A Next Door Neighbor The Cowboy Billionaire

(Brookside Ranch Brothers)

Hanna Hart

Book 6

Copyright 2020 by Hanna Hart - All rights reserved.

In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

1

Jaxon

It was true what they all told Jaxon Brooks: time flies.

It had already been four years since had has taken up as the owner of his parents’ luxury Brookside Ranch in New York state.

He was only twenty-one when he became the owner and manager of the billion-dollar business.

At first, he hated everything about it. He hated that his rich family had given all six of their sons a luxury ranch to run the minute they came of legal age. He hated that he had to leave his Texas friends and family behind, he hated the responsibility that came with running a tourist destination—he even hated the name of the town his ranch was located in: Kerhonkson.

But the resentment he felt toward his parents and eldest brother, Jett, was short-lived.

“Have you seen it yet?” Dylan Atkinson asked as Jaxon walked into his office at the ranch.

“Seen what?” Jaxon asked, nodding toward his friend and business partner.

Dylan’s eyes went round and wide. The man ran a hand through his prickly red beard and scolded himself. “Ah. Forget I said anything!”

“Have I seen what?” Jaxon repeated with a laugh. “What went wrong? It’s the wedding party, right? Now they’re saying March is too cold to do the big barn ceremony?”

“Surprisingly, no,” Dylan said with some humor. “Which is great, because if I hear one more bride trying to get a freebee out of this ranch, I’m going to lose my mind.”

Like most of his brothers, Jaxon had a hands-on approach to his ranch. His father, Roger, didn’t believe that the owner of a Brookside Ranch should be a nameless CEO who hid in a high-rise office. He believed that the owners of the ranches should know how to do everything: caring for the property, feeding the animals, and hosting tours and activities. They should be a “people person.”

This was fine by Jaxon. He’d been born and bred to run a ranch. His father had been teaching him how to host activities and please customers since he was a little boy.

Most guests were a dream to deal with, but the ranch had the occasional nightmare client—usually the brides.

“Speaking of which,” Dylan said as he shook his pen between his thumb and forefinger. “Did Kiara tell you we’re booked solid until November?”

“No, I didn’t hear,” Jaxon said. “My old man will be happy to hear that report.”

“No kidding,” Dylan laughed.

Jaxon narrowed his brows curiously and sat at the desk across from his friend as he asked, “So, what were you asking if I’d seen yet?”

“Oh, that,” Dylan said, his expression falling. “Well, it’s not about the ranch.”

“No?”

The ginger shook his head and reluctantly removed his phone from his pocket. After a few swipes and scrolls, he turned the screen to Jaxon and handed the device to him. “You may as well do this while I’m here and we can just get it over with together.”

“That doesn’t sound ominous at all,” Jaxon said.

“Do you still follow Skylar on any socials?” his friend asked, and Jaxon immediately stiffened.

“No, why?”

“Oh, man. I didn’t know that. Okay, well, here,” Dylan pointed to the screen.

Jaxon turned the brightness up saw Skylar’s most recent social media post: a photoshoot with her new boyfriend. He had his arms wrapped around her waist, which made Jaxon twinge with jealousy, but his heart sank farther as he saw her hand extended to the lens of the camera to show an engagement ring—with a diamond the size of a spec of sand—snugly fixed around her ring finger.

“She’s...engaged?” he managed to stammer out.

“Yeah, man, looks like it.”

“How long has she known this guy?” he snarked, holding the phone back toward Dylan before taking a second glance at the phone. “A couple of months?”

“I know, right?” Dylan shrugged. “Juliet showed me this morning; I was just as surprised as you.”

“Juliet still follows Skylar?”

As the question left Jaxon’s lips, he realized how juvenile it sounded.

“Go easy on her,” Dylan said. “She loves you, but those girls have been friends since they were in kindergarten.”

“Right,” Jaxon nodded.

“You okay?”

“It’s a little surprising, but I’ll live,” he said with a shrug.

Dylan looked dubious. “You sure?”

“Look, she isn’t in my life anymore. I don’t have the right, or frankly, the time, to be commenting on who she’s choosing to spend her life with.”

“Seems a bit rushed,” Dylan said.

“That’s going to be her problem to deal with, not mine.”

“Alright,” his friend nodded. “Sorry, man.”

Jaxon met Dylan’s eyes and forced a smile. “Don’t be.”

The rest of the day was a blur.

He didn’t want anyone to know he was hurting, but every so often, he would feel his heart pull and lilt with worry and have to stop what he was doing throughout the day.

Jaxon had watched his older brothers go through many girlfriends over the years. He’d been to wedding after wedding, watched two of his brothers lose their wives in death, and saw new loves begin.

He was happy for his brothers, but if he were being honest, the idea of marriage seemed like an outdated—terrifying—cosmic joke.

If you loved someone, why did you need a legal document to prove it? Wasn’t faithful devotion enough? Didn’t actions speak louder than words when it came to showing love?

He’d never even considered the possibility of spending forever with a ring on his finger...until he met Skylar.

He met her the same year he moved to Kerhonkson, New York.

She was studying to be a veterinarian and working part-time as a vet assistant specializing in equine handling. He’d first met her when she came in to check up on one of the older horses at the ranch who seemed to have a runny nose. The two hit it off immediately, and by the end of her first day on the ranch, he had asked her out on a date. The two spent nearly every day together from then on.

There was something fun about Skylar. She was an animal lover, like him, and she was always up for an adventure.

Roleplay in hushed whispers, pretending to be a mobster’s daughter every time someone got into an elevator with them?

Skylar was game.

Invest half of her life savings into a local comedy club in town?

Why not!

Drive the two hours south to New York City and spend the night at a questionable underground art club in Manhattan?

Sure!

Whatever the challenge, Skylar was ready to embrace it.

He was captivated by her. She made him feel things that were ridiculous—things he had never been able to fathom with his teenage girlfriends. She was the only girl who made him think, “Hm...maybe there is something to this marriage thing.”

Of course, Jaxon never actually asked Skylar to marry him. He’d never even bought a ring.

But he did commit himself to her in every way possible. She had his attention from day one. He didn’t entertain other women. He didn’t check them out or make flirtatious chit-chat with anyone else.

After six months of dating, Jaxon asked Skylar to move in with him, and she said yes.

Jaxon was so deeply in love, it almost embarrassed him. His family had spent countless amounts of time with Skylar over the years. She’d even managed to win over his incredibly fussy mother.

From oldest to youngest, Jaxon’s sibling tree went Jett, Bennett, Colt, Phoenix, Hunter, then Jaxon, and his baby sister Kennedy.

With so many children and just as many age-gaps, Jaxon was closest to Kennedy, who was only two years younger, and Hunter, who was six years his senior.

Even with these close relationships, Jaxon avoided talking about his affection for Skylar with his siblings.

The closest he came was one night he spent at a business meeting with Hunter.

His brother was no stranger to love. He’d married their older brother Phoenix’s fiancée after carrying on a secret relationship with her.

Jaxon was one of the only members of the family who didn’t judge Hunter for it. He supported the relationship, but he never really understood how a girl could be more important than family loyalty. Then he met Skylar, and everything changed.

“I get it now,” he’d said one night to his brother after they finished a late dinner meeting with a ranch investor.

“What’s that?” Hunter asked, tilting his chin up.

“Everything that happened with Rachel,” he said.

“Rachel?” Hunter repeated in surprise. The pair had been together for years and years at this point, so to have Jaxon bring it up must have seemed out of the blue.

“There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for Skylar,” he said.

A proud smirk formed in the corner of Hunter’s lips, and his brother said, “Ah.”

Jaxon wasn’t one to open up about his feelings, so to Hunter, that statement had said it all. He was madly in love with Skylar.

Jaxon could never imagine life or love with anyone else, and After two years together, Skylar asked him if he ever planned on marrying her.

“I love you forever,” he said. This was their thing.

“I love you forever,” she agreed, but her gaze didn’t leave his. She wasn’t willing to drop the subject, which was strange, since she’d never forced the issue before. She knew how he felt about marriage, but that night, she couldn’t seem to let it go.

“So, is that a no?” she asked dubiously.

Jaxon bit his lip and looked at her curiously. “You know how I feel about it,” he said with a noncommittal shrug.

“Then just give me a definitive answer, one way or the other,” she said.

“I don’t know,” he said, suddenly nervous. “Why?”

“I’ve just been thinking about us,” she said, swinging his hand in hers as they walked hand in hand down the sidewalk. “I want to know where this is going.”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” he smiled, pulling her closer. “Are you?”

“No,” she giggled.

Jax stopped walking and lightly spun her around to face him. “Well then?”

“Jax,” she said, her soft features falling into an uncharacteristically serious expression. “I want a family.”

He exhaled in surprise, and Skylar’s eyes went wide.

“I’m not asking for a ring,” she smiled. “But I am asking for forever. I am asking for a future with you. So, what do you say?”

“What do I say?” he repeated as though the answer were obvious. “I say yes.”

Before he met Skylar, his answer would have surprised him. He loved his nieces and nephews but having kids of his own was never something he’d planned on.

Now he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

The only problem was that Skylar couldn’t have children of her own. They could have done in vitro, but after looking into fertility clinics and alternative options, both became passionate about adoption.

After two years together, the pair adopted a five-month-old baby boy named Sutton.

It was the best decision ever.

Until two years passed, and Skylar decided that forever was no longer what she had in mind for Jaxon Brooks.

The two broke up six months ago.

She left everything. The house, the ranch, her job, and their son. She made Jaxon a twenty-five-year-old single father.

To say he was stunned to see she was already engaged to someone else would have been an earth-shattering understatement.

But like always, Jaxon didn’t know how to express how he felt. So, he let the pain of Skylar pass through his body, feeling the weight of it like a crushing anchor, and stored it away in the private corners of his heart.

2

Madelyn

Madelyn couldn’t pack fast enough.

In two days, she was making the move from Rhode Island to New York State to create a new life for herself.

For years, she had been working off and on at her uncle Jim’s private investigation agency in Boston. The firm worked with family law matters, GPS tracking, spousal infidelity, corporate investigations, and skip tracing.

She had worked, unofficially, with her uncle since she was a teenage girl. There was “always use for a pretty young girl in an investigation agency,” or so said her uncle.

She began working there legally as soon as she turned eighteen and had been trained extensively by her uncle.

She had been working out in the field with other investigators, learning from their expertise, but once she got sick, her work had to take a back seat.

Her uncle lovingly kept her on at the firm, though her job was mainly paperwork and internet searches now.

This, and the fact that the agency also had a New York firm, meant that Madelyn had the freedom to live anywhere that was within a reasonable driving distance.

She was excited to be able to keep her job, excited for a fresh start away from her drug-addicted father, but not entirely pleased with the fact that she would have to leave her best friend and roommate, Tracy.

“I can’t believe you’re moving away. I am going to miss you so much,” Tracy said with a pout as she lazily rolled a drinking glass in some newspaper.

“It’s not that far,” Madelyn smiled. “Besides, we’ll see each other all the time still!”

“It’s lightyears away,” her friend whined.

“It’s a four-hour drive from Providence. That’s the perfect weekend! Or you could even do a day trip if you were ambitious.”

Tracy wrinkled her nose. “You mean if I’m committed to eight full hours of driving in a single day? Sorry, Maddie. I love you, but that’s insane.”

Madelyn had grown up in Connecticut, but she was no stranger to moving around as a child. She’d been to Manchester, Hartford, and New Haven before spending the last four years in Providence, Rhode Island. This was the city she called home.

Providence was the perfect blend of charming town and bustling city. It had unique buildings, great food, and was full of history. It was also within four hours of New York City and a simple thirty-minute transit to Boston on the Providence-Stoughton line.

“Tell me again why you’re leaving?” Tracy asked, not at all committed to helping Madelyn pack.

“I have told you this a million times,” Madelyn laughed.

“To get away from your dad.”

“Just for a little while,” she said, though even as the words came out of her mouth, she didn’t know if it was true.

Initially, Madelyn moved to Providence to be with her grandmother on her father’s side. She was like a mother to Madelyn, and truly the only parental influence she’d ever had.

Madelyn and her grandmother told each other everything.

Everything.

It was only after Grandma May’s death three months earlier that Madelyn realized May hadn’t been entirely forthcoming about her finances.

As it turned out, she was a wealthy woman.

May left Madelyn two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars in her will. It was her life savings—all she had left after the sale of her very glamorous Providence property.

The money wasn’t worth losing her grandmother, of course. But it was more than a great nest-egg for her future.

“Are you still thinking your dad’s going to come after the money?” Tracy asked.

“I don’t know,” Madelyn said with a shrug. “He might. Besides me and Uncle Jim, my dad was grandma’s only living relative, and she didn’t give him a thing.”

“He’s better off without it,” Tracy said with a sympathetic roll of her eyes. “He’d probably end up smoking or snorting it. He’d be dead in a week.”

“Yeah,” Madelyn said, the vowels coming out slowly.

Her father had been an addict for as long as she could remember. He wasn’t a bad father and had managed to keep his addiction under control for most of her life. But the last couple of years, he’d been a mess. She tried her best to help him, but he wouldn’t commit to any recovery programs, and having him in her life only proved to be more toxic than anything else.

“I hate this,” Tracy said, looking around at the taped-up moving boxes in the living room where she and Madelyn had made so many memories together.

“He isn’t legally entitled to anything,” Tracy insisted. “And if he does try to get some of the money.”

Madelyn laughed. “Tracy, I already put in my first month’s rent on a place in Kerhonkson.”

“Yeah, and what’s up with Kerhonkson, anyway? If you want to move, move somewhere cool! Move to the city, head to Boston, or go abroad for a few months! Why move to Buttsville, Nowhere?”

“It isn’t Buttsville! It’s an adorable little town.”

“With nothing to do,” her friend snorted.

“There’s plenty to do. There are waterfalls and great trails for hiking. It’s beautiful there! Plus, they have that big ranch resort and there’s tons to do there. Plus, it isn’t that far from Manhattan and—”

“No!” Tracy called out, sticking her fingers in her ears like a petulant child. “I don’t want to hear about this place anymore. I hate this place! It’s stealing my best friend!”

Madelyn’s heart broke a little as her friend saddled up next to her and pulled her into a long, dramatic hug.

She was going to miss Tracy dearly.

Reality was, Madelyn wasn’t getting away to escape her father.

The real truth of it—the truth she wasn’t yet ready to tell Tracy about—was that Madelyn was chasing something out in Kerhonkson.

For as long as she could remember, Madelyn suffered from sickle cell anemia.

To have the condition, often called SS disease, meant that one had abnormal proteins in their red blood cells.

Her father had been aware of Madelyn’s condition when she was younger, but she didn’t show any symptoms of her disease and so he never made a big deal about it.

As a child, Madelyn seemed healthy. She rarely had bouts of pain and had only ever suffered one painful infection, but when she became pregnant three years ago, everything changed.

Complications of SS disease included such daily joys as infections, episodes of pain, and damage to the lungs, heart, joints, bones, spleen, and basically everything else one needed to function.

The pain became so unbearable, she didn’t know if she would survive her pregnancy.

Madelyn was on “death’s door.” That was the term her doctor used in her seventh month of pregnancy. She likely wouldn’t live through childbirth, Dr. Hampton told her, and if she did, she wouldn’t make much of a mother.

She “wouldn’t make much of a mother.”

That was what her doctor told her.

Madelyn had no complaints about Dr. Hampton’s medical talents. He was an immensely gifted doctor, but his bedside manner left something to be desired.

But then, he was right about that, too.

Madelyn made it through childbirth. She had been elated to be a mother, but by the third month of having her son, she knew she couldn’t keep him. Childbirth had done a number on her body. She was wracked with pain and was exhausted from sleepless nights spent feeding her son. Finally, she ended up in the hospital with another terrible infection.

She decided to put her son up for adoption through a private agency. She didn’t want any money, she insisted. She just wanted Sutton to have a good family.

Madelyn remembered the day her agent came to take Sutton from her. She was so weak and so anemic, so close to death, that she could barely move her lips to kiss her little boy’s forehead goodbye.

She expected to die. She had made her peace with it. She’d prayed, fought against her body’s betrayal of her, then accepted her end.

But her end hadn’t come.

The more days went by, the farther away her death seemed.

After a bone marrow transplant and four months in the hospital, her doctor declared Madelyn healthy enough to go home.

“Healthy enough to go home.”

So, she went home, ready to let her weakness, chronic pain, and illness return. Waiting for it as someone waited for a special event—an anniversary, a holiday, or a present waiting to be opened.

But it never came. She felt healthier than ever.

She was two years healthy with no signs of her disease returning, and as happy as it made her to have a second chance at life, her heart ached at the future she’d foolishly given up.

She’d tried to find her son on her own, but she wasn’t yet talented enough to illegally obtain government records—and she certainly didn’t want to get her uncle involved in her search. She didn’t want to make trouble for anyone.

So, Madelyn turned to one of her favorite finders: Lennard Crowe.

Crowe was a middle-aged retired cop who had a knack for finding people. While he didn’t work for her uncle’s company, the two had worked on projects together before, and she knew exactly how good he was.

When she first requested his help, he countered by telling her, “We can’t use the agency for personal favors. You know that, kid.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s why I intend on being an anonymous paying customer.”

Crowe nodded, a small smirk forming in the corner of his lips as he said, “Well, alright then.”

She lost her son, and she wanted him back.

And once she got to New York, that was exactly what she intended to do.

3

Jaxon

If Jaxon were to describe a day in the life of a two-year-old boy in three words, it would be the following:

Sleep.

Poop.

Play.

But not necessarily in that order.

Jaxon had raised Sutton since he was five months old. He taught him how to walk, heard him say his first word—"Chaloopa”—and clung to the love of the blue-eyed, curly-haired boy after Skylar left.

Sutton usually woke by seven in the morning. He would come into Jaxon’s room and watch television in bed.

After a morning cartoon, which Jaxon was equally as thrilled to watch, they would head into the kitchen and eat bagels, scrambled eggs, or a giant bowl of fruit.

Afterward, the nanny, a youthful sixty-year-old woman named Ashley Hunter, would arrive for the day.

As Jaxon got ready for work, Sutton would follow him around the house. He would watch Jaxon pick out clothes, watch him apply gel to his dark hair, watch him shave, and make an exaggerated sad face when Jaxon said goodbye for the day.

Sutton hated for his father to go.

Jaxon tried not to read too much into it but often wondered if Sutton remembered Skylar. He wondered if his son knew, or maybe sensed somehow, that Skylar had abandoned him—gave up on the idea of being a parent.

Jaxon took weekends off and exclusively spent time with his son. It wasn’t a chore for him, probably because he was practically still a kid himself.

On days he spent at home, he and Sutton would usually head to the ranch to look at the animals or stay home and play games.

This day Jaxon had decided to work from home but still had Ashley come in to help watch Sutton.

“You happy I’m staying home today, bud?”

Sutton sat on the floor of Jaxon’s office with a bright smile on his face. “Yeah!” he said gleefully.

“What do you want to do today?”

Sutton’s eyes roamed the room. He acted like he had to think about his answer deeply, but Jaxon knew his son’s preference was going to be the same as it was every other day.

“Play cars,” Sutton said.

Bingo.

“Alright, we can do that,” Jaxon said as he opened up the screen of his laptop. “But I have to work for a little bit, okay?”

“And play horses!” his boy said, though it was more of an excited jumble of noise.

“No, we can’t go to the ranch today,” he said. “But we can play cars, but Daddy just has to work for a while. I’ll come to get you when I’m taking a break and we’ll have some lunch and play for a bit, okay?”

Sutton’s sparse brows narrowed with displeasure. Then he asked, “Can I sit too?”

“You want to sit in the office with me?” Jaxon clarified, and his son nodded. “Alright, bud. But just for a little while.”

Sutton sat on the floor for a good hour, playing quietly, until Ashley came in to put him down for a nap.

Jaxon took video meetings, signed contracts, and worked through some of the paperwork his brothers had sent him regarding the Brookside franchise as a whole.

For Sutton, lunch consisted of apple cubes, half a cup of peas, and slivers of chicken.

For Jaxon, it was turkey on a bun with a cranberry jam Ashley made that tasted like heaven. After lunch and a promised session of playing cars, Jaxon headed back into his office.

He always knew working from home was going to be a challenge.

Jaxon was easily distracted, especially if his son was asking for his attention. He often found himself taking extended breaks just to go hang out with Sutton. Other times, he would wander into the kitchen and open the fridge repeatedly, hoping a food he was craving would suddenly materialize there.

But today, his biggest distraction was the slamming noises coming from the house next door.

He walked out to his wrap-around porch and stood watching his new neighbor move in.

The girl operating the moving van looked to be no more than twenty. She walked back and forth from the truck, carrying box after box into the two-bedroom bungalow.

Jaxon did not live on his ranch, as some of his other brothers did with their Brookside properties. Instead, Jaxon moved into a high-end neighborhood. He didn’t want to flaunt his wealth. All he wanted was a home that was in a good neighborhood, had a pool, and was private.

He found that in a two-thousand square foot home in a woodsy neighborhood. It was a single-family detached three-bedroom home with an in-ground, heated saltwater pool and a two-car garage.

From the outside, the home looked like a modern masterpiece. Half of the house was glass and wood, the rest a dark paneling. It had a black metal roof and black wrap-around cedar porch on both levels of the house.

Inside was all white oak floors, walls, ceilings, and cabinetry. At first, he hated all of the wood but soon grew to appreciate the rustic counterpoint it offered the modern aesthetic of the rest of the home.

What he loved most about the property was the privacy. Situated on acres of forest, it gave the neighborhood a sense of peace and solitude.

His next-door neighbors had moved back to Florida months ago to care for their sick son and had finally found someone to lease their home.

Jaxon heard through the neighborhood grapevine that it was a woman from Rhode Island, though looking at her now, he hadn’t expected her to be so young.

He watched his new neighbor struggle with her boxes but hesitated to offer a helping hand. That is, until he saw her mishandling a beautiful, vintage guitar. She held it improperly as she hopped out of the back of her van, nearly cracking the body against the cement driveway.

“Hey! Be careful with that!” he called out without thinking.

His dark-haired neighbor looked up, her brow cocking curiously at him as she held the guitar by one of the machine-heads, just barely balancing it against her fingers.

Jaxon cringed as he watched the display and ran up to her, gently lifting the instrument from her hands.

“Careful with that,” he said, then looked down at the guitar in amazement. “That’s a vintage Gibson Les Paul you’re manhandling there!”

The young girl laughed. “Built in nineteen-seventy-four with a custom cherry sunburst,” she said with a nod. “It’s special. I know!”

“And you would carry this piece of artwork by its machine-head?”

She shrugged and offered him a bashful smile. “It was slipping! What was I supposed to do?”

“Um…?” he said with humor. “Carry it in a case? Or by the neck?”

She laughed and threw her hands into the air as though she’d just been caught doing something illegal.

“If I knew I was going to be lectured about it by my cute neighbor, then maybe I would have picked up a case for it, but as it stands, the guitar gets carried in on its own,” she flirted.

“That’s a shame,” he said slowly, deciding whether or not he wanted to flirt back.

“Yeah, it is,” she smiled, then extended her hand and said, “I’m Madelyn.”

“Jaxon,” he said. “Jax.”

“Nice to meet you, Jax,” she said.

Madelyn was striking, even more so when she smiled. She was short and slim with wide hips and eyes so pale blue they almost looked gray.

“Welcome to the neighborhood,” he said. “Is it just you moving in?”

Madelyn nodded.

“Nobody’s helping you?” he asked.

“Nope. Just me,” she confirmed.

“Well,” Jaxon began, looking briefly toward his house before turning his attention back to the girl in front of him. “You must be happy that I came around to help.”

“Is that what you’re doing?” she dared.

“‘Course. I can’t let a lady unload a moving truck all alone, especially not when she’s at risk of breaking all of her valuable possessions,” he teased.

Without meaning to, Jaxon spent the rest of the afternoon helping Madelyn move box after box into her home. After the moving van was emptied, he helped her unpack, and before he knew it, hours had passed, and the two of them were sitting on her couch talking over microwaved popcorn and bottled water.

They talked about the neighborhood, the drive from Providence, and her work.

“I’m a lawyer’s assistant,” she said simply, though she didn’t delve too deeply into her work.

As they talked, Madelyn offered Jaxon a wry smile and he felt his heart flutter with nerves.

With Jaxon, meeting someone new was all about that spark. He wasn’t someone who could be friends with someone for years and then suddenly realize she was the girl of his dreams. He either felt something for her right off the bat, or it was never going to happen.

And he could feel a spark with Madelyn—the sharp jolt of excitement that coursed through his body.

The only problem was, he hadn’t been looking for a spark.

He wasn’t looking for anything. Not since Skylar. So whatever mild, fun flirtation he felt between him and his new neighbor, he would have to put it to rest.

“So how do you know so much about guitars, anyway?” Madelyn asked, nodding in the corner toward her Les Paul, which was hanging out on a single guitar stand.

“My brother, he’s a professional musician,” he explained, unsure if he should go into details.

“Awesome,” she said, nodding her head. “Does he do the whole bar scene?”

“More like arenas.”

“What, is he like, famous or something?” she asked with a snort, covering her mouth with her hand.

Jaxon bit his lip, then shrugged. “Something like that,”

“Oh, really? Wow.”

“It’s a lot less impressive when you’re related the famous person, I assure you,” he laughed. “Anyway, he’s a little older than me. Seven years, actually, and he’s pretty much been teaching me how to play since I was a little kid.”

Madelyn raised her thick brows and dared, “You any good?”

He eyed the guitar before flicking his gaze back to her, hoping she wasn’t going to put him on the spot.

“I’m okay,” he laughed. “I can play rhythm and all that, but I never go into solos and too much picking, if that makes sense.”

“Well, that’s perfect, because I love playing solos. Maybe we could play sometime,” she suggested.

“Definitely.”

Madelyn faced him and crossed her legs on the suede sofa as she asked, “So, are you going to leave me in suspense, or are you going to tell me who your super famous brother is?”

Jaxon narrowed his eyes and couldn’t help but smirk. “You don’t believe that my brother is famous, do you?”

The dark-haired Madelyn snickered and said, “Try me.”

“Phoenix Brooks,” he said, letting the truth hang in the air.

He watched Madelyn’s eyes widen with recognition and knew that this scenario usually only went one of three ways.

One. The individual was a diehard fan.

Two. The individual wasn’t really a fan but knew all of his brother’s tabloid gossip from many years ago.

Three. The individual had heard about Phoenix’s public troubles but didn’t care much for him either way.

“Seriously?” she laughed, then her expression fell, and she said, “Oh, you’re not kidding! Well, yeah, I know him. I’m not a huge country girl, but I bought his Landslide album and I thought it was fantastic.”

Jaxon nodded. That was Phoenix’s most recent album. He’d gone the pop-rock route and it seemed to be attracting a new fanbase.

“So, if you’re related to Phoenix Brooks, that must mean you’re one of the…” she trailed off, then snapped her fingers as she announced, “One of those guys who own those ranches?”

“Brookside Ranch Kerhonkson,” he nodded.

“That’s awesome. When I was considering moving here, I ended up reading a lot about the ranch.”

“Yeah, the town’s pretty proud of it,” he said, knowing that the ranch had brought a lot of tourism to the area.

“So, where are you from originally?” Madelyn asked.

“Texas, as if you couldn’t tell from the accent.”

“I detected something southern in there,” she grinned.

“Feel free to make fun,” he said half-heartedly. He was no stranger to being called a country boy or a redneck since coming to New York state.

“No, I love it!” she said vibrantly.

“So, what brings you to Kerhonkson?” he asked. “People don’t usually move here for the fun of it. At least, not at your age.”

“Hey, I’m twenty-four. Not exactly a baby,” she snorted.

“Not exactly collecting social security, either.”

“I...actually, my grandmother passed away. She was like a mom to me, and I just needed to get away. Find myself. Sorry, that was a huge overshare, and we just met. Now I’ll forever be known as the weird ‘tells her whole life story’ girl next door. You’ll probably be avoiding me from here on out.”

“Oh, definitely,” he said with a wink, then his smile faded. “I’m sorry about your grandmother, though. That’s tough. But, we’re happy to have you in the neighborhood. If you ever want to hang out or jam or whatever, I’m right next door. Gray house, lots of glass.”

“Good to know,” she flirted. “I think I may just take you up on that.”

4

Madelyn

Madelyn usually hated moving. She had done it so many times over the years with her father, and otherwise, that it had become more of a chore than an exciting new experience.

Nothing was appealing to her about carefully packing up her every belonging, sealing it in a box, driving across state lines, and unpacking again.

But not this time.

This time, Madelyn was beyond excited about the move. She loved unpacking every box, she loved setting up her new space, and she loved looking out her back window into her forested backyard.

Why?

Because it all meant that she was that much closer to finding her son.

When Madelyn regained her health, she began having regrets over giving her son up for adoption. She would wake up in the night with panic attacks, wondering where he was and how he was doing.

Since Madelyn opted for a closed adoption, she had no identifying information about the adoptive family, nor did the adoptive family have any information about her as the birthmother.

After the adoption was finalized, the records between the two were sealed.

According to state law, these records would only be available to her son when he turns eighteen, but she couldn’t be sure he would ever get them.

It was the closed adoption that kept her up at night—that made her dubious of whether her private investigator would ever be able to find her son.

But her private eye, Lennard Crowe, was an incredibly arrogant man who had no intention of giving up on her case until her son was found.

He had salt and pepper hair that was balding in the front, sharp blue eyes, and Boston accent that came in thick as he announced, “You’re gonna love me when you hear what I have to say.”

The call came to her late one night while she was in bed. It must have been nearly one in the morning, but she told Crowe to call her anytime—regardless of the hour. And she was glad he did.

Madelyn sat up in her bed, holding her phone hard against her ear. “What? What is it?”

“I found him,” Crowe said, sounding proud of himself.

“You...what?”

“Your kid,” he clarified. “I think we’ve got him.”

“You think?” she repeated, her hands trembling. “How sure are you?”

“Ninety-nine percent.”

Madelyn’s heart began to pound. This was it. Crowe had actually managed to pull this thing off. “Where is he?” she asked. “Is he alright?”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “Trust me, if there’s anyone you want your kid to be in the care of, it’s these people.” He paused. “He’s in New York State. A little town called Kerhonkson. He was adopted by a rich couple.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m talkin’ real rich,” he said, his accent stretching out the words. “I’m talking billionaire. Looks like they own some sort of business. They live in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood, but I couldn’t find out where.”

Madelyn fell back down on her pillows. So, Crowe had managed to narrow down her son’s location, but not his actual home. “Who adopted him? What are their names?”

“I couldn’t find out,” he said, still seemingly immensely pleased with himself. “But that’s for sure their neighborhood. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, then what difference does it make? Well, let me tell you, little lady...there’s only a few houses in the neighborhood. Twenty, at most. It’s a private area; houses are only grouped in threes. And guess what?”

“What?”

“One of them is up for rent,” Crowe said pointedly. “I bet if you head up there for a couple of months, you could cozy up to your neighbors, maybe find out who has an adopted son.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?” she asked.

“Start making friends in the neighborhood. ‘Hey, I’m the new girl, how are ya?’ Then, later on, tell one of the wives, ‘I’m thinking about adopting—blah, blah, blah!’ and eventually some dolt will go ‘Hey, you know who went through an adoption and could be of some help to you? Mr. and Mrs. Moneybags!’”

Madelyn cringed as Crowe laid out the plan for her. It wasn’t a bad plan, but the way he explained it sounded so crass and manipulative. She didn’t want to hurt anyone or disrupt her son’s life. She just wanted to see him, hold him, and make sure he was alright.

Crowe also suggested that if Madelyn wanted, he would head out to Kerhonkson and find the parents himself, but the price tag that went along with such work wouldn’t be cheap.

Madelyn felt she had spent enough on Crowe’s investigative work and got great information from him about the whereabouts of her son, so she chose to end her contract with him. She could find her son on her own.

Which was exactly what she was doing in the ranching town.

She’d paid six months’ rent at her new home and was ready to make friends with her neighbors, which she seemed to have done quickly with her immediate next-door neighbor, Jaxon Brooks.

Every time she saw someone out and about in their yard, she wondered if maybe they were the ones who adopted her son, but so far, she hadn’t seen any children playing outside.

She pored over the paperwork Crowe had given her, sprawling each page carefully out on her living room floor. She read and re-read each note, looked into background checks, and marveled at how quickly her son had been adopted out after she’d given him up.

Madelyn’s heart quickened as she realized that she was sitting in the same neighborhood as her son, then her spirits quickly dampened, wondering if Crowe was wrong—if the agency had done such a good job of keeping the adoption private that Madelyn had wasted her time and money only to go after the wrong lead.

She shook her head. That couldn’t have been the case. She knew her son was there. Call it instinct, call it mother’s intuition—she knew he was there. She just had to be patient.

And what would it be like seeing him for the first time? Would she cry? Would she feel her bond to him rekindle? Would she feel nothing?

She closed her eyes and imagined the way he looked when he was a baby. He had a shock of dark hair and round blue eyes that looked up at her in wonder. She hoped she would still recognize him.

Madelyn’s ears perked up as she heard a knock at the door. She quickly shuffled her piles of paper into her backpack and raced to the window beside her front entryway.

“Hey, you,” she said, greeting Jaxon Brooks as she opened up her front door. She had seen him three out of the five days that she had been living in the neighborhood and couldn’t have been happier for it. “What are you doin’ here?”

“Hey,” he smiled. “I just got home from work.”

“Ooh,” she said, opening the door wider to him. “Out on the ranch?”

“You bet,” he nodded.

“And what is it you do on the ranch, exactly? Wrangle cattle?”

“Oh, yeah, I wrangle with the best of them,” he winked. “I do plenty. Host experiences like riding horses, do day trips up to the Catskill Mountains, go fishing, host the winter activities. I mean, if we have it up on the activity board, I’ve probably done it.”

“Well, look at you; you’re a man of many talents,” she grinned. She didn’t know why, but it felt so good to flirt with the man. “So, what can I help you with?”

“I’ve been thinking about you lately.”

She raised a curious brow and couldn’t help but smirk. “Is that right?”

“See, I was thinking about how it felt to move to town when I was on my own. It kinda sucks, right? You don’t know anybody, you don’t know where the best restaurants are yet, and the list goes on. So, I was wondering if you wanted to come out with me tomorrow night?”

“Like a date?” she asked, unsure any other way to phrase the question.

Jaxon tilted his head from shoulder to shoulder and gave a playful shrug. “More like a welcome to the city tour. What do you think?”

“Definitely,” she grinned. “What time?”

“I can pick you up tomorrow around six-thirty? Maybe we’ll grab some dinner.”

She grinned. “Dinner, eh? And you’re sure this isn’t a date?” she flirted.

“Positive,” he said, and she felt a small wash of relief.

Jaxon Brooks had dark brown hair, nearly black, like hers. Only in the light of the sun could she see the hint of his golden-brown highlights. He was tall and had a slim build. Madelyn daresay there was nothing entirely remarkable about him until her eyes caught sight of his strong jaw and bright hazel-brown eyes.

Dark eyes had always eluded her. She didn’t understand that lure of them. Some were so dark, it was nearly impossible to distinguish the pupil from the iris. But Jaxon Brooks’ eyes were warm, swirling with shades of greens and browns that reminded her of the inside of blown glass or exotic marble. It was only then that she finally understood the meaning of the word “piercing stare.”

She couldn’t help the attraction she felt for him, but dating was the last thing she wanted to do.

Madelyn wasn’t in New York to find a new boyfriend; she was there to find her son.

“Sounds good to me,” she agreed.

This would be the perfect opportunity to quiz her cute neighbor about anyone in the area who might have an adopted son.

5

Jaxon

Jaxon’s ranch was exploding in popularity. People had traveled from all over the world to come and stay at the luxury cottages.

The other week, Jaxon had gotten into a deep conversation with a middle-aged couple from Melbourne, Australia. When he asked what brought them to America, they said, “Your ranch!”

To say Jaxon was taken aback by the response would have been an understatement.

He’d seen his brothers’ ranches amass wealth and loyal guests. He’d heard about other Brookside locations that booked up years in advance. But never in a million years did he ever think that his ranch would be among them.

But then again, Jaxon never thought a lot of things.

He never thought he would be a father.

He never thought he would be living on the East Coast.

He never thought Skylar would leave.

Skylar had been his whole world. He’d done the foolish thing that everyone warns against—putting all of his eggs in one basket.

Everything Jaxon did revolved around her. Her opinion was the only one that mattered.

Once she was gone, he felt like he didn’t know who he was anymore.

He suddenly wondered what Madelyn’s story was. Who had broken her heart, and why would such a beautiful, bright girl come to town all alone?

“What’s up with you lately, man?” Dylan asked, knocking Jaxon from his thoughts.

Jaxon blinked, looking across his double-desk at his business partner. “What do you mean?”

“You’re smiling!” Dylan announced. “I haven’t seen that in a while.”

“Very funny.”

Dylan raised his brows and closed the lid of his laptop, giving Jaxon an urging look. “I’m serious. You’ve been on cloud nine for like a week now, so what’s going on? You planning on crashing Skylar’s wedding or something?”

“Hilarious,” Jaxon cringed inwardly. “No, I’m not. I’d rather get my eyes spooned out with a rusty utensil than ever see Skylar again.”

Considering how the topic of Skylar’s leaving had dominated their conversation over the last couple of months, Jaxon wasn’t surprised by the skeptical expression that washed over his friend’s face.

Maybe Dylan was right. Maybe Jaxon was protesting too much. After all, you don’t spend years with someone and then forget they ever existed.

Unless you were Skylar.

“You meet someone or...?” Dylan asked, trailing off.

“I don’t know,” Jaxon said. “Maybe.”

“Maybe? This is not a maybe kind of question. This is a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ kind of question.”

Jaxon shrugged.

Truth be told, he wasn’t exactly sure how to answer his friend. Had he met someone? Technically, he’d met Madelyn, and he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. She had an interesting energy to her. She was mysterious but friendly, unimpressed by seemingly everything and yet wide-eyed like a child. Plus, she was absolutely stunning.

But would he qualify her as a romantic interest?

Maybe one day, but a relationship was the last thing he was looking for. His heart was still shattered, and until he was able to find the scattered pieces, he had no business dragging someone else into his life—even the beautiful girl next door.

“You met someone!” Dylan happily accused.

“Sort of,” he repeated, unsure if he wanted to get into it. “My next-door neighbor, Madelyn.”

“Wow! Good looking?”

“She’s attractive,” he said, non-committal.

Dylan leaned into the desk. “What kind of attractive? Cute girl next door? Hottie on the block? Sexy? Quirky and unique?”

“I don’t know; she’s pretty! What do you want me to say?” Jaxon laughed.

He knew exactly what type of attractive Madelyn was. She was a sexy girl. Long, dark hair, bright smile. She was the kind of girl you wanted to scoop up in your arms or run your hands from her waist down her legs just to feel the curve of her.

Not that Jaxon had been thinking about such things...

“How long have you been seeing her?” Dylan asked.

“Honestly, we’re not seeing each other. She lives next to me. I started talking to her a couple of days ago and...” he trailed off. “I don’t know. I like talking to her. She speaks her mind; she moved from another state to come here and start over. I can relate to her, I guess.”

Sensing that Jaxon perhaps didn’t want to talk about a new lady love in his life, Dylan offered a wry smile and summarized, “Well, whatever is going on between the two of you, it looks good on you.”

Jaxon chuckled. “Thanks.”

Dylan didn’t bring her up for the rest of the day, but every once in a while Jaxon would look over and his best friend would be giving him a knowing smile.

After work, Jaxon headed back to his neighborhood and spoke briefly with his nanny about staying late. He spent a couple of minutes talking with Sutton, who was decidedly cranky that evening, before going next door to pick Madelyn up.

He wasn’t sure why he asked Madelyn out for dinner. He just wanted to get to know her better, he supposed.

“Hey, you,” he said as he walked up to her front porch. She stood on the bottom stair in blue jeans and a leather jacket with her hair up in a high ponytail.

“Hey, you’re here,” she said, sounding a bit surprised.

“What, did you think I was going to bail?” he chuckled.

“Not a chance. And even if you did, I know where you live,” she winked.

“Alright, Madelyn. Consider this the official beginning of your welcome tour,” he said excitedly. “There are only a couple things to do in Kerhonkson. One, eat. Two, see a waterfall—because there’s about a million. And three, see the ranch.”

“You should write guidebooks,” she snorted as she slipped into his car.

“So, pick your poison. What is your favorite type of food? Barbecue? Middle America classics? Mexican?”

Madelyn thinned her pink lips and her eyes went skyward as she said, “I’m big on fish.”

“Fish,” he nodded, considering where he could take her that might live up to the restaurants where she was from. “Hm. Well, I can’t promise anything fresh like you got in Providence. I can’t really promise you seafood that hasn’t been frozen.”

“Okay, let’s put a nix on the fish idea,” she laughed.

“I know! Do you like pierogis?”

“Pierogis? Like those frozen potato things?” she shrugged. “Yeah, they’re alright.”

“Have you ever had them fresh?” he asked.

“I don’t think so.”

Jaxon shook his head. “Then I know exactly where we’re going.”

“Okay...” she said skeptically, drawing the word out.

“This place is a little unconventional, but trust me, it’s delicious. If you’ve only ever had frozen pierogis, then you’ve never really tasted a pierogi. The experience is entirely different.”

“I guess I’ll have to take your word for it,” she smiled.

“Yes, you will.”

He took her to a place called The Darlaks. It was a pierogi restaurant owned by an older Polish couple, the Darlaks.

Jaxon thought it was a strange restaurant when he first moved to New York, but after Dylan insisted they give the place a try, he was pleasantly surprised.

And now he hoped that Madelyn would feel the same way.

The two of them sat in the old leather-bound booths and watched in wonder as the waiter set down plate after plate of pierogis in front of them. They were committed to having a shareable feast of every pierogi flavor under the sun. They ordered classic potato and cheddar cheese, potato and jalapeno, spinach and garlic, broccoli, bacon ranch and onion, and Polish blueberry. On the side, they ordered kielbasa, sauerkraut, a house salad dripping with homemade dressing.

“It’s like we’re two pierogi obsessed people having a really weird picnic,” Madelyn laughed as the last plate of blueberry pierogis was set down on the table. She pointed to the sweet dumpling and giggled, “We even have dessert pierogis!”

“And you won’t regret a single bite,” he insisted happily.

To his great relief, Madelyn oohed and awed over the food, her eyes closing with enjoyment with each new bite.

“How are you liking Kerhonkson so far?” he asked.

“It’s pretty good. I haven’t gotten to know all that many people yet since I work from home and all, so basically the only person I’ve talked to more than once has been Margie,” she began.

“The bank teller!” Jaxon nodded.

“Yes! Oh, and Sonja.”

“From the grocery store,” he said, and Madelyn burst into a fit of giggles.

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “How did you know that?”

“There are only seventeen hundred residents here,” he said with amusement. “And I’ve been here for five years. Plus, we bank and shop at the same place. I love Margie. She’s like a second mother to me. Plus, she uses a calculator for everything, right? And I just think there’s something so charming about a bank teller who can’t do unassisted math.”

“I love her!” Madelyn agreed.

“Me too. Is this what it was like in Providence at all?”

“Definitely not. We don’t have Margie or anyone like Margie. We’re also a lot bigger of a town. There’s like, one-hundred and eighty thousand? Something like that? So not a huge city, but a lot bigger than Kerhonkson. What about you—do you like living in a small town?”

Jaxon considered the question as he cut one of the blueberry pierogis in half. “I hated it when I first moved here. I hated that everybody knew everybody else’s business and how much gossip there was. I hated when people would throw block parties or make their little comments about the ranch.”

“And now?” she asked.

“Now...? As weird as it is to say, I kind of love it. It’s like family here.”

“Doesn’t it ever drive you crazy that there’s...” she trailed off.

“Nothing to do?” he finished. “I mean, I guess so. Sometimes. But we’re not far from bigger cities, plus, I’m so busy with the ranch. Plus, it’s a great place to raise a family.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ah, my girlfriend and I, we were going to start a family here. Until she bailed,” he said with venom, cursing himself for even bringing the subject up. The last thing Madelyn needed was a rundown of his messed up romantic life.

Madelyn nodded knowingly and said, “Relationships.”

“Yeah, relationships.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m pretty sure small towns are probably not the greatest place to raise your kids,” she offered.

He narrowed his brows. “Why’s that?”

“There’s nothing to do.”

“Yeah, exactly. Nowhere to get into trouble,” he added.

Madelyn offered him a wry, sexy smile. She tapped her nose as she said, “That’s why you learn to make your own trouble.”

“Oh geez, I’d never thought of it that way,” he laughed.

“Okay, let’s to rocket-fire questions!”

“Shoot,” he said.

“Best song ever?”

“’Freebird.’”

Madelyn’s face soured and she gave a playful roll of her eyes as she said, “Be serious.”

“I am! It’s a classic,” he said. “What about you?”

“‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow.’ Now that’s a classic!” she said, and he was immediately charmed by her. “Next. What’s your favorite color?”

“Blue,” he said.

“Mine too!” she cheered. “Favorite drink?”

“Coke.”

“Yuck! Rot your teeth, why don’t you? Mine’s water.”

“Wow. Water? Bo-ring!” he said, and they both chuckled.

There was something surprisingly easy about talking to Madelyn. She had a playfully judgmental attitude about things, yet in the same breath seemed soft and gentle.

He wondered, briefly, what it might be like to be with her, to kiss her, to wake up next to her, then banished the thought from his mind.

“Are you seeing anyone?” she asked, pulling his thoughts back up to the surface.

“No,” he said. “You?”

“No. The last time I was with someone was, like, three and a half years ago.”

“Messy breakup?” he asked—aren’t they all?

“Understatement of the year,” she offered. “But yes.”

“Same. Except mine was just a few months ago. I was never ‘let’s get married’ guy.”

“Isn’t that any guy?” she teased.

Jaxon shrugged. “Ask my brothers. All of them are in long-term relationships. They thought love was everything. I’ve seen them go through these super complicated breakups. I’ve seen then in on-again-off-again toxic relationships. I’ve seen them lose spouses to death, raise kids alone. You name it; I’ve probably seen it.”

“I don’t know,” she said, checking her nails. “I’m pretty sure I could still give you a run for your money.”

“Then color me impressed,” he said, and Madelyn adorably pretended to paint him with a paintbrush.

“You were saying? Not a marriage guy?”

“Right,” he nodded. “Until I met my ex.”

“And let me guess: after you met her, you turned into the lovestruck, ooey-gooey mess that you swore you’d never become?”

“Pretty much,” he said. “I wanted to be with her forever, have kids, the whole nine yards.”

“Ah, I’m sorry. That really sucks. What happened?”

His eyes went wide as he said, “Apparently, she wanted to have a kid, but felt so-so about the ‘stay together forever’ part of the plan.”

Madelyn sat a little straighter. She leaned in with her chin resting in her palm as she repeated, “You have kids?”

“One,” he said. “We had him, and after a while, she decided she didn’t want to commit. How does anybody do that? You have a kid and then just go, oh, you know what? Forget it. I don’t feel like being a parent anymore.”

“You were right. That is a complicated story,” she said, then trailed back to what he had just admitted. “I didn’t know you had a child. All this time, I’ve never seen you out and about with a little one. Girl or boy?”

“Boy,” he said fondly. “And yeah, he is with his nanny a lot. Once I’m home, we usually chill out together in front of the TV. Usually, I try and take him out on the weekends, but...what can I say? You caught us on a lazy week.”

“How old is he?” she asked.

“Two and a half.”

She swallowed. “Wow. Great age.”

“Yeah,” he said, though left out saying that the “terrible two’s” was more than just a rumor.

“What’s his name?” she asked.

“Sutton,” he said. “Sutton Brooks.”

6

Madelyn

All this time, Madelyn had agonized about how she was going to find her son, how she could possibly narrow down who his parents were, and in the blink of an eye, the answer fell right into her lap.

He had been living right next door to her this whole time.

Madelyn could hardly get through the rest of the dinner without getting emotional. She didn’t know whether to burst out crying and come clean to Jaxon or play it cool and do her best at getting close to the boy.

She chose the latter.

Sutton.

It was the name Madelyn had given her son. It was the one she had signed on her adoption papers, begging the new parents not to change it—and apparently, they hadn’t.

Jaxon never insinuated that Sutton was adopted and even used terminology that suggested Sutton was his biological son, such as “when we had Sutton”—but Madelyn knew otherwise.

His name, his age, the neighborhood the child lived in—he had to be hers.

It was all she could do not to burst into excited giggles or a nervous sweat for the rest of her evening with Jaxon.

She wanted so desperately to meet his son and even asked to when they go back to their neighborhood—after what felt like the world’s longest hike through the state park to see the Awosting waterfall—but Jaxon said it was too late.

He assured her she would meet Sutton one day, and she knew her heart would be pounding until she could lay eyes on the child.

“Give him a piece of you, Madelyn.”

These were the words of her grandmother, May.

When she gave birth to Sutton, May was the only one at the hospital with her.

She lay with Sutton on her chest, trying desperately to feed, but Madelyn was too weak to help the infant along.

Given her illness, she hadn’t given much thought to what would happen after her child was born. She should have been picking out names and making plans for the nursery, but instead, she was dealing with debilitating back pain, infections, and extreme fatigue.

Once he was in her arms, it didn’t even feel real.

“I don’t want him to have a piece of me,” Madelyn cried, looking down at the little porcelain baby and then to her withered body. “I don’t want him to have any part of me.”

“Oh, don’t be like that,” May said, rubbing her hand along Madelyn’s arm.

Madelyn looked over at her grandmother with a sudden calm. And then it occurred to her. “I want him to have a piece of you,” she said. “I want to name him Sutton.”

Sutton was her grandmother’s maiden name and it was what all of May’s closest friends had been calling her since the nineteen-sixties.

Madelyn could think of no one else she would rather name her baby boy after.

“Perfect,” her grandmother said, touched.

She remembered exactly what Sutton looked like as a baby. He had dark hair and the bluest eyes. She knew that children’s features changed drastically from birth to one year old and wondered if his dark hair had gone blonde or if he’d lost his little dimples.

Madelyn spent several more days with Jaxon Brooks, but she never caught sight of his son. She started to wonder if maybe Jaxon’s ex had custody of the boy or if the reveal of her son being her next-door neighbor was something she thought up in a daydream.

She also wondered why Jaxon and his girlfriend had broken up.

How close were Jaxon and his ex? They must have been serious about one another if they adopted a child together. She wondered how Jaxon felt about unexpectedly becoming a single father. Then she wondered what kind of monster his ex was to leave the child she’d been raising.

Then again, her ex, Travis, did the same thing when he found out Madelyn was pregnant. It was something she could never forgive him for.

One Sunday, weeks after her move, Madelyn saw Jax come home in a black escalade and take a dark-haired toddler out of the car seat in the back. She only saw him for a moment, but it was enough to bring memories rushing back.

“Hey, is that your little one?” she asked. “Your Sutton?”

Her Sutton.

“This is he,” Jaxon said, lifting the boy slightly. She could see a tuft of dark hair, but the boy’s face was mostly obscured as he nuzzled against his father’s shoulder. “We were off at the ranch with the horses. Tuckered him out, I guess.”

“Or bored him to sleep,” she teased, trying not to sound too eager as she sprung up from her front porch.

Jax chuckled and watched as Madelyn walked to her porch rail. “Can I meet him?” she asked.

“Ah, he’s sleeping,” he said, not missing a beat. He kept walking toward his front door, and she couldn’t help but feel that somehow, deep down, he knew Madelyn’s interest in Sutton wasn’t so innocent.

With one hand on his front door handle, Jaxon turned towards Madelyn’s house and said, “He’s just been really tired today and so he’s cranky. That’s the fun of kids.”

She would take a thousand cranky days with Sutton than ever live another day without him.

“No problem,” she said with a smile.

That was the first missed opportunity to meet her son.

Sutton remained the elusive toddler, and Madelyn felt more and more like the creepy neighbor as she sat in her office, staring out the slats of the window to peer into Jaxon’s backyard as the adoptive father played with her little boy.

Her heart raced with excitement as she caught glimpses of his little features.

She needed to find a way to get closer to her next-door neighbors. She knew she couldn’t rush it, but she was so desperate to reunite with her son.

In the days that passed, her emotions were all over the place. She thought a lot about her ex, about the fall of her health, and about the choice to give up her son.

The cold beginning of June was starting to fade into proper summer heat, and Madelyn was spending more time out on her front porch, reading or sifting through work.

It was early one Sunday morning, out on her porch while taking in the first summer breeze of the day and sipping coffee, when her uncle called her.

“Hey, kid,” he said. “How are you settling in down there?”

“Good,” she said. “How are things back in Boston?”

“Pretty good, pretty good. How are you feeling?”

“Great,” she said hesitantly. “Why, what’s up?”

“You up for a job?” her uncle said over the line, and she could hear his smile creeping into his tone.

“Seriously?”

“It’s a simple job,” he said almost defensively. “Woman’s wondering if her husband is cheating. He’s been spending a little too much overtime at work down at an accounting office in Tribeca. You think you can handle it? We just need you to follow him around for a couple of days with one of our girls, Sarah. Snap some photos, the works. You think you can handle it?”

“Yeah, sounds perfect,” Madelyn said, excited and eager to get back to the work that she had once been so passionate about.

“We’re gonna be shooting you a couple of jobs for the next couple of months. Nothing big, and not always on your own, alright? But I want to put you out there, get you back into it. You’ve got a knack for this, kid.”

“Thanks, Uncle Jim.”

“Alright, alright,” he said quickly. “Gotta go, Maddie. I’ll send you the brief to your work e-mail, got it?”

“Got it, thanks,” she said before hanging up the phone.

Madelyn was on cloud nine for the rest of the day. It had been so long since she felt useful to anyone.

She knew her uncle was taking a chance on her. She hadn’t worked a job alone for years. Not since before she got sick. But she was ready for this.

She spent the rest of the morning being productive—finishing up some paperwork, cleaning the house, and finally tackling the overgrown front lawn.

Madelyn always loved it when people made fancy designs on their lawns. Back and forth cut rows of grass that seemed to bend in opposite ways, checks, chevron patterns. She tried her hand at it with her lawnmower, but all she seemed to make was a mess.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite neighbor,” Jaxon shouted over the sound of the lawnmower, smiling as he approached her.

“Hey,” she said, cutting the engine.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“As is perfectly apparent,” she said, gesturing around herself, “cutting the lawn.”

“Is that what you call that?” he teased.

Madelyn tilted her head and smirked. “Why? You think you could do a better job?”

“I could try,” he said, gesturing toward the push handle of the mower. “In fact, there’s a lot I could do to that old property.”

“Like what?” she dared.

“Mow the lawn, put in a vegetable garden, flowers, mulch. Whatever suits your fancy,” he shrugged.

“You’re like my very own landscaping company rolled up into one handsome ball,” she flirted.

“Here, let me,” he said, taking over for her and creating an awesome diamond checkerboard pattern across her lawn.

Looks aside, Jax had a presence about him that Madelyn had never encountered before. He was instantaneously likable—friendly, a conversationalist, willing to talk to everybody regardless of age or race, with the same interest and charisma that he might talk to one of his best friends.

Madelyn wanted to hate him. She wanted to detest the man who was raising her child—the one preventing her from resuming the life she had dreamed for herself. But she couldn’t do it.

Jax was kind and handsome, funny and talkative. In another life, he would have been somebody Madelyn would have pursued romantically.

Then, as she watched him pushing the mower back and forth across her lawn and wiping the sweat from his brow, she wondered: why shouldn’t she pursue him?

The spark between them was almost palpable. Her attraction to him, physically and otherwise, was so strong it pulled her toward him like a magnet. And most importantly, he was the stand-in father of her child.

If she did go after him and everything worked out, then she would be back in Sutton’s life, and that was the most important thing of all.

“Hey, Jax?” she called out, waving to get his attention.

He cut the mower and raised his brows curiously at her. “Hm?”

“Do you want to go out sometime?” she said, tilting her head to the side and putting on her best charming smile.

“Like a date?” he joked; a callback to one of their earlier conversations.

Madelyn pressed her lips together. “Actually, yeah. Exactly like a date.”

7

Jaxon

Jaxon fixed the top button of his polo and stared in the bathroom mirror to inspect himself. On the dark granite countertop was his cellphone. Jaxon had been talking to Hunter about his poor decision to accept a date with Madelyn Woodward.

“Should I cancel?” he asked.

“What?” Hunter scoffed, his voice echoing through the speakerphone against the bathroom counter. “No way! Why would you cancel?”

“I don’t know, it feels weird or something,” he said, embarrassed at how ridiculous he sounded.

No matter how much he wished otherwise, somewhere, on some deep, twisted level, he still felt compelled to stay faithful to Skylar.

“So, what’s the problem?” Hunter asked. “Go on the date!”

“What if Skylar finds out?”

Hunter laughed. “Good! I hope she does, and she goes insane with jealousy.”

Though his brother couldn’t see it, Jaxon started to nod. He was under no delusion that Skylar would come back to him. Especially not now that she was getting married.

He was still surprised that she was tying the knot. She had seemed perfectly happy not to when she was with Jaxon—she never even made it seem like a priority. He could even remember several occasions when she had given a playful roll of her eyes and joked about how her best friend was “newly shackled” after she’d gotten engaged.

Was marriage something Skylar had wanted all along?

If it was, she should have told Jaxon.

He wasn’t wild about the idea when they were first together.

He wasn’t wild about it at the end, either. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t committed to her. He had no intention of ever being with anyone else. They had started a family, they had promised forever, they had become parents. Wasn’t that what it meant to be a family?

After she left, Jaxon had obsessed over the word: Family.

A primary social group; parents and children. A unit who lived together, shared common attributes.

He, Skylar, and Sutton were family once.

“If you cancel now, you’ll look insane,” Hunter said with humor.

“How so?” Jaxon asked. “People get busy—stuff comes up.”

“Okay, hear me out. You canceling makes you look flaky,” his brother explained. “Second, it makes you sound like scared, or worse, like you aren’t over your ex yet.”

Jaxon wanted to say he wasn’t over Skylar, but pressed his lips together tightly, swallowing the words.

“Plus, you’ll hurt her feelings or make her think that you changed your mind or somehow figured she wasn’t worth your time. Now you’ve made the new girl with no friends feel bad about herself,” Hunter continued to ramble in his endless way. “Now add to the fact that she’s your next-door neighbor.”

“So?”

“So!” Hunter exclaimed with a laugh. “So, you don’t get involved with the neighbor unless you really mean it! This is someone you have to see every day. If you don’t go out with her—or if you do and it doesn’t work out—you’ll have to deal with her giving you the stink-eye and kicking over your garbage cans for the rest of your life.”

“She’s not going to kick over my garbage cans,” Jaxon chuckled. “Plus, the properties are pretty big. I doubt I’ll notice if she’s glaring at me.”

“You’ll feel the aura of her glare,” Hunter said.

“Her aura?” Jaxon mocked. “Rachel’s really got you with that yoga stuff, huh?”

“Her vibe then! Either way, you’ll bring the whole neighborhood down. Then you’ll have to move, and you’ll probably be father away from the ranch, which means you’ll be wasting more time in the car and spending more money on gas, which means you’ll be needlessly polluting the universe and adding to global warming and basically becoming the sole villain in the story of the destruction of our planet. Is that what you want?”

Jaxon shook his head, unable to fend off the tight grin on his lips.

“I will be the sole villain,” he repeated. “Of the world.”

“Yup.”

“Because I didn’t take my neighbor out on a date?” Jaxon asked.

“Mm-hmm,” his brother confirmed.

“Big stakes here.”

“Now you finally understand what I’ve been trying to tell you!” Hunter cracked up. “You need to take this girl out!”

“You are insane,” Jaxon enunciated. “You know this, right?”

“I do, yes,” Hunter confirmed.

In the background of Hunter’s call, Jaxon heard his sister-in-law shout, “I tell him every day!”

“Yeah, well, tell her she’s crazy, too,” Jaxon said. “Thanks, man.”

“Let me know how it goes, okay?”

“Alright,” Jaxon nodded. “I’ll text you later.”

Jaxon could feel his body wash over with nerves. He looked back at his reflection and marveled at how old he suddenly felt.

He was only twenty-five, but he felt as though he had lived his life in sections.

Childhood, spending endless amounts of time with friends and family.

His teenage years, still overloaded with social groups, but beginning life on the ranch.

Graduation, when he started working full-time at his father’s ranch.

Twenty-one—the year that he fought hard against moving away from Texas.

Then, in what was once his favorite chapter in life so far—the Skylar years.

And now, in what was quickly becoming his least favorite chapter—the single years.

Except he wasn’t single. He was a father now.

Going through a breakup when you have a toddler had its pros and cons.

The pros: Jaxon had someone to take care of; someone to keep him distracted; to keep him on schedule.

He had someone who endlessly craved his love.

He had someone to love right back.

The cons: Jaxon couldn’t mourn the loss of Skylar in the same way he would have if he weren’t a father. He couldn’t drink his cares away or fill his time with trips with friends or an endless string of girls.

He had to be responsible and put-together. He had to put Sutton first in everything.

He knew it was just a stupid date—a stupid date with somebody he actually liked—but it felt like he was opening up a new chapter in his life, and Jaxon wasn’t sure he was ready for that.

But apparently, he would be the world’s biggest monster if he didn’t—so said his brother.

Jaxon picked Madelyn up and the two drove thirty minutes out of town to the nearest movie theatre. They caught a new romantic comedy, which they both enjoyed. Afterward, they went to a little Greek place for dinner.

Making conversation with Madelyn was easy. She was beautiful and fun to talk to, which only scared Jaxon more.

“So, you have a big family, huh?” Madelyn asked as she cut into her spinach-stuffed spanakopita.

“Huge,” he said, wide-eyed. “Five brothers, one sister, two crazy parents.”

“Did you ever wish you had a smaller family?”

Jaxon thought about it, then shook his head. “No. It was all I knew. Plus, I was one of the youngest, so I had a little more space and attention than the rest of my brothers did.”

“Follow up,” she said, throwing a finger into the air. “As we all know, every parent has a favorite child—”

“No, they don’t,” he interrupted with a laugh.

“Sure, they do!” she giggled. “It doesn’t mean that they love one of their kids more, it just means they like one of their kids more.”

“That’s insane,” he said, laughing again. He couldn’t imagine acting that way if he had another child.

“Come on!” she urged him. “You know it’s true, deep down. Who are your parents’ favorites?”

“Not a clue,” he said, refusing to answer.

Madelyn scrunched up her face in mock-annoyance, crossing her arms at her date. It was cute, and it made Jaxon smile.

“Alright, alright,” he said. “Well, if I had to take a stab at it, I would say my mom’s favorite is probably Phoenix. Without a doubt. They’ve always been close.”

“She must be proud of his musical success,” she said with a nod.

“I think that’s the part of his life that worried her the most, to be honest. But yeah, she’s proud, but he could have just done the ranching thing and she would have been just as jazzed to brag about him.”

“And what about your dad?” Madelyn asked. “Any favorites?”

“That’s a hard one. If he favors any of us, he doesn’t show it. Maybe Hunter? Maybe the oldest, Jett?” he shrugged. “I really don’t know.”

Madelyn raised her brows in surprise. “Then, what about you? Do you have a favorite sibling?”

“Me and Kennedy, that’s my sister, we’ve always been pretty close. We’re the closest in age, so...” he trailed off. “Hunter’s pretty cool, too.”

“Any sibling rivalries?” she asked.

Jaxon smirked.

“Aha!” Madelyn exclaimed, pointing a finger across the table in success.

“No, no ‘aha!’” he chuckled. “There are ones I’m not especially close to, I guess. I used to have no use for my oldest brother, Jett. He’s the one who stepped in to make sure I ended up with a ranch, but I really respect him now. He helped me a lot after I moved here.”

She shook her head knowingly and said, “Everybody has a favorite,” in a sing-song voice before dipping back into their shared plate of hummus.

“What about you?” he asked. “Any siblings?”

“Only child,” she said as though she were saying, “Guilty as charged!”

“Mom bailed before she could have anymore. I mean...” Madelyn trailed off, then shrugged. “Maybe she did have more kids, but I wouldn’t know one way or the other.”

“That’s rough. I guess that narrows down your favorite parent, at least?”

“No, not really. Dad’s...well, he has problems,” she said flatly. “But that’s a whole other story.”

“I’m sorry, that sucks.”

“You have a favorite parent?” she asked in return.

“They’re both fine. Mom’s kinda strict, kinda nosey, but she means well. Dad’s...well, he’s quiet. He’s a hard worker, expects a lot from us running the ranches. But I’ve never been someone who crashes under pressure, so it’s cool.”

“My grandma was my stand-in parent,” Madelyn offered. “She was...kind of amazing. She wasn’t your typical grandma. She wasn’t judgmental over anything, and believe me, I gave her a lot she could have been judgmental about.”

“Were you a wild child, Maddie?” he teased.

She smiled. “I am definitely not someone who learns from other people’s mistakes.”

“You have to make them for yourself?” he joked.

“Exactly. What about you? Any big doozies in your life?”

“Nah,” he shrugged. “I left that up to my other brothers. I mean, did I go to parties in high school that I probably shouldn’t have? Yeah, sure. But I’ve never tipped a car or ended up in jail or on some crazy bender. Clearly, I’m no match for the Queen Rebel over here.”

“Subject change,” she declared happily. “What’s your biggest pet peeve?”

Jax leaned forward, thinking, and then snapped his finger. “People who say ‘Ew!’ to the food you’re about to eat.”

“Oh!” she said excitedly, adding, “People who eat food off your plate without asking.”

“People who use a thousand hashtags on a single post,” he said.

“People who say, ‘Let’s hang out soon!’ and then when you actually try to hang out with them, they act shocked or surprised,” she snorted.

“When someone starts talking over you when you’re still in the middle of a story.”

“Oh, oh! When you’re telling someone about your dream and they interrupt you just to tell you about a weird dream they had,” Madelyn giggled.

The two of them continued to laugh and once again he marveled at how easy it was to be around her.

“I’ve got my ultimate pet peeve,” he announced, and she leaned in. “The misuse of the word love.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“People throw that word around a lot. Love. People love bagels, yet they also love their spouse. If you’re telling me you love me more than anything and in the next breath, talk about how you love pizza or would die for pizza, how am I supposed to feel about that?”

“I mean, being on the same playing field as pizza is a really high bar,” she said with a wink.

Looking across the table, Madelyn was so beautiful and so exciting to be around, but he couldn’t help but wonder what he was getting himself into by opening his heart up again.

Skylar said she loved him. She said she loved him more than anything—more than cookies, more than the feeling of taking your socks off at the end of the day, more than air.

Inevitably, she lied, and he didn’t know if he could put himself through that again. Especially not now that he had Sutton.

8

Madelyn

Tribeca was only a two-hour drive south. This might have seemed like a long journey to some, but it was a relaxing drive for Madelyn.

She met her contact, Sarah Manning, at her uncle’s New York office in Manhattan. The two of them hit it off right away and weren’t that far apart in age.

Days later, Madelyn drove back to Tribeca early in the morning to catch her client’s husband, Daniel Monroe.

Daniel was a thirty-one-year-old accountant who had been married for seven years. His wife suspected that he was having an affair, and Madelyn and Sarah were tasked with following him around for most of the day.

Their inspection of the suspected cheater had been unproductive so far. She’d driven to Manhattan almost every day this week, starting early in the mornings and getting in late at night.

“If it keeps going like this, I’m going to have to rent a room here in the city,” Madelyn said.

“Ah, we’ll get him,” Sarah said, stretching back in her seat.

“What if he isn’t doing anything?” Madelyn asked. “I mean, we’ve heard from his wife pretty regularly. Seems like he headed home right when he should of every day this week. He doesn’t take especially long breaks at work.” She shrugged. “Maybe the wife is being paranoid.”

“Nah,” Sarah said in her hard, knowing way. “He’s a cheater. You can tell.”

“How’s that?” Madelyn asked.

“He’s handsome,” her partner said. “Arrogantly handsome.”

“So?”

“I can just sense it from him,” Sarah continued. “He’s cheating. They’re always cheating.”

Madelyn nodded. She very rarely had friends break up without some sort of infidelity finding its way to the center of it all. Still…

“That’s not true,” she said.

Sarah turned her head to her partner and cocked a curious brow. “You name me one relationship where someone wasn’t screwing around before it ended.”

“Mine,” Madelyn said.

Sarah backed down, her eyes briefly flashing with sympathy. Then she resumed her patented Sarah know-it-all stance and said, “He probably had a girl on the side and you just didn’t know about it.”

“No,” Madelyn said firmly. “Sometimes there are just…complicated situations that drive people apart.”

Her ex, Travis Pollitt, had shaggy dark hair, blue eyes, and adorable dimples that formed in his cheeks when he smiled.

The two met when she was twenty, he was twenty-seven.

They met on the job, only they hadn’t worked together.

Travis hired her uncle’s firm to do a background check on his father’s new young fiancée.

Travis suspected the woman was only after his father’s money or a green card.

He had been right.

She had been working on the case with another investigator, Bernie. After only a month of working together, Madelyn was the one to present the final verdict on their investigation, alone.

“There’s a definite possibility that she’s only after a green card,” she explained to him. “We’ve tracked her bank account and it looks like she’s been sending your dad’s money to an account in the Philippines.”

Travis raised a brow and looked down at the tablet she held in her lap.

“Who has she been sending it to?” he asked calmly.

“Her boyfriend,” Madelyn said. “His name is Joshua Rizalino. They’ve been together for fifteen years.”

Travis nodded, unsurprised by the revelation.

“I knew I couldn’t trust her,” he said with a laugh. “Now I have to find some polite way to tell my dad I’ve been spying on his fiancée.”

“I don’t think there’s a polite way to do that,” she said with a laugh.

They met at Travis’ house, making themselves comfortable on his couch.

He set the tablet on the coffee table in front of them and turned to her, offering a besotted smile.

“So…” he began slowly. “Case closed.”

“Yep,” she mumbled.

“Does that mean I don’t get to see you anymore, Maddie?”

Her arms erupted in goosebumps.

“Don’t get involved with a client.” This was a warning echoed throughout the firm. It could be easy to get wrapped up with a client since you were spending so much time obsessing over their personal life, but she couldn’t help herself. She and Travis had a connection she had never felt before.

“Not necessarily,” she said coyly.

“Good,” he said. “Because I would hate to think this was the end of the road for us. I like you, Maddie.”

“I like you, too,” she said breathlessly.

He ran his hand along her waist and pulled her close to him on the couch, pressing his lips against hers in a soft, warm, dreamlike kiss.

The kissing continued, and he guided her down on the couch where the two stayed for hours.

She and Travis were together for two years after that.

Things were good, until he decided that—

“Look, look,” Sarah said suddenly, ripping Madelyn from her memories.

Madelyn looked over and saw Daniel slipping out of work early. He left on foot, meaning Madelyn and Sarah would have no choice but to follow behind him the same way.

They walked casually, discreetly using their phones to record and take photos, and followed him into a divey Chinese restaurant.

He sat down at a long table with about a dozen people. Curiously, he sat next to a petite Asian woman.

Sarah and Madelyn stayed at the restaurant for over an hour, eating dumplings and soup and endlessly sipping tea as they kept a careful watch over the table.

The most he did was brush a stray hair from the woman’s face. It was clearly a romantic gesture, but there wasn’t anything substantial from the interaction, either.

“We’ll get him,” Sarah said, sounding somewhat discouraged at the end of their night.

“Yeah,” Madelyn said, unconvinced.

“If we don’t have something by next week, we’ll spring for a hotel or something. I don’t want to keep driving out here.”

Madelyn nodded. “Agreed,” she said.

The drive home to Kerhonkson felt especially long that night. Madelyn felt like she was hitting dead ends everywhere she turned. She had conquered her illness, but she had no love to share life with. She’d found her son, but she couldn’t get close to him. She resumed a job that she enjoyed but couldn’t make headway for her client.

On top of these frustrations, she felt so, so alone.

Reflecting on Travis—back when things had been good between them—made her sick to her stomach.

Things had been so fiery between them. So passionate. He would have been a wonderful father. At least, that was what she thought back then.

Then everything fell apart.

It was a strange feeling to know that a little piece of you was out there somewhere and you couldn’t grab hold of it. Like having a sibling you never knew about, only worse. This was her creation, living with her neighbor, who wouldn’t seem to let Madelyn in arm’s reach of her son.

Maybe Jaxon knew Madelyn was Sutton’s mother. He was certainly rich enough to hire a private investigator for himself.

But then, why would he?

He got what he wanted out of the adoption. He got Sutton.

Madelyn’s existence in Sutton’s life was just a footnote to a story Jaxon wasn’t reading.

A sob elbowed its way up her throat, but Madelyn swallowed it down.

She turned the radio up and lost herself in the music all the way home.

She didn’t get home until after eleven that night and had trouble falling asleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she would see Sutton.

Madelyn awoke the next morning still feeling exhausted and sleepless. She knew she’d fallen asleep at some point during the night, but it was mostly tossing and turning.

She had turned her alarm off and wouldn’t have been awake so early if it weren’t for her doorbell chiming off through the house.

Madelyn adjusted her pajama shirt over her pale-yellow shorts and ran a lazy hand through her hair before pulling the front door open.

In front of her stood Jaxon, looking as fresh as a daisy.

“There she is,” he said with warmth in his tone. Looking her pajamas up and down, Jaxon laughed and said, “Sorry. Did I wake you?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head and trying desperately to wipe the sleep out of her eyes. “Yes. Sort of.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said, continued to chuckle. “You’re a hard girl to get ahold of these days. Is this a coincidence, or is this your evil plan to get me to miss you?”

She smirked and leaned against the doorframe. “Is it working?”

Jaxon looked her over once more and his demeanor changed. He shifted his weight and grabbed her hand, suddenly lovestruck. Without warning, the handsome man leaned down to kiss her.

His lips were soft and attentive as they gingerly pressed against hers.

“What do you think?” he asked as the kiss broke.

This was the only time in her life she ever understood how it felt to melt after a kiss. She felt her legs go warm and weak and her heart fluttered against her chest.

“Hi,” was all she could say, her tone as sweet as honey.

“Hi,” he repeated with a blush. “Look, don’t think I’m trying to schmooze you with a kiss, but I have two really big favors to ask.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Are you free tonight?”

Madelyn nodded, still barely able to comprehend what just happened between them. “Yeah, I’m free.”

“I was wondering if you wanted to come over for dinner?”

“At your house?” she asked, her heart suddenly pulsing hart. “Of course!”

“Great, and uh, the next one is kind of...” he trailed off, wincing slightly. “It’s a big favor.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“I was wondering if you would be able to watch Sutton for a couple of hours today?”

It was all Madelyn could do to stop herself from gasping at the request. Her whole body lit up with electricity.

“I would never ask, but my nanny is really sick, and I have a big meeting at work that I can’t have a toddler at. It would only be for a couple of—”

“Yes!” she interrupted. “Yes, of course!”

“What, seriously?” he said with a smile. “Are you sure?”

“Definitely.”

Jaxon sighed with relief. “Wow, thank you! You have no idea how big I owe you for this. I’ll be sure to be home by one, at the latest. And then I will cook you the most amazing dinner you have ever had.”

9

Jaxon

Being in Kerhonkson had its ups and downs.

The downs seemed much bigger when Jaxon first moved there.

First, he was far away from his friends and family. Second, there wasn’t a whole lot to do if you didn’t like the outdoors, which, thankfully, he did.

You had to drive out of town just to get to a mall or movie theater.

But then again, Kerhonkson helped him grow up. It was where he became a business owner and separated himself from his father’s shadow in Texas.

It was where he had fallen in love, adopted his son, and learned what it truly meant to be self-sacrificing.

While he loved his close-knit community now, he was still lacking in friends.

There was Dylan, his best friend who helped him run the ranch, and a smattering of others—Kim, Daniel, Julie, and Clayton.

But there was nobody else who had children or who was especially fond of babysitting.

So when there was an emergency at the ranch and his nanny was sick, he was suddenly in a bind about what to do.

Thankfully, his beautiful next-door neighbor was more than willing to help.

Jaxon was always wary about introducing new people to his son. He didn’t want Sutton to get attached to anyone who wasn’t going to be a permanent fixture in their lives, but he was desperate.

His worry dissipated the moment Madelyn met his son.

“Sutton, this is daddy’s friend Maddie. Can you say hi?” he said, holding his son in his arms and bringing him close to Madelyn.

His neighbor looked absolutely enamored with the boy. She reached her hand out gingerly to touch his hand and Sutton seemed equally as pleased to meet her—even if he didn’t say it quite so eloquently.

“Hi,” Sutton said, looking the woman up and down. “What’s your deal?” he asked.

Madelyn burst into a stream of adorable giggles and looked at Jaxon, red-faced and amused.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “He’s not great with manners yet.”

“Something tells me he gets that from his dad,” she said with a wink.

“Hey! I am the picture of a gentleman, thank you very much,” he laughed.

“Do you want to play games with me?” Sutton asked, reaching out to be held by Madelyn. “I can be th-the king, and you can be my horse.”

Madelyn took the boy in her arms as she announced, “Sure!”

“As you can see,” he explained, “you’re going to have your hands full. Do you want a cheat sheet?”

“I don’t think I’ll need one,” she smiled.

“I’ll give you one anyhow. He loves any cartoon musical, much to my dismay. He loves buttered spaghetti with salt and pepper, and he loves—and I mean love-love-loves—playing make-believe. So, if he hasn’t turned you into an alien, a superhero, or some sort of animal by the end of the evening, I’d be shocked. Oh! And when he tells you to do a voice to match your character, don’t just laugh. He’s being completely serious.”

“Sutton expects results,” she teased, putting her fist to her palm.

Like any parent leaving their child with someone new, Jaxon’s explanation of where everything in his house was, what emergency numbers Madelyn should know, along with snacks and nap times seemed to go on forever.

Finally, Madelyn set a hand on Jaxon’s shoulder and squeezed him. “It’s going to be fine,” she grinned. “Now, go to work!”

So he did.

He thought about the two of them for the rest of the day as he worked. Would they get along? Would Sutton wonder who this woman was? Was he taking too long at the office?

He cleared up a few errors, talked to Dylan briefly, and before he knew it, five hours had passed at the ranch.

When he got home, his fears about the interaction had disappeared as Sutton stood in the doorway with his arms spread from side to side, shielding him from Madelyn.

“Maddie?” he called out.

She stood behind his son with a bright smile on her face and mimed zipping her lips shut.

“You can’t talk to her right now,” Sutton announced happily.

Jaxon smiled and knelt to meet the child. “Oh, no? Why not?”

“Because I’m talking to her.”

“I just need to steal her away from you for two seconds buddy, and then you can have her ba—”

Sutton put his hand up and shook his head firmly. “We’re playing safari, and she is the giraffe princess.”

Jaxon looked up at Madelyn as she said, “I am the princess right now, but once I take my crown off, I promise you’ll be the first person I talk to.”

“The princess has no time to talk to her peasants, I see,” he teased.

The two of them laughed and Jaxon mouthed, “Was he good?” and Madelyn nodded. “Alright,” he said. “Then I’m going to start on dinner while you guys finish up, okay?”

“Okay!” Sutton said, then raced back into the expansive living room with Madelyn.

Jaxon could hear the pair playing as he prepared dinner. It was refreshing to hear his son having someone to play with. He stayed busy in the kitchen, only peering in every so often to make sure Sutton wasn’t exhausting Maddie.

He remembered that Madelyn said she liked fish, so made a seared salmon filet and lemon pasta for dinner. He loved to cook. In another world, he might have pursued a career in the kitchen.

When dinner was ready, the three of them sat at the dining room table and talked the way his family used to. He and Madelyn discussed their days, talked about their favorite shows, music, and movies, shared funny stories, and continually found ways to bring Sutton into their conversation.

“Buddy, do you want to go to grandma’s at the end of the summer?” he asked as he watched Sutton spoon the last of his peas into his mouth.

“No,” Sutton said without a second thought.

Jaxon chuckled. “Yeah, me neither. But we’re gonna go in September, okay?”

“Maybe I can get somebody else to do it?” Sutton said absent-mindedly, not looking up from his plate.

Jaxon and Madelyn exchanged amused glances. He smiled as he said, “Is that right, buddy? You’re just going to hand your ‘Sutton wig and face mask’ to one of your friends and hope for the best?”

Sutton inhaled a chubby breath and nodded, “Yep.”

Jaxon shrugged in defeat. “At least he’s got a plan,” he said.

“Respectable. Let me know if it works. I may use that one for myself,” Madelyn said brightly.

“Do you have a particular function you’re not crazy about going to at the moment?”

“Not at the moment, but it’s always nice to have a plan b in your pocket just in case,” she winked.

They spent hours talking until Sutton was fast asleep in Madelyn’s arms on the couch.

“It sounds like everything went great for you guys,” he said with appreciation.

“He’s amazing, Jax. He’s just...perfect. I have never seen anything so perfect in my whole life.”

“He is pretty perfect. I wish I had introduced you guys sooner,” he said.

“Why didn’t you?” she asked quietly, posing curious eyes at him.

“Ah...” he mumbled. “I’m still trying to find that perfect line, you know? I’m single now. I don’t really know what the etiquette is. Am I supposed to bring another woman into my life, or will that just confuse him? I don’t know what he remembers of his mother or how her leaving has affected him.”

“You’re just trying to protect him. That’s really sweet, Jaxon. How long ago did she leave?” she asked.

“About six months. I hear she’s engaged now, so...” he trailed off.

“Wow. Somebody doesn’t waste any time,” she scoffed. “Has she seen him since she left?”

Jaxon shook his head. “She hasn’t even called.”

“Ugh,” Madelyn scowled. “That makes me sick.”

“Me too. She never looked back. I don’t know how she could do it.”

“Did you have any idea the breakup was coming?”

“She started working with her ex. They dated right before she and I did,” he began, then shook his head, catching himself. “Sorry. You don’t want to hear this.”

“Sure I do! I’m the one who asked.”

“Why would you want to hear about my ex?” he asked with mild amusement.

“Because I’m insane,” she said with a quiet laugh. “I am not one of those girls who pretends the guy she has a crazy crush on doesn’t have a past. She was a big part of your life. She set the tone for how you treat people and how you’re feeling now. Unfortunately, she matters. She won’t forever,” she said with a wry grin. “But for now, I’d like to hear how it all went down, if you’re willing to share.”

Jaxon nodded, the smiled as he realized exactly what she’d just said. “So, you have a crazy crush on me, huh?”

“Of course,” she said.

Jaxon looked over at his son, his eyes rolling back with the spell of sleep in the arms of a woman he had just met and couldn’t help but think how happy and contented the little boy looked.

It was so different than how things had been with Skylar.

She told him repeatedly that she wanted to be a mother. At first, he believed her. But after a couple of months with Sutton home, something in her changed. She didn’t have a warm, maternal side. She would let Sutton cry for hours through the night.

Being a parent wasn’t easy, and it wouldn’t come naturally to everyone.

“You have like a million nieces and nephews,” she would say to Jaxon. “You’re already good at this. I’m just learning, so take it easy on me, okay?”

And so he did. He made the transition to parenthood as easy as possible for her.

She seemed to care for Sutton, but not in the same way he did.

Years in, Skylar was drawing farther and farther away from them. She worked overtime at the ranch and seemed to view family days as something to strike off her checklist rather than something she deeply enjoyed.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love Sutton or Jaxon. She just wasn’t settled. He could feel it. She didn’t fall into family life with a graceful, contented sigh. It didn’t make her want to lean back and say, “This is what I’ve been waiting for.”

He remembered how it all ended. Last December, Skylar hadn’t come home from work yet when she called him and asked him to meet her at the stables of the ranch.

He left Sutton home with the nanny and drove twenty minutes to Brookside. He found her standing outside in the snow, leaning against the barn.

The two made small talk about the horses and her workday, but nothing felt right about her candor.

A question about whether she was alright turned into an argument about everything they had both sacrificed to be together until finally she threw her hand into the air and said, “I just don’t know if this is...”

Skylar trailed off.

“What?” Jaxon asked, nodding toward her.

“No,” she said firmly, shaking her head. “Forget it.”

“Say it, Skylar.”

“No,” she repeated.

“Say it, Sky,” he prodded. “You’re not fulfilled.”

“I’m not fulfilled,” she snapped, crossing her arms to look at him. “I have been in this relationship with you for four years, and it used to be the highlight of my day.”

Used to be.

Her words cut at his heart. He was shaking from the cold, and even worse now from nerves, though he hoped she couldn’t tell.

Jaxon wasn’t dressed to be standing out in the freezing New York weather. He thought he would come and pick her up and the two of them would go to the car or inside the heated stables, or at the very least into his office. Instead, they stood three feet from one another, Skylar leaning against the barnboard behind her like her body had been interlocked with the building.

“Seeing you was the spark in my life,” she continued. “You were the reason I woke up in the morning, the reason I got excited for the rest of the day, the reason I put on makeup.”

He swallowed and watched her carefully as he asked, “So what do you want?”

“I want something else.”

“And what about Sutton?” he asked accusingly.

Skylar bit her lip, considering it. Her face looked racked with guilt and her tone went soft and sweet as she said, “You’re an amazing dad. You’re better for him than I am.”

Jaxon felt his mouth gape. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. If she wanted to leave him, that was one thing. It would rip his soul apart. It would ruin him. But he would find a way to handle it.

But to leave Sutton?

He felt his stomach twist as she continued, “I want to be fulfilled, Jax.”

Jaxon felt like his heart had started to crack but held together just long enough to become furious.

“When you were seventeen, you ran away from home because you wanted to find yourself,” he seethed. “You went to school to work with horses because you wanted to be fulfilled. You asked for a baby because you wanted to be fulfilled. What’s next, Skylar?”

She frowned with offence. “And you think somehow my decisions in the past invalidate my feelings now?”

“No,” he snapped. “I do find it convenient that this desire to go and ‘find yourself’ has materialized at the same moment your ex is back in your life.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” she laughed.

Four months ago, Skylar had started taking on jobs with her ex, a vet tech.

She convinced him that it was nothing. She said that they had dated briefly at the beginning of college. Nothing more than a couple of months.

Jaxon wasn’t a jealous person—until then. But he didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to be jealous or controlling.

And it came back to bite him.

“Tell me you’re not with him then,” he dared her.

“I’m not with him,” she said with a careless laugh.

“Have you kissed him?”

Skylar’s brave smile faded then. She held his eyes for what felt like forever, and he felt his heart resume its shattering.

“Yes,” she said.

Jaxon closed his mouth, staring at the beautiful creature before him. He watched her breath come out in cold plumes and studied every inch of her.

“Jax, talk to me,” she said, but he couldn’t.

He just stared at her, slowly realizing that everything he had built

That girl—that special girl he’d met who finally changed everything for him—suddenly had no interest in him anymore.

He had no delusions of grandeur. He knew this was it. It was over. If she didn’t love him now, she would never love him again. They were not the off-and-on couple. If she was saying it was over, then she meant it.

It was only in the days that followed that Jaxon finally registered a reaction to the breakup.

He’d begged and bargained for her to stay. He’d used guilt. “We built a family,” he reasoned, trying to appeal to the love he knew she felt for Sutton.

Nothing worked.

He explained the ins and outs of his relationship to Madelyn.

He had always thought that he and Skylar were a unit who made decisions together.

They based their relationship around their incredible friendship. They communicated. They never went to bed angry.

They did all of the stupid things you were supposed to do to keep a relationship alive, and somehow, it all came crashing down anyway.

“Sounds horrible,” Madelyn said, wide-eyed as she rested her hand against Sutton’s back.

“Breakups are notoriously horrible. So yeah.” He gave a bitter chuckle. “I don’t have any desire to do it all over again.”

The brunette reached over and brushed her hand through the side of his hair and offered a smile as she said, “Who knows. Maybe you won’t have to.”

Madelyn was a mystery, but so sweet. She was this girl who came out of nowhere and had somehow managed to get into his life at a time when he thought his heart had been completely walled off.

There was something perfect about her.

Still, the thought of jumping back into a relationship made him feel sick to his stomach.

“I don’t know...” he began. “My faith in relationships isn’t at an all-time high right now.”

“Hey, you’re preaching to the choir,” she smirked.

“But faith can be restored,” he said.

Madelyn looked down at Sutton, then back up at Jaxon as she said, “I think you’re right.”

10

Madelyn

Sutton was the most beautiful boy Madelyn had ever seen in her entire life.

He was just under three-foot-tall with bright blue eyes and pouty little lips. His expression was fixed with an almost permanent smile, and he was just as friendly and talkative as she hoped he would be.

She ran her hands through his dark little fauxhawk and couldn’t help but laugh at the styling. This was what happened when you left a young, single guy in charge of styling a toddler.

Sutton wore a dark blue polo shirt with tiny white polka dots, khaki shorts, and adorable baby loafers.

Her heart was so full whenever she was around him—which was a lot these days.

Not only was her relationship with Jaxon progressing nicely, allowing her more family time with Sutton, but she offered to babysit whenever she could. She preferred time alone with Sutton to time with him and Jaxon.

When Jaxon was at work, she could pick Sutton up and hold him close like a mother would hold a son. When he was gone, she didn’t have to silence her tears.

It was a warm Sunday evening, and the sun was just starting to go down.

Jaxon had been called into the ranch for a Sunday wedding.

Madelyn offered her services with Sutton and had taken him out into the back yard to play.

“I have a story,” Sutton said as he walked up to the swing-set hand in hand with Madelyn.

“Oh yeah?”

“There was a cow named Murray, and he was friends with a hippo and a turtle, and he wished he could swim,” he explained absent-mindedly. “Oh! And there was also a bear.”

“Brown bear, grizzly bear, or a polar bear?” she said with fascination.

“All of them.”

“All of them?” she repeated with a bemused giggle. “There were three bears?”

“Yeah!”

“Okay, go on,” she said as she lifted him into the safety of the child’s swing.

“And they were all looking for honey.”

“Even the turtle?”

“Yeah,” Sutton said with a breath.

And that was it.

That was the end of the story.

Jaxon would playfully roll his eyes when this happened. “Finish the story, buddy!” he would say.

But Madelyn loved Sutton’s half-finished thoughts.

“One day, he’ll come up with the end of a story and it’ll blow your socks off,” she once teased Jaxon.

“Well, it’d better,” he said with a laugh. “I’ve been waiting over a year for some of these stories to end. I guess I will forever be on the edge of my seat about how the hippo gets his bowtie back.”

When she was with Sutton, she felt whole again. That was the only way she could describe it.

Her heart filled and leaped with a feeling she’d only ever experienced after she’d first had Sutton. It was completeness she didn’t know she needed.

It was as though there had been a hole that had been in her life without her ever knowing until it was filled.

She held his tiny hand in hers, and he seemed to feel something, too.

Madelyn knew she wasn’t imagining it.

Jaxon was a good dad to Sutton. There was no doubt that he provided well for him financially, but it was so much more than that. When she saw the way Jaxon looked at the little boy, she could see a loyal love and fierce protection there. She felt safe and happy that Sutton had been raised in such a loving home, mother or not.

This was much more than Madelyn could say for Sutton’s biological father. He wanted nothing to do with Sutton or Madelyn. He didn’t even stick around for his own son’s birth.

She remembered coming home from a doctor’s appointment to see Travis loading luggage and garbage bags full of clothes into the back of his van.

“What’s all this?” she asked cheerfully as she walked up next to him.

“It’s uh...it’s my stuff,” he said.

“Why is your stuff packed up?” she asked with a curious laugh.

“I got that job in San Diego,” he said quickly.

She followed him up the stairs and watched him pick up another garbage bag full of stuff, curious why he wasn’t asking what happened at her appointment.

“That’s amazing!” she said, stopping him on his way back to the car and throwing her arms around him. “Congratulations, baby.”

“Yeah, thanks,” he said stiffly. She hadn’t yet noticed that he didn’t return her embrace, instead turning awkwardly from her and throwing the bag into the back seat and closing the side door. “They said they want me there by the end of next week, so...”

“Wow, that’s fast,” she said, crossing her arms, mind elsewhere. “Really fast. I’m not going to be of much help to you, but maybe we can hire movers or something?” she said, scattered, wondering how they were going to get to California so quickly, especially with all of her doctor’s appointments. “Oh, and I’ll have to tell the landlord we’re moving—have you done it yet?” she asked, and Travis shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m going to tell my dad,” she suddenly realized.

“You don’t have to tell him anything. I’d rather he not know, to be honest,” Travis said sharply. It was only then that she realized he hadn’t met her eyes since she got out of her car.

“Well, yeah, me neither, but when the baby gets here, he’ll want to—” she began to explain, but he put a hand up and said, “He doesn’t have to know because I’m going by myself.”

He finally met her eyes, and she could see darkness there. It was a cold, hollow look that she’d never seen from him before.

“I just can’t,” he said with a helpless shrug. “I can’t anymore, Maddie.”

Her body went cold. “Can’t...what?”

She could see the emotion overtaking his features as he said, “Please don’t make me say it.”

“Travis, are you leaving me?” she asked.

“I just can’t,” he repeated.

“Can’t what? Stop saying that! You can’t what?”

“I can’t stay here and watch you die!” Travis shouted, his hand thrown into the air.

The outburst quickly turned into tears, and Madelyn exhaled sharply, as though some other force has stolen the breath from her lungs. She felt her already weakened body go numb. She crouched down to try to stable herself but ended up flat on her backside in the middle of the walkway.

“Please, don’t make me do it,” Travis continued to cry, wildly shaking his head. “I can’t do it. I’m not strong enough. Please.”

She looked up at him, eyes wide, and repeated, “You’re leaving?”

“I’m not happy, Maddie. I haven’t been for a while,” he said as he crouched down next to her.

“You said you loved me,” she said, staring up into the sky. She narrowed her brows thoughtfully and continued, “You said it yesterday. What do you mean, you can’t?”

“I do love you,” he said, then repeated, “I love you. But I can’t stick around and watch you wither away. I can’t watch our kid die.”

“What are you talking about? Why are you being so fatalist about this?” she said. “What happened to yesterday—what happened to staying positive?”

Madelyn had been in shock. She felt breathless and numb, but she couldn’t register any other emotion until she suddenly burst out into violent sobs.

“What’s going on, Travis? Is there someone else?” she said, half crying, half threatening as she continued, “You may as well just tell me now because I’ll find out one way or the other.”

“You’ll find out?” Travis repeated indignantly. “Oh, you’ll find out? You gonna get your co-workers to spy on me, Madelyn? Don’t be that girl. Don’t be the girl who begs the guy to stay or starts following him around like some psychopath.”

Madelyn met Travis when she was twenty years old. By twenty-one, she was pregnant, and her health was in a downward spiral. He had been her rock all of this time, but now he sounded like someone else.

His words were full of hate. His tone was frustrated and tired. It was begging her to let him go.

As Travis watched her cry, he sighed and softened, if only slightly. “There is nobody else,” he enunciated.

“You just don’t want me,” she cried.

Travis pressed his lips thin but said nothing.

“So you think I’m going to die and you’re going to...what?” she asked, trying to reason out his logic. “Let me die alone?”

Travis swallowed, but he’d stopped looking at her.

“What about your son?” she cried.

Travis shrugged. “I don’t even know if he’s mine.”

And just like that, Madelyn’s eyes widened, and her tears immediately stopped.

“You were spending all that time with Chris, and we were pretty rocky,” he snapped. “How do I know?”

There were only two reasons why Travis would say something so horrible.

Either he was trying to make himself believe it was true so that he could distance himself from her without guilt, or he was trying to hurt her.

“You’re right, Travis,” she seethed. “He isn’t yours, and it doesn’t matter because I’m going to die before we can ever find out, right? Get out.”

“Maddie,” he said, but she was done.

“Get out!” she shouted.

Travis left that night, and Madelyn was so furious—so filled with indignant rage—that it took days for her to finally break down and cry.

Couples break up.

Couples with kids break up.

Madelyn knew this. She knew pregnancy didn’t make her immune to heartbreak, but it didn’t erase her shock.

Travis had done such a good job of pretending like she was still important to him.

He had carried on for months, acting like he was more in love with her than ever—that they were going to fight her illness and raise their family.

But all the while, he had been planning his escape.

What hurt the most was how Travis saw her. She was a ghost.

Barely alive.

To Travis—her love, her first, and the father of her child—she was nothing more than the walking dead.

He had already emotionally distanced himself from her, believing that she would die. Maybe he thought it would be easier to deal with the devastation if he broke up with her. Maybe he had stopped loving her. Maybe her illness had become a chore to him.

Whatever broke the camel’s back, this much was certain: to Travis, Madelyn was already dead.

She wondered what that first night gone must have been like for him.

Did he feel guilty?

Did he feel relieved?

Did he realize that he had lost the right to call himself a man after walking out on the sick mother of his child?

His mother called her the next couple of months. She’d even come to see Madelyn on a few occasions and asked about the baby, but she defended Travis each time. She said she hoped Travis and Madelyn would get back together, but that he needed “time to think” because he’d never “been through something like this before.”

“Which part, Debbie?” Madelyn snapped viciously. “Having a child or going through a deadly illness?”

Debbie sat up straight, caught off guard by Madelyn’s sudden outburst.

“Because, guess what? I’ve never gone through them before either, but I don’t have the option just to run away from it.”

Debbie didn’t come back after that.

Madelyn heard through a friend that Travis eventually won Debbie over, convincing her that the baby wasn’t his and that he’d known all along but they had decided as a couple not to tell anybody.

It was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

And looking at him now…her son.

He was the spitting image of Travis, and the boy’s real father would never know.

But Madelyn knew.

She felt complete, but also so afraid. On top of having Sutton back in her life, she also had the affection of Jaxon Brooks—their relationship bursting with new love.

But as she knew all too well, once you have something to love, you have something to lose.

11

Jaxon

Jaxon had been seeing Madelyn for the past three weeks. He was more endeared to her than ever. When he was at work or by himself, he wished she were there and found himself daydreaming about her on more than one occasion. It seemed that, without him meaning to, he had begun dating the girl.

He didn’t know if he was ready to embark on another romantic adventure. He wasn’t even sure he would classify relationships as an adventure anymore. Once upon a time, he would have. Relationships were just there to have fun with. A girlfriend was just someone to take to a movie, to kiss, to bring along to events with friends so that you didn’t feel alone.

Then he met Skylar, fell in love, and realized how traumatizing heartbreak really was.

He wasn’t sure exactly what he was doing with Madelyn. He liked her, and he could see them together for the long term, especially because she seemed to adore Sutton so much. But he didn’t know if he was ready to jump back into a relationship.

Regardless of his emotional hesitations, he had been planning an outing for him and Madelyn for the last couple of days.

“Are you working today?” he asked as Maddie opened her front door.

She greeted him with a broad, toothy smile and said, “No, why?”

“Because I think it’s about time that you see the ranch, don’t you?” he said.

“Sounds tempting,” she said, stepping out onto her porch. She jutted her hip out to the side and asked, “And what will we do once we’re there?”

“I’m thinking we’ll start the day with you, me, and Sutton on horseback,” he said.

“I’ve never ridden a horse before!”

“What?” he exclaimed. “That’s crazy! Well, we need to remedy this right away. Then afterward, we’ll grab some food and head to the bonfire.”

“You have bonfires at your ranch?” she asked, seeming more intrigued by his offer.

“It’s summer,” he said as though that should answer any questions she had. “Well, basically, anyway,” he shrugged. “I want everyone to have the authentic summer experience, and in Texas, that meant bonfires and beaches.”

“And are you going to bring the beach to your ranch, too?” she teased.

“Nah. But we’ve got one he—” he began, then caught himself. He looked down at Sutton, who was standing by his legs and corrected, “one heck of a pool.”

“Sounds like my kind of afternoon,” she smiled. “Let me grab my swimsuit.”

And just like that, Madelyn was in.

For the first time in a long while, Jaxon was nervous about bringing someone new to the ranch. It was silly, he knew. The ranch was a smashing success, but part of him was still anxious over whether Madelyn would like it or not. He wanted to show her a perfect experience at Brookside.

After riding out to the immense luxury ranch, the three of them were escorted by wagon down to the stables.

Jett was the one who arranged the renovation of the stables. They had a gabled structure and a slender roof skylight that provided the horses with natural light year-round.

“Are you going to ride with Sutton?” Madelyn asked as she watched his son instinctively run to the grooming section of the stables.

“Yes, I am,” he said confidently, not giving it a second thought.

Madelyn brought her fingers up to her lips and asked, “Is he okay to ride?”

“He rides with me all the time. Trust me, he’ll be fine. Now you…” he said, curiously eyeing her posture around her horse. “You, I don’t know about.”

Madelyn laughed. “Shut up. I’ll get the hang of it!”

“I’m just teasing,” he said, then gestured to his son and said, “Usually, we groom a horse before we ride them. So, we’ll start with this furry comb, and what do we do with this, Sutton?”

“Circles!” the boy shouted.

“That’s right; we move it in circles,” he said.

Jaxon gave the brush to Madelyn and moved his hand on top of hers, guiding the brush in quick circles around the horses back. “Now, we use the hard brush to knock away all of the hair and dirt that we loosened with the circular brushes,” he said, changing brushes.

“Wow, look at her. She loves it!” Madelyn giggled.

“That’s why we call her Princess. She loves to be pampered and spoiled. If they made nail polish for horses, I’m sure she’d be into that, too.”

He continued to brush and shine up Princess’s coat, reflecting on how second-nature the ranch life was to him. He had been around horses since he was a child. His father didn’t waste any time teaching him how to care for the animals properly. He could still distinctly remember his father teaching him how to clean the horseshoes.

“Stay away from that triangle part, unless you want a great big kick in the head. It’s too sensitive,” his father had told him as he used a small pick to dislodge the dirt under the horse’s hoof, just as Jaxon was doing now.

“That looks tricky,” Madelyn mused as she watched.

“Ah, well, the tricky part is not letting the horse run away while you’re doing this. Since she’s about a million times stronger than me, she could do some damage.”

“Tack up!” Sutton called out.

Jaxon smiled and brushed his hand through the boy’s hair.

“That’s right. Now we’re gonna tack up!” he said, then looked to Madelyn and said, “That’s just a fancy way of saying we’re going to put the saddle on the horse.”

With that, Jaxon set Princess’s saddle on top of the soft, blanketed pad and gestured for Madelyn come over. He held her hand and instructed her to slip her left foot into the stirrup.

She bit her bottom lip nervously as she took her first step toward mounting the horse. “I don’t know about this,” she said, her voice wavering.

“Trust me; you’ll be fine.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” she continued quickly.

“Hey, if a toddler can do it, you can do it,” he chuckled, then helped her up onto her horse.

“He’s had a lifetime to practice,” she said.

“Everybody starts somewhere.”

Jaxon grabbed Sutton and brought him up onto Pascal, a Yakutian horse. He was furrier than the other horses on the ranch because he was bred to withstand the rough Siberian winters. Pascal was also smaller than the rest of the horses at the ranch, again designed with the idea that smaller horses would retain more heat during cold winters than the average horse.

But Jaxon loved him anyway. He preferred Pascal over all of the other horses at the ranch. He was sweeter and had more personality—you didn’t ride Pascal, you were taken for a ride by Pascal. He often had his own ideas about where he wanted to go or how long he wanted to ride for.

The three of them stayed in the training area for some time until Madelyn felt more comfortable riding.

“How do I steer this thing?” she laughed.

“Just use the reins!” he called out. “Pull left to go left, right to go right. She’ll catch on.”

The more comfortable they got, the easier it was to convince Madelyn to go out into the ranch and start to wander the forested paths.

After riding, the three of them went into the heated pool and spent the rest of the day splashing and talking. Jaxon encouraged Madelyn to go and take advantage of the ranch spa and was touched when she turned it down, saying she preferred to stay with him and Sutton.

For dinner, they went to the bonfire for a truly classic Texan summer meal. There were baked beans, fresh salads, roasted zucchini, corn, chicken, ribs, and cornbread. Jaxon had a little bit of everything, unable to hold back from the delicious southern food.

As the sun began to set, the ranch workers lit the immense bonfire. The flames sprawled up into the sky in rich, warm embers.

He lay out on a thick blanket with Madelyn. Sutton was running around with the other kids from the ranch. As his son ran by, he could hear him sniffing.

“Leave it to my boy to get a summer cold,” he said with a laugh.

“Is he okay?” Madelyn asked.

“Yeah, just a little infection,” he shrugged, but Madelyn sat up straighter on their blanket.

“Anything serious?”

“No, no. I took him to the doctor,” he said. “He’s on some antibiotics, poor guy. I remember when I was younger, getting sick during the summer was the worst thing that could happen.”

“Definitely ruined summer break,” she agreed.

“Right?” he laughed. “One July, I was sick for about three weeks with this awful summer flu. Fever, sweats, the whole mess. Then by the time I was able to get out with my friends again, summer was basically over.”

As Sutton ran by, Madelyn stopped him and felt his forehead. “Yeah, that always sucks,” she said absent-mindedly.

“He’s alright,” Jaxon said with amusement as he watched Madelyn pull Sutton into a sweet hug. “Trust me. We have only the best doctors looking after my son.”

Eventually, Sutton was too tuckered out to continue playing. He came and sat on the thick blanket where Madelyn and Jaxon were lying and snuggled in between them before drifting off to sleep.

He reached over and grabbed Madelyn’s hand as they looked up at the stars.

“So,” he said with a small smile, “I told you about my war wounds. What about you? Ever been sick or break a bone or anything?”

“Truth?” she asked, turning her face to see him.

“Always.”

“I was really sick for a couple of years,” she said quietly.

“Oh, no way?”

“Yeah, I had um...” she stammered uncomfortably, looking away from him. “It’s called SCD; sickle cell disease.”

Jaxon swallowed audibly, studying the beautiful girl next to him. “I never would have guessed. You seem so healthy.”

“I’m a lot better now. I have a better handle on it,” she said positively, then looked down at Sutton and brushed her hand along his arm. “But there was a point where my doctor told me that he thought I only had a couple of weeks to live.”

“I can’t imagine how that must have felt,” he breathed. “So, what happens when you have SCD?”

“A lot,” she chuckled softly. “Um, basically I had splenic sequestration, where there are these blockages in your blood vessels. Then your blood gets restricted, and your body gets deprived of oxygen, which is, you know...not good. I ended up anemic. I had all of these disgusting ulcers.”

Stars continued to light up the sky, the darker the day got. Jaxon cast his eyes across the thousands of bright lights and shook his head in disbelief. He couldn’t imagine being told he only had days to live. The strength it must have taken Madelyn to get through that was unbelievable.

“Wow,” was all he could say.

“Yeah. It was not fun.”

“Do you still have it?” he asked.

“Yeah, but it hasn’t flared up in years. Now I just make sure I’m always hydrated. That really helps. I also have pain sometimes, so I use heating pads, which is good because that can also encourage blood flow, so…” she trailed off, then smiled. “I’m okay.”

“I can’t believe you went through all that. I’m sorry, but also really impressed. You’re a strong girl.”

“That’s why my ex left,” she said.

“What?” he frowned. “Because you were sick?”

“Yup. He said he didn’t want to stick around and watch me die,” she said, then offered a playful roll of her eyes.

“But you didn’t die,” he said, more of a question than a statement.

Madelyn shrugged, then laughed. “No, but he thought I was going to.”

“And he couldn’t even stick it out until you passed? What a selfish idiot.”

“I am not disagreeing with you,” she laughed.

Jaxon gave himself a moment to process all she had said. If anything, her story just made him like her more. She was so strong, so self-sufficient. If his ex had left him for such a horrible, selfish, disgusting reason, he wouldn’t know how to go on—how to accept that.

“I know this sounds terrible,” he began unsurely, “because I’m sure you really could have used somebody back then...but I’m glad things worked out the way they did.”

“Oh yeah?” she asked, looking over at him.

He held her gray, clear eyes and continued, “If you had stayed together, then I never would have met you, and I wouldn’t have been okay with that.”

She smiled. “No. I wouldn’t be either.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” he said and cleared his throat nervously. “Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

“You’ve never asked anyone that before?” she repeated.

He raised a hand and then let it fall on his chest as he said, “I swear. Circumstances just seemed to happen where I ended up in relationships without ever making them official.”

“And you want things to be official with me?”

He nodded. “Very much.”

Madelyn visibly brightened. Her lips curved into the hint of a smirk, and she nodded, saying, “Then consider this your first official yes.”

12

Madelyn

The early summer heat crept in through the open window of Sarah’s old Chevy.

Madelyn sat in the passenger seat of the car, watching Daniel Monroe playing on his phone in front of a bench by his office building.

The inside of the car was muggy and hot. They’d been following Daniel around for hours.

Thankfully, the sun was finally starting to go down, meaning the humidity would ease up.

“This stupid guy isn’t doing anything,” Sarah said boredly as she pulled her feet up onto the dashboard.

“He’s doing something,” Madelyn said. She was sure of it.

“He hasn’t done anything sketchy all week,” Sarah said with a shrug. “He goes to work, he gets lunch at the deli, he goes back to work, he sits on the bench and plays doodle-dad on his phone.”

“Doodle-dad?” Madelyn repeated with a laugh.

Sarah shrugged, a smile creeping across her stern face

“He hasn’t gone home, and it’s almost sundown,” Madelyn reasoned. “He’s waiting for something. We just have to be patient enough to figure out what it is.”

“Right,” Sarah said with a sigh. “So, how’s your man?”

“Good.”

But good was an understatement.

Things between them were great.

Originally, Madelyn had planned to either befriend her son’s adoptive mother or to cozy up to the father. She had vowed to do anything to get close to Sutton.

But she didn’t need to. Getting close to Jaxon was as natural as breathing. He was compelling, sexy, and the most thoughtful and caring dad.

A part of her felt at ease when she watched Jaxon with Sutton. It was through these interactions that she came to understand just how well Sutton had been taken care of while she was away.

Jaxon was a good dad, and he was a good boyfriend, too.

She hadn’t expected to fall for him at all, let alone so fast, but it was happening, whether she liked it or not. She was just as excited to see him each day as she was to see her son.

“You ever think about hiring the company to find out if he’s messing around?” Sarah teased.

Madelyn let out an amused breath and shook her head, pushing Sarah’s arm. “He’s not messing around. We’re too new for him to be bored already. Besides, he has a kid.”

“Ah, then he should be lucky you want anything to do with him,” Sarah said.

Madelyn frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, nobody wants to date a guy with a kid. If he found someone like you—good job, independent, pretty—he should be kissing the ground you walk on,” Sarah snorted.

“He’s an amazing kid,” she said. “Sutton, I mean. We get along great.”

“That’s super,” her friend said in a funny voice.

“I feel like we have a real bond. The way he looks at me sometimes is just—”

Sarah didn’t wait for her to finish her sentence before she interrupted. “If things work out, it’s like you have a built-in family. Oh, man, I once dated this guy who had kids. Twins. A boy and a girl. They were an absolute nightmare.”

“Misbehaved?”

“To put it lightly,” her friend enunciated with humor. “They were eight years old—little terrors. One of them cut my hair off in my sleep, the other one lit my purse on fire.”

“Oh my gosh!” Madelyn giggled. “That’s awful!”

“Yeah, and he didn’t do much to rein them in, either. He was one of those ‘whatever you want!’ dads. No rules, no routine. It was a mess.”

“Did he have them full time?”

Sarah shook her head. “No, thank goodness. Just weekends. Still, it kind of killed the vibe of our relationship.”

“How come?”

Her friend turned to her slowly and raised her brows. Then she explained, “Well, I don’t like my things being set on fire, Madelyn. Do you?”

Madelyn grinned. “No. I can’t say that I do.”

“We couldn’t get past the kids,” Sarah simplified. “They hated me, and honestly, I wasn’t crazy about them. Then me and Nicolas would fight and fight and—hey! Look!” Sarah exclaimed, shooting up in her seat and gesturing toward Daniel Monroe.

Madelyn looked up and saw a bleached-blonde woman walk up to Daniel. She was skinny, trashy, and looked like she was still in high school.

The blonde looped her arm through Daniel’s. He set his hand on her lower back and they walked down the street together.

Madelyn and Sarah got out of the car and followed discreetly behind him. He and the young blonde stopped briefly to grab a drink at a martini bar.

Afterward, the couple wandered down the street and stopped at a row of brownstones. The girl guided him up the staircase, and he pushed her against the thick white door. The two embraced in a fiery, passionate kiss.

Daniel’s hands roamed around the girl’s body like he owned her, and Madelyn caught every touch with her camera.

“We got it. Let’s go,” Sarah said, nervous about how long they had been standing still.

Madelyn nodded, but it was already too late. She watched the blonde point in her direction, and Daniel’s gaze snapped around.

She and Sarah immediately started running back in the direction of their car, but it was about five or six city blocks away at this point.

He chased them down the street, eliciting giggles from Madelyn. It wasn’t a funny situation, but the adrenaline was causing her to laugh.

He swore at them and shouted for someone to grab their phones, likely to smash them or delete the photos off of them, but he couldn’t keep up, and after some time, they outran him.

Madelyn thought about the encounter all the way home.

It wasn’t great, being caught by your suspect. But they got their shots. They could prove him a liar, and that was the most important point.

Her only solace after the long, hard day was knowing she would get to spend her whole weekend with Jaxon and Sutton.

The first time she held Sutton, it was all she could do to contain her excitement. She wanted to scream, to cry, to smell him, but she had to keep her composure in front of Jaxon.

Since then, she and Sutton had developed a close bond.

So had she and Jaxon, for that matter.

He still had yet to tell her that Sutton was adopted, and she tried new and interesting ways to broach the subject without seeming suspicious.

“How old was your ex when she got pregnant?” she asked curiously.

But no matter what she asked, she couldn’t seem to get the truth from him.

“Oh, uh. I don’t know,” he fumbled. “He’s two and a half, and she was twenty-five when we became a family so, there’s the math.”

But she wouldn’t give up. She always had another question ready, hoping she could try and get the truth from him.

“Did you guys plan for Sutton?” she asked curiously.

“Definitely,” he said with a nod.

“But no ring?”

“Nah,” he shook his head. “We weren’t very traditional. People are always raving about how marriage equals security and you should raise a child with two parents, but at the time, I thought, what difference does it make? We want to be together for the long haul. What could go wrong?”

“Famous last words,” she flirted.

Jaxon tilted his head to the side and smirked. “Exactly.”

“I think it’s amazing that you raise him on your own, and you’re doing an incredible job,” she said with commendation. “I just can’t believe your ex would leave without her own flesh and blood.”

Jaxon took a steady breath. He leaned in and kissed Madelyn softly on the lips, then smiled, “You are asking some complicated questions.”

She grinned. “I strive to keep things interesting.”

“Well, you’re doing a good job. The truth is,” he began.

Madelyn leaned in, hoping this was finally it—that he was finally going to tell her that Sutton wasn’t his, but he didn’t.

“The reality of being a family wasn’t as exciting as Skylar’s imagination. You know, she met someone, and it was easier to walk away from Sutton, I guess because…” he trailed off.

Madelyn nodded, still disgusted by Skylar’s behavior.

Part of her was angry that this woman wouldn’t want to be the caretaker of her beautiful son but relieved all the same that Sutton didn’t have a different mother to look to. That meant Madelyn would slip into the role without confusion.

“The truth is,” Jaxon began slowly. “Sutton isn’t Skylar’s. Or mine, biologically.”

The admission sent a jolt of excitement through Madelyn’s body. “What do you mean?” she asked, trying her best to come off as sympathetically curious.

Jaxon licked his lip and looked up toward the staircase that led to Sutton’s room. Lowering his voice, he admitted, “We adopted him.”

“That’s amazing,” she said with a breath.

“I don’t tell most people that, so…” he trailed off unsurely.

“I’ll keep it to myself,” she assured him, rubbing her hand against his. “But really, I think it’s awesome. What inspired you to do that?”

“My family is pretty open to adoption,” he said. “We have a couple blended families in our mix, so it was never weird to me. I’m not one of those people who goes ‘They have to have my DNA otherwise they aren’t mine,’ you know? So, when Skylar told me she couldn’t have kids, adoption seemed like the right way to go.”

Madelyn nodded. What a strange set of events.

Jaxon and Skylar had everything to do with Madelyn’s life, even though they had been strangers to her.

If Jaxon hadn’t met Skylar, and Skylar hadn’t been reproductively challenged, then they never would have adopted Sutton, and maybe Madelyn never would have been reunited with her beautiful little boy.

“Thankfully, Skylar’s name was never on the adoption papers, so it was never this big, complicated mess when we broke up,” Jaxon explained, then grimaced. “I guess that should have been a red flag for me at the time.”

“Hindsight is twenty-twenty, as they say,” Madelyn said softly. “You’re lucky she didn’t, if you think about it.”

“Yeah,” he nodded, avoiding her eyes.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said, giving a one-shouldered shrug. “I feel kind of weird about mentioning it. Like I said, we didn’t really tell anybody about the adoption except for family. I don’t want you to think of my relationship with Sutton as different or less genuine somehow.”

“Hey, you raised him from the very beginning,” she said, her voice thick with emotion.

She was so grateful for all Jaxon had done for her. He’d begun to raise her child, he’d befriended her when she had been so lonely, and he was slowly stealing her heart. “You’re his dad and the only parent he truly knows,” she said. It was the truth.

“Yeah,” he agreed reluctantly.

“So, did you name Sutton, or...?”

“It was the name he was born with,” he said. “There was no contact between the bio and adoptive parents except for one little note from the mother, asking if we could keep his name. I wouldn’t have changed it anyway. I love his name, and he already knew it, you know?”

“Right,” she said, and her heart warmed. “So, you don’t know anything about the biological parents?”

“No. The records were sealed. It was a completely private adoption. They don’t know us, and we don’t know them.”

“You never tried to find anything out about them?” she asked, feeling the tingles of nerves running through the soles of her feet. “I’m sure with all of your wealth, you could have pulled it off.”

“No,” he said with ease. “Honestly, the less I know about them, the better.”

“Why’s that?”

“Just trust me,” he laughed. “I wouldn’t do well with knowing who they are. I mean, I’ve wondered about them, sure. I look at Sutton, and he’s so cute, and he has all of these little personality traits coming out and sometimes I wonder if he got such-and-such a thing from one of his bio-parents. But it’s not a great thought, is it?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean, why would his parents give him up?” he queried, sending a guilty pang through Madelyn’s stomach. “Were they reckless teenagers? Drug addicts? Were they just selfish and didn’t want a kid? Did they struggle financially? No matter what the answer is, it always comes down to the parents not wanting my son. And what kind of person could give up Sutton?”

“Your ex did,” she wanted to say spitefully. “And you loved her!”

Instead, she said, “Sometimes life is complicated.”

“I’d be happier not knowing, I think,” he reaffirmed.

“Do you think you’ll ever tell him?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I have a while before I have to think about things like that. He has no reason to ask, really,” he said.

Madelyn smiled and gave a slight nod. She swirled her drink in her hand, running her thumb across a thick drop of condensation on the moist glass. “You don’t think any of your family members will ever say anything?”

“I haven’t given it much thought,” he said. “And I mean, if he does ask, then I would be honest with him. There’s nothing about our situation that makes us any less family.”

“No. You’re right,” she said honestly. “There isn’t.”

13

Jaxon

Jaxon lived in a private neighborhood. It was gated without being pompous and had old ash trees that lined the sidewalks. The houses were old, but most had been renovated. It had a family feel to it that Jaxon had loved even before he had a son.

He loved the feeling of security that came with being in a small, gated neighborhood. He loved knowing who his neighbors were.

His younger sister Kennedy argued that getting to know your neighbors was “Weird. This isn’t the fifties!” But Jaxon disagreed. Having a community, as opposed to faceless neighbors, was exactly the kind of environment he wanted to raise Sutton in.

He loved knowing the elderly couple two doors down with their beast of a malamute; he loved that he could go and play pool over at the house across the way with the middle-aged couple and their kids; he loved meeting Madelyn.

If he hadn’t been a friendly neighbor, he wouldn’t have the most wonderful girl in the world as his girlfriend right now.

Being in a small community made you more trusting. You knew nearly everyone in town, probably knew their entire history, and created a family-vibe for the town. But being in a tight-knit community also made you feel a little bit more suspicious of those around you.

For example, the strange man lurking around Madelyn’s house. He was most definitely not a part of the Kerhonkson community, and frankly, the guy looked like he was up to no good.

Jaxon watched the giant of a man from his front porch. The man walked around Madelyn’s entire house, peeked over the fence into her back yard, and even opened her mailbox to inspect a letter. At first, Jaxon wondered if perhaps the man was her father, but he looked nothing like how Madelyn had described him.

“Hey, man, can I help you?” Jaxon asked as he walked up onto his neighbor’s property.

The tall man turned to see him and gave a slight frown. “I’m looking for a girl. Dark hair. Works for the Lochlan Group?”

“Lochlan Group?” Jaxon repeated with a raised brow.

“Yeah, it’s a private investigative firm,” the man said, crashing Jaxon’s assumption that the Lochlan Group must have been the law firm Madelyn worked for. “You know anyone like that around here?”

“No, can’t say that I do, sorry, man. This is a private neighborhood, though, and we have kids here, so…” Jaxon trailed off.

“Oh! Yeah, sorry. I’m really sorry,” the man said, walking closer to Jaxon. “I just found out my wife went and hired some PI to follow me around. She’s gonna use whatever she finds against me—take the kids away. I just...” he trailed off in distress, rubbing his hand against his head. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

“That’s rough, man,” Jaxon nodded. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

“I got word that it’s this Lochlan Group and some girl lives here and—”

“Where are you from?” Jaxon interrupted.

“The city.”

“Ah,” he nodded. “And you think the PI lives here?”

“That’s what I heard. I was just hoping I could talk some sense into her, maybe prevent her from taking this information to my wife, if she hasn’t yet.”

Jaxon looked down at the man’s clenched fist. “Talking some sense into her” seemed to be the opposite of what he was after. He couldn’t imagine why this guy would think a private investigator for New York City would come live in the middle of nowhere in Kerhonkson.

“Well, sorry to break it to you,” Jaxon began with an annoyed breath. He was done with this guy being in the community. “I know everyone in this neighborhood, man. No private eye’s here. We’ve got a preschool teacher, a few managers, a lawyer’s assistant, and a couple of financial-types, but no PIs.”

“Yeah?” the man asked, suspicious. “You sure about that?”

“Yeah man,” he nodded. “Sorry.”

The man had fair blond hair and blond brows that looked nearly invisible. He looked young, maybe a couple of years older than Jaxon, but weathered. The stranger looked dubiously at Madelyn’s house. “Okay,” the man said slowly, the word dragging out with tones of disbelief. “Well then, I’m sorry I bothered you.”

“It’s no problem,” Jaxon said. “Here, let me walk you out.”

Jaxon made small talk with the man, work and weather, as he walked him to the outer gates of the neighborhood to make sure the man truly left the property.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” Jaxon said by way of farewell.

“Thanks,” the man nodded. “So do I.”

The encounter unsettled him for the rest of the day. What tip could possibly have led him to this neighborhood? He shook his head, wondering how strange that man’s life must have seemed. To realize you were being followed and outed for cheating on your partner—to put your kid’s happiness in jeopardy. It must have been an exhausting life.

Jaxon had plans with Madelyn the following day. He had been planning another outing at the ranch now that summer was in full swing. He couldn’t remember the last time he was this excited about anything.

“Hey, you,” he said, greeting her with a kiss as she hopped into his car. “How was your day?”

“It was good. I mostly did some paperwork this morning. Nothing to write home about.”

Jaxon nodded. “Do you ever get to be in court for any of the cases you work on?”

“No, not really. I just do desk work, mostly,” she smiled.

“You head into the city a lot for someone who just does deskwork,” he said offhandedly as he pulled the car out of the neighborhood.

She gave a wry smile and narrowed her eyes at him as she asked, “Are you spying on me?”

“Never,” he said.

“Yeah, I report to our firm in Manhattan sometimes since I’m a transfer from Boston and they don’t know me as well there.”

“You should let me and Sutton tag along one day—let us show you the lay of the land in the city,” he offered.

“Ah, but you’re such a good tour guide here in Kerhonkson,” she said.

“Yeah, but we only have about three things to do here, and after that, I’m all tapped out. Not much of a tour guide.”

“Alright,” she giggled. “Date night in the city it is. And what about now? Where are we headed?”

“Today,” he announced, “will be a family day.”

“Family day?”

The way she repeated the words made Jaxon cringe inwardly. Had he overstepped a line? “Sorry, was that weird? I didn’t mean to imply that we were—”

“No, it’s cute. I love that!” she giggled, turning to regard Sutton, who was fixed into his car seat. “I would be honored to be considered a part of the Brooks clan.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” he said. “Because I have the perfect plan for us this evening.”

“Dazzle me,” she grinned.

“You, me, Sutton, out on the water. Then dinner. Then tonight, a concert under the stars.”

Madelyn had once mentioned that she loved going to Waterplace Park in downtown Providence and rent canoes or kayaks. She told him how she would row through the Woonasquatucket River; how those were some of her favorite memories.

Ever since hearing about it, he had been planning for a romantic night at his manmade ranch lake.

The romance was sucked out of the event, however, when they approached the side of the canoe at the ranch and Sutton started pulling a temper tantrum, crying and refusing to get into the boat.

There were elements of parenthood that were so good, then others that were downright embarrassing.

The good: quiet moments with Sutton. Watching him sleep, playing, having him cuddle up against Jaxon, watching this little human being learning, understanding, and changing on a nearly weekly basis.

The bad: being publicly embarrassed by ridiculous things like spilling juice, falling and screaming, telling strangers they are “funny looking.”

And this—scream-crying because the water looks too high up against the sides of the boat.

“Aw, come on, buddy; it’s not scary, I promise,” Madelyn said sweetly. Her voice was all sugar as she spoke to the little boy up on the dock. She held Sutton’s hand and pointed into the boat where Jaxon sat and said, “Look, your daddy is doing it.”

“I’m not Daddy,” his son cried.

“No, you’re Sutton. You’re your own kind of brave!” Madelyn cheered.

Still, Sutton shook his head, crossed his arms, and said, “I don’t want to!”

“Okay, okay,” Madelyn cooed, sitting down cross-legged on the dock and pulling Sutton into her arms. “Why don’t you tell me a story instead?”

Sutton sniffled but seemed to perk up at this. “What kind of story?”

“Tell me about one of your newest friends,” she said.

Sutton looked down into the water at the fish that swam around—one of the reasons he had been so freaked out. They were large pond fish that scared the boy, though now, apparently, they were about to make an appearance in one of his tall tales.

“I once heard a fish play piano, and he played loud, and his name was Keith,” Sutton said, wide-eyed.

Madelyn smiled and winked privately at Jaxon. “Wow, and does he live in this pond?”

“Yeah, I know him,” Sutton nodded, his tears forgotten.

“Well, don’t you think he wants to say hi?” Madelyn urged.

Sutton looked down into the water. “Yeah, I think so,” he said slowly.

“Okay,” she said. “Then why don’t we get in the boat together, and I promise I’ll hold you so tight that nothing can happen to you.”

Sutton nodded and smiled at Jaxon, visibly brightening. “Okay.”

Crisis averted.

The three of them rowed in the lake for over an hour, just talking and laughing together. The ranch was in full summer bloom. Watching Madelyn in the boat with Sutton on her lap, her dark hair wild and country, he had never seen her look happier—or more beautiful.

For dinner, the three of them ate at the ranch wagon experience. Guests were pulled by old-fashioned horse-drawn wagons and taken into a clearing where beautiful tables had been set up. The guests were seated by a rushing river and would enjoy an authentic chuckwagon dinner.

The dinners were all cooked over the fire and consisted of prime rib, chicken, corn, asparagus, and even fruit cobbler.

There were banjo players and games, too. Horseshoes, of course, and other field favorites like soccer and bocce ball.

After dinner was the main event—the concert. In the summer, every weekend at the ranch had a new musical guest. Some were local musicians and folksy artists. Other times, there would be big stars. The proceeds of each show went toward the charity of the artists choice, otherwise, they were sent to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Tonight, the special guest of honor was none other than Phoenix. He had been staying in New York at his brownstone for the last few weeks while he was finishing up the North American leg of his tour and agreed to come and play at Brookside.

Jaxon was happy to see his brother and equally excited for Madelyn to meet someone from his family. He would be happy for Phoenix to bring news back to his mother that her youngest boy was dating again—not entirely crushed and consumed by Skylar’s departure.

“Is it okay if I introduce you as my girlfriend?” he asked in a whisper as they began walking up to his brother and sister-in-law, Miranda.

“Of course!” she said with a giggle.

And so, he did.

“I hear you’re going to be putting on a heck of a show,” Madelyn said once they had been formally introduced.

“It’s not every day I get to perform for my nephew,” Phoenix said, affectionately reaching over and brushing Sutton’s cheek with his fingers.

“No, but if he could, he’d have them running his fan club,” Jaxon teased.

Madelyn grinned. “Ah, I see. You don’t make new fans; you just wait for your gigantic family to birth more for you.”

Phoenix let out an amused breath and gave Jaxon a pointed look. “She’s perfect for you,” he said.

Jaxon met Madelyn’s eyes and smiled. “I think so, too.”

“Can I take him for the first song?” Miranda asked, reaching her arms out for Sutton.

“Of course,” Jaxon said.

His brother nodded toward Miranda and mused, “She misses the girls when we’re away.”

“Don’t they go with you when you tour?” Jaxon asked, and his brother nodded.

“Yeah, Mom has ‘em for a few weeks this summer.”

“And you’re letting them be brainwashed, just like that?” Jaxon laughed, and his brother rolled his eyes.

The crowd roared as the concert began. Phoenix was incredibly talented, and his newest album was a true testament to his love of music. He had an effortless folksy sound with an incredible range that got the immense crowd up singing and dancing.

Even Jaxon danced, risking looking like an absolute idiot. But it was worth it to be that close to Madelyn. They kissed like teenagers and moved rhythmically to the music. It was nearly the end of the set before they were separated.

“I wanna call up my little brother for this one,” Phoenix called through the microphone, pointing down toward Jaxon. “Jam some guitar with me like I taught him to do when we were kids.”

Jaxon’s heart raced as he made his way up to the stage. He didn’t know how his brother did this every night—he was about to play in front of hundreds of people, and he was terrified and exhilarated all at the same time.

The two of them played a cover: one of their favorite songs they used to practice when Jaxon was a kid. He looked down at Madelyn during the song and could physically feel himself falling in love with her at that very moment.

“Can you believe it, guys?” Phoenix announced when the song was over. “This is my baby brother. Now he’s got a great girl and an amazing little boy, and I have never felt older!”

The crowd laughed at the comment, and Jaxon ran offstage and back down into the crowd. People high-fived him on his way back to Madelyn, giving him a small taste of how his brother must have felt every night.

There was something powerful about being on the stage and having people cheer for you. Jaxon was hardly under the impression that the audience cared whether or not he was on stage playing guitar, but it gave him a wild energy, nonetheless.

When he reached Madelyn, she clapped excitedly and threw her arms around him. “Are you having fun?” he asked.

“Yes!” she yelled over the crowd.

“Good,” he said, leaning down and pressing his lips against hers. Their mouths found their way into a familiar dance: soft tongues flicking against one another. When he pulled away, he kissed down to her neck and whispered, “I want you to have fun with me, always.”

“And I always do,” she said, craning to look at him. “You’re really special, Jaxon Brooks. You make me feel like everything bad that has ever happened in my life was worth it just to get here to this moment and be kissed by you.”

“Then I must oblige,” he grinned, giving her another small peck.

“Is it way too cliché if I say that I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life to find you?” she asked.

Jaxon’s heart lilted with nervous excitement. “Yes,” he smiled. “But I’ll take it.”

“I think I’m really, really, really falling for you. You and Sutton make me feel…” she began, then trailed off.

“I love how much you care about him,” he said.

“I really do,” she said bashfully, fixing a long strand of dark hair behind her ears. “You have no idea how much.”

Looking at her then, amidst the crowd and lights and sounds, he knew they had something real. It was only the second time he had ever looked at a woman and seen a real future with her before. The first time, with Skylar, he had been so wrong about his assessment of their life together.

But this time, he knew he was right.

14

Madelyn

It had been a good day for Madelyn. Two days ago, she had been called to do a case for a missing child.

The police were involved and had issued a BOLO but deemed that the case did not meet the right criteria for an Amber Alert because nobody had physically seen the missing girl, Casey Amada, be abducted.

Rumors also circulated that the police were unwilling to cooperate with the mother, Angela, on account of her past dealings with law enforcement. Namely from selling narcotics.

Madelyn had nothing but the utmost respect for the police. Most of her co-workers at the Lochlan Group were retired cops. But this was not the first time she’d had been involved with a case where police didn’t take a victim seriously on account of their addictions or professions.

Thankfully, Madelyn and Sarah didn’t have those same reservations about people just because they lived troubled lives. After a day and a half on the job, they were able to successfully locate four-year-old Casey.

As it turned out, her father had abducted her after finding out that his ex-wife was going to leave the state with their daughter without telling him.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Angela sobbed as she rocked her young daughter in her arms. “You don’t know what this means to me!”

“We’re just glad she’s okay,” Sarah said softly.

Angela kissed her daughter repeatedly on the forehead. “I just don’t understand why he would do this,” she said, rocking her daughter in her arms and holding a limp cigarette at her side. “Stan has always been so even-keeled.”

“You were going to move away with his child,” Madelyn said.

“I know but…” Angela drew her brows into a sad, U-shaped frown as she defended, “I got a job. I had to go.”

Madelyn nodded. She was happy to reunite mother and child, but something about this woman irked her. “Parents will do anything to stay with their kids,” she said with a hint of annoyance.

Sarah gave Madelyn a curious stare before turning her attention back to Angela. “The good news is, now you have a record of kidnapping. This will be invaluable for you if you choose to go to court and apply for full custody, which I suggest you do.”

The mother was beyond thankful. Without Sarah and Madelyn’s tips, who knew how long it would have taken the police to find her. They left Angela with her promise that she was going to file a charge against her ex-husband, at Sarah and the police’s urging.

“That was harsh,” Madelyn said as she closed the car door behind her.

Sarah put the key in the ignition and frowned. “What? Saying that she should file for full custody?”

“Maybe they should try couple’s therapy, instead?” Madelyn shrugged. “Help them learn how to communicate.”

“They’re divorced. We can safely assume that any therapy they’ve tried had been a complete and utter failure,” Sarah snorted.

“Kids need both their parents.”

“He tried to take her over state lines!” Sarah argued.

“So did she.”

With a shrug and an eye-roll, Sarah said, “Yeah, well, he did it first.”

“He panicked.”

“You are not sticking up for this kidnapper right now, are you?” her partner snorted.

Madelyn looked away, gazing out the window at the luring suburban scenery as they drove back to where Madelyn had parked for the day. She paused for a long while and then shook her head. “No,” she finally answered. “I just feel bad for him…in a way. What he did was wrong, but I don’t know what I would do if someone tried to take my kid away.”

“I didn’t know you had a child,” Sarah said thoughtfully, keeping her eyes on the road.

“It’s complicated.”

“I didn’t know having kids could be complicated,” she laughed. “Either you had one spring out of your womb, or you didn’t.”

“Parents would do anything to protect their children,” Madelyn reiterated slowly.

“Yeah,” Sarah agreed. “Which is exactly why Angela should file a restraining order and protect her kid from the dad who abandoned her.”

Madelyn took a long inhale. She chose not to respond, desperately needing to drop the conversation. She felt attacked, somehow, by the judgments made against the father.

She was happy to get back into her car and made the journey back to Kerhonkson. She would usually use the time she drove home to listen to talk radio or get in a podcast or two, but this time, she drove up in silence, just thinking.

She thought about Angela and what kind of care her daughter would get from her. She thought about Casey’s father and whether or not he would end up in jail on kidnapping charges. If he did, would that have been fair?

Madelyn couldn’t decide on an answer. After all, had she not thought about taking Sutton on more occasions than one?

She had.

She would never do it, of course. She couldn’t bring herself to separate Sutton from the only parent he had ever known, but she wanted to. She wanted to resume the role of his mother and live somewhere new—start over from where they left off when he was just a few months old.

After everything that happened that day, Madelyn knew she had to tell Jaxon the truth. She had to tell him why she came to New York and why Sutton was so special to her. She just didn’t know how to say the words out loud.

It never seemed to be the right time to tell him that she was Sutton’s birth mother. After all of this time, she knew Jaxon wouldn’t take it well. It was shocking news, not to mention her revelation would call into question whether her feelings for him had been real.

There was just no good way to bring it up. It wasn’t something you could casually slip into a conversation.

Her love for Sutton came back with a vengeance. It was as though no time had passed at all between them. Her connection to him felt instant and mothering and protective, and once again, she loved in a way that she never knew possible.

What she hadn’t expected was to fall for Jaxon Brooks. In some ways, it felt like he had been the man she’d been hoping to find all of her life. She remembered when she was a young girl, writing out lists with her friends of all of the qualities that made “the perfect man.” So far, Jaxon was hitting all of them.

Kind? Check.

Funny? Check.

Handsome? Check, check!

Without a doubt, she was falling in love with him. And the fact that he loved Sutton with such ferocity only made her fall harder.

It was early evening when Madelyn finally arrived home. She knew she wanted to see Jaxon before the night was over but was determined to freshen up first.

She walked through her living room and down the hallway into her bedroom. She pulled her long hair out of her ponytail and ran her hands through it. She hated the feeling of wearing an elastic in her hair for too long.

As she freshened up, she set her phone down on her dresser and put it on speaker so that she could listen to the messages she had missed earlier.

The first was her uncle Jim. His voice was light and friendly, but straight to the point as he said, “Hey, kid, it’s your uncle. Just checking in to see what’s up.”

Next up was her best friend. Her voice came through as bubbly but pouty as she said, “It’s Tracy. Remember when we used to be best friends? Answer your phone! K. Love you!”

Madelyn smiled. She hadn’t kept in touch with Tracy as much as she would have liked. She made a mental note to call her in the morning.

The next message stopped her in her tracks. Her feet halted at the full-length mirror next to her bed and she turned her head to look at the phone and her heart lilted at the sound of the voice on her answering machine.

“Madelyn? It’s Dad. I just heard about grandma. I’m so sorry, Maddie. I know you were close, and uh, look, I’m just wanting to talk so don’t get all bent out of shape. I uh...I wanted to talk to you. If you’re willing to talk to me, that would be great. Okay, this is my new number, and I’m going to keep it this time so just—”

Madelyn reached over and stopped the message. She didn’t want to hear it.

He just found out that May died? That was months ago.

The very thought that he was just reaching out to her now infuriated her. He didn’t want to talk. He wanted money, and that was the truth.

She clenched her teeth and shook her head, mentally replaying the message, and wished she could erase her father’s voice from her mind.

Madelyn turned around and turned her attention back to her mirror. She applied lip balm and immediately felt her lips tingle with the minty sensation of the gloss.

Her doorbell rang, causing her ears to perk back like a cat’s. She inhaled a nervous breath, thinking that it must be Jaxon. She was nervous, not knowing exactly what to say to him yet.

The doorbell rang a second time and Madelyn raced to her front door. She pulled the knob with a bright smile that faded as soon as she saw who was on the other side of her screen door.

“Can I help you?” she asked unsurely. It took her a minute to register who it was, and once she did, her anxiety shot through the roof.

Daniel Monroe.

Before he could answer, Madelyn had already pulled her cellphone out of her pocket and had begun to dial the police. “I’m calling the cops,” she said.

Daniel shook his head, yanking the phone from her grasp and throwing it across the lawn. “No, you’re talking to me right now,” he said gruffly.

Madelyn made a split-second decision to step out onto the porch. She didn’t want to talk to Daniel, but she didn’t want him in her house, either. At least this way, whatever happened between them would be public.

“How long were you following me?” he asked in a low, threatening tone.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said coolly. “I don’t even know who you are.”

“Drop it,” he snapped. “You’re not the only one who can follow people around all day. How long were you following me?”

Madelyn crossed her arms. “Look, man, this is my job. I don’t get paid to ask questions. If you want to take this up with somebody, take it up with your wife.”

“Funny thing is, she won’t talk to me. Now, why would that be?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.

“That’s between you and her.”

“Oh, now it’s between her and me?” he seethed, taking another step toward her. “Now that you’ve done all of your damage, now it’s between her and me?”

Madelyn flinched at his movements. She didn’t think the man was going to hurt her, but then again, she’d never had anybody follow her home before. He could have been capable of anything.

Daniel laughed and said, “You’re not so tough now without your little friend, are you? Who are you to be following me around? Do you know what you’ve done to my life?”

“This is a monitored neighborhood. You need to leave,” she said sternly.

“You need to stay out of my life and everybody else’s,” he said, mimicking her tone. “How many other men are you out there ruining? “

“We don’t discriminate based on gender,” she said with a sly smirk.

“You think this is funny?” he asked, and his eyes went wide.

“I think it’s ridiculous that you came all the way to my house to—” she began, but he cut her off.

“Oh, no? You don’t like being followed around, huh? It isn’t fun to have your personal life up for discussion, is it?”

And within an instant, everything changed. Madelyn felt him set a hand on her shoulder, and suddenly, her whole body was jolted back, whipping against her front door. She felt the air escape her lungs and gasped for breath that wasn’t coming. “Listen to me,” he said gruffly. “If you ever follow me around again, and I do mean ever, I will make sure your life is a living nightmare. And don’t forget, I know where you live.”

15

Jaxon

“Is Maddie coming home?” Sutton said sleepily as he pulled himself up from the oversized couch cushion.

The two of them had taken the day off to spend some time together. They sat by the pool this morning, had a fantastic mac and cheese, and then spend a lazy evening watching movies. Every so often, Sutton would look out the side window to see if he could spot Maddie’s car in the driveway. Then he would ask when she was coming home.

“I told you, buddy,” Jaxon said softly. “She doesn’t live here.”

“When is she going to her home, then?” his son asked in a small, irritated tone.

Jaxon cleared his throat and narrowed his eyes toward the window. “Is she still not back?”

If it weren’t for the fact that Sutton was checking on her every hour or so—and that Jaxon missed his girlfriend—he wouldn’t have realized how long she’d been gone. She took off at five this morning, and it was nearly eight at night and she still wasn’t back.

There could have been traffic in the city, but Jaxon couldn’t help being a little bit worried.

“She’ll be back in a little bit,” he said absent-mindedly. “But as for you, little guy. It’s time for bed.”

“No!”

“Yes, you have to go to sleep.”

Sutton’s eyes draped closed under the haze of sleep, then quickly opened as he announced, “I’m not sleepy.”

“Tell you what,” Jaxon said as he walked the boy up the staircase and into his bed. “Just lay down, and if ten minutes go by and you haven’t fallen asleep yet, you can come back downstairs and watch one more show with Daddy. Deal?”

Sutton nodded. “Deal!”

He was sure the boy thought he was getting away with something, but it was an old trick that worked like a charm. Jaxon hadn’t yet encountered a time when Sutton didn’t fall asleep within two minutes tops.

Jaxon took the time to read his son a story before bed, and like clockwork, Sutton passed out cold. The boy had been beyond exhausted lately.

He stopped at the landing of the staircase and looked out the hall window before heading back downstairs and noticed that Madelyn’s car was back in her driveway. His whole body went warm with the thought of her. He imagined her coming over late, crawling onto the couch together and tasting her lips for hours and hours.

But his fantasy was cut short as he noticed Madelyn wasn’t the only one on her front porch.

Jaxon cracked the window and could just barely make out the voices in the distance.

“You think that’s fun? Is it fun now?” the man said.

He heard Madelyn’s voice sound out but couldn’t make out her response. He noticed her voice was uncharacteristically small.

Suddenly, he recognized the man’s voice. It was that same guy who had come lurking through the neighborhood the other day, looking for some private investigator.

Hadn’t he already told this idiot to leave?

“It isn’t fun to have your personal life up for discussion, is it?” the man said.

Jaxon’s eyes went wide as he watched the man grab Madelyn’s shoulder and shove her forcefully into the wall.

Without a second thought, Jaxon was moving. He’d never run so fast in all of his life. He raced down the stairs, through the front door, and across their two lawns. His mind was so blinded by fury that he could hear himself yelling to them but couldn’t make out a word he was saying. All he knew was that if that man landed another hand on Madelyn, he wasn’t going to leave the property looking the same way he did coming in.

The two of them struggled, Jaxon pushing against the sheer size of the other man. He dodged a punch before eventually pushing the man to the lawn.

“Watch it!” the man screamed, pushing Jaxon aside and getting back on his feet.

Just as the man began walking back toward Madelyn, police sirens echoed throughout the neighborhood. The community was part of a watch program and thankfully, one of the neighbors had the insight to call the police, something Jaxon should have done.

“Get off her. Get off her!” Jaxon yelled as the police ran up.

“On the ground, now!” one of the officers said as he grabbed hold of the man.

Two officers struggled with him until they finally were able to pry his hand from Madelyn’s arm. Whatever anger this man was feeling, it was strong.

“Hey, listen to me.” The giant fought against his grasp and the officer repeated, “Listen to me right now! You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.”

The two restrained the man and got them into the back of their cruiser.

All the while, Jaxon’s eyes were locked with Madelyn’s. He couldn’t comprehend what had just happened or why it happened, but the unsettled feeling he had in his stomach showed no signs of relenting.

“What happened?” the officer asked, looking in between Madelyn and Jaxon.

“This is private property, and he was trespassing and assaulted my neighbor,” Jaxon said, still holding Madelyn’s gaze.

“Do you know this man, ma’am?” the officer asked.

“This is my boyfriend, Jaxon,” she said. “He’s also my neighbor.”

“And the man in the car?” the other officer asked.

“No,” she shook her head, shaken. “I do not know him personally, no.”

The darker-skinned cop turned to his partner and raised a curious brow. “Do you have any idea why he would come here and attack you?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“And why’s that?” the officer asked.

“His name is Daniel Monroe. He’s going through a divorce, and I was hired by his wife to see if there was infidelity in the marriage,” she said evenly, avoiding Jaxon’s stare.

“In what capacity were you hired? You a friend of his wife, a lawyer, an investigator?” the cop asked, and Madelyn admitted that she had been working for the Lochlan Group as an investigator.

“Alright,” one of the officers said, scribbling notes down into a pad of paper no bigger than his pocket. “And am I to assume that you did find something unbecoming in Mr. Monroe’s behavior when you were following him?”

“I caught him engaged intimately with another woman,” she said.

“I see. Any idea how he got behind the gates?”

She shook her head. “I have no idea.”

“You don’t know how he found out where you live?” the officer asked.

“No, sir,” she said.

Jaxon exhaled slowly. He felt like he was watching the conversation from the air, looking down at all of the bodies on the lawn. “I saw him in here a couple of weeks ago,” he said out of nowhere.

Madelyn looked surprised but still didn’t look at him.

“Is that right?” the cop asked, then noticed one of the security cameras on Jaxon’s house. He gestured toward it with the tip of his pen and asked, “Do you still have the footage?”

“Yeah, I can get it to you if it’ll be helpful.”

“That would be great, thank you.”

“The whole area is forested,” Jaxon explained. “Our backyard is all brush so he may have gotten through on a hike.”

After a couple more questions, the police officer asked Madelyn if she wanted to go down to the station and press assault charges. At first, she said no.

Jaxon couldn’t see his own expression, but he could feel the anger boiling up through his features.

“Madelyn,” he said, urging. “You have to go.”

“I don’t want to press charges.”

“Why?” he demanded. “Because it doesn’t look good for your work? He tried to hit you. He snuck into our private neighborhood. What if you had been watching Sutton?”

Madelyn paled, considering it, then finally agreed to go down to the station. After getting a neighbor to come and watch Sutton, the officer asked Jaxon to come to the station as a witness. Upon their arrival, Jaxon wrote down his account of the assault and signed a document confirming all of his, and Madelyn’s, words to be true.

It felt like a nightmare he couldn’t wake up from.

He watched Madelyn as she filled out paperwork; listened to the office noises surrounding them in the bus station. He heard paper scratches, keyboard clicks, doors slamming, and smelled stale coffee in the air.

Who was this woman? He wondered this as he looked at his girlfriend, still in shock that what Daniel Monroe had been telling the truth about her profession.

Why did she lie to him about where she worked?

How was she involved with this kind of job when she was still so young?

His insides twisted, caught somewhere between worried and angry.

When they finished up with the police, Jaxon offered her a ride home. The humid summer night air was stale and awkward as they slipped into the car. He heard Madelyn’s seatbelt buckle but stalled before starting the car, feeling uncomfortable and possibly still in shock after all that had happened.

“Are you okay?” he asked, and Madelyn nodded in silence.

They rode quietly for some time before Jaxon spoke again. “What was that?”

“You just signed a whole document regarding what that was about,” she said, not turning her face from the passenger window. “I don’t think I have to explain it to you.”

“Actually, I think you do,” he said.

Madelyn set her jaw and looked in his direction. “How’s that?”

“You lied to me,” he said.

“No, I omitted truth from you. There is a difference.”

“Not to me, there isn’t.”

Madelyn gave a small, irritated laugh to his comment, and it left Jaxon’s heart feeling cold. “What could possibly be funny?” he said as he pulled into her driveway.

“It’s my job,” she said. “I work for my uncle.”

“And who’s your uncle? A mob boss?”

“Yeah, you caught me,” she sneered.

“Maddie, this is serious. You could have been hurt or worse. What type of work do you have that causes these people to come and find you, huh?”

She took a moment to consider how she might answer him, and every delayed response left him feeling sicker. There had been too many surprises already. She was a private investigator. Fine. But to what end did she lie about her job? Why not just be honest with him about who she was in the first place?

And now, her attitude was less than desirable. She seemed snippy and defensive. Maybe she was still in shock, unsure how to react after almost being attacked, but something was off.

“I’m a junior investigator at my uncle’s firm. It’s usually following paper trails, social media, getting dirt on people for divorces. That kind of stuff. And for the record, this has never happened to me before,” she explained, folding her hands into her lap.

“Why wouldn’t you tell me that?”

“It’s not a job you shout about—for this very reason, I might add,” she said.

Jaxon narrowed his brows. He looked down at his lap and then turned to look at her face. “I trusted you with my son.”

Finally, she looked at him. Her eyes went kitten-round, and she asked, “And you wouldn’t have otherwise?”

“I don’t know, Maddie,” he said softly.

“It’s not going to happen again,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about safety with me, I promise.”

“How do you know? How do you know this guy isn’t going to bail out and think that you’re just the witch who ruined his life? His marriage?”

“Are you seriously defending this guy right now?” she asked.

“Not in the slightest,” he said.

“He cheated on his wife with a girl who’s almost as young as his daughter,” she snapped.

“I don’t care about this guy!” he said, finally annoyed. “He’s trash! Do you think I care if his marriage falls apart? Madelyn, I care about you, and you’re putting yourself—and my family—in danger.”

Madelyn shook her head. She looked like she wanted to say something but thought better of it. He could feel himself growing more frustrated by the second. He was angry and confused, and worst of all, Maddie didn’t seem to understand how dangerous what she did was.

“Why are you being so hostile with me right now?” he asked, desperately trying to understand how she was feeling.

“Because I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I’m not saying you did. I’m saying you could have told me,” he explained.

“I’m sorry, Jaxon. It was private. I thought you might react badly. I’m glad I was wrong,” she said sarcastically.

A wave of unease washed over Jaxon, leaving a bulb of discomfort in the pit of his stomach. Something was off.

“What’s going on?” he asked with concern.

“What do you mean?

“You’re acting really strange with me,” he said. Her eyes flinched, and he knew right he was right—something had changed between them, and he couldn’t understand what. “Talk to me. You’re acting like you’re angry with me, and I don’t understand why. Are you embarrassed? Are you in shock?”

Madelyn clenched her jaw, but she wouldn’t look at him anymore.

“Madelyn,” he said, but she was done talking.

16

Madelyn

Madelyn had forgotten how exhausting it was to cry uncontrollably, but she quickly remembered after Jaxon had dropped her off from the police station.

It had been two days, and she still couldn’t get over the night. It didn’t go at all how she thought it would. She thought she would be telling Jaxon about her harrowing pregnancy, about the illness that almost killed her. She thought she would be admitting to being Sutton’s mother and asking him to try to understand how hard it was for her to come clean.

Instead, she was being threatened by a client’s husband and then outed about her job.

Jaxon didn’t take the news well.

She didn’t know why she assumed he would. After all, he had every right to be upset, didn’t he?

All he had seen of her job was the dangerous part of it. He didn’t see the other ninety-nine percent of the time when it was just stalking people on social media and scanning through e-mails and bank accounts. He didn’t see how normal—well, not normal—but safe it was.

He only got to see the terrifying part of her work—not the amazing parts, like reuniting mothers with their children.

She couldn’t help the poor way she reacted that night in his car. He seemed so judgmental. She felt like he was inadvertently blaming her for being attacked. She knew he wasn’t; he couldn’t have been. The truth was he felt hurt and left out of her life. The last thing you’re supposed to do with someone you’re starting a new relationship with is lie to them. You’re supposed to let them in. You’re supposed to communicate.

Especially when you both share the same son.

Now he probably hated her. He didn’t trust her around Sutton. He made that much clear.

“Hey, are you alright?” her uncle asked.

He’d called her the same night she’d gone to the police station, after Sarah had reported what had happened to her, no doubt. But she was only now returning his call.

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Sarah said you got followed?” he asked.

“It was the Monroe guy. We got spotted the other day with our cameras. I think he thought I was just some stupid kid taking his picture on my cellphone, being a troublemaker or something, but I guess his lawyer is familiar with us and warned him. I don’t know the full story,” she explained.

“What about Sarah? Is she okay?”

“Yeah, I called her from the police station and warned her. I didn’t want anyone after her, either.”

“I’m so sorry, kid,” her uncle said, concern shadowing his tones. “This shouldn’t have happened.”

“It was my fault,” she admitted.

“You’re sure you’re okay?”

“Just a little surprised, but I’ll live

“Good. Good. Look,” he said with a breath, indicating he was about to say something she wasn’t going to like. “We’re gonna put you back on socials, okay?”

“What?” she whined. “Uncle Jim, no!”

“Just for a little while. Besides, you’re good at socials, and it means you don’t have to drive into the city an—”

“You’re punishing me!” she accused.

“I am not punishing you,” Jim enunciated.

“You are! I got caught once. Once ever in all the time I’ve done jobs for you, and now you’re punishing me.”

“Hey, kid? It’s called looking out for you,” her uncle said compassionately. “I don’t want my only niece to get hurt, okay? You’re the only family I got.”

“Then don’t take this from me,” she pleaded.

“Too bad. I’ve got two paranoid husbands and one mother who wants to make sure her daughter isn’t some sugar baby. You think you can get a read on their socials?”

“You’re killing me,” she groaned.

“I’ll e-mail them to you in a little bit, okay? Stay safe, kid. I mean it.”

With that, the line cut out. Her uncle had made his mind up.

Madelyn leaned forward with her head in her hands. She sighed, letting her breath carry her frustrations.

Instead of staying in and sulking for the rest of the day, Madelyn decided it was time to make amends. She wanted—needed—to see Jaxon. She missed him and Sutton more than she could bear, and she needed to make things right with him.

She got ready, curling her hair and applying a thick coat of mascara to give her face some character before walking up to his front door. She felt nervous tingles infect her body as she knocked, hoping that he wasn’t going to ignore her.

The nanny, Ashley Hunter, opened the door. She wore her short gray hair in tiny pigtails and greeted Madelyn as she said, “Good morning Mrs. Woodward.”

“Good morning, Ashley,” she returned in kind. “May I come in?

“It’s a busy day today,” the nanny said quickly, her hand still firmly on the side of the door.

“Oh yeah? Big plans with the little guy?” Madelyn asked brightly. Her smile fell quickly as she noted Ashley was in no mood to make chit-chat. “Is Jaxon home?”

“Mr. Brooks isn’t accepting visitors right now—”

“Ashely, it’s okay,” she heard Jaxon say. He came to the door in dark wash jeans and a red t-shirt. He bore his eyes into her, mustering up a smile as he approached.

Instead of letting her into the house, he stepped outside onto the porch and closed the door behind him. He hugged her, which was promising, and then guided her to the porch swing to sit down.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“I feel okay,” she said, looking over at her exposed arm and the bruise around her bicep. She rubbed at it gingerly and then shrugged. “Better now that I’m talking to you.”

Jaxon nodded, but he didn’t smile. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

“Not really,” she said.

“Yeah, me neither. I’ve been worried about you.”

“Yeah. Look,” she began. “I know the other night wasn’t...my best moment. And I know I was rude and aggressive with you, and I just came to apologize.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“Do you remember when you said you felt weird telling me about...” she trailed off, then lowered her voice and concluded, “about Sutton?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“You said you were worried I wouldn’t look at you guys the same way,” she reminded him.

He nodded. “Right.”

She took a breath, unsure of how to continue. “Well, that’s how I felt the other night. I was defensive and apathetic because that’s what I do when I’m really scared. I disconnect and push away.”

“Why?”

“Because I was worried you wouldn’t look at me the same way. I want you to think of me as your girlfriend. As the girl next door who makes you laugh and cares about your son. Not the investigator-in-training who is so bad at her job that she got followed him by some psychopath.”

Jaxon smiled and shook his head. “I would never think you were an idiot, Madelyn.”

She swallowed nervously and said, “But?”

“But,” he paused.

She studied his features and narrowed her brows as if discovering something. “You don’t trust me,” she concluded.

“You lied to me about your job, why you came to New York, where you go during the day, and had some dangerous person break into my very safe, very guarded neighborhood.” He shrugged. “What’s to trust?”

“I know. You’re right. It’s stupid. I did a stupid thing, and I should have known that I could trust you with my secrets. I’m just a slow learner sometimes,” she exhaled a nervous laugh, hoping she sounded charming.

Jaxon nodded, but his eyes found their way to the floorboards of his front porch. “I don’t think I can see you for a while,” he said, his voice sounding suddenly foreign to her.

Madelyn’s heart stopped. She felt a cold chill shoot through her body, and she straightened her posture. “What?” she asked in disbelief. “One thing, and just like that, you stop liking me?”

“No,” he said evenly. “I care about you, Madelyn. I love you, actually. But I have to love Sutton more, and my gut is telling me I don’t want you around him.”

She felt tears fall as she closed her eyes, unable to look at him but equally as unwilling to walk off of his porch. “You love me?”

“I do,” he said.

She nodded as she heard the words repeated. She’d never felt so good and so awful at the same time.

“But it’s over?” she asked.

He reached over to squeeze her hand. “It’s not over. I just need some time.”

“Jax, I would never let anything happen to Sutton. You know that,” she pleaded, looking deep into his eyes.

He offered a soft smile and said, “I know.”

“But you’re not going to let me see him?”

He seemed to consider it but stood firm in his decision. “Protecting my child comes first. It has to. No matter how much it hurts. Until I know I can trust you.”

“Then I’ll quit,” she said quickly, tears spilling down her cheeks.

“You’ll quit your job?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes,” she repeated. “Because that’s how much you both mean to me. Please, Jax,” she said, bursting into full heavy sobs. She cried hard into her hands, and she could sense the pain in Jaxon. She knew he hated to see her upset. He rubbed his hand along her back and then pulled her into his arms.

“All I’m asking for is time, okay?” he said, and she knew right then that things weren’t going to end well.

What could she say to him now?

If he forgave her, how could she tell him that she was keeping an even bigger secret from him?

How could she live without Sutton in her life? She didn’t want to lose him again. Then again, maybe she was a terrible mother. Maybe she was crazy for thinking she could be a private investigator and keep her son safe. Maybe Jaxon had every right to keep her from him. Maybe she wasn’t fit to parent her own son.

17

Jaxon

Jaxon sat in his living room with Hunter and Rachel. The two had been together for years and years—and had been friends for longer than that, and always provided Jaxon with good advice.

The two of them were the first people he told about Madelyn and what had been going on the last week.

Jaxon had been in a daze without Madelyn. He missed her to the point of feeling excruciated by the lack of her, but every time he thought about knocking on her front door, something stopped him dead in his tracks.

“She’s a private investigator?” Hunter repeated as he lay back, his feet crossed over the arm of the couch.

“That’s weird,” Rachel said with a frown.

“It’s weird,” Hunter agreed quickly. The two of them had a snappy banter, like they were in the same mind at all times.

This was part of the reason Jaxon liked getting advice from Rachel and Hunter. They may have had a strange start to their relationship, but they were the happiest couple he knew. Their love was so strong, it was almost palpable. They were willing to give up everything just to be together—Hunter had even given up his ranch’s place under the Brookside Ranch umbrella.

They knew what it was like to take big risks for the one you loved, and Jaxon wanted to know if he should take one for Madelyn.

“So, what does she want?” Hunter asked.

Jaxon narrowed his brows. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re pretty mad at her, so what did she want from you?” his brother specified. “Was she spying on you, or was it just the crazy guy who showed up on her doorstep that ruined it?”

“Which wasn’t a shining a moment, by the way,” Rachel added with a laugh.

Jaxon turned around to watch Sutton as he walked through the living room. The boy had seemed so lost since Madelyn had been gone. Today especially. He’d been walking around in a dream and had completely lost his appetite.

“She didn’t want anything from me,” Jaxon said, returning to his conversation. “But she lied.”

His argument elicited bored looks from his company. Rachel nodded, but Hunter raised a brow and gave an unsympathetic shrug.

“Dude,” Jaxon insisted, “she follows people around for a living!”

“Yeah, but most girls are stalkers anyway,” Hunter snorted.

Jaxon shook his head. “I’m not talking about looking up an ex on Facebook or even catfishing here. I’m talking about following people around in the city, taking pictures of them, and reporting back to spouses, agencies, workplaces. Stuff like that. It’s creepy. And even if I could overlook the fact that it’s creepy and weird, what am I supposed to do about Sutton??

“Having someone follow her home is a huge problem,” Rachel agreed.

“It’s all a problem,” Jaxon said with a sigh, turning his attention back to his son.

“Wow. You’ve grown up so much,” Hunter said with a proud smile.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re putting Sutton first, and that’s exactly what you should be doing. It’s just crazy. Usually, you’re so...throw caution to the wind.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t throw caution to the wind now,” he said with wide eyes. “I have a business and a kid, and life doesn’t work that way anymore.”

Hunter looked at Rachel, and they shared a significant smile.

“What?” Jaxon laughed.

Hunter nodded toward him and said, “Sucks being a grown-up, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know what to do. I love her, but this is unhealthy, right? I can’t have people showing up here looking for her. She said she’d quit, but I can’t ask her to do that, can I?”

“Sounds like you don’t have to ask her,” Rachel offered. “She said she’d quit, and after what happened to her, I’m sure she means it. Nobody wants to be treated like that!”

“No,” Jaxon said slowly. “But if that’s her job, if it’s what she’s passionate about, then who am I to tell her she can’t? I don’t own her.”

Hunter put a finger to his temple and chuckled. “Whoa, just give it a rest. You’ve been going around and around in the same circle for an hour now!”

“Try days,” Jaxon said, exasperated.

“Have you talked to her since you said you needed time?” Rachel asked, and Jaxon shook his head.

“No. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of asking for time? I mean, I’ve seen her out on the porch, and we just wave or give each other the nod. You know, it’s civil.”

“Do you miss her?” his sister-in-law asked.

“That would be an understatement,” he admitted. He had never gotten so close to someone so fast. In a way, he felt like they were already a little family. They’d spent the summer creating Sunday morning rituals and couldn’t get enough of ranch life. Everything with her had been so perfect before it all came crashing down.

“It sounds to me like it’s over,” Hunter said with a shrug.

“What? How can you say that? He just said he misses her!” Rachel laughed.

“Yeah, but he’s giving her the cold-shoulder. Sorry, let me correct myself. The civil shoulder. That means he’s working on making her unimportant, which means he’s learning how to get back to life without her.”

Rachel shook her head. “You Brooks have some really strange logic.” She looked at Jaxon and said, “Do you want to be with this girl or not?

“I don’t know. I know I don’t want to be without her. I know Sutton loves her, and so do I,” he turned to look at Sutton and noticed the boy seemed a little dizzy. “Hey, buddy, come here. You okay?”

He took Sutton by the shoulders and knew immediately that something was wrong. The boy was on the verge of fainting, and his skin was ice cold.

“My tummy hurts,” Sutton said in a voice so sickly it sent a wave of nausea through Jaxon’s core.

“He looks pale, Jax,” Rachel said with concern.

Sutton struggled to inhale and made a pained groan. Jaxon checked his throat for any sign of something lodged in there, he checked for fever and tried to ask Sutton what was wrong, but nothing was helping. He could feel a panic in him rise as Sutton fell unconscious, and before he knew it, he could hear ambulance sirens in the distance.

The ride to the hospital was a blur. He sat in the back of the ambulance while Hunter and Rachel followed behind in their car. He looked down at Sutton laying on the gurney with two attendants watching his breath and checking his blood pressure.

He explained to them what had happened. “He’s had an infection,” he said frantically, trying to get his words straight. “We thought it was just a cold or the flu or something, but he finished his antibiotics a few weeks ago and he’s been anemic the last two days. Today he got dizzy, and he seems to be having pains.”

“Is he allergic to anything?”

“No,” he said.

“Is there any history of high blood pressure, blood or heart disease, or diabetes in the family?”

“No. I-I don’t know,” he stammered, not knowing exactly where Sutton came from or who he was at his core.

There were more of the same questions when they reached the hospital. Jaxon found himself repeating the story twice more to a doctor and the triage nurse. He sat with Sutton for what felt like an eternity, listening to the doctors talking to him and feeling an overwhelming sense of urgency and panic. He wanted to grab the hospital staff and shake them and beg them to do something.

“Okay, we’re going to stabilize him first and get him rehydrated, and then we’ll do some scans to see if he has anything going on in there,” the doctor said. “You can sit in the waiting room, and we’ll come out when we’re done.”

“Can I stay with him?” Jaxon asked, cringing inwardly as he heard Sutton cry out in pain.

The doctor turned back to look at the book, then shook his head apologetically to Jaxon. “We’ll call you as soon as we’ve finished the tests. It won’t be long.”

Jaxon grit his teeth. He talked to Sutton and told him everything was going to be alright before he headed into the waiting room with Hunter and Rachel.

“Maybe he’s just dehydrated,” Rachel said after some time, rubbing her hand along Jaxon’s back.

“No,” he said under his breath. “He’s been acting weird for a few days now. I thought he was just getting over this bug, but…” he shook his head. “I should have known better.”

“He’ll be okay, man,” Hunter hushed.

He paced the emergency waiting room in a panic. He had never experienced this kind of fear before, but he knew Sutton would be okay. He would be alright because he had to be.

Jaxon craned his neck back and listened to it crack, trying to find any way to relieve the stress he felt. He heard a voice he recognized talking to a nurse and looked over. It was Madelyn.

“What are you doing here?” he asked as he walked up to her, pulling her into an embrace.

He didn’t care what happened before. He was just so, so happy to see her; to hold her and have her here.

Madelyn’s face contorted with worry, and in a panic, she asked, “I saw the ambulance leave the neighborhood and I got so worried. I’m so sorry. I know you don’t want to see me, but I just needed to know if everything is okay.”

“It’s Sutton,” he said, ending their embrace.

“What?” her eyes went wide; face pale. “What happened to him?”

“He’s not good,” he trembled, willing himself to keep it together. “He was really weak, and I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Is he alright?”

“They can’t figure out what’s wrong with him. Whatever he has, he’s had it for over a month now, and he can’t seem to shake it. He’s so weak, and he was having trouble with blurry vision,” he shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“What are the symptoms?” she asked, suddenly eerily calm. “What else did the doctor say?”

“Uh, chest pain, cold feet, dizzy,” he counted off on his fingers.

Madelyn closed her eyes and leaned her head back, pulling in a long, resigned breath. She covered her face with her hands and then said, “Can I talk to the doctor?”

“What?” he stiffened. “Why?”

“I need to talk to him, just for a second,” she pleaded.

“First, tell me why,” he said.

“I know you’re his dad and you know best, and I know that you aren’t crazy about me right now and that you think I’m dangerous, but I would really just like to see Sutton and talk to his doctor for just a second.”

“Okay,” he said slowly. Jaxon had chills run up both of his arms as he looked down at the girl he loved. He didn’t know what was happening, but he didn’t like it one bit.

Rachel and Hunter gave him a puzzled look, and he gave a confused shrug before leading Madelyn into Sutton’s room. The doctor hadn’t said Jaxon could come back yet, but Madelyn seemed determined to lay eyes on the boy.

“Can I help you?” the doctor asked as they stepped into the room.

“Hi, yes,” Madelyn said calmly. “Are you the one tending to Sutton Brooks?”

The doctor nodded. “Yes, I am. Can I help you?”

“I was just wondering,” she began nervously, “if you have tested him for sickle cell disease.”

Jaxon set his jaw nervously and watched as the doctor consulted his chart. He seemed to consider something before turning back to Madelyn. “Why?” the doctor asked. “Does the child have a history of SCD in his family?”

“No,” Jaxon said firmly, just as Madelyn said, “Yes.”

“No, he doesn’t,” he insisted.

The doctor did not look charmed by the pair. “Well, does he or doesn’t he? This is something we need to know.”

“Yes,” she said and met Jaxon’s eyes.

She looked so ashamed that it caused a deep pit of despair to well up in Jaxon’s stomach.

“I’m his mother,” she said without a second thought, “and I have SCD.”

18

Madelyn

When Sutton was stabilized, the doctor invited both Jaxon and Madelyn to come in and see him. At first, Madelyn wondered if Jaxon would allow her to come in with him, considering he hadn’t said a word to her since the doctor had confirmed that Sutton did have SCD.

Jaxon had given her such a cold, confused stare.

Inside of the recovery room, Jaxon ran his hand through Sutton’s hair. Madelyn wanted to reach down and touch her son, but she didn’t want to upset Jaxon any more than she already had.

Telling Jaxon that Sutton was her son didn’t come out even remotely the way Madelyn had imagined. She had always pictured herself telling him over coffee or in a more intimate setting—not here, not at a hospital after her son just had an attack.

She couldn’t fathom what Jaxon was thinking. She knew he must have been hurt and angry, but Madelyn felt a hundred times lighter. The weight of the secrecy had lifted from her, and she felt like she was just Madelyn again.

She and Jaxon sat on either side of Sutton’s bed, and after what felt like hours of monitoring him, Jaxon finally said, “We need to talk.”

Madelyn agreed, and the two of them walked through the expansive hospital together, following green lines on the floors to lead them to the outside world. They walked out the side exit to a closed-in courtyard. There were picnic tables and benches, all surrounded by tall trees and flower gardens.

“This is a lot,” he said, shaking his head.

Madelyn nodded. “I know,” she said. “Is there anything you want to ask me?”

“Yeah. What’s his life going to look like?”

Madelyn’s brows shot up in surprise. She had been expecting him to yell at her or ask her how she found him, but of course, his primary concern was Sutton’s health. She smiled inwardly at his fatherly concern. “It’s a treatable disease.”

“How?”

“Medication, pain relief management, sometimes they can do a bone marrow transplant, but not usual.”

He frowned. “Not usual, as in...he’ll have this forever?”

Madelyn bit her lip. “Yes. Risk of problems increases when you’re dehydrated, so it’s important that he’s drinking all the time.” She studied Jaxon’s features as they crumbled. It was clear he was in distress. “He’ll live a normal life, Jax,” she said softly.

“You almost died!” he shouted, then pinched the bridge of his nose. His tone went quieter as he repeated, “You almost died, Maddie. You said so yourself. The doctor gave you weeks.”

“Yes, because I was pregnant, and it was a high-risk pregnancy. I wasn’t healthy. I wasn’t taking care of myself the way I should have been.”

Jaxon nodded, trying to calm himself down. He paced the garden, and she followed behind him like a helpless puppy.

He turned to her as if something were just dawning on him and repeated, “You were...pregnant,” he breathed. “With Sutton.”

Her heart sank as he said the words. She was worried about how their conversation was going to go from here. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him but hurt him she had.

“Yes,” she said.

“And that’s why you came to Kerhonkson. To find him?”

She bit her lip. “Yes.”

“How did you find him?”

“I hired someone I knew from another agency,” she said, the words slipping out of her mouth like rushing water. “Just so you know, the investigator didn’t know who you were or where Sutton ended up. He just knew the general neighborhood. Meeting you was a fluke, I swear.”

Technically, she wasn’t lying.

Her intention was always to find Sutton and reunite with him but meeting Jaxon and falling for him had been its own separate thing. She didn’t want him to confuse those two instances or think that she used him to get to Sutton.

“Right...right,” he said.

“You’re mad,” she stated.

“Yeah. I’m mad. All I ever wanted was for you to be honest with me and now we’ve had this conversation twice. Twice you couldn’t just tell me the truth!”

“What was I supposed to say, Jaxon?” she asked meekly, looking back and forth from his eyes. “If you were me, what would you have said? Was I supposed to march up to you and say, ‘Hi, I’m your new neighbor and by the way, I’m also the mother of your son’?”

“Oh, hey, I don’t know—maybe say nothing! Because you gave up your kid and surrendered the right to come back and make decisions in his life,” he snapped.

She felt her face go hot. From a legal standpoint, he was right. But her situation with Sutton was circumstantial. She wasn’t some careless mother who gave him up or used his adoption to get money for herself. She loved him, and she had every intention of keeping him until her illness overtook her body.

“I was sick,” she said, trying not to get angry. Nothing would be accomplished by her getting defensive with him, but she wanted Jaxon to understand that she never wanted to give her child away.

“Jax,” she said, softer then. “I thought I was dying. If I knew I was going to survive, then I would never have given Sutton up, not for a second! And you have to understand that I didn’t know what I was coming into when I met you. I didn’t know if you had a wife and you guys were going to be this big happy family with Sutton. I didn’t know how to do this anymore than I do right now.”

“So that’s what this was to you? You came here and weaseled your way into a relationship with me?”

“I didn’t weasel my way in,” she snapped.

His face contorted into a suspicious frown as he asked, “To what end? To take Sutton from me?”

Madelyn snapped her lips shut, feeling caught.

“At first,” she began, and Jaxon interrupted her with a bitter, sad laugh.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he scoffed under his breath.

“I just wanted to meet him; to see him and make sure he was okay—and yes! Of course, I thought about taking him home and making him mine again. I wanted him back. Wouldn’t you?”

Jaxon turned his profile to her, meeting her eyes from a sideways glance. He set his jaw in frustration but didn’t answer.

Her featured softened as she said, “But then I met you, and...”

“Tricked me into loving you,” he spat.

“No. I met you and saw how much you love Sutton and how much he loves you, and I knew I could never take him away,” she said. “Not in a million years. But I just wanted to be a part of his life, no matter how big or small of a role that was for me.”

Jaxon ran his hands along his head and let out a frustrated sigh. “I’m trying to understand you, Madelyn. This is just really hard for me right now. I can’t help but think that you...you used me.”

“Maybe at first, a little,” she admitted. “But then I fell in love with you and then I didn’t know what to do. If I told you, I knew you’d be furious and react just the way you’re reacting now. I knew you’d think that what we had was fake and that I was just some conniving girl who was trying to ruin your life.”

“You should have told me,” he said firmly.

“I didn’t know how.”

“Let me ask you something. You say your feelings were real and that you loved me. That you weren’t using me to get close to Sutton, right?”

“Right,” she said.

“So, say we started dating, and it didn’t work out. We didn’t get along as great as we thought, and you’re not into the relationship.”

Madelyn licked her lips nervously and felt the heat of the summer air rush through her body in a humid flush. “Okay,” she said slowly, drawing the word out.

“Would you have broken up with me?” he asked curiously. “Or would you keep seeing me so that you could be around Sutton?”

Madelyn let out a long exhale but couldn’t bring herself to answer.

“That’s what I thought,” he said smugly.

“That’s not fair,” she pleaded. “Ideally, I would have told you by then, and it wouldn’t be an issue!”

“So, you did plan on telling me?”

“I mean, eventually, yes,” she insisted.

“And you waited until my kid was almost dying to finally tell me some information that could have been really important?”

“Jax,” she said, feeling her whole body weakening. “I’m sorry.”

Jaxon met her eyes once more, but the softness she was used to seeing in him was gone. He was just as angry as she feared he would be.

“I don’t know what else to say to you. I love you, and I’m sorry,” she said, giving way to tears and holding her hands over her face in embarrassment. “I’m so, so sorry everything happened like this. I know I should have been honest with you, but I just missed him so much. You don’t know what it feels like to be without him, to be missing this little piece of yourself all the time, every day.”

Jaxon considered her words and his anger seemed to fade, but he said nothing in response.

A long flow of silence passed between them. Jaxon tilted his head up and looking at the dusky sky as he finally said, “So...what do we do now?”

“I think that’s up to you,” she said.

He kept his head skyward as he asked, “Are you going to take me to court?”

“No. I would never do that. You’re his father, through and through. I know that.”

Jaxon swallowed.

She knew it was right. Jaxon was the only parent Sutton knew. She knew he didn’t remember her—maybe he felt a connection to her, but he hardly remembered her enough to piece their lives together.

It was Jaxon who he relied on, the one who taught him to speak and walk. The one who took him to ride horses, to splash in the pool, and the one he went to when he was upset. Jaxon was his dad.

“I’m the stranger in his life, as much as I wish that weren’t the truth,” she said, pained by her own words. “That was my decision, you’re right, and I’m going to have to live with it. I will respect whatever choice you make about how we proceed,” she paused. “With us, and with Sutton.”

Jaxon wanted the best for Sutton, and as far as Madelyn was concerned, the best thing for Sutton was to have his mother back in his life. But if he felt it was too much for Sutton to comprehend at this point, then she would respect that because she believed to her very core that Jaxon knew the best way to love, care for, and protect her son.

So if he didn’t want to be with her anymore, she could accept that. Her heart would be broken, but she would accept it.

And if he said that Sutton wasn’t ready to know his mother so soon after losing Skylar and being diagnosed as ill, then she would wait.

She would stay the girl next door.

19

Jaxon

When something new happened in Jaxon’s life, he needed time to process. That was exactly what he had been doing since finding out that his son was sick, and his girlfriend had lied to him—again.

Sutton had been home from the hospital for two weeks and was doing better than ever.

The news of Sutton’s condition, sickle cell disease, hit Jaxon hard. No parent wanted their child to be unwell—parenting was hard enough when your child was healthy.

Now there seemed to be new rules and codes to live by. Sutton had a care plan he had to stick to for the rest of his life, and it was Jaxon’s job to made sure he stayed well.

Jaxon took time off from the ranch and spent his first few nights back home in a sleepless daze. He was up every couple of hours, checking on his son.

He remembered back when he lived at home. It seemed like his mother checked on him constantly. He had to start locking his bedroom door at seventeen just so she wouldn’t barge in and check to see if he were still breathing.

That was what it meant to be a parent—to worry and nurture for the rest of your life.

Even when your kids begged you to stop.

Jaxon had a lot more respect for his mother now than he did back in his teenage years.

Mothers truly had one of the hardest jobs in the world.

His thoughts twisted to Madelyn.

The girl next door.

Sutton’s mother.

The keeper of secrets.

The pair hadn’t spoken much since they left the hospital weeks ago. They would occasionally speak about Sutton’s health at the border of their lawns, but she had stayed true to her word and kept her distance until Jaxon figured out what he wanted to do.

He wanted to do the fair and right thing and give her access to his son. Their son. But everything had been such a mess between them, and he was afraid that she was going to try to take Sutton from him.

And to his surprise, he was desperately afraid she didn’t love him—that their relationship had been some strange farce.

The first week, Jaxon was angry and confused. He didn’t like being surprised by the girl he had been trying so hard to trust for a second time. He didn’t like having the rug pulled from underneath him.

For the last two years, he’d been the one who had known everything there was to know about Sutton, and to know Madelyn had been fooling him for the whole summer didn’t feel great.

It felt awful, actually.

Still, his heart was in it now. He loved this girl, and it didn’t take long for him to start missing her. Not only did he miss spending time with her, but he began to feel guilty about keeping her from Sutton.

He hadn’t purposely kept them apart; he just needed space to figure things out.

His heart ached every day for her, so one day, he decided he’d had enough. He was ready to invite this girl back into his life, but when he went to her house, she wasn’t there.

The more he watched, the more he learned about her whereabouts. She would leave at five in the morning nearly every day and wouldn’t come home until two or three in the afternoon. He didn’t know where she went—he wasn’t a stalker. But her daily disappearing act left him unsettled.

Then one morning, while perusing the West End Market, he saw her there.

Madelyn was wearing white overalls and a black t-shirt underneath. Her long, dark hair was pulled up into an oversized bun and her face was clean of any makeup.

She looked absolutely beautiful.

She was walking in front of a fruit stand, lugging box after box into a neat little pile.

Her face lit up, awkward at first, then pleased, when she caught sight of him.

“Hey,” he said in surprise.

“Hey,” she said as she lugged a wooden crate of peaches up to her chest.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

Madelyn offered a curious expression and looked down at the box she was carrying. “Working,” she said with an amused laugh. “You?”

“I’m uh—I was—I’m here with the chef from the ranch; we were just seeing what’s in season and placing some orders for a wedding coming up,” he shook his head in disbelief. “What do you mean you’re working here?”

“I quit my old job,” she said, suddenly finding her shoes incredibly interesting. “Just...too much drama there.”

“Right,” he nodded. “I mean, good! I’m happy to hear that. And now you’re...?”

“Working at the markets,” she finished with a laugh. “It’s simple, but I like it. The people here are so nice and welcoming; it’s like I’ve already become a part of their little family. Early hours, though.”

“I bet,” he said, feeling warmer the longer he spoke with her. “Do you need any help?”

“Oh, this? No, thank you. Besides, if the boss sees me soliciting help from a customer, it wouldn’t look good.”

“Ah,” he waved his hand. “If anyone gives you heck, just send them my way.”

“Because they could never be mad at the eccentric billionaire,” she teased.

He raised both brows, surprised at how easy it was to talk to her again. “Is that what they call me? The eccentric billionaire?”

“No,” she said wryly. “That what I call you.”

He chuckled. “Why?”

“Because! You’re rich, and every rich guy needs some eccentricity.”

“Oh yeah?” he said. “What should mine be?”

“You should start wearing a monocle,” she said with a grin. “Maybe carry around one of those dancing canes with the diamond on top?”

“A monocle?” he laughed. “Okay, this was supposed to be eccentric, not crazy!”

And just like that, they seemed like them again.

Talking to her was so easy.

They only talked for ten minutes or so, but she told him that she didn’t want anything to do with her uncle’s agency anymore. She wanted to settle into life in Kerhonkson.

By the time he got home that night, he knew he wanted to be with her again. He didn’t want to be angry anymore, and he didn’t want another day to go by without Sutton getting to know his mother.

She had a lot of work to do to prove to Jaxon that he could trust her, but without even knowing it, she had already won some of it back.

First, she quit her job, just as she said she was going to do. Not only did she leave her dangerous profession behind, but she chose to do humble work and embrace the town that Jaxon loved.

Second, and most importantly, she respected him.

She’d given him all the time in the world to be alone with Sutton; to grieve his son’s health, and to get his emotions together. She gave him privacy, and never once acted like she had more rights to Sutton just because she was biologically his.

And in the end, he reminded himself...if Sutton’s mother could have been anybody, wasn’t Madelyn the perfect choice?

Shouldn’t he adore that that woman he loved was connected to the child he loved?

Jaxon had his time to be wild, and now was the time to grow roots. He’d already started in Kerhonkson with the ranch and with Sutton. Madelyn was the missing puzzle piece that made everything make sense to him.

This was a good thing, he told himself.

It had to be.

And Jaxon would know best. He’d spent many years watching his brothers fall in and out of love.

He felt the love his eldest brother had for his first wife before falling madly in love with Page.

He watched Bennett Brooks reunite with his old girlfriend, June, and make her his wife.

While in a period of grief and mourning, Colt, his middle brother, married Shelby and had never seemed happier.

Then there was the never-ending saga of his brothers Phoenix and Hunter. The two men who had both been in love with Rachel Piers since they were children.

Jaxon remembered when Rachel left Phoenix and shacked up with Hunter.

He remembered Phoenix putting out his album Terrible, Beautiful Words—a record entirely devoted to loving and losing Rachel.

The turmoil it created in their family felt like it was going to last a lifetime.

But one day, the brothers forgave each other for everything that had gone wrong between them. They put family above heartache.

And that was exactly what Jaxon was going to do with Madelyn. He wanted to put family first, just like he had been taught to do his whole life.

That evening, he saw Madelyn on her porch, taking in the slowly cooling summer night air, and knew he had to talk to her.

He was practically buzzing with energy.

“Hey,” he said, nodding toward her, silently asking if he could come and join her.

Madelyn brightened and pushed one of her deck chairs out toward him.

“How have you been?” he asked.

“Busy,” she said with a smile.

“Work?”

“Yeah. You?”

Jaxon shrugged. “Just got back at the ranch a couple of days ago. I’ve been taking time off to be with…”

“Right,” she said quietly. “How is he doing?”

“Great,” he nodded. “Look, I’ve been thinking a lot about something you said to me back at the hospital.”

“What’s that?”

“You said…” he trailed off, unsure if he wanted to open up this can of worms. “You said that you were a stranger in his life.”

Madelyn fixed a thick strand of dark hair behind her ear and watched him expectantly.

“You’re not a stranger, Madelyn. You’re his mother.”

“I never got the chance to be his mother.”

“Maybe not,” he agreed. “But you have one now.”

She looked at him in surprise, unsure what to say.

“Jax,” she stammered out. “Look, I told you...whatever you wanted to do with Sutton, I would completely respect your decisions. You don’t have to—”

“I want you to be a part of his life,” he smiled. “Both of our lives.”

Madelyn abruptly stopped rocking in her chair and inhaled a surprised gasp. Her eyes spilled over with tears, but she kept her composure as she said, “What do you mean?”

“I love Sutton more than I have loved anything in my whole life. I love him in a way that I never thought was possible.”

She nodded. “I know you do.”

“And I love you,” he concluded warmly, taking her hand into his. “I fell for you so fast, and I couldn’t understand why. It was so unlike me. Now that I know you’re Sutton’s mother, it makes sense. He’s perfect, and so are you.”

“I am not perfect, Jax.”

“You are to me,” he said. “I want you to have shared custody of Sutton. I want to make it official.”

Madelyn couldn’t help herself. She started full-on crying then, hanging her head as if to say, “I don’t deserve this.”

“When I saw you at the market the other day, I couldn’t believe how different you were,” he said.

“It was just a job change,” she said.

“No. It was so much more than that. You looked...like you belong here. You belong here in Kerhonkson with Sutton and me. I see that now.”

“You do?”

He nodded; smiled. “I saw it all along; I just couldn’t put my finger on why. Now I see what I’ve been missing this whole time. A partner. You are that partner to me, Maddie. You’ve been my partner since the moment I met you, as strange as it might sound. And now I understand why I felt such a strong connection to you.”

“Because I’m Sutton’s mom?” she asked.

“Because I finally met someone who loves Sutton as much as I do,” he said with a smirk. “To be honest, I didn’t think that was humanly possible.”

“You don’t think I’m dangerous?”

“I think you are a mother who loves her son,” he said, then winked. “Is that dangerous? You bet it is. But it’s dangerous in the best way possible.”

“Jax, I really do love you,” she said.

Jaxon leaned in and brushed the tip of his nose against hers before pulling her into a deep, passionate kiss.

“I love you, too,” he grinned. “Now, come on. Let’s go home to our son.”

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About the Author

Hanna Hart is a passionate sweet clean contemporary romance author who has found the love for writing since the age of 6.

Hanna lives in the beautiful Santa Cruz California with her loving husband, two children and dog Milo. Other then dreaming up of extremely sweet & romantic stories, Hanna enjoys spending time with her family, going to the beach, cooking great food, travelling the world, and getting a lot of exercise.

Hanna’s purpose is to delivery very sweet romantic stories to her readers that will touch their hearts in a very meaningful taking them to another place that will positively impact their life.

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