Finding Madelyn (16 page)

“If you don’t believe me open this door and look. You are the reason
only
I’ve done anything in this life.”

The door slowly opened.

His hands were on the wall on either side of the door. The sound of his voice was calm enough but his body betrayed the fact that
he hadn’t taken full control of his anger.

“Madelyn.”

“I don’t believe you.”

She stood as strong as she could halfway across the room. So much of her wanted to give in and believe. The need was almost painful for him to have simply come for her. Perhaps
the only thing
greater was that he hadn’t believed Fredric.

His lips curled. “Yes you do. You don’t want to
, but you do
.”

He took the step into her room.

She took a step back. “Why didn’t you believe him?”

The smile widened. “Didn’t sound like my Madelyn.”

He stepped forward, she countered.

“People change.”

“Yes we do
,
but the core of a person doesn’t.”

He moved, her legs brushed the bed.

He continued forward with each sentence. “No matter how old you grow, no matter how far you run, you are still Madelyn Murphy. You are still the little girl impressed with the workings of a paper plane. You are still the young woman in the pink dress spinning around the dance floor. You are still the only woman I’ve ever loved.”

His fingers skimmed her chin, then cheek causing her eyes to flutter shut. Looking back over time
,
that first kiss at t
he river gorge had been good;
but
with each touch they had improved. His lips brushed hers and her breath caught in her chest.

The body might have changed but the touch had not. The way they formed together was still simply comfortable. His lips were much softer than they had been this afternoon as they teased hers.

His lips trailed her chin pushing all thought from her mind. Muscles quivered as his hands moved over her body
,
one settling in the mass of her hair, the other cupped at the small of her back.

The
muscles in his back were tau
t and firm as her fingertips ran under his shirt. His mouth left hers only long enough
for him
to remove her shirt, eagerly pulling her back when it was discarded. Galen knew what he was doing, it wasn’t the first time he’d touched her like this. She hoped it wouldn’t be the last.

The caress was gentle with firm hands. Even cropped
,
his hair was baby fine. His stomach still quivered when a fingernail ran across his ribs. His mouth still reminded her of grape flavored cola.

The camisole she wore gave him a path to trace with his tongue. She jolted when he stopped partial way across her chest.

“This isn’t what I came here for.” His voice was deep, or her ears were, with want.

She put her arms around his neck and smiled. “I know.”

The thin undergarment came off with a quick lift and they fell to the bed. The skin on his hands seemed rougher as they ran over the peak of her breast
,
but the pleasure was greater. She felt like a fumbling kid again when his shirt wouldn’t easily give.

He threw it to the floor and swayed on tense arms when she unzipped his slacks. The breath over her stomach warmed as it trailed down. A sigh escaped as the remains of her clothing slid off. His hands were now cooler than her skin as they floated up her body, lingering where they affected her most.

Her name whispered into her ear pulled the moaned, “Yes.”

His lips curled into a smile, he still had to hear her confirm she wanted him. Her smiled matched his as her back arched with the feel of him.

Galen lay across her bed, his hand smoothing out her hair
,
occasionally catching in a tangle. She didn’t even wince with the slight pull, her body was too relaxed in the cradle of his arm to react.

“Now this is heaven.” His chest didn’t even rumble, it came out so soft
ly
.

“Hmmm.”

“I was so afraid that you wouldn’t open that door.” His chest rose with the sigh on the small laugh. “Afraid you’d really given up on me.”

“I never gave up. Moved, yes
…
but never stopped believing in us.”

“You weren’t there.” He kissed the top of her head and held tighter.

A piece of her heart shredded.

“But we are here.”
He continued
with a hum.

A larger piece of her heart dropped. She pulled herself from his body to look at him. With his features relaxed, he looked more like the young man that had left
.
T
he one that had shattered her
, now pieced together
heart. And the glue was eroding.

“I need you to come downstairs with me.”

His smirked, “What’s downstairs?”

She took a deep breath, “Something I have to show you.”

“It will wait until morning.” The smirk
was back as his fingers trailed her hip.

“It could
,
but it won’t.”

His eyes opened to a slit, the purr left his voice, “Why not?”

“Because it’s important.”



The coffee was hot and as good as the diner’s but she didn’t sit with her cup at the small table
. Galen watched as she walked over to a trunk in the parlor and retrieved a small suitcase. She looked nervous as she placed it on the table
,
much like he’d watched men dealing with explosives.

Once it set safely on the table she eased into a chair and sipped her coffee not taking her eyes off the case.

“What’s in it?” he tried to get her to stop staring at the case.

“You’ll see.” Her eyes stayed put.

“Is it going to explode or run away?”

“No.” She didn’t crack a smile but at least she looked at him. “When I told you about the night I left
,
I didn’t tell you everything.”

She looked as if
she would be ill.

“Whatever it is it can’t be that bad.” He ran his fingers over her bare knee.

“When your mama left the study I went to the safe to put back the ring like she told me to do. The entire time I’m thinking she could tell your daddy what she told me. They could come after me just for jilting Harland
,
let alone anything else. Well she had told me to take whatever I needed from the safe to run. So I did.”

Her eyes moved back to the case as his heart sank wondering what was in it. What had she taken that had made Fredric so adamant that she be found and brought back to Washington? He sat the coffee on the table and flipped up one of the latches on the case.

“Galen.”
Her hand shot up and clasped
his.

He thought before he moved on but it didn’t stop him. The other latched flipped open and he looked inside to a notebook and papers. He didn’t
know what he was expecting perhaps
something more ominous with the way she was behaving.

He opened the notebook to see his father’s handwriting. Number’s and figures, lines in red and black. Financial records. Simple enough.

He flipped through a few of the loose papers trying to make sense at what he was looking at. Then it all started adding up. Letters from judges, sheriffs, lawyers, each referring to ‘contributions’ for his ‘political career’.

Even in the last three years he’d been gone, Fredric had yet to get elected into any of the seats he’d run for. He continued through the papers finding out more about the money that came into his family than he had wanted. Mostly the kind of exchanges you didn’t tell your tax accountant about.

“Why didn’t you take this to the sheriff? This with what Mama had told you should have been enough.”

“Me against Fredric and Will Langley
?
T
hey would have eaten me alive. If I didn’t end up next to my mama
,
wherever she may be.”

His anger subsided. She was right. “If I’d been there. . .”

“None of it would have happened
,
but you weren’t there.”

“Madelyn.”

“I’m not blaming you and you know it.”

“What was your plan in taking all this?”

“Insurance so he wouldn’t come after me ‘cause I could burn him down with it.”

“You know it’s not working that way.”

Her eyes grew larger. “I understand that. Not sure what the man has been thinking, but then again I never did understand him.”

He pulled her out of the chair and unto his lap.
With h
er head held firm in his hands he kept her eyes on his. “I won’t let them hurt you.”

Her eyes closed, her breath shuddered out. The tears dropped, she couldn’t hold them back anymore. He took his thumbs across each stream as it ran. Lips pressing where
the moisture
stopped.

Her lips trembled as they found his. Her fingers pulling him closer. Slowly she stopped trembling but continued to use her body to keep him close, wrapping her legs around the chair to lessen the air between them even more.

The muscles in her body relaxed as his fingers walked under the shirt and up her spine. Her body arched but he held her on the chair with him marveling at the way her body moved. The way her body had always moved against his.

He buried his head in her hair, her heartbeat quickened under his mouth.

“I missed you so much.” Eked out of her.

Maddy stretch out over the bed, her body tingling with sensations. Pleasure and happiness above all else, though a few of her muscles were chiming in at a close third. She
smelled
coffee, felt the heat in the house, but not his body.

Breakfast in bed? No
,
not even Galen was that good, he probably didn’t know how to cook. She slid into his shirt that was at the edge of the bed and put on her house shoes. The coffee was hot and he didn’t do too badly on the taste.

She peeked out the back door expecting him to be laid out on the bench with his chest puffing like a peacock. The back porch was empty. She moved to the window where she could see the dock but he wasn’t out there pondering the major questions of life.

Shaking her head
,
she walked into the
library
wondering if he w
as out front, almost dropping
her coffee cup when she saw the table empty.

The case was gone. The papers were gone. All of it. Setting the cup on the table, she ran over to the trunk she kept her insurance in, maybe he’d put it all away. The trunk had the quilts but no suitcase. She stomped into the guest room. His suitcase was gone, his shoes, his coat, everything but the shirt she had on.

The bed bounced when she dropped her bottom on it.

Galen was gone.

Galen tried to write her a note before he left. He tri
ed to wake her but
couldn’t bring himself to do it
. He
watched her sleep, with exactly what he needed to do coming clear
er
the longer he stood there.

There was no way for him to explain how much he needed the truth. That need pulled him across the country to find her, even if she
hadn’t
want
ed
anything to do with him
,
he had to know. It was no different going the other way. And now he had the love she still held for him to make it that much easier.

Instead of Fredric’s voice ringing in his head, it was Madelyn’s tears.
The strain i
n her
tone
when she told him what had happened. The feel of her body.

Going back home was going to be a little different too. He wasn’t waiting for Harland to send the plane back for him. A few phone calls with the first rays of sun and he was booked on the first flight west he could manage.

When he’d spoken to the half sleeping Harland, he confirmed that Fredric knew he’d gone somewhere in the plane, but no one was say where. No one knew, not even Harland. The east coast to visit a friend was all they could say. It’s all Galen had told them.

He also hoped she’d forgive him for leaving her car at the airport with the small case that
no longer
had the papers in it. One call to Lucian, after he was safely in Washington, and the car would be returned.

The picture in his pocket
he’d paid for when the guy presented it. This time as he stepped on the commercial flight
his
suitcase was full of papers
and
he had
a country to cross considering the best way to deal with them.