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Madeline watched Sam walking away, her heart twisting like a vine caught against a tree. “Evan, this is a bad time.”
“No. Good time. Need to see you.”
His drunk voice.
She thought of what Sam had just told her about his dad being a bad drunk. She should know. She’d lived with Evan for years and tried to keep his alcoholism under wraps.
But she was done with enabling him. “I don’t want to see you. I’ll send you a check with the new rent amount after the wedding.”
“Wedding. I’ll be there. Want a dance.”
“Don’t come. Where are you anyway?”
“Worm Bucket.”
Madeline closed her eyes and prayed he hadn’t driven himself to that hole-in-the-wall bar. “Are you with someone?”
“No. Deidre went shopping in Shreveport. Spending my money.”
“Did you drive?”
“Don’t remember. Maybe.”
Madeline couldn’t believe what she said next, but she wouldn’t sleep a wink with Evan out on the roads drunk. “I’m coming to get you.” Like she’d done so many times before.
“Good. You can take me home. To our house.”
She hung up and stared out into the night. “We don’t have a house anymore, Evan.”
The Worm Bucket looked more like a barn than a bar, all weathered and rickety and steeped in the grease of a thousand chicken wings. It sat near the Swamp House Cabins, which made it convenient for all the hunters and fishermen who spent their weekends in the woods and on the river to walk around the corner for a drink or two. Or three.
Madeline pulled her car up and left it off to the side. Not sure why she was here, she should have called someone else to go and pick up her ex-husband. But her parents didn’t know that Evan had a nasty drinking problem, and she wasn’t going to tell them about that or his philandering ways, either. He’d promised he’d get cleaned up but he never had.
He’d ranted to her in private during their divorce and blamed her for all his troubles, and then had turned around and begged her to take him back while he acted like a perfect gentleman in public. But she’d given the marriage her best and she’d failed. Let everyone believe the worst of her. She didn’t care anymore.
He’d failed at getting help and once they were apart, he had no choice but to move since he no longer had her to shield him. She’d put good people in place to run his real estate and rental businesses. That had saved them. And because of that, she’d had certain stipulations put in the divorce papers about leaving those people in place. Madeline had walked away with money from the sale of their house and her clothes, but she’d saved a valid company from shutting down and she’d saved jobs that people needed.
Now Evan was making a steady income on the rental property, including the building she leased. And yet, he’d raised the rent. She should tell him to take his rent and shove it.
Instead, here she sat at a dive bar, afraid he’d kill himself or someone else if he drove away. She’d get him back to wherever he was staying, and that would be that.
Madeline got out and hurried toward the door of the bar.
Looking back at her car, she hit her key fob to lock it.
And turned and bumped right smack into Sam.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, surprised.
Madeline didn’t know how to explain. He must have walked over from his cabin. “I ... uh ....”
“Maddie!”
She and Sam both whirled at that slurred shout. Evan came stumbling toward them and then wrapped Madeline in a bear hug. “Baby, I’ve missed you. Thanks for coming.”
Sam’s expression darkened to a murderous shade of gray.
“You came here to see him?”
Madeline shook her head. “I ... he ... needed a ride.”
Sam’s expression tightened into a hard-edged glare of regret. “I get it.” Without a word, he pivoted and stalked back toward his cabin.
“Sam, wait,” Madeline said. “It’s not—.”
“Who’s that?” Evan said. “You been messing around on me?”
“I’m not with you anymore,” Madeline said, gritting her teeth to keep from crying. “I only came to drive you home.” When she saw his keys dangling in his fingers, she grabbed them and held them away. “You’re too drunk to get behind the wheel, Evan. It’s too dangerous.”
Evan snorted. “Just like old times. Sorry, but that won’t work. I need to be with you, Madeline. And you came because you feel the same.”
He shoved her toward an old bench, his whiskey breath reeking. “Miss you.”
“No, Evan. What about Deidre?”
“Dee Dee? She gets me. You never did. But ... I still can make you see reason. Dee Dee won’t have to know.”
He tried to kiss her, but Madeline turned away, her eyes closed. “Stop it. Let me up.”
She shoved him away so she could stand, but Evan was too blitzed to understand. He held her, his fingers digging into her arm.
“Now, baby, remember how good it used to be—.”
A swish of sound surrounded Madeline. Evan seemed to disappear into thin air. She opened her eyes and heard the thud of a fist hitting flesh.
Sam!
He held Evan out with one hand on his arm and slammed him with a quick but efficient upper-cut that sent Evan sprawling onto the gravel. “The lady said to stop.”
Evan rubbed at his bleeding bottom lip and then held up a finger toward Madeline. “She’s my wife.”
“Not anymore,” Sam said, taking Madeline by the hand. “Get out of here.”
“He can’t drive,” Madeline said, still shocked. “I only came to get him home safely.” She still had Evan’s car keys in her hand.
Sam pulled out his cell and made a call and then pushed her toward his cabin. “The local sheriff will take care of him.”
Madeline didn’t know what to say. Humiliation and a delayed reaction caught up with her. Evan would be furious if he got thrown into jail. “Sam, let me go.”
Sam stopped at the steps leading up to his cabin. “Back to him? No. I’ve tried to stay out this but it’s wrong. You and I might not mean anything to each other, but if you go back to that drunken idiot, then you are not the woman I believed you were.”
Madeline wanted to shake him and make him understand. “I’m not going back to him. I never was. He’s a closet drunk and I’ve kept his secrets for him long enough. I don’t want Evan.”
She wanted Sam. She’d wanted to be with Sam from the minute she’d seen him. It had started out as some rash need and now it had developed into a real hope. That realization left her weak.
She tried to catch her breath, tried to stand still. But she stumbled. “I should ... get out of here.”
Sam didn’t say a word. Instead, he lifted her up into his arms and carried her into the cabin and shut the door behind him with one booted foot.
“You’re safe here, Maddie,” he said before he deposited her onto a nearby chair. “But if you want to leave, go.”
She didn’t want to leave. She just didn’t know what to do about having a man like Sam in her life. This had been all fun and games until he’d taken her heart.
“Can I sit here for a minute?” she asked, her mind whirling like a dirt devil. “Can we maybe talk about this?”
He sat down on the bed and ran his hand through his hair. “Talk? Yeah. But I want the truth, Maddie.”