The all-caps text message that Madeline received from her boss back at corporate may as well have been tattooed to the back of her eyelids.
WESTERFIELD HAS BROKEN THE CONTRACT. WHERE ARE YOU?
Where had she been when they’d called her a dozen times and sent no fewer than six emails? She’d been staring moony-eyed at a sweet-talking cowboy with a lazy smile and way-too-kissable lips. She’d been a million miles away indulging a fantasy that she knew was off-limits.
The whole ride home, she cursed the decision to ride horseback, wishing she could spur the horse into a gallop, but too damn afraid to despite the dire circumstances. It was almost two hours before she reached the office and learned exactly what had happened.
How had she missed the signs? How had she not seen that Westerfield was getting cold feet about giving up his life’s work to a cold corporate entity thousands of miles away? She’d worked hard for weeks, for God’s sake! She’d been so damn cocky that she had everything under control, but really Westerfield was just humoring her, all the while quietly undermining the entire deal.
Her day was utterly hellacious after that. Call after call, dozens of pages of legal documents, months of work raked over with a fine-tooth comb. There was nothing anyone could find that showed that she had done something wrong, and yet…
The buck stopped with her.
She’d failed to see the merger through to completion. It didn’t matter that Westerfield had exploited a loophole that the legal team should have buttoned up in the contract. It didn’t matter that that particular part of the deal had been worked on prior to her taking over. She was the acquisitions manager, and she had somehow managed to unaquire the one project she was in charge of.
It was after nine when she finally dragged herself home, numb and hollow. She felt she’d hardly slept ten minutes when her phone rang the next morning. The red letters of her clock read seven twenty-one as she jerked upright and grabbed it before it went to voicemail. She grimaced when she saw her boss’s name flash across the screen. Straightening her shoulders in an effort to shake off her exhaustion, she accepted the call and pressed the phone to her ear. “This is Madeline.”
“Madeline, it’s Franklin. Sorry to call so early on a Sunday morning, but I wanted to catch you before you went in.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” she said, trying to smooth the sleep-roughened quality of her voice.
“Listen, the company has accepted that this is a total loss situation, and, well, I don’t want to drag this out for you.”
It wasn’t an unexpected call. The company wouldn’t want to waste another dollar by having her remain down here in Texas when the deal was dead. “I understand completely, sir. I can be back at corporate by Wednesday.”
It would be brutal, packing up and driving all the way back in less than three days, but she wasn’t about to appear lax after this whole disaster. She had a feeling she was going to be making up for this black mark on her record for years to come.
There was a beat of silence on the other end that made the hair at the back of her neck stand on end. In those two seconds, dread washed over her.
“The point is,” Franklin said hesitantly, “I’m afraid your current position has been made redundant with this deal falling through.”
She blinked, trying to digest the words. “I…I see. Well, that makes sense, I suppose. If the company feels I should step down to my old assistant position again, I will of course do so.”
A demotion was almost unthinkable, but she could work her way back up eventually. The promotion had been practically a fluke, anyway. It would be a bitter blow to her pride, but she could handle it.
She closed her eyes, trying not to think of her parents’ reaction to the news.
“No, Madeline. The thing is, the CFO’s nephew has settled in rather well in your old position. Mr. Kennedy intends for Jeremy to continue.” He paused, and she could almost hear him swallow. “I regret to inform you that with the company’s changing needs, we are going to have to let you go.”
It took less than three hours to pack up her things in her rental house. She’d never intended to stay for very long, after all—so much of her stuff was still in storage in New York. On Monday, she called the moving company and scheduled a time for them to pick everything up, informed the property management company of her intention to break the lease, and got in touch with the receptionist to meet her at the office before heading in.
She didn’t want to see Laurie Beth, or Westerfield, or any of the people she had worked with. She was an utter failure, and the thought of seeing the pity in their eyes was too much to bear. Mrs. McLeroy was the only one she could think of who would be professional and somewhat discreet. She was also the only one who’d never given her a knowing glance when it came to Tanner.
Tanner.
She couldn’t even think about him right now. Her heart was already fractured—she didn’t need the added stress of dealing with him. She’d been so stupid to get caught up with him in the first place. What had she thought would happen? That she could have a fling with a local while biding her time here? She’d let herself get carried away when she should have been 100 percent focused on her work.
It didn’t matter now. She’d continue to ignore his texts until she was safe and sound back in New York. Then she’d send a note apologizing for the delay, and wishing him a nice life.
“Well, I hate to see you go, Ms. Harper,” Mrs. McLeroy said with a kind smile as Madeline handed over her keys. “You may have felt like a square peg in a round hole at first, but I think we were just startin’ to smooth out your corners.”
Having no idea how to respond to that, Madeline just smiled politely. “Thank you, Mrs. McLeroy. And thank you again for agreeing to meet the movers later this week for me. That’s a weight off my shoulders.”
After nodding her good-bye, Madeline hoisted the last box and trudged out to the door, an odd reluctance settling in her chest. The last thing she expected to see as she headed to her car was Tanner leaning against her driver-side door, arms crossed and blue eyes thunderous.
She was too tired for this. Overwrought. Taking a fortifying breath, she nodded coolly before taking the box around to her passenger door and wedging it into the front seat. The rest of the car was already so full she might as well have had a brick wall in the back seat.
“Planning to leave without saying good-bye?” he said tightly, his voice accusing.
“I’ve got a lot on my mind. I was going to text you later.” Too curious not to ask, she added, “How did you know I was here?”
“My buddy, Mack McLeroy, thought I might like to know his mother had headed to the office straight from church yesterday to help tie up some loose ends before you headed out of town.” He shook his head, his eyes pinning her in place. “Heading back to your beloved New York without a word, huh?”
She came around to the driver’s side, forced to confront him in order to get into her car. She didn’t want to meet his eyes, to face the conversation coming, but there was no way to avoid it. “Yep,” she said, purposely flippant. “Since I no longer have a job, I need to get back ASAP to start the job search.”
His iciness gave way to something way too close to sympathy as he took a step toward her. “Aw, hell, Maddie—they fired you? That’s ridiculous!” He sounded as outraged as she felt, not that it would do her a bit of good.
“They didn’t so much fire me as declare my position redundant. Happens every day in corporate America,” she said, with a shrug that didn’t even begin to scratch the surface of her emotions on the issue.
She reached for the door handle, but he grabbed her hand, stopping her. “Then what’s the hurry? If you aren’t rushing back to a damn fool company that doesn’t know a good thing when it has it, why not take a few days to figure things out?”
Closing her eyes against the familiar comfort of his hand on hers, she tugged away and backed up a step. “What’s there to figure out?” she said briskly, steeling herself against the hurt in his eyes. “I need to get home so I can dive into the job market again. I have an excellent resume, and there are hundreds of jobs in the city that I’d be qualified for.”
He shook his head. “But is that what you really want? Another job you don’t care about at a nameless company that could just as easily sack you as keep you?”
She stiffened, angry that he managed to tap into the exact fear that had been rolling around inside her head all night. “I’m an excellent worker, thank you. My skill set is highly marketable, and I intend to use those skills to climb my way back up.” This was a temporary bump in the road; she wouldn’t let it derail her lifelong plans.
Blowing out a breath, Tanner ran a hand through his already mussed hair. “Damn it, I didn’t mean to imply you weren’t a stellar worker. But what do you really want to do with your life? Where is your passion?”
She shook her head, running away from the question. “I want success. A good nest egg. We talked about this already.” Any doubts she had about the truth of that were merely because she was upset. It was natural, really. What person wouldn’t be stung by the events of the last twenty-four hours?
“Maddie,” he said softly, stepping forward and sliding his hands over her arms, “it doesn’t have to be like that. You could stay, you know. Grandma Letty sure likes having you around, after all. I don’t think your company’s half bad, either,” he teased gently.
No, she couldn’t do this. She’d allowed herself to be distracted by him too much already, and look where that had gotten her. If she was going to succeed in piecing her life back together, she needed to focus. She’d already proven that when he was around, she couldn’t even think straight.
Stepping backward very deliberately, she raised her chin and looked him in the eye. “My name is Madeline, not Maddie. And while it’s been…different living here, I have to get back to my real life.”
Even as she said the words, her heart ached fiercely, but she refused to back down. When she got home, everything would feel normal again.
He stared back at her, and for a moment, she thought he might argue. But then his lips pressed together and he nodded, stepping out of her way. “Well, Madeline, far be it from me to get in the way of your ‘real life.’ I sure hope you find what you’re looking for.”
With a tip of his hat, he turned and walked back to his truck, his boots tapping a crisp beat on the asphalt. Drawing a slow, steadying breath, she opened her door and slid into the soft leather driver seat. She started the car, backed out of the parking slot, and eventually turned east onto the highway. As the rolling hills of Sunnybell gradually receded in her rearview mirror, she focused only on the road ahead.
Soon she’d be home, and this too-quiet place and all the nosy people in it would be little more than a memory.