His for the Taking. Ann Major

       Two

      If Maddie felt nervous and out of sorts just being back in Yella, she felt even worse to be chasing Miss Jennie’s dog onto Cole’s wooded land. What if Adam was wrong? What if Cole came back to town before he was supposed to?

      She dreaded seeing him more than anyone else in Yella, which was ridiculous. How could his rejection and contempt still hurt so much after six years, when she’d told herself repeatedly that the past—that who she used to be—no longer mattered?

      Maddie hadn’t been back to Yella since the night she’d run away because there were too many memories here, both good and bad. For years, she’d made the future her focus and only rarely looked back. Besides, coming here meant she’d had to leave Noah, who was enrolled in a summer day camp on Town Lake, with a dear friend. She missed him, but she wouldn’t have people here judging him because of her—or noticing how much he resembled Cole and putting two and two together.

      She’d only come back now because she owed Miss Jennie for everything good in her life.

      Maddie wiped her damp brow with the back of her hand. Had Yella always been this suffocatingly hot in the summer? Of course it had. She just hadn’t noticed when she’d been a skinny, fearless kid wearing a thin T-shirt and shorts, running wild in the woods.

      Today, with the sun beating down out of a bright sky, the heat felt thick and ferocious, and it wasn’t even noon yet. Strands of her long black hair had come loose from her ponytail and stuck to her cheeks and neck. Her T-shirt and cutoff jeans felt as if they were glued to her perspiring body.

      Still, despite the oppressive heat and humidity and a faint sense of uneasiness, she loved the scents and sounds of the woods. The smell of grass and dust, the chorus of insects that hummed along with the birds, made her remember some of the brighter moments of her youth. Long ago she’d ridden in these woods. Here, on horseback, a slim, despised girl had acquired the magical power that riding a powerful horse could bring. Riding had taught her to be brave and strong.

      Most of all she remembered riding here with Cole.

      Don’t think about him.

      Better to fret about her company’s fundraiser than Cole. Even though she dreaded the annual event and the stress of dealing with wealthy donors, especially the women who knew how to dress and where to shop and where to lunch, she preferred worrying about all of that to thinking about Cole.

      He’d rejected her, had made her feel more unworthy than anybody else here ever had. Why couldn’t she simply forget him? Even after Greg had come into her life last spring—solid, reliable Greg, who didn’t know her secrets, who approved of her and wanted to marry her because of who and what she was now—she remained confused about her obsession with Cole, who’d never seen her as his equal.

      He’d rejected her soundly—so why couldn’t she let him go? Why was she so afraid of seeing him?

      When she’d fled Yella six years ago, she’d been too traumatized to ever imagine coming back. In Austin, she’d tried to better herself, tried to live down the mother who hadn’t wanted her, the sorry trailer in Yella where she’d been raised, the terrible night that had driven her away. Most of all, she’d fought hard to be a better mother to Noah than her mother had been to her.

      Not that juggling single motherhood while working full-time and going to college had been easy. Especially not when the nagging fear that she really was what everybody here had believed—no good—had remained.

      Then, five days ago, just when she’d been on the verge of setting a date for her wedding to the man who valued her, Miss Jennie had called from the hospital and said she’d fallen. Miss Jennie was the one person in Yella who’d always believed in Maddie, the one person who’d been there when Maddie had been terrified and desperate. So, when Miss Jennie had mentioned she’d just love it if Maddie could come for a few days because her niece, Sassy, lived in Canada and needed some time to wrap up her affairs before she could fly to Texas, Maddie had agreed to come.

      Not that Miss Jennie’s neighbors hadn’t all offered to fill in, but Miss Jennie had made it clear that she would prefer spending a little time with Maddie…if only that were possible. “Time seems more precious as you get older,” she’d said, her voice sounding frail.

      Still, since Miss Jennie had helped her relocate and had lent Maddie money to go to college, there was no way she could say no, even if it meant facing Cole and the prejudiced town.

      Up ahead Maddie heard the jingle of dog tags. Just as she was about to call him, Cinnamon barked exuberantly from the sun-dappled brush. Her heart sank as she realized that he’d set off for the swimming hole on the Guadalupe River where she and Cole used to secretly meet. Where they’d made love countless times. Of all the places she would have preferred to avoid, the icy green pool beneath tall cypress trees on his land topped her list.

      For here she could be too easily reminded of Cole, of their brief affair. Back then she’d been young and in love and filled with anticipation for their every meeting. She’d been so sure that he’d loved her and would love her forever, and that his love, once known publicly, would change other people’s opinions and she’d gain the respectability she’d craved. Even when he’d insisted on keeping their relationship a secret from everyone important to him, especially his mother, she’d believed in him.

      It had taken a crisis of the worst magnitude to make her see him for what he really was—a typical boy in lust out for a few cheap thrills with the town’s bad girl, a boy who’d never respected her and couldn’t be counted on to save her. No, she’d had to save herself.

      Maddie had had six years to deal with the trauma of the past. She was all grown up now. She knew that life wasn’t a fairy tale, that she needed to get over the hurt that Cole and his mother had inflicted on her.

      The last thing she wanted or needed now was to see him again and reopen all those old wounds. If she were lucky, Cole would keep to his oil fields while she was here with Miss Jennie.

      Maybe then she would escape Yella unscathed.