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Madison didn’t recognize the car in the driveway, but he knew that the other one there belonged to Ms. Jefferson. He was glad that he caught her. He needed to tell her how sorry he was for talking to her the way that he had. Madison had been apologizing a great deal this week, and he was frankly getting sick of having to do it. People were much too sensitive nowadays, he thought.
Ms. Jefferson was talking to none other than his mate. Trying to avoid her was likely the reason that she kept showing up all the time. He wanted to blame it on her, to tell her to stop stalking him, but since she’d been here first, that wasn’t going to wash out. Taking his time walking up the front stairs to the large deck, he waited for the women to get finished before he did what he’d come here to do.
“Mr. Walsh. I was just telling Layla here that you purchased her home.” He stared at Layla and asked the other woman what she’d meant. When she looked at Layla with a short nod, Ms. Jefferson continued. “The Marks family had lived here for decades before Mr. Marks became ill. When it was obvious to everyone that he wasn’t going to get any better, the entire family seemed to fall ill.”
“You lived here?” Layla told him that she had, most of her childhood anyway. “Why didn’t you tell me that you’d fallen on hard times. I would have bailed you out.”
“Not without some kind of strings attached, I’m sure. I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t then nor now any of your business what I do with my things.” Madison wanted to pull her across his knees and paddle her hard. Then as if that was what he was going to do, he started thinking of her ass being pinkened by his hand, and he was hard again. She turned her back on him, and he wanted to scream. Why did she treat him like he was nothing to her? Then, it occurred to him that she might be too stupid to know. “You’re my mate and it’s my job from now on to make sure that you have everything that you want or need. Christ, this is going to cost me a fortune when all I had to do was—I’m not going to be blamed for you having to sell off your home. Do you hear me?”
“The entire town can hear you bellowing. And what does your supposedly being my mate have to do with me selling this house?” He explained again, as patiently as he could, that he was her mate. “Like that is supposed to make a difference? And if I were you, I’d take it down a few notches, you fuck tard. Your mother just pulled into the drive.”
She left him there. Like he was nothing to her and that he’d not been speaking. When his mother and Amy came into the house, he turned on them. Before he thought of what he was going to do, even if he thought that he might have tempered his temper, he snarled at his mom and Amy then told them to get out of his house.
Neither of them said a word. Before he could apologize again for his behavior, Layla was standing in front of him with so much anger on her face that he took several steps back from her. It did him little good as she matched him step for step.
“You mother fucker, you do not talk to your mother that way. Do you fucking realize how lucky you are that she’s around? Not to mention your sister-in-law? Though why anyone would claim being related to you after how you’ve been acting for the last few weeks is beyond me. Tell them you’re sorry, or so help me, I will kill you where you stand. And I know how to do it, too. I’ll have your head removed so quickly that you’ll still be wondering how I’d done it as it slides off your shoulders.” She took in a deep breath and he could see her own anger. See something that he doubted that anyone else in this room knew. His mate had one hell of a temper when pressed. “Tell them. Tell them right fucking now.”
Madison dropped to his knees and walked to his mother and Amy that way. Letting his body get lower than them as he crawled on his hands and knees to get to where the two of them were standing. There weren’t enough words for him to apologize to them he figured out. Also, he knew, for the first time in his entire life, that he was terrified by someone. Someone that he was supposed to be mated to.
He, however, didn’t know if he was fearful of the anger that she’d shown him or the woman herself. Madison realized that he was going to lose her, not have her in his life and he suddenly figured out that he did indeed want her to be a part of everything he did from now on. And perhaps, if she could find it in her heart, be his other half forever more.
“Mom, Amy, I’m profoundly sorry for acting the way that I have for the last several weeks. More sorry than I think that I could explain to you right now.” Mom told him that he wasn’t the son that she had raised. “I know. I don’t know what has come over me. I have a lot of making up to do and I will. From now on.”
His mother didn’t say a word to him, but he could see the hurt and disappointment on her face. Madison had caused that. All by himself. He couldn’t even blame it on Layla, as he’d been doing for the last few days—hell, the last few months, because she’d not even been in the room with them at the time. He’d been, quite frankly, an ass to everyone that he came in contact with. But it was his mother who he’d hurt this time.
He watched as Layla left him there. She turned on her heel and left the room for him to do what he’d been told to do. Madison’s body was on the floor with his arms and legs spread out needed to speak to someone soon. The only person that he knew that he could speak to was his very old and very powerful father. But for now, he had his mother to make happy again.
“I’m disappointed in you, Madison. I hate to say that. You’ve no idea how much it hurts my heart to say that. Not to mention to hear you speaking that way with someone that I thought that you’d love.” He told his mom that he’d mistakenly done everything wrong in pushing her away. “Well then, you’ll have to figure out, even if she’ll take you back to make her love you someday. I doubt very much I’d want to be around you if you were my mate.”
Madison was still on the floor when he realized that he was alone in the house. The keys that he’d come by to pick up where just where he’d been told they’d be on the counter in the kitchen. Yesterday, he knew all the furniture that had been making the house look livable was now gone, including the dishes in the cabinets as well as the plants that had brightened up the corners of the dark room. It was his and he couldn’t have been any less happy about it if he’d just won the lottery.
He was a fuck up.
After wandering around the house, not really seeing anything through his anger at himself, Madison vowed that he was going to get to the bottom of the reasons that Layla had had to sell her family home. Why there had been a forty million dollar check from the same people that had shot at her when they had left. There were very little clues about her life as he’d never taken the time to get to know her. And for that, he was profoundly sorry for as well.
When he found himself in the back yard of his new home, he could see that the cover was still in place on the pool. He’d not noticed the pool house before. Nor had he realized that the home had a butler’s home far enough back in the property that he thought that it would be nice to have a person living on the grounds when he was in residence.
However everywhere he looked, he would think about what kind of memories had been made here by Layla and her family. Where was her family, he thought. Why was the sale of the home, one that she obviously loved, so important? Too many questions that he had no answers for and it was completely his fault. Christ, he wondered at that moment if she’d ever speak to him again. He wasn’t sure that he’d speak to anyone who had treated him the way he had her.
Going to his father to speak to him, he was sure that his mother had spoken to him before he had arrived. His dad was stiff with his own anger at him. But Madison couldn’t fault his father. He knew that he’d brought it all on himself.
“I’m sorry.” He looked at his dad when he sat down on the porch swing. A place that they’d been having little talks on with their dad since they’d been children. “I’ve fucked up royally. I know that, and so do you and mom. To be honest, I believe that everyone but myself understood that I was a major screw-up with this when I could have easily been a nice person and acknowledged that I had a mate. I also know that I’m saying this to the wrong person, and I’ll get to that, too. I need to be…dad, I saw her anger today. I was both terrified out of my mind and impressed at the same time. It’s not the only… Not the reason at all that I said I’m sorry, because I’m afraid of her. No, that’s not right either. I’m here because I’m afraid on so many levels that I don’t even know where to start. To get her that pissed off…well, I honestly hate myself for that. It was cruel and mean, and I don’t like that I’d brought her to that point.”
“I can understand that, son. I’ve only seen your mother truly angry and that was when we were first together. And it wasn’t at me but Grail, that monster that Amy killed. I sometimes think about that and how your brother ended up killing his grandma, and I wonder how we came out to be unscathed. As much as I thought that her nasty disposition would have made Fowler sick, all he needed was a little bit of soda water to make him better.”
The two of them laughed a great deal. Something that Madison had been missing without realizing it. He’d been a fool more than that. He’d tossed aside his family as if they were nothing to him. Yes, he thought to himself as he made his way to his car around midnight. He’d been a fool and hurtful to everyone.
Chapter 3
Layla stood in the pre-operating room with her hands up waiting. She was sterile, gloved, and booted. Her mask was up and her hair was pulled back into a tight bun with a scarf over her hair. Still, she stood there. Waiting for…waiting for something that she couldn’t figure out
The patient, Mr. Roger Patterson, was there, just beyond in the operating room, but she couldn’t move beyond the doorway she was standing next to. Something had happened today. Something that terrified her. Layla had been angry, more angry than she’d ever been, and it had made her sick with it because of the jackass.
For what? She didn’t have a clue. But for whatever reason, she had an idea that Madison knew the reason. Not to mention, he was the cause of her losing her temper so much of late. He’d seen her, and he’d been afraid, too. But only for a second or two. Then she’d been so ill that she’d had to rush to the bathroom to throw up. What on earth was the matter with her that she was forever…the nurse asked her if she was all right.
“I’m about ready. I’ve just something to work out in my head.” The nurse, who hadn’t any idea what her name was, said that Mr. Patterson was ready that he’d been given the medications that she’d prescribed and was ready for her to remove the six-inch nail that was in his thigh and shin. The young man, about twenty, had been playing a very dangerous game of chicken when it went off. Not only going through his thigh and into his shin but had taken off one of his fingers as well. And because he’d been sitting down when he’d been fucking around with it, they’d had to bring the large section of deck that he’d been sitting on as well. Sometimes, she had no hope at all for the younger generation nowadays.
