Dear Diary, he steals my breath!
The problem with running on a treadmill was no matter how fast Maddie ran she couldn’t outrun her disappointments.
Good news, Zach wasn’t still in love with his ex-wife.
Bad news, he wasn’t in love with her either.
Maddie upped the speed on her treadmill.
She really shouldn’t feel like Zach had let down because he’d been honest with her. It was her own silly schoolgirl crush that had convinced her she and Zach had finally arrived at the same place of mutual attraction. That they were in sync, sure that them were well on the way to becoming us until Zach had left her in no doubt of her mistake.
Drenched in sweat and panting from exertion, Maddie ignored Cristi, Sasha, and Lisa’s jabbering as the four of them worked out in the gym production had set up in the cellar of the old property they were renovating.
Perhaps it was simply that she wasn’t exciting enough to keep Zach interested. Maybe if she made an effort to be more carefree and fun?
The faintest scent of sulphur had her glancing toward the bank of small opened windows to her right. Someone had probably snuck off to have a smoke and chose to do it around this side of the house.
Dismissing the odour, she got back to her thoughts and had to face the facts. It didn’t matter how exciting she became, Zach still wouldn’t love her. He believed he couldn’t, and she’d learned long ago that she didn’t have the power to make Zach love her just because she longed for it. The recognition twisted her insides and squeezed tight.
She knew Zach’s belief system stemmed from his upbringing, his lack of love from his father and a mother who was so set on saving herself she sacrificed her son. Zach had never spoken of his mother, yet Maddie knew he was angry with Eden. He made excuses for her, but he did so with such a lack of emotion Maddie came to understand it was simply out of habit—born of a child trying to understand why his mother would leave him, and concluding that it had to have been the unbearable life she’d had with his father.
He had learned to excuse his mother and turn all of his anger toward his father. With a total absence of any positive experiences with love and trust, was it any wonder he didn’t know how to love or sustain lasting relationships?
The question was, where did they go from here? Did she settle for nothing more than a fling? Or walk away before her heart got too involved? She’d told herself the night of the storm that she’d be happy to wave Zach goodbye when the time came, but she hadn’t factored in the small detail of her heart getting wrapped up in her romance with him. She should have pursued the subject after his warning, but then he’d pulled the knot keeping her dress decent. She’d pushed aside her worries, doubts, and fears as he made love to her.
In the early hours of Monday morning, she’d woken to an empty bed, which left her feeling slightly abandoned since Zach had snuck from his bed, leaving her without even a note of explanation. By the time Maddie had arrived home from the set on Monday evening, it was to find Zach about to leave for a short notice business trip. She’d barely had time to register the kiss he’d dropped on her mouth, with a promise to call her, before he’d jumped into his Aston Martin DBS and disappeared out of sight.
He’d been gone three days and was due back in his office today.
“So, Mad.” Sasha’s teasing tone pulled her from her thoughts. “How’re things with you and Zach? You’ve been keeping stum, and we’ve been patient long enough. I think it’s time you gave up the juicy details. Is he any good in bed?”
Maddie drank from her water bottle before she answered. “I told you guys, I don’t kiss ‘n’ tell.”
“You’re no fun. I tell you everything.” Sasha pouted playfully.
“And most of it, I think we’d rather you didn’t share,” Lisa said.
Maddie chuckled. Her relationship, or whatever it was, with Zach was going to remain her business. There was one thing she didn’t mind sharing, though.
“I had the weirdest experience the other night. The night we had that summer storm, Larry came to my house.”
“Larry? As in Larry the Lech?”
“You’re the only one who calls him that, Cristi.” Sasha tossed her towel at Cristi, who caught it and chucked it back.
“Are you telling me he’s never made some lewd remark to you? Or pinched your butt when he thought he could get away with it?” Cristi cocked her hip, jammed a hand on it. “I can’t be the only one. Almost every woman on the show complains about him.”
Sasha wiped the perspiration off her face, peeked over the fluffy white towel. “Larry is harmless.”
“I’m starting to wonder about that.” Maddie’s feet pounded against the rotating base of her treadmill with renewed vigour. He’d left her feeling extremely rattled that night. Even while she’d tried to relax in a scented candle-lit bathroom, she’d driven herself nuts thinking she kept hearing noises. “You should have seen him. He was different. Kind of predatory. Like he was using being there to fix my dimmer switches as an excuse to come over unannounced.”
“Did he attack you?” Lisa’s horrified question had the other two women staring at Maddie with arrested expressions.
“No. Nothing like that. He didn’t touch me. I guess it was the way he looked at me that unnerved me.”
“So what did he say? Why did he go to your house in a storm?”
“He told me he was there to fix the faulty dimmers I’d mentioned. I was so freaked I didn’t ask why he chose that night to do it.”
“I’ll tell you what else is weird.” Cristi pointed her finger the way she did when she was about to make a point. “Larry didn’t show for work today.”
“When he was leaving...” Maddie still hadn’t gotten over the shock. “He reached inside his pocket and pulled out one of my thongs!”
“No!” Sasha jumped off her treadmill and dashed over to Maddie’s. “From his pocket?”
Maddie nodded as she slowed the speed on her treadmill.
“Are you sure it was yours?”
“It looked like mine.”
“How on earth would he get possession of your underwear?”
“That was the first thing I thought. And get this; he said he found it on my driveway as he walked up to the garage.”
“Do you believe him?”
Maddie raised her hands, palms up. “How would it have gotten there?”
“What are you going to do?” Cristi asked.
“I don’t know. He hasn’t done anything wrong. You can’t report someone for offering to fix your electrics and producing underwear they supposedly found on your driveway.”
“Could you have dropped them?” Lisa’s frown etched fine lines on her forehead.
“When?” Maddie cocked a brow. “I think I would have noticed if they fell off while I was walking.”
“Or maybe,” Cristi chimed in. “You got so horny for Zach, they pinged off without you even noticing.”
Her so-called friends chuckled. Maddie’s cheeks burned.
Lisa cut off in mid laugh, sniffed the air. “Do you smell that?”
The murky odour Maddie had dismissed as someone sneaking a smoke became more acrid.
“I noticed it earlier. Is someone smoking?” Maddie switched the treadmill to a walking pace.
“No, that isn’t cigarette smoke.” Cristi dropped her gym towel, on instant alert. “Something’s burning.”
Maddie’s heart shot into high gear. In a sudden rush of activity, she launched the race for the stairs leading to the ground floor. The only smell they encountered on that level was sawdust and varnish.
“It must be coming from outside.” With only a pause to grab the nearest fire extinguishers, they headed for the front door, following the progressively pungent smell until they got to the barn.
First to arrive at the scene, Maddie noticed smoke meandering out a side window.
Every muscle in her body went rigid with shock; icy disbelief chilled her, raised the fine hairs on her skin. Her colleagues ran in all directions. The sight registered on her brain in slowmo.
All the hard work they’d put into getting the barn prepared for refurbishment was going up in flames right in front of her. She lost costly seconds as disbelief rooted her feet to the clay ground.
“Fire! Fire!” Sasha yelled, and people hurried from all directions.
The activity unglued Maddie’s feet. Breathing shallow, heart racing, she ran toward the barn, pulling the pin on the extinguisher and pointing the nozzle as she dashed through the nearest doorway, the girls close on her heels.
Smoke filled the barn, making it hard to find the flames. Maddie rushed to the area thickest with smoke. Her eyes watered, her lungs stung, and she started to cough at the same time the others did. She tried to cover her mouth and nose with the crook of one arm as she fired off her extinguisher.
Beside her, Sasha and Cristi did the same. Thankfully, the fire was small and died with a few blasts from their CO2s.
“How on earth did that happen?” Sasha’s voice wheezed between coughing bouts as the three of them stared at the blackened panels of cotton wool stacked on the floor in one corner, ready for the builders to fix to the walls.
Still coughing, they made their way out to find production staff, builders, carpenters, apprentices, as well as nameless other set hands gathered in front of the barn.
“It’s out.” Maddie raised a shaking hand to the crowd. They all talked over each other, creating a sense of chaos. “It was a small fire, but we’ll need to have it investigated.” Some of the set hands ran up to relieve them of the extinguishers.
Maddie handed hers to a young carpenter’s apprentice. “Thanks, Lyon.” She turned back to the girls. “Can someone call the fire department?”
“Already done it,” Cal, one of the carpenters, said.
Maddie lost sense of time in the commotion that followed. Countless questions rang out.
“Are you all right?”
“Have a drink of water.” Someone shoved a plastic bottle in her hand. Cristi and Sasha accepted theirs and drank down half the water in one draft, but Maddie was too shaken to do more than cradle the cold water bottle against her chest.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Someone else asked as Maddie pushed her way out of the circle of people around her.
“Yes.” She nodded, oppressed by the bodies closing in on her. “I’m fine.” The smell of smoke hung like fog in the air, causing people to cough.
Maddie’s throat tickled with the taste of it. What if the fire had started in the night when no one was around to notice until it was too late? The thought sent a shiver through her. Thank God they detected the fire quickly enough to prevent any real damage.
A fire truck pulled up and Lisa went to deal with them. Maddie watched a couple of fire fighters enter the barn. They were going to check the fire was dead, and the building safe.
She viewed all of this with a sense of detachment. If she lost any part of the job, she would lose everything. Her complete emotional existence belonged to each project they took on.
From a very young age, she knew her father had expectations of her becoming a yacht designer like him. Expected her to take his place as head of the company when he retired. When she was a toddler, he would sit her next to him at his design desk, give her a set of pencils, and teach her how to draw boats.
As the years when by, he encouraged her to practice drawing luxury yachts. He’d taught her about space and shape. Light and angles. Unfortunately, by the time she was ready to go to university she no longer looked forward to adding formal knowledge to the years of her father’s teachings.
Despite her desperate desire to please him, Maddie had discovered she liked old houses far more than she did expensive yachts.
She’d disappointed her father and put a crimp in her relationship with him for many years when she told him she was going to become a property developer instead of a yacht designer. It was only in the past couple of years that she and her father had become close again.
She dashed away tears of weakness and straightened her back. She couldn’t allow anything to go wrong with the career she’d chosen. Not when she’d fought so hard to prove she’d made the right choice.
Maddie remained standing near the barn in her workout clothes while the other staff dispersed. Since it was a small fire and the excitement was over, they seemed happy to get back to work. Maddie stared at the old barn until the fire fighters emerged.
Lisa fell into step with them. From this distance, Maddie couldn’t make out words but watched as Lisa nodded and turned in her direction when the men headed to the truck.
“The fire is dead. In fact, they said the mineral cotton had been effective in hampering the fire’s distribution.”
Praise God the flames hadn’t ignited something more flammable than the mineral cotton wool they were using for soundproofing.
Maddie nodded, brows tightened. “Did they say what caused it?”
“They seem to think it was deliberate.”
Maddie swung her head to meet Lisa’s concerned grey eyes. “Who would do that?”
She shrugged. “Kids pulling a prank? Everyone working here knows mineral cotton is a fire retardant.”
“How would children get on site without security noticing?”
“That, I’m going to find out.” Lisa gave Maddie’s arm a gentle squeeze. “You okay?”
She could only bring herself to nod again. “Are you? The baby?”
Lisa gave her a bright smile. “We’re fine.” She placed a hand on the gentle curve of her abdomen. “Come on, what do you say we find the girls and get a massage?”
She knew Lisa read her fear and was attempting to pull her mind off the incident, but she wanted to be alone for a while. “Go ahead, I’ll follow shortly.”
“Sure?”
Maddie hugged herself. Her insides still shook with adrenalin and the amazement of the project’s lucky escape. “Yeah.”
Lisa hesitated.
Maddie forced a smile to show her she needn’t worry.
Lisa nodded in resignation and headed toward the main house.
In the distance, work carried on as usual. Hammering echoed off the rolling hills, electric saws sliced through wood, people joked, a motorcycle kicked to life, and all Maddie could think was, by the grace of God they had escaped losing weeks of hard work—maybe even the entire restoration.
She moved toward the barn, needing to make sure the fire was indeed completely out. The fire fighters had assured Lisa it was safe, but she had to see for herself.
“Maddie!”
The urgent shout drew her attention in time to see a motorcycle speed over the small hill beside the barn. For a moment, she concluded the rider was heading toward the track next to her and turned back to the barn.
“Look out.”
The panicked warning registered a second before the motorcycle ploughed into her. Everything slowed. Her heart banged so loudly, it almost drowned out the horrified screams of her co-workers mixed with her own. Pain sliced through her body as the impact sent her careening through a newly cut down wall. Her stomach lurched sickly.
Somewhere in her slow-moving mind, she registered builder’s sheeting breaking her fall. She squeezed her eyes tight, relief short-lived as she slammed through the thick polythene sheeting and into a stack of scrap wood...
~*~
MADDIE FORCED her eyes open, blinked the faces hovering above her into focus. Something hard was beneath her, but she wasn’t in the barn, she was on the floor in the main house with the crew crowding around her.
“She’s awake.” Lisa’s ashen face leaned over her. “Maddie, can you hear me?”
Her voice intensified the pounding in Maddie’s head. Her body was one giant ache that seemed to radiate from her back. “What ... happened?”
“You had an accident. Apparently, security was chasing the kid they think may have started the fire. He tried to get away on a dirt bike and collided with you in his haste to outrun Ben and his guys.”
“Is ... he ... okay?” Sharp pain suffused her chest, stole her breath, and crowded her peripheral vision.
Lisa’s brows lowered as she reached for Maddie’s right hand, clasped it between her icy fingers. “We think so. He came off when he crashed into you, but managed to grab his bike and ride away before anyone got close enough to apprehend him.”
“I have ... I have ... to get ... up.” She couldn’t seem to take in enough breath to get the words out properly. Black spots swam before her eyes, nausea seesawed her insides.
She groaned and fell back against the padded material under her head. From her peripheral, she caught a glimpse of a fawn silk-covered throw cushion. One of the girls must have placed it on the floor to cushion her head.
“Don’t move,” Lisa said, stroking Maddie’s hair back from her face with one hand while she held onto Maddie’s hand with the other, her features strained as if she fought back tears.
A sniff brought Maddie’s attention to her other side where Sasha and Cristi knelt beside her, brows drawn, mouths pinched, faces drained of colour. Sasha held her left hand and Cristi sniffed again, wiping terrified tears from her face.
“Don’t move, Mad,” she echoed Lisa’s instructions, touching Maddie’s leg as if afraid she might break her. “You may have internal bleeding. You got hit pretty hard.”
Maddie dredged up what she hoped was a reassuring smile. Although from the pasty faces looking down on her and Cristi’s escalating sobs, she’d failed.
She let her eyes drift shut, too achy to continue to fight the dark oblivion beckoning to her.
“Maddie, stay with me,” Lisa tapped her cheek in a gentle call for attention. “We phoned for an ambulance. It should be here any moment.”
As if her words conjured it, an ambulance siren cut through the air a second before Maddie fell into the void awaiting her.
~*~
HE MISSED Maddie, and Zach didn’t like the sensation.
He’d spent three days in meetings with suppliers in Belgium and barely knew how they’d gone, purely because he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
To allow a woman to slip beneath his defences was asking for trouble. But had he ever had any defences when it came to Maddie? She made him want, and he hated the feeling. He had no problem with wanting her. It was all the other wants she made him yearn for. He wanted to be a better man because of her. Wanted to let himself love her. Wanted to spend his life trying to make her happy. Wanted to watch her body change as his baby grew inside her. He wanted so many things it made his heart ache to contemplate he would never have any of them with her.
Maddie would accept nothing less than love and that was the one thing he couldn’t give her. No matter how much he wished he could.
When his PA buzzed, Zach turned from staring out of the bank of tinted windows that overlooked the car park from his office. “There’s a production company on the line for you. A Lisa Aims on behalf of Maddison de la Botella.”
“Thanks, Felicity. Put her through.”
He pulled his hands out of his pockets as the fine hairs on the back of his neck prickled a warning. Zach glared at the black object sitting on his desk—a light blinking to indicate someone was on hold—with a sense of dread before he reached for it.
“Hi, Zach, it’s Lisa, Maddie’s friend. We met briefly a few weeks ago.”
“I remember. Is something wrong?”
“Maddie had an accident on set this morning. It’s all over the afternoon news and sounds worse than it is. She wanted me to phone you before you caught it on the television.”
Zach’s blood ran cold. A million horrific images flew to mind. Maddie worked with power tools and all kind of dangerous things in her job. He cleared the emotion constricting his throat. Emotion he didn’t want to examine, but ached in his chest.
“What happened?”
When Lisa didn’t immediately reply, Zach raised his voice as panic gripped him.
“What happened?”
“Someone set fire to the set then crashed into Maddie when they tried to get away.”
The thought of Maddie sustaining severe injury freaked him out. “How is she?”
“A few cuts and bruises. Slight concussion. They released her about an hour ago. We’re at her house now.”
Zach had never been so scared in his life. His hands shook, breath stalled in his chest. “I’ll be there shortly.” He threw the words into the phone and darted out of his office.
Maddie was fine. She had to be. He’d accept nothing less.