are nothing, doing everything, supporting everyone, making sure that Sally Mae had what she needed for the wedding, organizing, finagling—”
“I am good at trading,” Maddie interrupted.
“Trading, then. But everything you do supports those that you love. You are a strong force in the background making everything possible. You have changed so much here at Hell’s Eight since you have come and yet you see none of this. You see yourself as nothing, as bed sport only.”
Maddie looked away. Bella’s finger under her chin yanked her face back.
“If you want Caden, this thinking needs to stop. You need to believe in who you are. You need to believe in the strength that kept you alive all these years. You need to believe in that part of you that makes you the one woman he smiles at whenever you are near.”
Maddie hated the hope that sprang to life in her chest, hated it yet clung to it.
“You don’t know—”
Bella shook her head. “No. I do not know anything for sure, but I know when you are around Caden you smile, and I know when Caden is around you he smiles. This does not determine the end, but to me it seems a good beginning.”
She could see Caine and Ace arguing, she assumed about Caden. No doubt Caine didn’t want him to leave. Caine thought he had a lot of power over the men, but her Caden was a stubborn man, and she understood more than Caine that Caden was also a man who needed to make his own way.
“What would you have me do? A knight doesn’t look for a princess among the garbage.”
“My Sam had no use for me when he first met me.”
That Maddie couldn’t believe. “You are Sam’s princess in the tower.”
“I was Sam’s pain in the—” Bella smiled and tapped her behind, leaving the word unsaid. “He thought I was too good for him, that he would only bring me trauma in my life. He denied our love, our attraction and our potential for joy.”
“But you’re together.”
“Yes. We are. But I had to chase that man across half the state and I had to fight for him.”
“You can’t make someone love you. Sally Mae told me this.”
“And Sally Mae is right. But you can stop someone from running away from the way they feel long enough for the truth of their feelings to catch up to them.”
Who did Bella think she was, preaching such hope to the hopeless? She had no right. “Maybe I’m just too stupid to understand such a thing.”
Bella let go of her hand and took a step back. “Maybe you are too stupid to be with a man like Caden, who has everything except the softness he needs. And maybe you are too stupid to know what is right and wrong and how it should be between a man and a woman. And maybe you are just too stupid for a lot of things because you foolishly believe all the wrong people told you.” Bella made a slashing motion with her hand. “But I do not think so. I have seen how you have changed. How you have grown, so when I tell you this, know that I am speaking to Maddie the woman who has become part of Hell’s Eight, not Maddie who sees herself of no value. It is time for you to leave here.” She motioned toward the gate. “Time for you to follow your heart.”
“Why?”
Bella’s expression softened. “Because if you want Caden, Maddie, then you need to do whatever it takes to make him see you and what could be. Something big. And no one can do it for you.”
She turned on her heel.
Maddie stood where she was anchored by her grip on the tree and the weight of the preposterous idea Bella had put forth. “Wait.”
Bella shook her head and raised her hand. “No. It is time for you to make up your mind who you will be.”
Maddie had the insane urge to chase after Bella, to have her tell her what to do, but what was the point? Bella was right. She had decided herself it was time she stopped being a child.
Caden was leaving as if it was nothing to anyone. The man never understood he was missed when he left. Or maybe he didn’t care. Sometimes it was hard to know. Follow her heart, Bella had advised. Did she have the courage to do something that big?
Caden had told her that he wouldn’t leave without seeing her. The anger that hit her was strong. The determination just as strong. She was done being left behind. Every day when she got up, life happened to her. Tomorrow, she was going to happen to her life.
* * *
MADDIE’S TREASURES WERE packed into a saddlebag along with two changes of clothes before dawn even touched the sky. Caden had left an hour earlier. She’d heard the back-porch step creak as he’d slipped out. Saw the light in the barn. It was time for her to go now, too. Sneaking down the back stairs, she ducked out the same door as Caden, but she avoided the third board on the steps. While no one would protest Caden’s departure, hers would be sure to cause a fuss. Her redbone hound whined and lifted his head. She smiled and made a motion of her hand. He came over immediately. She fed him a piece of meat left over from supper. He wolfed it down and, when another wasn’t forthcoming, drooped his head until the loose folds all but obscured his eyes. He had the look of his father, Boone, but was the despair of Tucker’s pack. Worthless, he’d been named, because while he could track like his father, he wouldn’t bay.
The day Tucker had cut him from the litter, she’d cried for him. When she’d heard his name, that had been the final straw. She’d taken the dog as hers, expecting a protest. No one had said a word. He’d become her “porch hound,” as Tucker called him. She’d tried to change the dog’s name, but he refused to respond to anything else, which just went to prove everything had a meaning to someone, and she had to respect his preference.
It still made her nervous having a friend, even if it was a dog, but there was no going back. Worthless had claimed her as much as she’d claimed him. So far they’d been friends. Tonight, he was going to become her partner. She hoped. Tapping her hip, she beckoned Worthless to her side.
The note and IOU she’d written crinkled in her pocket. Flower was a sweet little mare that Tucker had trained for her. She had a gentle way about her and not a mean bone in her body. Maddie trusted her as she trusted no human. No matter how valuable the horse was, Maddie couldn’t choose another. And not only because her riding skills weren’t that good. She needed things around her right now in which she had faith. She might have decided to happen to her life, but that didn’t mean she had any confidence she could pull it off.
Flower nickered as Maddie approached her stall. She opened the door, her hands shaking. She patted the mare’s neck and took a breath. The only other time she’d taken her destiny into her own hands was when she’d bolted after Tracker out the door of that whorehouse. She still didn’t know what had made her do it, but once done, there’d been no going back. She’d been prepared to beg the big man, but he’d turned and looked at her, appearing so dark and alien she’d almost reconsidered, then with a nod he’d held out his hand. She’d taken it full of fear, only to find beneath that harsh exterior was a good man.
He’d been looking for his Ari then, sympathy for her plight no doubt driving him to collect discarded women along the way. Tracker had brought her home to Hell’s Eight the way he brought many others. Giving them a place to heal. Most had left after a month or two. Moving
