Chapter Twenty-Two
How good is good enough?
“TWENTY BUCKS says he’s armed with those Don’t Fall for the Good Enough Trap brochures I found at Ruby’s this morning,” Gina said late the next afternoon.
She and Maddie were sitting on a bowed park bench at the edge of a tract of land that used to house playground equipment and a walking track, waiting for Hunter Galloway. He’d accepted a date offer they’d issued under an assumed profile on MisterGoodEnough.com, and if the e-mails he’d sent every fifty minutes today were to be believed, he was about to be sorely disappointed in Daisy Schmumkins.
Maddie had just barely enough optimism left inside her that she nodded. “You’re on.” After all, somebody had to stand up for love. And Hunter was a perfect candidate for somebody’s Mr. Good Enough. “Does that mean you’re reconsidering ambushing him with the marshmallow gun?”
“This is the closest I’ll ever get to taking out zombies here. Can’t you let a girl have her moment?”
“I suppose I can do that for you.” Especially since Joe was the deputy most likely to respond if Gina went too far. He owed them one.
Or a few dozen.
Maddie clenched her cold fingers inside the sleeves of her sweatshirt and peered down the dirt track. When this had been a park, the grass was kept trimmed, the trees and bushes pruned, and the weeds pulled. But since funding disappeared three years ago, things had grown wild. Which worked out perfectly, since the overgrowth hid Maddie and Gina from view of the street parking.
They lapsed into a comfortable silence, and a few minutes later, Hunter came into view on the dirt track. Maddie and Gina rose as one, boxing him in against an old maple tree before his anticipatory smile had completely faded. His chest puffed out. His nostrils flared, and he put his hands on his hips. “Though she speaketh with the dulcet tone of an angel, she delivereth the message of Satan. I glory in your failures, as they are the Lord’s triumphs.”
Maddie stepped closer. “The Lord glories not in failure, but in the strength gained from the trial.”
“Glorify the Lord in all that you do. Let Him work through you, and you shall not fail.”
“How about this. Ten Commandments. Thou Shalt Not Steal. Might’ve run across that one a time or two?”
Hunter tugged at his collar. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Gina cocked her marshmallow gun. “Zombie, prepare to meet thy doom.”
“We know what you did.” Maddie was close enough now to see the beads of perspiration forming at his hairline. “What do you think God would say about that?”
“The Lord does not use common currency, but rather common courtesy.”
Gina fired a mini-marshmallow at Hunter’s arm. He straightened and clapped a hand where the marshmallow connected, shocked outrage written across his features. “Hey!”
“The next one’s going straight to your black heart,” she said. “Fess up, Galloway. Fess up, and give up.”
“What my partner’s trying to say,” Good Cop Maddie said, “is that we know you stole the MisterGoodEnough.com architecture and are taking kids’ money with it.”
Hunter’s chest puffed further, but he kept blinking as he protested, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Maddie held up a hand. “Don’t waste your breath. You didn’t cover your tracks very well. We know you hacked in and copied the back end, and we know the server hosting the junior version is yours. So what’s the goal, Hunter? Make a little money off something you keep protesting in public? Ruin Simon’s campaign with the rumor he’s behind it? Expand your operations and start corrupting grade-schoolers next?”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Hunter sagged against the tree, visibly shaking in the cool evening. Whatever it was, it must’ve been something big for him to drop the rhetoric. “The drama department’s budget is a joke and our ticket sales are worse. We can’t afford to do the bigger plays with the better costumes. The theater seats are uncomfortable, the lighting’s outdated, and here you are raking in money just for yourselves with a horrible idea about selling yourself short.”
Gina cocked her gun. “You signed up.”
“Yeah, well, look at me.” He swiped a hand over his face. “You two have a shot. All I know is God loves me.”
“Well, if you weren’t such a douche bag—”
Maddie cleared her throat and jabbed Gina in the side. “What my partner’s trying to say is that we understand wanting to make the drama department better, but your method sucks golf balls. Tell you what. You go ahead and use whatever money you’ve made off the high school kids to improve the drama department. We won’t even tell people you’re using our service. In return, you shut down the Web site and withdraw from the mayoral race.”
“Doesn’t matter. Even if I had enough for parts, I can’t afford labor. And the school board would have a fit if I suggested that any of the students got on a ladder to work on the lights.”
Maddie had to blink against a sudden sting in her eyes. Trent would do it in a heartbeat if she asked him.
Probably best if she stayed out of it though. “I suspect that’ll work itself out,” she murmured.
Gina stomped a foot. “That’s it? We’re not going to pummel him?”
Hunter sighed. He spread his arms. “Go ahead. The Lord says I deserve it.”
“Shit.” Gina holstered her gun back in her utility belt between two cans of Dr Pepper. “You just took all the fun out of this.”
“The Lord hath blessed us all with many talents. You’ve found but one of mine.”
Gina stuck up two fingers, pointed at her own eyes, then Hunter’s. “You win this round, but I’ve got my eyes on you. Web site down and campaign dropped tomorrow, or I’m going zombie-slayer on your ass.”
Hunter wiped his forehead. “Consider it done.”
Gina linked an arm through Maddie’s as they walked away. “Victory’s not as sweet when I go home with a loaded gun.”
“Can’t win ’em all.”
But Maddie was winning. Gina was happier staying now, Hunter would be out of the race soon, Mad Designs was picking back up, and Mark was quite possibly the best Mr. Good Enough Maddie could’ve found on the Internet.
She really couldn’t ask for more.
SATURDAY MORNING, Trent came downstairs and found the reverend sitting at the table, drinking his morning coffee and reading the newspaper. “’Morning,” he said without looking up.
“’Morning,” Trent replied. It’d been a few days since he’d seen his hosts. Usually he was up and gone with the sun, out working on the various jobs he’d picked up for himself and Harry around town, keeping himself as busy as possible. He appreciated a bed to sleep in, but he didn’t want to intrude too much, and he couldn’t look at Maddie’s parents without thinking about her.
God, he missed her.
He headed for the coffeepot. Behind him, he heard a page turn.
“Heard you made an offer on the Smiths’ old house over on Jefferson,” the reverend said.
“Their kids accepted it last night.” It was a rundown Victorian house, the same one he’d suggested that Maddie look at, that day in the bathroom. He’d heard at Ruby’s yesterday that she had a second date with the Monical’s loser.
He hoped the guy was as bad the second time around as he had been the first, because no doubt, Maddie hadn’t had a good date. She’d looked too sad at Simon’s house to have enjoyed herself.
It just about killed him that she wasn’t happy.
“Lots of walls to paint in that one,” the reverend said.
Trent took a seat across from him and pretended he didn’t understand the implication. “Gotta fortify ’em first. She’s in rough shape.”
“That she is.”
Trent eyed him. Were they talking about the house, or Maddie?
“Nice to see that you’re settling down here.” The reverend winced, then rubbed at his chest.
“You okay, Reverend?”
“Heartburn.” He leaned back in his seat and studied Trent carefully. “She’s not as tough as she looks.”
Definitely Maddie. Trent sighed. “I know.” He’d bet that jackass who took her to the movies last night didn’t. Bastard better not’ve made a move.
The reverend winced again. He set down his coffee mug with a shaky hand and wiped his brow. “She’s had a tough go of it with her boyfriends. She could use somebody who puts her first for a change.” He clutched a hand to his heart.
“Reverend? You sure you’re okay?”
Maddie’s dad looked at him for a panicked second, then his eyes rolled back into his head, and he fell out of his chair.
Trent sat stunned before instinct propelled him out of his own chair. He darted across the table and dropped to the ground next to the reverend. He wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing. “Doc!” Trent hollered. He pushed a chair out of the way to make more room. “Doc, are you here?”
He felt for a pulse but couldn’t find it. “Don’t do this, Reverend,” he said. “Stay with me.” He fumbled for his phone with shaking hands. What would he tell Maddie? And her mom? And her brothers? He still couldn’t find a pulse. “Come on, Reverend. Hang in there.”
He hit 9-1-1 on his phone, started what he remembered of CPR, and then he prayed harder than he had for anything else in his life.
MADDIE SAT staring at the not-quite-right mural on her living room walls. The lack of good sunlight in the room was making her irritable.
Her date last night had gone well enough, but she started her period this morning, flushing another egg down the toilet. If she didn’t paint something, she would go crazy. Unfortunately, she couldn’t figure out what the wall was missing.
Every time she looked at the cornflowers she’d painted in clumps along the beach, the sadness bubbled up again. Maybe the cornflowers should go.
If Mark sent her some, maybe it would be okay, but she suspected Mark wouldn’t waste money on unique flowers or special purple paint. He was pretty practical.
An excellent quality in a father.
Mark was a perfect candidate. She’d made up her mind. Tonight, after he took her to a bistro for dinner, she’d bring him back here. To…do it.
Her heart thudded to the ground and flopped around like a dead fish, but before she had time to think about that, as if she even wanted to, somebody banged on her front door.
“Maddie,” Parker hollered. “Mad, get out here. Now.”
Excellent. Now she could deal with someone else’s problems.
He banged on the door again as she reached for the door handle. “I’m here.” She swung the door open. “What’s up?”
His face was pale, his eyes wide. His chest heaved like he’d run all the way from his place to reach her. She stepped back into her house.
If she pretended she hadn’t answered, he couldn’t deliver the bad news.
But Parker stuck a foot in the door. “It’s Dad.” His voice cracked, then seemed to get farther and farther away. “Heart attack. He’s in surgery. Come on.”
She shook her head, barely aware of anything but being pulling her out the door. Her entire body went numb as everything narrowed in her mind to one tiny thought.
She was too late.
Too late for kids, too late to show her dad she had something more to give to the world.
Too late to say she was sorry.
Everything after that passed in some kind of uneven time warp. She stumbled over the new grass just beginning its life cycle, then Parker was shoving her up into his car. Had she locked her front door? Made the bed?
Who cared?
The drive to the hospital took forever. Neither of them said much. At some point, Parker handed her a box of Kleenex. She hadn’t noticed her face was wet and her nose was dripping.
How would she show her kids how great their grandpa had been?
Happy thoughts, she told herself. Her dad needed happy thoughts.
Instead, she kept replaying that moment she’d last seen him.
Over. And over. And over.
After an eternity, Parker whipped the car into a parking spot outside the hospital. Simon met them at the front door. “Connor’s on his way.”
Parker took her hand and squeezed, but Maddie barely felt it. “Time to buck up, Mad,” he said. “Dad needs you to be strong right now. For Mom’s sake.”
“I don’t know if I can,” she whispered.
Simon was halfway through the door, but he turned back to pull her into a massive bear hug. “If you can’t do it for Mom, do it for Connor. He’s such a baby.”
Maddie choked on a laugh amidst her tears. “Stop it.”
Parker nudged her forward. “Poor kid has a hard enough time getting dates. You know what it’s gonna do to him when the security tapes from the hospital hit YouTube?”
Some of the tension in her chest eased. If her brothers could make jokes, then everything would be okay.
“Atta girl,” Simon said. He ruffled her hair. “Anyone ever tell you you’re ugly when you cry?”
She’d happily be ugly forever if it could make her dad okay.
They found their mom in the surgical waiting room. Her mouth drooped, dark circles swam under her eyes, and worry lines creased her forehead. She hugged each of them, but kept glancing toward the door next to the nurses’ station. “He’s in the hands of the best we have,” she said. “All we can do now is pray and wait.”
They all settled in to the hard, squeaky chairs.
“Where’s Trent?” Simon asked.
“He stepped out for some air,” their mom said.
Trent was here? Maddie squeezed her armrests. She didn’t want to ask. She shouldn’t ask.
She wanted him there with her.
A fresh wave of tears threatened to spill down her cheeks. She tucked her legs up and huddled into herself, biting her lip to keep the question from spilling out. He hated hospitals. Had he come in case Maddie needed him?
“He was there,” Parker said quietly beside her. “Did CPR until the medics showed up. Didn’t know if you cared.”
So he hadn’t come for Maddie. But he’d still given her paint and VW vans and cornflowers and maybe even her father’s life. How could a man so perfect not want to bring more of himself into the world? She swiped at her eyes. “That was nice of him.”
“Mad—”
“I just remembered.” She jumped up. “I should call Mark. He’ll want to know. I’ll be right back.”
As she headed for the elevators, she told herself that wave of relief had nothing to do with making an excuse to not see Mark today, and everything to do with getting rid of any unnecessary distractions when she needed to concentrate on her family. Because Mark was exactly what she wanted.
He just wasn’t what she needed today.
TRENT SAT on the ground, his back against the hospital wall, eyes closed against the cornflower blue sky, and breathed in the fresh air. He’d gone almost all the way around the damn building before he found a place that didn’t smell like smoke or antiseptic, and he wasn’t ready to get up yet. Soon, he’d go in to check on the reverend.
But he needed a few more minutes first.
The doc had told him to go home, that she’d call him with updates. She seemed to get that he didn’t want to wait there, surrounded by the odor of death and sickness and anxiety, while one more person who’d become important to him hovered on the precipice between the world they knew and the world the reverend believed in.
He liked the doc. Had a lot of respect for the reverend, appreciated their sons. But he didn’t care enough about any of them to stick around the hospital for them.
He was staying here for Maddie, because he’d do anything in his power to make this easier for her.
Until he figured out what that was, he’d stick close by and get his shit together.
He sucked in another lungful of fresh air. All the adrenaline that had gotten him here seemed to have deserted him. His old basketball injury was making his finger ache, and the wind nipped at his bare arms and face.
Would’ve been a great day to open all the windows in that house on Jefferson and watch Maddie take a paintbrush to the walls.
“Hi,” she suddenly said beside him.
His eyes flew open, and he jumped up. But she wasn’t there. As he spun in a circle, she spoke again. “Um, about that. I can’t make it tonight. M—my dad had a heart attack this morning.”
Trent froze. She wasn’t looking for him. She was talking to the jackass she was pretending to be in love with.
He’d thought he was out of adrenaline.
Apparently he was wrong.
He shoved his fists in his pockets to stop them from shaking, and he clenched his jaw shut. He wanted her to be happy. He wanted her to be happy with him, but since that clearly wasn’t possible, he’d settle for her being happy.
“No, no,” she said. “It’s okay. My family’s all here, and the room’s kinda small, and half of my dad’s congregation will probably show up at some point. Plus all the hospital staff who’re gonna keep checking in because of my mom, and it’s going to be a crazy day. Really crazy. But I’ll call you. Sometime. When I can. I can’t use my cell in the hospital. Reception and my mom and all that.”
Trent wanted to punch the wall.
Instead, he forced himself to take one controlled step after another until he rounded the corner of the building.
Maddie was leaning against a pillar under the entrance overhang, rubbing her temples and kicking at a spot on the sidewalk while she nodded into the phone. “Of course we can try again next weekend. I’d love to meet her. But I should go. My family’s inside, and we don’t know how long it’ll be before we hear something.”
She straightened, and her eyes locked on his. Her chin trembled, and a visible shudder went through her body.
“I’ve gotta go,” she said into the phone.
She disconnected, then fumbled with it as she tried to shove it into the pocket of her flannel pants. Her chest heaved beneath her ISU T-shirt, and her eyes were unnaturally bright.
He wanted to wrap her in a hug and promise her everything she wanted, but he couldn’t follow through, and he knew it.
She finally succeeded in storing the phone. “That was my b—boyfriend,” she stammered.
The day Andi died, Trent had wished it was him instead. Watching Maddie throw her life away, throw him away, put today right up there with it. Andi hadn’t had a choice. Maddie did.
It would’ve been easier if he’d been angry with her. Instead, he couldn’t muster anything beyond misery. Five little words was all it would take. I’ll have kids with you. But he couldn’t lie to her. Even if she couldn’t see right through him, he’d gained too much respect for himself the past couple of weeks to lie to a woman he loved again.
She fidgeted with the strings on her pants. “I heard what you did for my dad. Thank you.”
He stepped toward her. Pain distorted her expression, and he stopped. He wanted to help, not make it worse.
“I just don’t understand,” she said, her voice cracking in time with his heart.
“Aw, Mad.”
In two more steps, he was at her side. She wasn’t supposed to hurt. She was supposed to stare down the pain, roll her eyes at it and crack inappropriate jokes. Make it go away by sheer will. It’s what she’d done for him.
He couldn’t find the humor in any of this today, but he tucked her against him and rubbed his cheek over her crazy hair. “He’s gonna be okay.” God, he hoped the reverend would be okay.
“No, I don’t understand you.” Her words were muffled in his shirt, but she had the fabric in a death grip as if she were afraid she’d sink down to the pits of hell if she let go. “How can you make my world so much better and not want to share that with all humankind?
She pulled back, then grabbed his face, alternately glaring at him and gazing at him with utter adoration. “You’re strong and healthy and beautiful. You save lives, you pay attention to what makes people happy, you fix what’s broken. You make mistakes, but then you make up for making them. How can you possibly think your genes are broken? Why can’t you understand how amazing your children would be if they had good parents, after all that you’ve done despite having bad parents?”
He stepped away. Knowing her, loving her, it wasn’t enough. He’d never be everything she wanted him to be.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
No, he was sorry. Worse, he was empty.
Emptier than when Ella kicked him out, emptier than when he heard the news about Linda, about his mom, emptier than when Andi died. She didn’t want him. She didn’t need him. Fact was, she’d never needed him like he needed her. She may hurt today, she may appear delicate and fragile, but she was stronger than he was, and she always had been.
So it didn’t matter that he loved her. It didn’t matter that he knew he was better for her than any of the ignorant hicks around here.
He couldn’t give her kids, and if that was the condition of her loving him back, then despite the searing pain ripping through his entire being, he needed to walk away before he began to grasp what the reverend meant about that line between love and hate.
“I’m sorry,” Maddie whispered again, and then she was gone.
He figured it was about time he got gone too.
TRENT HAD just tossed his last bag into his truck when he caught sight of the flashing lights at the curb. He slammed the door shut. “Are you kidding me?” he muttered.
This was one craptastic day. It was like reliving his life in Atlanta crumbling all over again, except worse. Arms crossed, he slumped against his truck and waited.
Deputy Joe swaggered up to him. “Heading somewhere?”
Trent wasn’t in the mood for small talk. “What’s the problem this time?”
Joe shrugged. “Mostly that you’re an asshole.”
“Don’t think that one would hold up in court.” Trent’s finger was aching again.
“Heard you saved Reverend Mason’s life this morning.”
Trent grunted.
“Heard you been paying Harry Green out of your own pocket for all that work he’s been doing with you too.”
“It’s on the books.”
“Yeah, you cover your ass pretty good. Suppose it probably is somewhere.” Deputy Joe tipped his hat back and scratched his forehead. “I’m having this problem understanding it all though. What I hear, you’re working for nothing yourself, sometimes less than that. Used that running for mayor stint to look for charity work to do, then passed on everybody’s complaints to Simon for him to use in his own campaign.”
“Any of that illegal?” Trent wanted to jump in the truck and get the hell out of Deputy Joe’s jurisdiction. But he’d probably end up with a bullet in his tire and a trip to the county jail for fleeing whatever the hell this was, so he gritted his teeth and waited.
“Nope, but it sure as hell isn’t what I expect out of an asshole.”
Trent eyed him warily.
Joe shrugged. “Been wrong before. Probably be wrong again. But it seems you’re all right after all.”
“Thanks. Get lost. I got somewhere to be.”
Joe’s eyes flicked down. “Thought you’d be with the family.”
“Is it a crime that I’m not?”
“It’s a real mean thing to do to Maddie. God only knows why she cares about you, but she does. Always has. And now she needs you, and you’re packing out of her parents’ house and running away.”
Trent flinched. “She doesn’t want me.”
The deputy chuckled. “Ah, irony. What happened? She tell you she’d rather fuck one of her brothers?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Trent had a vague idea, but it’d been a long morning. Easier to deck the guy than deal with it, but the bastard had a gun.
“You lose your cousin, you take it out on her. She almost loses her father, she takes it out on you. You two are quite a pair.”
Trent slouched lower. The prick didn’t know the half of it.
“Leave, don’t leave, don’t matter to me,” Joe said with a shrug. “If you really care about her though, you better man up and do something about it before some other guy beats you to it.”
Some other dickhead already had.
“Never thought I’d say this, but stick around another couple of days. Got a feeling you might be useful after all.” Deputy Joe tipped his hat. “Later, Sawyer.”
Wouldn’t be late enough.