Dare to Desire (Dare to Love 2)

Madison closed her eyes and groaned. Of course he was getting to her. It hadn’t helped that she’d seen yet another side to him the other night, a softer, giving side. And he’d apologized.

“Yoo-hoo!” Riley waved a hand in front of Madison’s face.

She blinked and refocused on her surroundings.

“Okay, I have my answer. That blush on your face and that unfocused look in your eyes tell me everything I need to know.” Riley clapped her hands together and squealed with glee. “So things are good?”

Madison swallowed hard. “I wouldn’t call things good. He seems different, but I can’t imagine trusting him that way again.” She caught the look on Riley’s face and rushed on, wanting to have her say first. “Look, I didn’t get into a relationship with him the first time expecting anything more than an affair. I knew his history, but there were moments when we seemed to be … more. And even if he wasn’t ready, how he broke things off?” She shook her head. “That I never expected, and God, it hurt.”

She placed her hand over her stomach and the remembered pain. There was something inherently gut-wrenching about feeling abandoned. It did something to Madison she didn’t know how to get over.

How could she? Any time she felt it, she went back in time. Her father had taken her to the mall for school clothes, a rare occurrence in and of itself because he could rarely afford new things. And then he’d left her there, never to be heard from again.

Her throat swelled at the memory, and she cursed Alex for bringing that horrific moment in her life back in Technicolor again. That’s how she’d felt when he’d dismissed her like she was garbage after she’d come to see him at the hospital. If he’d called her soon after, she’d have chalked it up to his own pain and disappointment over the events in his life and forgiven him. But he hadn’t.

“Hey.” Riley put her hand over Madison’s. “I’m not going to minimize what Alex did. I’m not going to tell you he wasn’t an asshole, because he was. I’m also not going to ask you to give him another chance, because only you can decide if he’s worth it. What I will say is that I notice a difference in him too.”

“Really?” Madison hated the hope in her voice.

She hated that her feelings for Alex were still strong enough to put it there. “I thought I noticed small things in our short relationship that indicated he was different with me, but I realized afterward I’d been delusional. The stereotypical female who wanted to be the one to change a guy who couldn’t be changed,” she said in disgust.

“Unless the career-ending injury accomplished what you couldn’t back then,” Riley said carefully. “What if those things you noticed about the two of you were real and now he understands what he had—and lost?”

Riley waited, both patient and silent, as Madison digested her words. “You’re saying maybe he has changed. And maybe it’

s permanent.”

“I’m saying you won’t know unless you open yourself up to possibly being hurt again.” She shrugged.

“Why would I do that?” Madison asked.

“Because when you trust and it works out, the payoff is more than worth the potential pain.” Riley smiled and patted her still-flat but pregnant belly.

Madison shook her head, unable to fathom being hurt that way again. Sex? Yes, she was tempted to give in and sleep with Alex again, but trust him—or anyone—with her heart? Not happening.

But ready or not, she had to deal with the fact that she and Alex had unfinished business.

* * *

Madison tried to visit her foster mother at least once a week, and she stopped by not long after receiving the legal papers from Eric. Luckily, she and Eric kept very different schedules, and she rarely ran into him. This week’s visit hadn’t been an easy one. The live-in health care aide agreed it was time to move Franny into a nursing home. Someplace where she could be monitored constantly.

When lucid, Franny agreed and had already chosen the particular nursing home. They’d been waiting for an opening, and there was one now. Although Franny still had days where sometimes she would know where she was, more times than not, she lived in the past. Madison would begin a conversation only to have Franny pick up the thread, except she’d be talking to someone else. Someone from her childhood or early days of her marriage.

The illness was stealing the older woman piece by piece, and putting her in a home felt like the final stage of loss. On top of Madison’s foster dad’s death, Franny’s memory lapse was yet another blow. But moving her was the right thing to do. Of course, Eric was fighting that too, not wanting his mother to be locked up, in his words.

In this, Madison wanted to believe that Eric was looking at his mother as a son afraid to make the wrong choice. He feared she’d wake up and, in a rare lucid moment, be lost in her strange surroundings. Madison was more afraid she’d burn the house down one night while the aide was asleep or wander off when no one was looking.

A week after Madison had been served with legal papers, she met with the lawyer Alex had recommended. He’d made time for her right away, and she appreciated Alex using his connections to get her in.

Not long after she checked in with the receptionist, a tall, dark-haired man strode out into the lobby to greet her.

“Ms. Evans?”

She rose to greet the attorney. Jonathan Ridgeway, Esquire, was a good-looking man with warm eyes and a genuine smile. Madison immediately felt comfortable with him. She knew this whole ordeal wouldn’t be simple or easy, and she was glad this lawyer didn’t put her on edge.

“Hi,” she said, extending her hand, which he briefly took.

“It’s good to meet you, Ms. Evans. But I prefer to dispense with formalities. Is it okay if I call you Madison?” he asked.