Stirring Up Trouble Read online

  “We’ll keep an eye out for her and send her your way if we see her,” Pepper said.

  “Wait. There she is. In the red cloak,” Grant said, pointing across the lawn to where the movie would be airing. Some people had already spread out their blankets and chairs to claim their spots for later.

  There, meandering through the crowd with her basket of goodies, was Maddie. She had taken his joke about Red Riding Hood and parlayed it into a whole costume. She was wearing a red gingham dress that was fairly short. It was paired with tights and boots to keep her warm. A red cloak was wrapped around her shoulders with the hood pulled up over her head. She looked good enough to eat.

  “Will I see you two at the Halloween party?” he asked.

  “You bet,” Grant replied. “There’s no food at our house and all the furniture has boxes piled up on it.”

  “I bet. I’ll catch up with you there.” With a wave, Emmett jogged across the street to meet up with Maddie.

  “Hello, little girl,” he said as he came up behind her in a menacing, wolflike growl. “Where are you going with that basket of goodies?”

  Maddie turned to look at him with an innocent smile that was enhanced by the dark braided pigtails beneath her hood. “To my grandmother’s house. What big eyes you have!”

  “The better to take in every luscious curve,” he said with a laugh before leaning in to kiss her. “I approve of this costume,” he said. “I will also approve of taking it off later, if you can stand to stay awake that long.”

  “I don’t know,” Maddie said coyly. “We’ll have to see.”

  “Is everything set for movie night?” he asked.

  “Yep. Alice has the projector ready to go. Lydia, of all people, volunteered to man the laptop, so we’ve got someone to watch over that. I’m handing out sugar cookies shaped like pumpkins. I baked two hundred of them yesterday, and Gertie spent all morning icing them and piping little faces on them. Alice is even going around with little survey cards to see if folks would like us to turn this into a series next summer. I think Movies in the Square has a nice ring to it.”

  Emmett wrapped his arm around her waist and tugged her close. “It does. And it’ll keep all those wild hoodlums from staying out drinking late and keeping you up at night.”

  Maddie blushed nearly as red as her cape. “Yes, well, that was the original intent when I started this, but I think it’s something fun for folks in town to do. My grandmother’s always lecturing us on the importance of fostering community spirit.”

  “Well, there’s plenty of community spirit tonight. Look, there goes a ghost right there.”

  Maddie laughed and swatted him on the arm as the tiny ghost walked by. “Very funny. Looks like the kids are coming out of the library, so it’s time to start handing out candy.”

  So far, the night was going splendidly. When the Trunk or Treat ended, the families with small children dissipated, but a decent crowd remained for the movie. The lawn outside the library was a sea of chairs and blankets. Some people were in costume, likely heading on to the party at Woody’s when the film was over. Others, like Bert Swenson and Vera Reynolds, were just dressed warm for a fall evening outside.

  Maddie smiled when she saw the curly white hair of Miss Dotty sticking up over the chair beside Vera. She was holding the hand of the older gentleman beside her that had to be Dick, the man she’d had her eye on. It looked like her new hairdo and senior-center brunch plans had paid off.

  All the cookies had been handed out. Every single one had gone into the hands of a potential customer. It felt great to be a part of something that got her involved in the community and helped to grow her business at the same time.

  It was all part of the new phase of life she was starting. Apologizing to Pepper was just one step of many. She would do the same when Ivy returned for the holidays. From there, she had a whole community to befriend. She’d spent too long worried about how the bakery looked rather than how best to bring customers into it. She hoped this helped her seem like the friendly, approachable woman she wanted to be, instead of the snobby, too-good-for-everyone woman people seemed to think she was.

  Alice walked to the front of the crowd and raised her hands to get everyone’s attention. “I’d like to thank everyone for coming out here tonight. When Maddie Chamberlain came to me with the idea of showing movies in the square, I knew it was the perfect activity for our community. It was late in the year, but we wanted to try it out and see how everyone liked it. Hopefully, you’ll be joining us for more of these events next summer.”

  The crowd applauded. Maddie moved to the side of the crowd where Emmett was leaning against a tree. He had to leave before the movie was over to open Woody’s and prepare for the party. She planned to make an appearance, but if her extended yawns were any indication, she’d be asleep soon. She clung to his side and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

  “We’d like to thank Madelyn’s Bakery and Tea House for sponsoring tonight’s event. I hope all of you got one of those tasty cookies. Be sure not to throw away the tag, because it’s good for a dollar off a future purchase at the bakery. And now, ladies and gentleman, I present Frankenstein!”

  Alice slipped into the darkness to another round of applause. Lydia flipped the switch on the projector and cued up the DVD. The opening credits of Frankenstein began, the spooky mood music filling the air in the square. But then . . . something went wrong.

  The projector flickered and went dark. When the light came back on, there was a different video playing. A home movie of sorts. Maddie squinted at the screen, recognizing her brother Grant and Logan Anthony.

  “I wish you’d drop this wall you’ve put up and let us try,” Grant’s voice projected through the speakers. “Let me try to be a brother to you. It might not be as terrible as you imagine.”

  “Why do you care?” Logan asked. “I’m your father’s bastard. Why would you want anything to do with me, or want me involved with your family at all? Is this all just to make Pepper happy?”

  Alice came running through the crowd to intervene while a noticeably calm Lydia watched with interest as the clip continued to play. Maddie just stood there, utterly confused. Did Grant just say Logan was his brother? Not just his future brother-in-law, but that he was Norman’s bastard? That meant he was . . . her heart nearly came to a stop in her chest. He was her brother, too.

  A gasp went up and a rumble of voices sounded in the crowd. Maddie looked over in time to see Grant get up from his seat and march straight toward Lydia. “You meddling bitch!” he shouted. “Why are you on a mission to hurt everyone in my family?”

  Grant’s shouts were echoed by the video of him still playing on the screen. “Circumstances be damned, you’re my brother. I want to have a relationship with you. We’re family, and family is important to me.”

  The film turned off. Lydia abandoned her post, casually walking out of the square before Grant could reach her. Emmett held Maddie tightly, but she tugged away from his grasp. She couldn’t breathe.

  “Ladies and gentleman,” Alice announced. “We’ve had some minor technical difficulties. Please give us a moment and we’ll get the film going again.”

  Someone from the crowd approached the laptop and helped Alice, but Maddie wasn’t concerned about the movie any longer. Her gaze met Grant’s across the lawn. There was panic in his eyes, a red flush of anger mottling his skin. It was all true; she could tell.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Emmett suggested, and all Maddie could do was nod. She wanted out, badly. People were still talking, looking up at Maddie and pointing as they did. She couldn’t take it any longer. She took Emmett’s hand and let him lead her to the sidewalk just as the sounds of Frankenstein returned to the square.

  She thought she’d feel better once she was inside the safety of the closed bar, but it didn’t help. She climbed onto one of the barstools and dropped her fac
e into her hands. She wanted to cry, scream, and hit something all at once.

  “He lied,” she said at last with a sad shake of her head. “He knew the truth and he lied.”

  “Who?” Emmett asked with a frown.

  “Grant. He’s Mr. Honesty, yet he kept this from all of us. Or at least from me. I don’t know if anyone else knows about Logan, but that’s kind of a big deal. We have a brother we never knew about. A brother! Pepper’s brother at that,” she added. It would take her a long time to wrap her head around all of this. Her universe was shifting in a direction she’d never anticipated. She was just getting used to the idea of Pepper as her sister-in-law. Logan as her half brother? She couldn’t even imagine it.

  Emmett leaned on the counter and pinned her with his gaze. “Is Grant really the one you should be upset with? I don’t know for sure, but I’m thinking he probably found out because of his relationship with Pepper. In his situation, secrecy was probably the best policy if her family didn’t want it getting out.”

  Maddie thought about his words for a moment and realized he was right. The person she needed to be angry with was her daddy. Daddy . . . the one who spoiled her mercilessly. Who let her get away with murder. The same Daddy who bought her the bakery, who gave her a Mercedes for graduation, who paid for pastry school in Paris. He was her rock, the one she ran to when things went wrong. Even though she knew, rationally, that he was at fault, it wasn’t her knee-jerk reaction to blame him for anything. She was a daddy’s girl.

  “Maybe he didn’t know,” she said with a hopeful tone. “It’s possible that Logan’s mother never told my father that she was having his baby. That happens a lot, right?”

  Emmett reached across the bar and took her hand. “It’s also possible that he’s known all this time. Your father isn’t a saint, Maddie. You’re old enough to know that.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out. He was right. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then a thought struck her and they flew open again. “Mama!”

  She reached for her picnic basket, where she’d stored her keys and her phone. There were half a dozen astonished text messages on her screen, but she ignored them all. Someone had to warn her mother.

  “Maddie,” Emmett warned. “Do you want to be the one to tell her?”

  “No. But I don’t want those gossiping harpies to be the ones to tell her, either. Damn Lydia. She did this on purpose.” She dialed the house as quickly as she could, hoping her call would get there before anyone else’s.

  “Hello? Madelyn, dear?” It wasn’t her mother’s voice; it was her grandmother’s.

  “Granny, where’s Mama?”

  “She’s still in the Bahamas on that girls’ trip.”

  Maddie breathed a sigh of relief. Her mother’s cell phone wasn’t the kind that would work in another country.

  “She gets home tomorrow. What’s the matter, Madelyn?”

  “Lydia slipped a video clip of Grant and Logan Anthony arguing into the movie at the library tonight.” Maddie hesitated, not wanting to tell her grandmother the truth, either. She’d had two children, but Norman was her only son, and she doted on him the way Maddie’s daddy doted on her. “Apparently they were arguing about Logan being Daddy’s illegitimate son.”

  “Oh.”

  “That’s all I know. You’ll have to ask Grant about the rest. I think Lydia did that to get back at the family for the incident at Ivy’s concert. And maybe at me because I’m not her partner in crime any longer.”

  Her grandmother drew in an audible breath and sighed. “I’m sure she had plenty of reasons in her own mind, twisted and wrong as they might be. She’s always been your friend, but I’ve never understood why.”

  “She’s not my friend anymore, Granny. I’m not friends with anyone who deliberately tries to hurt my family like that.”

  “Good girl.”

  “The whole town knows, or will know, by the time Mama gets back from her trip. What are we going to do?”

  “I’ll speak with Helen when she returns. I know you love your father, dear, but I’m not entirely certain that your mother will be . . . surprised.”

  Maddie was the surprised one. “You don’t sound shocked, either.”

  “There are very few things that happen in this family that I don’t know about, Madelyn. Your father’s indiscretions are among them.”

  Indiscretions? Plural? She just shook her head. This was bigger than Logan, she hated to admit. Logan was just from back before her father learned to be more careful.

  “Thank you for calling. I know that was difficult for you to do. No one wants to be the bearer of that kind of news. I’ll take it from here. You try to enjoy your party. Good night, Madelyn.”

  “Good night, Granny.” Maddie turned off her phone and let it drop into her lap. Her father was a cheater, his business rival was really his son, and, apparently, Granny and her mama knew about it the whole time. What the hell was going on with her family? And what about her best friend just turning on her like that?

  “I’d offer you a drink,” Emmett said, laying his plastic gun on the counter, “but I don’t think you’d take it.”

  “No, but thank you. At this point, I think it would be adding more fuel to the fire instead of numbing me the way I’d want it to. If I punch Lydia in the face, I’ll get arrested. And I’m not ready to face Judge Griffin again so soon.”

  “I know,” Emmett conceded with disappointment, “but it’d be worth it to watch someone punch her.”

  Maddie shook her head. Lydia had messed with the wrong family. “She’ll get hers. I’m absolutely certain of that. She can’t keep messing with people the way she does. I should’ve known she was up to something when she volunteered to help. She never volunteers to do anything. She just wanted access to the computer.”

  “You couldn’t have known what she was up to.”

  “Yeah, but I know Lydia. She was my best friend. I never expected her to turn on me and treat me the same way she treats everyone else. I guess it’s inevitable. Really, when I stopped being so mean to people, I guess I turned on her. I’m sure that’s how she sees it.”

  “People see what they want to see and use that to justify their actions. Doesn’t make it true, or what they did any less despicable.”

  That was true. But it didn’t make it hurt any less or make her any less confused about everything that happened tonight. She did know that she was not in the mood to party. “Hey, listen, do you mind if I skip out on the party tonight? I’m not feeling very festive.”

  “Absolutely.” Emmett came around the bar and wrapped Maddie in his arms. It felt so good to be there. The warmth of being wrapped in his protective cocoon made everything seem better somehow. She wanted to stay there all night, but she knew that was impossible. “I’m sorry about all this. It ruined your big night.”

  “I think it still went okay,” she said, taking a step back while she still had the strength to pull away. “The movie played on. And who knows, maybe the drama and the aftermath will encourage more people to attend the next event. You never know what will happen around Rosewood.”

  “I’d let you hide out in my apartment until I get off work, but it’s going to be after two. You won’t get much sleep with the Monster Mash going on down here.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll be fine. I’m going to take a sleeping pill and try to forget tonight ever happened.” Rising onto her toes, she planted a kiss on his lips to say good night. He wrapped his strong arms around her, making her wish that tonight wasn’t Halloween and there wasn’t long hours of partying in his future. She’d rather curl up with him on the couch and lose herself in some television. Unfortunately, all she could do was pull away and look up into the big green eyes that comforted her. “You be sure to tell all those girls tonight that Han Solo is taken.”

  Emmett smiled and winked. “I will.”

 
; Chapter Eighteen

  For the first time since Maddie got back from Paris, she skipped Sunday dinner with her family. She didn’t know if she could face her father—or anyone in her family, really—after what had happened last night. She didn’t want to see anyone except Emmett. That’s why when the text tone she’d assigned to Emmett went off, she finally picked up her phone.

  “My bed is cold and lonely,” he wrote.

  Her house was feeling the same way. It was also feeling like the wrong place to wait around. If she didn’t start responding to calls soon, people were probably going to show up at her door. Emmett’s apartment was the ideal hideaway, at least for a while.

  “I’ll be right there,” she responded.

  Minutes later, she was across the street and sequestered in the dark comfort of Emmett’s place. She crept into his bedroom and found him lying there, waiting for her. She shed her clothes and crawled into the bed beside him, letting his body heat warm her bare skin like a radiator.

  “That’s more like it,” he said, wrapping his arms around her waist and planting a kiss in the soft hollow beneath her ear. “How are you?”

  “I’m okay,” she said, curling her head into his chest. She listened to the slow, steady rhythm of his heart and it made her feel more at peace. “Better now that I’m here.” She meant it. She felt ten times better here than she had sitting in her house alone all night. It had been a long time since someone had made her feel as comfortable and safe as she did when she was with him.

  “Have you spoken to anyone?”

  “No. And right now, I don’t want to. It’s starting to feel like you’re the only person I can trust.”

  Maddie expected him to say some soothing platitudes in the vein of “of course you can,” or “I’m not the only person you can trust,” but he just lay silent, holding her. Perhaps he was right and words were overrated at this point. Action was better.