Emmett slung on his backpack and cautiously approached the ladder. He clung to it, going down at a painfully slow pace. It was easier to go up, even when every step took him closer to terra firma. He was almost to the bottom when he heard Grant shout at him.
“Did it work?”
“Yes!” Five more rungs. Four. Three.
“Is she coming?”
“No.” Two. One. Grass. Emmett breathed a heavy sigh of relief. He turned to Grant with hands shaky from the rush of adrenaline in his veins. “I mean, she was. But she got arrested. I’ve got to get to the police station.”
“Arrested? Again?”
“Yes.” Emmett started jogging down Rosewood Avenue with Grant by his side. “She didn’t show for community service last week. Probably because of our fight. The judge must not have taken very kindly to that.”
“You two are a mess, you know that, right?”
They rounded the corner of Magnolia Way in time to see the sheriff escort Maddie inside.
“Good luck,” Grant said, slapping him on the back. “Nothing says I love you like paying someone’s bail.”
Emmett carried on without him. He hadn’t been back to the police station since they’d both been arrested. It had been dawn before and relatively quiet, but today the station was busier. He went up to the front desk to speak to the woman there.
“I’m here about Madelyn Chamberlain,” he said, nearly out of breath from running to the station. “I want to pay her bail.”
The woman’s dark eyebrow went up in amusement. “Rich people are sure on the ball. She hasn’t even been booked yet. You’ll have to wait over there,” she said, gesturing to a couple of hard wooden chairs. “I’ll let Sheriff Todd know you’re here. What’s the name?”
“Emmett Sawyer.”
“Okay.” She made a note and disappeared back into the room where he’d been taken previously while Simon typed up their arrest report.
It was an hour, at least, before Sheriff Todd came up front with an amused expression on his face. “You’re here for Maddie, right?”
Emmett leapt to his feet. “Yes, sir.”
“I’m still processing the paperwork, but you can come sit with her until it’s ready. She’s in holding right now.”
Holding? As they got closer, Emmett realized that the sheriff had put Maddie in a cell. When they buzzed through the last door, he saw her standing there, clutching the bars anxiously.
“Emmett!” she shouted when she saw him. Her face lit up and he could feel the surge of emotions in his gut.
“Stay here until I come back for you both,” the sheriff said, disappearing down the hallway.
The minute he was gone, Emmett rushed to the steel bars. He reached through to caress Maddie’s face. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said, with glassy tears in her eyes. “I’m so stupid. I ruined this whole thing. I was going to meet you at the water tower to tell you how sorry I was and that I love you, and the next thing I know, I’m in handcuffs a third time.” She shook her head. “If I never get arrested again, it’ll be too soon.”
Emmett smiled. “Why were you coming to apologize to me? I was going to apologize to you.”
“Because I was horrible. You were right; I made judgments about you that were so unfair. You’ve done nothing but be good to me and I abused that. Wait . . . why were you going to apologize to me?”
Emmett took a deep breath. “Because you were right about one thing, Maddie. I was lying to you. Not about what you thought I was lying about, but I was still keeping secrets and I shouldn’t have. You deserved to know the truth, but I was too stubborn.”
Maddie’s face softened. She placed her hand over his. “Tell me now.”
“I left a very different life behind in Florida. I was an investment banker at a very prestigious firm in Tampa. I handled hundreds of accounts there, including your grandmother’s. That’s how we met.”
“An investment banker?” Maddie said with a crinkled nose. “I don’t get that from you at all.”
Emmett smiled. “Good. I hated the work and I hated what management wanted me to do to make a buck, so I walked away from it all. I sold almost everything I had and moved to Rosewood at your grandmother’s suggestion. When I got here, I wanted to start a new life and put all that behind me. Your grandmother agreed to keep my secret in exchange for continuing to manage her portfolio.”