with laughter. She knew about the devastation of loss, and instinctively knew that Cale had visited more than one level of hell since his twin’s death.
‘I really am sorry about Oliver.’ Maddie heard her breath catch in her throat. Funny, wild, crazy, impetuous Oliver.
‘Yeah. Me, too.’ Cale took a healthy sip from his glass and nudged her with his shoulder.
Maddie opened her mouth but stopped when Cale briefly placed his hand on hers.
‘It’s been a really long day. Can we not talk about him?’
Maddie nodded and stared out at the ocean.
‘Please tell me that you don’t tend bar for a living.’ Cale broke the silence.
‘No, during the day I sell crack and turn tricks.’ Maddie grinned when he sent her a look of resigned amusement. ‘After we split up I worked here weekends for the rest of my time at uni. I still help my friends out if they’re short of staff or if I’m bored. I don’t normally work this long; usually they let me go home a lot earlier.’
‘It’s very late to be driving home.’ Cale glanced towards the parking lot and she could see his protective streak rise to the surface.
‘I don’t drive. I walk.’
Cale straightened, and this time he looked genuinely horrified. ‘You what? Are you insane? Do you know what could happen?’
Maddie laughed. ‘Relax, Grandpa.’ She nodded at the three-storey block of flats just across the well-lit parking lot. ‘Third floor—my flat.’
Cale tugged on a long curl that lay on her shoulder. ‘Stop winding me up,’ he complained, without any heat.
‘But it’s so much fun!’ Maddie topped up her glass and held out the bottle to Cale, shrugging when shook his head.
‘So, apart from your less than legal pursuits, how do you pay for a flat in one of the more upmarket areas of the city?’ Cale crossed his arms and rested his glass against his bicep.
Sexy arms, Maddie thought. What would he look like with his shirt off? Images from long ago flashed in her head. A wide chest, lightly covered in crisp blond hair, strong shoulders—and did he still have that washboard stomach? Her eyes brushed over his lower mid-section and drifted across his slim hips. Oh, yes, it was still there…
Whoah, boy—chemical reaction.
Maddie hauled in her breath, shoved an agitated hand into her hair and counted to ten. Then she counted to twenty, frantically thinking that she might have to go to two thousand and sixty-two to get her heart-rate under control.
Damn him… If he ever gave up his day-job he could hire himself out as a defibrillator. Huh! That was a pretty impressive word for—she glanced at her watch—twenty to one in the morning.
‘Earth to Maddie?’
Maddie was jerked out of her thoughts by Cale tugging on the curl again before allowing it to fall off his finger.
‘You took quite a mental side trip. What were you thinking about?’
Your muscles under my hands…
‘Cardiac arrest and defibrillators.’
Cale’s eyebrows lifted in surprise and he scratched his forehead. ‘I’d forgotten about your weird thought processes.’
‘You always said that I had a mind like a grasshopper,’ Maddie agreed. ‘It drove you crazy.’
‘Newsflash: everything about you drove me crazy.’
Maddie’s glass stopped halfway to her mouth. She silently cursed when Cale turned his face away, leaving her with a very good view of his strong neck. What, for the love of all things bright and beautiful, did he mean by that? Was he joking? Being serious? Sarcastic? Unfortunately his neck and the back of his head didn’t give her a clue.
Cale didn’t give her a chance to respond. ‘How are your parents?’
‘Uh… fine.’
‘And your grandfather Red? How is he?’
How could he ask her that? Why would he ask her that? He had to have heard that Red had passed on… didn’t he?
Maddie bit her lip. ‘You don’t know?’
‘That he eventually ordered that Russian mailorder bride he wanted?’ Cale asked, his voice teasing.
Maddie stared at him. God, he really didn’t know. The mind simply boggled.
Maddie turned around and leaned her bottom against the railing, crossed her legs at the ankles and ignored the stabbing pain in her sternum. Ten years? Sometimes it still felt like ten days.
‘Red is—excuse the rhyme—dead. The day we broke up.’
‘The day we… What?’ Cale ran a hand over his shocked face and swore quietly. ‘Mad, I’m sorry. What happened? Why didn’t you let me know?’
Maddie walked away from him, boosted herself onto one of the wooden tables and placed her feet on the bench. ‘He fell down the steps in his house and broke his neck. And I did let you know… well, I tried to. I left messages,’ she stated, her voice devoid of inflection.
Cale frowned at her. ‘What do you mean?’
Maddie stared at the deck. ‘I found him that next morning. I called you… so many times. Asking you to help me. My mother was, as per usual, out of town, and my father hated Red. I never expected their help. But yours? Yes, I stupidly did. I didn’t need or want them. I wanted you. Not my lover but my friend, who I trusted would be there for me.’ Maddie’s voice wavered as emotion seeped through her flat tone. ‘But you kept dismissing my calls. I left messages asking you to come… There were so many questions. The paramedics and the police… the coroner. Where was I? Who was I with?’
Cale rubbed his face with his hands and swore. ‘I don’t believe this…’
Maddie shrugged. ‘It wasn’t a fun time.’
Cale closed his eyes. ‘God, Madison. I thought that you were…’
‘Begging you to reconsider?’ Maddie’s eyes flashed molten gold with anger. ‘That I was so desperate for your delicious body, to have you back in my life, that I would call you twenty times and leave as many messages? How could you not think that something drastic had happened?’
‘I—Yes.’ Cale lifted his hands in a self-deprecating gesture. ‘I’m sorry. I was stupid.’
‘Yes, you were. And cruel. You let me down.’
Cale nodded. ‘I can’t apologise enough.’
Maddie lifted her eyebrows in surprise at his confession. She’d expected him to justify his actions, to find an excuse. She’d never expected him so easily to admit to being in the wrong.
‘I
