“OHMIGOD, YOU’VE HAD SEX with my son.”
“Ohmigod, you’ve have sex with her son.”
Maddie now knew the meaning of “frozen tableau.” Because here one was. Lillian Madison’s loudly blurted pronouncement, on the crowded sales floor of Maddie’s shop, and Celeste’s hooting confirmation, had stopped her in her guilty tracks—and all the customers in theirs. Maddie’d only just showered and talked herself into carrying on with her day and had stepped into view of the public. Like an actress onto a stage. On cue, her eyes widened and her cheeks warmed. But she forgot her lines.
Not so her customers. “Bravo!” “My, my.” “Way to go.” Comments like that came her way from several sophisticated upscale customers who turned to her and applauded her in a discreet yet sly way. A few other shoppers of the real kind hustled their children out the door. One of those, a little boy about four years old, asked his mother what sex was. Whatever the woman’s answer, it was lost as the door closed behind them.
“Uh, her son is thirty-four. He’s not a … boy or anything. He’s a man,” Maddie felt stupidly compelled to—Hello!—verify for them all. That’s it. Add fuel to the fire. Her gaze darted over the staring crowd, then landed on some bins of merchandise. “Oh, look, there’s a special on these items over here,” she desperately improvised, pointing to them. “Half off. Your choice. Feel free to help yourself.”
Because there is a God, that started a stir and got everyone moving again. Stung, weak-kneed, her stomach roiling, Maddie grabbed her red apron off its hook, tied it on, and worked her way through the upscale crowd—yes, upscale, the new shoppers. Suddenly Maddie’s Gifts was the place to shop. You were simply no one if you didn’t have something from Maddie’s Gifts. She remained a celebrity in the right circles. She was famous for being a scandal. Lovely. And now Lillian had certainly raised the bar on tabloid coverage, hadn’t she?
Like an avenging angel, Maddie determinedly wedged her way over to Lillian at the cash register and stood foursquare in front of the older woman, the avowed mother of Maddie’s recent bed partner. Lillian, perfectly coiffed as always, and adorned in diamonds and silk, had a beringed hand clapped over her mouth. Her brown eyes held remorse and said her blurted assessment had been accidental yet honest.
“I cannot believe you said that,” Maddie hissed in a whisper of indignation, her hands riding her waist.
Lillian recovered, stuck her hand in a pocket of her red apron, fumbled around, and turned to Celeste. “Smoke break.” She held up her cigarette case and lighter as proof. She then nodded her chin in the direction of the sales floor. “Can you handle this, Celeste? I’m taking Maddie outside.”
A dart of disbelief lodged in Maddie’s heart. The woman meant to take her outside—and do what? Beat her up?
“Sure,” Celeste the Traitor said, pushing Maddie toward the door. “You go on now, honey. And keep your dukes up.”
Her dukes? Maddie then realized that she’d unconsciously fisted her hands. She immediately relaxed them, splaying her fingers wide. But they stubbornly re-formed fists. “All right. You bet I will. This conversation has been a long time coming, and I mean to have it now.”
Celeste’s expression fell. “How come I have to miss all the good stuff? Can’t I come outside with you?”
“No,” Maddie said in unison with Lillian—then stared at her in surprise. Hank’s mother wanted this, too. Maddie recovered and said, “After you.”
Lillian raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow and tamped a cigarette out of its pack. “Age before beauty?”
“Sure. Whatever.” This was just what she needed to take her mind off her other problems, Maddie told herself. A good fight with Hank’s mother. Maddie waved her hand, indicating that Age should indeed precede Beauty.
That happened and the two women stalked through the shop, heading for the front door. Maddie didn’t know about Lillian Madison, but she was very aware of the slanted looks and sly smiles coming their way from the customers who were only now getting what they’d come to Maddie’s Gifts for: a tantalizing scene worthy of front-page, above-the-fold headlines. Ones that could supplant any star’s latest alien-baby story. A few of the bolder ones fell in line behind Maddie.
But Celeste put an immediate stop to that by yelling, “Stop right there. I will personally shoot any customer who leaves this store before I tell them they can.”
They evidently believed her because they all stopped, like in a game of red light/green light. Those in the way of the advancing, red-aproned women did, however—as noted by a logical information-processing part of Maddie’s brain—step aside and merely watch with hungry longing as the redheaded woman in the lead jerked open the beveled-glass door and set off the merrily tinkling bell above it. It closed behind her and Maddie with what Maddie thought of as ironic finality. Meaning the public was inside in a private place, while this very private scene would take place outdoors in public. It was funny, the things the brain would notice at the most intense moment in someone’s life.
Like the weather. Maddie’s senses told her the day was beautiful. Warm. Windless. Green leaves showed signs of aging into spectacular reds and yellows and oranges. Somewhere, lost in the high branches, birds sang. Nearby, children laughed. Cars made their way down the street. Ocean-salt–tinged air filled her lungs. Maddie breathed in great draughts of it. She had a feeling she was going to need all the lung power she could muster.
Lillian marched around to the side of the shop, to the narrow alley and driveway that defined the boundary between Maddie’s shop and the drugstore next door. Finally, Hank’s mother stopped. She pivoted around with admirable military smartness, faced Maddie, and held out her cigarette case. “Smoke?”
She said it like choose your weapon. “No, thank you.”
“Mind if I do?” She already had the cigarette she’d tamped out of its pack inside the store held between her lips and was lighting it.
Maddie watched the process. “No. They’re your lungs.”
Lillian eyed her over the cigarette. “You sound like Hank.”
Maddie had no response to that.
Lillian inhaled, smoothly removed the cigarette from her mouth, exhaled over her shoulder, away from Maddie, and said, “Sorry about that comment inside. But so … you and Hank.”
“Yeah. Me and Hank,” Maddie parroted, feeling defensive, squeamish, brave, scared, guilty, defiant. “As the whole store now knows. But how’d you know?” Surely Hank hadn’t run to his mommy after leaving Maddie’s house about three hours ago.
Lillian Madison shrugged. “I just know. I’m a woman, too, honey. We know these things.”
Maddie frowned. She was a woman, too, but she didn’t know these things. She couldn’t look at a freshly scrubbed, fully clothed woman, like she was right now, and tell she’d just had sex.
“And I’m a mother,” Lillian added, as if that explained everything. She took another puff on her cigarette, and sent Maddie a sidelong glance. “So where is he? Where’d he go?”
How did she do this? Then Maddie realized Hank’s Navigator was gone from her driveway, which she and Lillian were now standing in. “Back out to the cottage at the beach.”
“God,” Lillian snorted, exhaling smoke. “Rat traps.”
“Ramshackle.”
“Bacteria on the hoof.”
“Total disasters.”
“And he loves it out there, doesn’t he?”
That surprised Maddie. She caught a fleeting look of something vulnerable in Lillian’s expression, of some hurt or fear. “Yes. He does.”
Hank’s mother, a slim, pretty, and, Maddie suspected, very complicated woman, turned her head, so as not to look at Maddie. “Look, honey,” she said, tapping the ash off her cigarette. She was actually fascinating to watch as she smoked, Maddie decided. She made all the attendant ritual of its motions and gestures graceful and fascinating. Like performance art. “Let’s get something straight,” Lillian said, drawing Maddie’s attention to her face. Maddie saw nothing of this woman in Hank. He obviously took after the Madisons. “I can be a complete diva. I know that about myself. I’m also an elitist snob and a pampered rich bitch. It’s protective coloration for living in Beverly Hills.”
Maddie wasn’t about to acknowledge any of that, not by word or gesture. She just stared and realized her cheeks felt flushed and her stomach a bit sick. Where in the world was this going?
“But things are different here. I’m different here. I sure as hell never got into a food fight at a church, or anywhere else, before in my life.” She chuckled to herself as if reliving the experience and feeling proud of herself. Then she eyed Maddie. “But more importantly, my son is different here.”
Ah. This was where they were going. Maddie nodded. “I think James was hoping he would be happy here.”
“Yes. James. I think he was hoping Hank would be happy here with you, Maddie. And the old coot was right. For whatever reason, you make my son happy.”
The fabric of Maddie’s heart tore a tiny bit. She made a self-deprecating sound, almost a chuckle. “Not so much today.”
“I know. Obviously something happened. And he’s gone back out to that cottage that surely houses somewhere in its many funguses the cure for a major disease.” Again she said that as if talking to herself. Maddie bit back a chuckle that surprised her. She hadn’t ever thought to be amused by Lillian. Maddie realized she’d been wrong about something else, to think there was nothing of Lillian Madison in her son. Hank’s dry wit surely came from his mother. Lillian shook her head and got back to the subject. “Anyway, I won’t ask what. It’s not any of my business.”
But she wanted to know. She wanted Maddie to tell her what had happened. It was there on her face. Maddie purposely said nothing.
Lillian again took an elegant drag off her dwindling cigarette, exhaled, and looked down at the ground, idly toeing the dirt around with her low-heeled pump. “All right. I can respect that. You know, Maddie, I came here to expose you as the gold-digging opportunist I believed you surely to be.” Maddie fought a defensiveness that invaded her heart. “But it didn’t take me long to find out that you’re not. Celeste certainly set me straight in a hurry. As did everyone else in town I met.” She arrowed an assessing glance Maddie’s way. “Hanscomb Harbor is a magical little place, isn’t it?”
Thank God. A sufficiently neutral topic. “Well, it was. Before all the hoopla and headlines. Before the invasion of paparazzi and the jet set.”
“Yes. My world. My people.”
Oops. Maddie felt her cheeks burning.
“Don’t worry. Your town will survive. I know these people. Their sort, anyway. They’ll soon tire of the game and move on to the next big thing.”
“Well, it can’t be soon enough to suit me.”
“I feel the same way. Which tells me they were my people, but not anymore. Like I said, I’m different now.”
“You seem happy. More relaxed,” Maddie ventured, trying to find the vein they were mining conversationally out here in the open air of an alleyway.
“Yes. I’m thinking about moving here for good.”
Maddie’s stomach plunged. “Good. We’d love to have you.”
Even Lillian didn’t believe her. She chuckled and poked at Maddie’s arm, which made Maddie laugh with her. “Nice try, Maddie, I appreciate the effort. But we both know better. Still, I’ll do my darnedest to be a good Hanscomber. I’m certainly interesting enough to fit right in, don’t you think?”
“Especially with Celeste.” Maddie put her hands behind her back and leaned against the sun-warmed wood wall of her shop and looked around. “Hank says there’s something in the water.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to drink plenty of it.”
Maddie glanced over at Lillian, who, with the toe of her shoe, was now grinding her cigarette butt out on the moist ground. She was quiet, but seemed to be waiting for Maddie to speak. What could she say, except the truth? “It’s not good right now between Hank and me, Lillian. And I don’t know how this is going to work out. Or if it even will. If it doesn’t, will you still want to stay here?”
Lillian nodded, then exhaled and crossed her arms under her breasts. She looked away from Maddie, out toward the ocean that shimmered just across the street and down the slope from Maddie’s Gifts. “I know how hard this is for you, honey. You didn’t ask for any of this. And the Madisons are a tough lot to deal with.” She turned her head until she was looking into Maddie’s eyes. “But I just want you to know that, well, I’m on your side. Woman to woman.”
Sudden and unexpected tears pricked at Maddie’s eyes. She had Hank’s mother’s approval. Maybe too late. Maybe when it didn’t matter. But it was approval, nonetheless. “Thank you.”
Lillian squeezed Maddie’s arm affectionately. “You’re welcome.”
* * *
Sitting alone for the moment in Jim Thornton’s office as he conferred with Mrs. Crane at her desk in the anteroom, Maddie relived her memories of being in this astoundingly ornate office a little over six weeks ago. Again she saw herself spilling that wine on Hank. Then she suffered mentally through the reading of James’s disastrous will. When she looked back on it now, on all the drama, the tears, the laughter, the hurt, the misunderstandings, she could only ask herself, what had been the point of all that living and loving? Of waking her up from her dream, of pulling her out of her shell? So she could be shown how pathetic her life was? So she could have yet another unhappy, unsatisfying ending?
Maddie wanted to slump with the ironic futility of it all. After all, here she sat—alone—in a leather chair that faced Jim’s big desk, and all she could do was stare like a zombie at the diploma- and award-laden wall behind it … and wonder where Hank was right now. He’d done his six weeks, the last three of which she hadn’t seen him or talked to him. Sure, he’d called as he said he would. And she’d talked to him then. Again she could hear herself saying that maybe he’d been right, that they shouldn’t have done anything about their attraction until they got through the legal flaming hoops. So why didn’t they cool it now and catch up again after all the signing had been done, she’d said. And he’d quickly agreed.
And then the torturous three weeks had passed … and then another one. And still, as of today, no word from Hank. His mother said nothing. Celeste said nothing. The three of them just kept working and pretending that everything was normal. And sure enough, as Lillian had predicted, life in Hanscomb Harbor had returned pretty much to normal. It was again the sleepy little fishing village anticipating autumn and pumpkins and cider.
Maddie rubbed at her aching neck and sighed, focusing as always on Hanscomb Harbor, her anchor. She missed the little harbor town, even though she’d only left there that morning and would return this evening. It wasn’t so much that she minded being away from home. It was more that she minded being here in New York City where he lived. Where he breathed the same air that she did. But here she was because she’d seen no sense in delaying this chore for even one more day. So here she was, waiting to sign away her interest in Madison & Madison Enterprises. Here she was waiting to take control of the fabulous wealth that James had left her. And then she and Hank could go their separate ways. As if they hadn’t already.
Maddie frowned. How did something like that happen? One minute you were hot and heavy, the next cool and distant. She shrugged her shoulders, there alone in Jim’s office. Sometimes some things just didn’t work out and it was nobody’s fault. It seemed relationships that reached a fever point as quickly as theirs had were destined to cool. Too hot to handle. Too hot not to cool. How sad was that? About as sad as this moment when there was nothing dramatic to mark its passing. There should have been. It seemed only fair. All her other unhappy endings had been over-the-top dramatic. Left in the lurch at the altar in front of a sympathetic yet embarrassed crowd. A car wreck with twisted metal and horrible headlines. James’s passing. Hank’s passing out of her life. Thank God she’d had her period, then, right?
The door to the office opened. Maddie struggled hard to keep her rising emotions off her face. She didn’t want Jim Thornton, who’d just come back in with Mrs. Crane on his heels, to know how much she was hurting.
“I’m sorry, Maddie. Client emergency. Just let us get these documents in order, and we’ll be ready for you to sign.” He sat at his desk and Mrs. Crane stood next to him. They both looked at her, waiting.
Maddie waved a hand their way. “Take your time. I’m fine.”
No, I’m not. Maddie put a hand to her temple. Stop it right now, Maddie. You tried. You gave everything you had. It just didn’t work out. So sign the damned papers and get out of here. Then you never have to feel anything again.
Jim Thornton nodded at Mrs. Crane and she gathered up some papers and left. Maddie was now alone with a somber, unhappy lawyer. One whose sad, heavy-jowled face said he felt the failure of James’s grand design the same as she did. It was sad, actually, very anticlimactic, that with only the stroke of a pen, of ink flowing across the bottom of a page on a line indicated by the single word “signature,” it would all be over and done.
Jim pushed the documents across to her and showed her where to sign. With no fanfare and no delays, Maddie signed. Then, pen still in hand, she gazed at the letters that formed her name. Madelyn L. Copeland.
So simple, so quick, so surgical. It was done. The die was cast. The act completed. She no longer had any say, legal or otherwise, in Madison & Madison Enterprises, Inc. Hank had his life back. And she had hers. The pen, it turned out, was mightier than the sword. And usually drew more blood.
“And here too, Maddie, if you would,” Jim said, putting another legal document in front of her and indicating the appropriate line. He continued to speak low and soft, as if out of respect for someone in the room who was dying. Someone was, but only inside where you couldn’t see, where it never showed, where Maddie kept her hurt. She signed without comment and sat back, waiting for further direction from Jim.
“That’s it. All done.” With short pudgy fingers, Jim rubbed at his forehead. The poor balding man had an acre of forehead forested with freckles atop his too-big head.
When he didn’t say anything else, Maddie broke the silence. “Is that all? Am I free to go?” She felt as if she were a prisoner who still couldn’t believe she’d earned her freedom. She certainly didn’t feel as though she were free. No, she felt anything but free. She felt strangely burdened. Weighted down. As if some prankster had glued her to her chair.
“What the hell happened, Maddie?” Jim blurted. “How’d it all fall apart? You and Hank were so perfect together.”
Maddie blinked in surprise and stared at him.
“I’m sorry. I had no right to say that. Look, you want a drink? I know I sure do.” Without waiting for her answer, and with his features set in stubborn lines, he pushed his chair back and stood up. “Come on. Let’s go sit over there. I’ll get us something stiff and we can talk, friend to friend.”
Rising from her chair, but not so sure she wanted to have this conversation, Maddie nevertheless shrugged. “All right.”
“Good. What can I get you?” Jim was on his way to the wet bar. With his suit coat off, he looked downright grand-fatherish in his white shirt and red suspenders that struggled to hold his slacks up.
“Rum and Coke is good.” Maddie trailed after him, veering off to the seating area, where she sat on the sofa. Unbidden flashbacks assailed her. Spilling her purse. Shoes off. Hank coming in. Startling her. Spilling wine on him. Maddie wrenched the emotional memories to a halt. And got up, moving to one of the opulently upholstered Queen Anne chairs that sat at either end of the low coffee table. In this office, it wouldn’t have surprised her to find out the chairs had actually been Queen Anne’s.
“Here you go,” Jim said, handing her a short crystal tumbler. He had an identical one in his hand. He chose to sit at the end of the sofa closest to her.
In silence Maddie sipped at her beverage and watched Jim doing the same with his. He looked her way and caught her staring. “Good stuff, huh?”
“The best. God bless the Bacardi family.” The rum warmed her stomach, and the glass gave her something to do with her hands. Maddie crossed her legs and perched the tumbler atop her knee, holding it in place with both hands. She cut her gaze to the closed double doors to Jim’s ornate office.
“Hank’s not coming. His presence wasn’t required.”
Maddie focused on Jim. He’d thought she was looking for Hank. She had been, but only sort of. “I wasn’t looking for him.”
“I know. Maddie, this sucks.”
She chuckled. “I’m sorry. That word coming out of your mouth is totally unexpected. Celeste’s, yes. But not yours.”
Jim grinned. “I’ve said a lot worse. So how is Celeste?”
“Well, if you ask her, she says she’s still kicking, only not so high. But she’s fine. She has a new short hairdo, a wild kitten named Bluebell, and a new friend in Lillian.”
“Go figure. I never saw that one coming. But when I’ve talked to her, Lillian seems to be thriving there. I’m glad.”
“Yes. Me, too. She’s out in L.A. right now, closing things out there. So Celeste took the time to visit her niece’s family in Indiana. There’s a new baby named after Celeste. She went there for the christening.”
“Another Celeste? From the stories Hank and Lillian have told me about her, and from what I saw of her that one time, well, God save us all.” Jim downed a good portion of his drink.
“Amen.” Maddie sipped at her drink and eyed Jim, wondering when he would come to the point. Or if he had a point. Maybe he simply wanted to visit with her a bit. Why’d she think everything had to have a point?
“So, Maddie, what’d you do with Beamer for the day? I’m so glad that at least the two of you found your way together.”
“Me, too. It wasn’t easy, but I persevered since it was what James wanted.” Instantly self-conscious, Maddie looked down at her drink.
Jim coughed and sniffed and said nothing. What could he say? Her words hung between them like pregnant pigeons. Left unsaid was that James’s wish had also been that she and Hank be together. But they weren’t, and Jim knew it.
“So, Maddie,” Jim said a little too loudly, “Beamer is where?”
“Teddy Millicum—a local teenager—is looking after her. He has Celeste’s kitty, too, while she’s away.” Talking about her hometown friends put Maddie more at ease, and she found herself chatting. “Teddy’s a good kid and likes to take Beamer for long walks. They go to the park at the town center. It’s good for both of them. And this way I don’t worry what he and his girlfriend are doing alone together. The last thing his or Millie’s parents need to have right now is a grandchild.”
Jim’s face crumpled, much as if he’d experienced a pain.
Alarmed, Maddie pushed to the edge of her chair. Quickly, she set her drink on the coffee table and put a hand on the elderly attorney’s arm. “Jim, are you okay? What’s wrong? Do I need to get someone?”
“No.” He put his hand over hers and squeezed affectionately. “I’m fine. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry, Maddie. Really. Sit back. Enjoy your drink.” She did, and he continued. “It was just all that talk about grandkids, I guess.”
“I’m so sorry. I had no idea. I didn’t…” Her voice trailed off because she really had no clue why that would upset him.
Jim waved her apology away. “Oh, don’t worry about it, Maddie. It’s not your fault. Or your problem.” His voice was brusque with barely contained emotion. “It’s just that…” He paused, staring at her for long moments that left Maddie feeling diminished somehow, as if she personally had let Jim down. “Well, as you know,” he began again, “Mary and I have no children. And this is silly, but we got caught up in thinking … well, we thought you and Hank … we hoped that…” His voice trailed off. He looked desultorily at the drink in his hand.
Maddie blinked rapidly, trying to squeeze back the tears as she held tightly to the chair’s arms. “You hoped that Hank and I would … give you a sort-of grandchild?”
Jim sat back abruptly, crossing a leg over the opposite ankle and clearing his throat, just generally trying not to look emotional. “Silly, huh? We’re not even related.”
“Sure you are. What’s blood? We have friendship. And I think it’s very sweet, Jim. I really do. You and your wife, from what Lillian and Hank have told me, would make—would have made—” Maddie gritted her teeth against the scream of hurt and frustration that wanted out. “Could this be harder, Jim? I’m trying to say that you will make wonderful grandparents. Maybe Hank will find someone … and can give you that grandchild.”
“We don’t want someone. We want you.” The hard-shelled, no-nonsense, world-renowned attorney, like a pouting child, sat forward, plunked his drink down, pulled a handkerchief from his back pants pocket, and blew his nose heartily. As he refolded the no-longer-so-crisp square of linen and repocketed it, he downplayed his show of emotion. “It wasn’t so much for me as Mary, you understand. Bless her heart, she had you already expecting by next Christmas and was planning a party and even the baby’s nursery. She even bought a little book of names for babies.”
Oh, God. This moment, for Maddie, would have been more bearable if Jim had simply beaten her with a stick. As it was, Maddie’s heart swam in tender and wretched sympathy. On an impulse, she got up and hugged Jim’s neck and kissed his forehead. “Poor Mary,” she said, meaning poor Jim. “How sad she must be. Tell her I’m sorry, will you? I never wanted it to end this way, either.”
Overcome, Jim simply nodded but then caught her wrist as she straightened up. “What did happen, Maddie? Why did it end with you and Hank? I know you don’t owe me the first explanation, and you can tell me to go to hell. I’m just asking friend to friend. I care a great deal about you, as much as I do about Hank. And like him, you’re hurting a lot worse than you’ll let on.”
Maddie’s heart leapt at mention of Hank. He’s hurting? Would he be hurting if he didn’t care? Maddie stared blindly at the thick carpet as it blurred and shimmered through her unshed tears. With Jim still holding her wrist, all she could do was stand there and sniffle and shrug her shoulders. Jim released her and Maddie took her seat. She plucked a tissue out of a handy box on the table and wiped at her eyes. Jim held her drink out to her. Maddie took it and raised the glass to her lips.
Feeling a bit restored after a few sips, and with the tissue and the tumbler still in her hands, she faced Jim again. “Jim, I don’t mind talking to you. And I don’t want to hurt your feelings. But I know you talk to Hank. Just promise me you won’t repeat any of this to him.”
His expression earnest and unoffended, Jim raised his right hand. “I swear I won’t. I’ve been off the clock since we left my desk. This stays between me and you.”
“Thank you.” Maddie drew in a relieved breath and exhaled softly. “I don’t know what happened, Jim. I really don’t. No, I’m lying. I do know. It just got too hard. Hank and I met and collided. It was that will. The mistrust. The suspicions. The defensiveness. It was always there between us. We just kept starting and stopping, starting and stopping, until we finally just stopped.”
Jim nodded. “Like a car with engine trouble.”
“Exactly.”
“What? You couldn’t take it to a mechanic?”
Maddie chuckled. “If only it had been that simple.”
Jim leaned forward. “It is, Maddie. It’s that simple. I know it and James Senior knew it.” He gripped her hand, squeezing it earnestly. “Maddie, go back to Hanscomb Harbor. Today. Right now.”
Taken aback, Maddie said, “I am.”
“Stay there.”
“I will. I live there. Jim, what is this?”
“I want that happy ending, Maddie. It’s what’s supposed to happen.”
“Well, it’s what James wanted to happen, but—”
“So do you. And so does Hank.”
“I don’t know how you can say that with any certainty, Jim—”
“But I can, Maddie. I can. And you’ll see, too. You and Hank being together is supposed to happen.”
“You keep saying that. I think you need to explain yourself.”
Jim sat back and grinned. “No. It’s best if James Senior does.”
This was getting scary. “Jim,” Maddie said very placatingly, about like she would to a knife-wielding crazy man. “James is dead. James cannot explain anything.”
Jim shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong. He can. He did. It’s in a letter.”
“A letter? What letter?”
“One I wasn’t supposed to tell you or Hank about until after the six weeks.”
Her heart pounding, Maddie scooted to the edge of her seat. “Where is it? Give it to me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Jim nodded, smiling secretively. “Go home, Maddie. Go to Hanscomb Harbor … and wait.”