Chapter Twenty

“Do you really think defacing public property is the way to my sister’s heart?” Grant shouted. “I mean, you two seemed to hit it off, but as her brother, this is not the tactic I would’ve recommended.”

Emmett clung to the rickety metal ladder he was climbing, looking down at Grant and realizing he was only six feet off the ground. “I brought you with me so you can call an ambulance if I fall,” he said. “Not for your opinion.”

“Okay,” Grant said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Of course, it’s not dangerous to buy jewelry or flowers. That’s what most guys would’ve done.”

“What did you do to win Pepper back?” Emmett challenged.

“I pulled her from a burning building and saved her life. Flowers would’ve been less dangerous, though, and probably just as effective if I’d given them to her before her house burned down. What gave you the idea to do this anyway?”

Emmett climbed up two more rungs. “When we had to repaint the water tower, she told me that she’d never had a boy declare his love for her up here. I know it sounds stupid, but that’s what I want to do. I want the whole town to know how I feel about Maddie.”

“But you’re afraid of heights.”

Emmett climbed another rung with a white-knuckled grip. “I am very aware of that. That’s what makes the gesture extra special.”

“What am I supposed to tell the cops if they come by?”

“Tell them they can arrest me when I get back down. Now, hush, so I can get up here and get this done.”

Focusing on each rung, Emmett climbed higher and higher. Last time, he told himself that if he survived climbing this thing, he’d never come up here ever again. And here he was, four weeks later, with a backpack of spray paint. He was too high to look down or talk to Grant any longer. All he could do was keep going and eventually he’d reach the top.

He breathed a sigh of relief once he spied the metal platform. Climbing onto it, he stepped away from the ladder and circled the tower looking for the right spot. He had to focus and not look around, or he’d start panicking and never get this done.

The water tower was visible from the bakery’s front window. If he planned this right, Maddie would be able to see it at the shop. He’d given Gertie twenty bucks to watch for it and make sure Maddie saw it before she left for the day. Grant had been right, jewelry and flowers were good, and he had flowers at the ready, but he needed the water tower to lure her here so he could give them to her.

Emmett slipped out of his backpack and pulled out two cans of hot-pink spray paint. The shade was a little darker than the one she used at the bakery, but a pastel wouldn’t show up as well from a distance. He wanted everyone to see this.

Shaking a can, he pulled off the lid and started. It took him a few sprays to get the right distance so it didn’t drip but had a solid line. It wasn’t as easy as he thought. For what it was worth, Clark had done a decent job. His paintings were vulgar, but they were well done.

By the time he finished his name, he had it figured out. Below it, he wrote the word “Loves” with a heart for the “o.” Then he finished with Maddie’s name. It was a sizable declaration, the letters tall and bold to stand out against the white background. His handwriting was never the greatest, and this close it was hard to tell, but he thought it looked pretty good. For romantic vandalism, at the least.

Emmett slipped the paint back into his bag and pulled his phone out. He texted Gertie to let her know he was done, and then waited to see what would happen next.

“Ugh. I was going to use my coupon to get a cookie, but I’ve changed my mind. I’m not eating anything Gertie the Ghost touched.”

Maddie had been in the midst of washing pans when the snotty voice from the front of the shop caught her attention. She dropped one back into the water and dried her hands off on a towel. She went out to the front of the shop, where she found Gertie standing by the register, looking even more pale than usual. Three other teenage girls were huddling in front of the bakery case, snickering. They all straightened up when they saw Maddie.

“Can I help you?” she asked them in a sharp tone.

The brunette ringleader of the group piped up. “I’d like a white-chocolate-raspberry-cheesecake bar,” she said, thrusting out her coupon.

That’s when Maddie recognized her. She was Principal Everett’s daughter. No wonder she thought she could get away with anything. Well, not in her bakery. She wasn’t letting anyone mistreat Gertie in her presence. “We’re out of those,” she said.

The Everett girl looked down at the case and frowned. “I see them right there.”

“I’m sorry, I misspoke. I’m not selling you one. Actually, I’m not selling you or any of your little cronies a single thing.”

The girl’s eyes grew wide with surprise. “Excuse me?”

If Maddie had addressed a grown-up with that attitude at her age, her mama would’ve smacked the smirk right off her face. No “please,” no “ma’am.” “You all get out of this shop and I don’t want to see you in here again until you’ve apologized to Gertie and mean it.”

“Come on, Kasey. Let’s just go,” one of the other girls said.

“No,” Kasey said, her arms folded across her chest. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

Maddie smiled sweetly, taking a step forward that caused the other girls to step back. “You’re right. I can’t tell you what to do. But your mama can. I can’t wait to tell her how disrespectful you’ve been today to me and my employee. Do you think you’re going to get to go to the Christmas formal when she finds out what an absolute brat you’ve been in my shop?”

For the first time, there was a flicker of fear in Kasey’s eyes. Maddie wasn’t a fool. The Christmas formal was a huge deal for the kids in Rosewood, especially for a popular little princess like Kasey.

“Now apologize, or get out of my shop right now.”

The other two girls backed toward the door. “Sorry, Gertie. Sorry, Miss Madelyn,” they said in unison and slipped out the door.

Kasey stood her ground for a moment, her nose upturned. Stubborn as ever, she finally walked out of the shop without apologizing. She probably thought Maddie was bluffing.

Maddie joined Gertie at the front window as they watched the girls walk away. She hugged the girl to her side. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. That’s how those girls always are. Are you really going to call her mom?” she asked.

“You betcha. Unless you don’t want me to. I don’t want to make life harder on you.”

Gertie shrugged. “Eh, go ahead. I’d like Kasey to squirm for a change. I’m not going to the dance, so there’s no risk of this turning into Carrie or something.”

“Okay.” Maddie made a point to call the school the next day. She’d let Kasey stew overnight waiting for the hammer to fall.

“Why don’t you go on home, Maddie?” Gertie asked. “I can handle the shop for the rest of the afternoon.”

“What if they come back?”

“They won’t. You deserve a break. You’ve been working hard lately.”

That’s because working gave her brain something to focus on. Baking, cleaning, planning . . . it was the only thing that distracted her from the mistake she’d made with Emmett. She knew she needed to talk to him, to say something, but she couldn’t work up the nerve. It was easier to apologize to Pepper and stand up to her father than it was to go to Emmett and face the risk that he wouldn’t accept her apology.

“I have a business to run,” she said instead. “To run it, I have to be here. We’ve been super busy since the Halloween coupons went out.”

They had been, that wasn’t just an excuse. They’d already cashed in half the coupons she’d distributed. She was thrilled with the results, and it had kept the shop hopping the last week and a half, even if it had also brought in the snotty Miss Kasey.

“I thought that’s why you hired me. So you could have a life and not spend every waking minute in this shop.”

“I hired you because I got arrested and had to have someone watch the shop while I paid my debt to society.” A debt she hadn’t finished paying, actually. She needed to go to the courthouse and talk to the clerk about rescheduling her last two service appointments. She just hoped that Emmett had completed his last two sessions without her, so she could do it alone and be done with it.

Gertie didn’t seem to be buying Maddie’s story. Was she that transparent that a sixteen-year-old could see what she was desperately trying to hide?

“I’m more than capable of managing the shop and closing up tonight. Get out of here and get some rest.”

“I don’t need rest,” she said, which was true. The bar had been blissfully quiet lately. She took a nerve pill before bed to stop her brain from spinning, and she’d slept like a rock all week. She’d even gotten nine hours of sleep one night, although most of the time she’d been plagued by dreams of Emmett. She needed anything but rest.

“Then go do something fun. Look outside,” Gertie said, gesturing toward the display window. “It’s a beautiful fall day. The air is cool and crisp, the last of the leaves are falling. You could drive out to the orchard and pick apples for turnovers. Or you could go by the Tylers’ Pumpkin Patch and pick up some baking pumpkins so we can get a head start on our Thanksgiving pie orders. Anything but staying in here all day. You should get out there and enjoy some of it before winter comes and it’s nothing but cold, dreary days for months.”

Gertie was certainly feeling self-assured today. Perhaps seeing Kasey knocked down a peg had boosted her spirits. With a sigh, Maddie went over to the window and looked out. It was a nice day out. Maybe a walk around the square would do her some good.

“Okay, I—” Maddie paused midsentence. “Looks like someone vandalized the water tower again. I thought Clark had given up.”

Gertie came up beside her, looking up at the tower. “That’s not Clark’s handiwork. Read it.”

Maddie narrowed her eyes to squint at the letters. It was over three blocks away and hard to read at such a distance, but once it came into focus, her heart stuttered in her chest.

Emmett

L♥ves

Maddie

She gasped, her hand covering her mouth. “Gertie, does that say what I think it says?”

Gertie grinned. “It does. And look, the culprit is still up there.”

To the side, Maddie could see a dark figure against the white background. It was impossible. There was no way Emmett would climb to the top of the water tower to do that. He’d been petrified the day they went up there. He spent the whole afternoon crouching down and clinging to the railing for dear life. She thought she’d never get him back down the ladder.

“Wait,” Maddie said, running into the back room and finding the binoculars where she’d stashed them. She returned to the window and looked up at the water tower with enhanced eyes. Emmett was standing there, waving in her direction. She didn’t think it could be true, but there he was. He’d climbed that water tower for her. After everything she’d said, and all the horrible accusations she’d made.

“You’re right, Gertie. I think you can handle things.” Maddie frantically fidgeted with the bow on her apron, anxious to shed it before she ran out of the shop.

Gertie finally stepped in to help her with the last knot. She snatched away the apron. “Go get ’em, tiger.”

Maddie ran to the door and stopped short. “How do I look?”

“You look fine. Go!”

Maddie threw open the door and started running toward the water tower. She waved at Emmett, shouting his name as she dashed across the lawn of the courthouse. She was about to cross Main Street when a car stopped short at the intersection.

Not just any car. Sheriff Todd’s car. Maddie halted in the crosswalk so he could go on by, but he didn’t budge. Then the door opened and the sheriff got out. Uh-oh.

“Miss Chamberlain?”

Maddie looked anxiously from the sheriff to the water tower. “Yes, Sheriff Todd?”

He sighed and closed the gap between them. “I hate to do this, but I’ve got to.”

Maddie stiffened. “Hate to do what?” That’s when she saw the handcuffs come out. “Oh no. Sheriff Todd, please, you don’t understand.”

“I understand. I understand that you didn’t show up for all your required service and you’re in contempt. Why didn’t you complete your sentence, Maddie? Judge Griffin doesn’t mess around. There’s a warrant out for your arrest. I’ve deliberately not sought you out in the hopes you’d get it cleared up before I ran across you. But here you are, and I can’t ignore it any longer. I’ve got to take you to the station and book you for failure to appear.”

He reached for her wrist. “You have the right to remain silent . . .” he began.

Maddie couldn’t fight it. It would just make things worse. But why now? Why when she was about to rush into Emmett’s arms and make everything better. She looked up longingly at the water tower. Emmett wasn’t standing there any longer. The moment had passed. The sheriff finished her Miranda warning.

“Do you understand these rights as I’ve explained them to you?”

“Yes,” she said reluctantly as he hustled her toward his car. He opened the back door and helped her inside. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” she shouted at the Fates as he slammed the door.

“Nope,” the sheriff said as he climbed in the driver’s seat and started toward the station. “I never kid about warrants.”

Emmett’s plan was going perfectly. He watched the bakery anxiously from his perch. His heart leapt into his throat as Maddie came running from her shop, waving her hands. It’d worked. She would forgive him. She was in love with him, too. All he had to do was meet her at the bottom of the water tower and tell her he was sorry and everything would work out.

Then the cop car stopped in Maddie’s path. Emmett clutched the railing, watching anxiously as Sheriff Todd talked to Maddie, then led her to the car in handcuffs.

Okay, so the plan wasn’t going perfectly. He needed to get down. Now.

Emmett slung on his backpack and cautiously approached the ladder. He clung to it, going down at a painfully slow pace. It was easier to go up, even when every step took him closer to terra firma. He was almost to the bottom when he heard Grant shout at him.

“Did it work?”

“Yes!” Five more rungs. Four. Three.

“Is she coming?”

“No.” Two. One. Grass. Emmett breathed a heavy sigh of relief. He turned to Grant with hands shaky from the rush of adrenaline in his veins. “I mean, she was. But she got arrested. I’ve got to get to the police station.”

“Arrested? Again?”

“Yes.” Emmett started jogging down Rosewood Avenue with Grant by his side. “She didn’t show for community service last week. Probably because of our fight. The judge must not have taken very kindly to that.”

“You two are a mess, you know that, right?”

They rounded the corner of Magnolia Way in time to see the sheriff escort Maddie inside.

“Good luck,” Grant said, slapping him on the back. “Nothing says I love you like paying someone’s bail.”

Emmett carried on without him. He hadn’t been back to the police station since they’d both been arrested. It had been dawn before and relatively quiet, but today the station was busier. He went up to the front desk to speak to the woman there.

“I’m here about Madelyn Chamberlain,” he said, nearly out of breath from running to the station. “I want to pay her bail.”

The woman’s dark eyebrow went up in amusement. “Rich people are sure on the ball. She hasn’t even been booked yet. You’ll have to wait over there,” she said, gesturing to a couple of hard wooden chairs. “I’ll let Sheriff Todd know you’re here. What’s the name?”

“Emmett Sawyer.”

“Okay.” She made a note and disappeared back into the room where he’d been taken previously while Simon typed up their arrest report.

It was an hour, at least, before Sheriff Todd came up front with an amused expression on his face. “You’re here for Maddie, right?”

Emmett leapt to his feet. “Yes, sir.”

“I’m still processing the paperwork, but you can come sit with her until it’s ready. She’s in holding right now.”

Holding? As they got closer, Emmett realized that the sheriff had put Maddie in a cell. When they buzzed through the last door, he saw her standing there, clutching the bars anxiously.

“Emmett!” she shouted when she saw him. Her face lit up and he could feel the surge of emotions in his gut.

“Stay here until I come back for you both,” the sheriff said, disappearing down the hallway.

The minute he was gone, Emmett rushed to the steel bars. He reached through to caress Maddie’s face. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said, with glassy tears in her eyes. “I’m so stupid. I ruined this whole thing. I was going to meet you at the water tower to tell you how sorry I was and that I love you, and the next thing I know, I’m in handcuffs a third time.” She shook her head. “If I never get arrested again, it’ll be too soon.”

Emmett smiled. “Why were you coming to apologize to me? I was going to apologize to you.”

“Because I was horrible. You were right; I made judgments about you that were so unfair. You’ve done nothing but be good to me and I abused that. Wait . . . why were you going to apologize to me?”

Emmett took a deep breath. “Because you were right about one thing, Maddie. I was lying to you. Not about what you thought I was lying about, but I was still keeping secrets and I shouldn’t have. You deserved to know the truth, but I was too stubborn.”

Maddie’s face softened. She placed her hand over his. “Tell me now.”

“I left a very different life behind in Florida. I was an investment banker at a very prestigious firm in Tampa. I handled hundreds of accounts there, including your grandmother’s. That’s how we met.”

“An investment banker?” Maddie said with a crinkled nose. “I don’t get that from you at all.”

Emmett smiled. “Good. I hated the work and I hated what management wanted me to do to make a buck, so I walked away from it all. I sold almost everything I had and moved to Rosewood at your grandmother’s suggestion. When I got here, I wanted to start a new life and put all that behind me. Your grandmother agreed to keep my secret in exchange for continuing to manage her portfolio.”

“That’s what the check was for,” she said, sudden realization dawning on her face. “She was really mad about that.”

“I bet.”

Maddie smiled, the expression eventually fading into confusion. “I don’t understand why you had to keep it a secret, though. A lot of people change jobs and move to a new town. Why didn’t you want anyone to know?”

“I wanted a fresh start, an easier life here than I had in Florida. Money had proven to be a major complicating factor in my life, so when I simplified, I decided I didn’t want anyone to know I had much. Even you. Especially you.”

“Because I was a snob,” she said. “And I’d only be interested in you for the money.”

It was a statement, not a question, so Emmett could only nod. “You were so certain that I was just a blue-collar, borderline criminal. I didn’t want you to know the truth. And when things changed between us . . . I wanted you to want me as the broke, low-key bartender I wanted to be, not for what I had or what I could give you.”

“You could’ve told me. It wouldn’t’ve changed how I felt.”

“I didn’t know. There was always that chance that you would expect me to go back to that kind of work, or push me to sell the bar and do something more respectable. It was easier to just keep lying than to tell the truth and risk it changing things.”

Maddie nodded. “You know, you probably weren’t that far off. The Maddie who got arrested the last time might’ve thought that way. But this Maddie loves you just the way you are. If you want to swim in gold coins like Scrooge McDuck without spending a cent, while working at a bar, then that’s what you want. And that’s okay.”

Emmett broke into a wide grin. “Would you repeat that one part again?”

“The Scrooge McDuck part?”

“No. The part where you said you love me.”

Maddie looked into his eyes. “I love you, Emmett.”

It was music to his ears. “This isn’t how I expected any of this to go,” he said, thumping the metal bars with his knuckles. “I have flowers for you and everything, but they wouldn’t let me bring my bag in here. It’s certainly not where I thought I’d be when I said this, but I love you, Madelyn. I climbed a hundred feet in the air to tell you and the whole town just how much I love you.”

He leaned into the bars, pressing his face against the cold metal to kiss Maddie. His heart was light in his chest as he tasted the lips he thought he might never kiss again. He slipped his arms through the bars to wrap around her waist and pull her close. The metal was a frustration, allowing them to almost touch each other the way they wanted to.

“I wish Sheriff Todd would hurry up. I want to get you out of here so I can give you your flowers and get us back on track to our special moment.”

“This is a special moment,” Maddie said. “So, I’m in jail, it happens. What’s important is that you’re here to get me out. That’s pretty romantic. The only thing that could beat it is you climbing up that water tower just for me.”

“I climbed down it, too,” he added. “Faster than I wanted to, but when I saw you get arrested, I knew I had to hurry.”

“So romantic,” Maddie said, kissing him again.

“Mr. Sawyer!” Sheriff Todd announced as he came back into the holding area with Emmett’s backpack in his hands.

Emmett untangled himself from the bars and turned to look at the older man who had changed all his plans for the day. “Are you done with the paperwork so I can pay Maddie’s bail? I’d really love for us to get out of here.”

“Uh, yeah, here’s the thing . . .” Sheriff Todd said, fumbling for his keys. “You can pay her bail if you’d like, but you’re not going anywhere right now.”

“Why?”

The sheriff unlocked the cell door and gently shoved Emmett inside with Maddie. “It seems as though someone vandalized the water tower today. Not only did you self-incriminate by writing your name, you brought the evidence of your guilt with you into the police station.” He held up the bag and the cans of spray paint inside made a telltale clinking sound as they collided.

Emmett started laughing. The sheriff looked at him like he was crazy, and he just might be, but he didn’t care. He wrapped his arms around Maddie and held her tight without any pesky bars between them. “A small price to pay,” he said, pulling her into the kiss he’d wanted to give her since she told him she loved him. Everything around them faded away as he lost himself in the divine pleasure of holding Maddie in his arms.

“I’ll, uh, just leave you two alone while I finish booking you both,” Sheriff Todd said, disappearing down the hall again.

“I don’t care that I’m in jail,” Maddie said. “As long as you’re with me.”

Emmett looked into her eyes and kissed her again. “Let’s not make a habit of this, though. I think Judge Griffin will be none too pleased to see us in his courtroom again. We’ll probably have to paint the water tower again.”

“That’s okay. I’ll take a picture to commemorate the moment. The bigger question is whether you think you can stand to climb back up there again?”

“With you by my side,” he said, “I can do anything. But frankly, I hope this time we just pay a fine. I’ve got the money and I’m not afraid to use it.”

“Money isn’t everything, you know.”

“Nope, it isn’t. There are lots of things in life to enjoy. There’s love, laughter, and with you . . . lots of yummy pastry. But if having money keeps me from climbing that ladder again, I’m happy to be able to write a check. I don’t want to die before we can start our lives together.”

Maddie laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck. “You’re not going anywhere, mister. We’ve got a lifetime of loving each other ahead of us.”