stop that!”

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, a handsome, husky boy she hadn’t spotted before was there in the midst of the fight, launching himself like a cannonball into the fray.

  She guessed he was about fourteen or fifteen. He was nearly as tall as the biggest of the bullies, and he was broad shouldered and fierce—so amazingly fierce—with thick jet-black hair that tumbled over his brow. Grabbing the tallest of the bullies, he punched him hard in the stomach, then swung lithely toward the one who’d knocked the smaller boy into the street.

  Carly heard the hard thunk of his fist connecting with the second bully’s jaw and she had to clench her teeth to keep from cheering.

  Suddenly, in a furious blur of sound and movement she heard yelling and cursing, and all three of the bullies swooped toward the dark-haired boy at once—even as the kid he’d been trying to protect scrambled to his feet and ran, leaving his protector to face the others alone.

  “Stop it. Stop!” Carly didn’t remember taking a step but somehow she was in front of Roy’s Diner, watching at close range as the husky boy fought off all three.

  She saw him get hit hard in the jaw, but he never wavered. He just hit back harder, again and again, punch after punch, cold, concentrated determination on his face, seemingly oblivious of the trickle of blood running from his lip as he dodged some blows and absorbed others and fought ruthlessly back.

  “Three against one—that’s not fair!” she shouted only a few feet away from them, right before she heard footsteps pounding behind her and spun around in alarm.

  But the two young men running toward the fray were older, and they dodged neatly around her.

  “You need to step way back now, honey,” one of them told her calmly.

  And then they each grabbed one of the bullies and dragged him into a headlock. The dark-haired boy punched the third bully one final time, then confronted his would-be rescuers.

  “Let ’em go, Rafe! Travis, I mean it! I can take them all!”

  And that was the first time she ever heard Jake Tanner’s voice.

  She’d never seen anyone braver or tougher. Anyone as quick with his fists, or as steady on his feet, or as eager to knock down a bully. And even at that age, he was more compelling and handsome than any male had a right to be.

  By that time, several grown-ups had streamed out of Roy’s Diner to break things up and Annie and Martha were among those rushing outside to see what all the commotion was about. The moment Jake’s brothers let the aggressors go, the three thugs broke for it, pounding away up the street.

  After Carly explained exactly what had transpired, Martha promptly introduced them both to the Tanner boys—Rafe, Travis, and Jake.

  Little did she know then that the next time she’d see Jake Tanner up close he’d be a towering six foot, two inches of lean, hard-muscled cowboy.

  A cowboy offering to buy her dinner a
t a Houston hotel.

  He was all grown up by then—a tall, mouthwateringly handsome man—with an easy walk and a glint in his dark blue eyes hot enough to melt every ice cube in the hotel bar.

  It was that glint that caught her, as much as that incredibly muscular body. That and the need to blot Kevin and all the anger she felt toward him out of her mind had spurred her to go for it. To have mind-numbing, incredible, forget-everything-else-in-the-world sex with Jake Tanner. Just for one night.

  She’d figured if Jake couldn’t sweep away some of the pain Kevin had caused, no one could.

  Now, as Emma stirred in Carly’s arms and mumbled something unintelligible, Carly realized how far she’d come. Emma was her world. And Kevin was nothing but a sour-tasting memory.

  Even the email she’d received the week before from her college roommate Sydney—an email with a link to a Boston Herald article about Kevin’s latest legal troubles—didn’t make her feel anything but relief that she’d found out the truth and broken things off when she did.

  Now she gazed down at her beautiful little daughter.

  “Time for bed, baby,” she whispered. Emma’s eyelashes had already fluttered closed.

  Rising from the rocker, Carly settled Emma in her crib, then swept up a stuffed elephant and a doll from the floor. She tucked them into the toy bin near the changing table, dimmed the lights, and returned to the kitchen.

  She set water to boil for tea before settling with her laptop at the kitchen table to shoot a quick email back to Syd.

  They exchanged emails almost every week, usually about normal stuff, like what new words Emma was saying, or Syd’s life as she continued to try to pick up the pieces since her husband’s death in Afghanistan two years earlier.

  Horrible. What was Kevin thinking? she typed. He’s messed up beyond belief. I so dodged a bullet getting out when I did. How are you and Evan celebrating your three-month anniversary of dating?

  After she hit send, she deleted the email link to the Herald article detailing how Kevin had been charged with felony child endangerment for taking his two older kids out of school under false pretenses and trying to drive them to his parents’ home in upstate New York. Carly had read each word with wide eyes.