She could tell that he wasn’t believing her. In exasperation she said, “From the moment you saw me, you’ve thought nothing but bad about me. What in the world could I have done to give you such an opinion of me?”
His voice was very quiet when he spoke. “Usually girls who look like you think only of diamonds and places to wear them.”
That made Madison laugh. “Maybe that’s true in the world you live in, but not in my world. Believe it or not, Mr. Randall, there’s a person inside here.”
He was staring at her in a way that made Madison think that she’d forgotten to put on her clothes.
“You know, I think maybe there is,” he said, then, slowly, he stood up and walked to the door. “I will see that you have everything you want,” he said, then left the room.
After he left, Madison seemed to deflate. There was something about him that, when she was near him, made her feel charged with electricity. If she got angry, she seemed to get extremely angry. And if he made her laugh, she seemed to laugh all the way to her toes. And when he gave her a compliment, Madison was sure that it was the best compliment that she’d ever had in her life.
Roger’s boots were sticking out from under the bed and Madison kicked them. “Down, girl!” she told herself. “You’re married and . . . and . . .” She couldn’t think of anything else, except that a man like Thomas Randall, from a family like his, wasn’t for her.
Madison lasted a whole twenty-four hours before she was bored out of her mind. For the last two years, she’d read nothing but medical textbooks and she’d desperately wanted to read something light and happy, something that didn’t go into detail about what awful things could happen to the human body. But as soon as she picked up what was best described as a “beach book,” she was bored. How could she believe in romance? How could she believe that an ending could be “happily ever after”? After marriage was nothing but work. After marriage, people didn’t even talk to each other anymore.
She’d promised to give Roger his freedom and not interfere in his life while they were on this trip and, at the time, it had seemed like a wonderful idea, but as she lay in the hammock that was several feet away from the big heated swimming pool, she almost wished she could join the others who were noisily laughing and splashing. In the water, Roger was no longer handicapped by his canes, so he leaped and played like a kid. All done with “the girls” of course.
Late yesterday, Madison had tried to join them. She’d been alone in their bedroom, trying to read her romantic novel, but she could hear the squeals of laughter from outside. So she’d put on her white swimsuit, a plain, one-piece thing, put on one of Roger’s shirts over it, and walked out to the pool. But her appearance had stopped all the laughter. Madison in jeans was a sight to behold, but Madison in a white swimsuit, the legs cut up to the waist, was a showstopper.
Ten minutes after she arrived, Roger was pulling himself out of the pool. “Why did you have to ruin it?” he said, so Madison had turned away and gone back to their room. She hadn’t seen Thomas sitting on the outskirts of the group, a textbook open in front of him.
Early the next morning, Madison edged out of bed, not that she was fearful of waking Roger, as he was snoring loudly, after all—once again, he’d been out all night—but she just wanted to slip out of the house unnoticed. She pulled on jeans, a T-shirt, an old corduroy shirt, then laced on her nearly worn-out hiking boots. But all her tiptoeing was almost for nothing when she opened the door and was nearly hit on the head by a long green canvas bag that some idiot had propped against the door.
But Madison caught it before it fell and woke the household. And the minute she touched it, she knew that it was a new fishing rod. Even through the canvas she could feel that it was one of those divinely lightweight things that could pull in a marlin without snapping. It was the kind of rod she’d drooled over in sporting goods stores.
And she knew exactly who had put it there.
Tied to the handle with pink ribbon was a little envelope. She opened it. “This is an apology gift. Please accept it. Meet me at the hole. I have a proposition for you.”
There was no signature, but there didn’t need to be one. In an instant Madison went from dreading a day of nothing to do to having excitement running through her veins. She practically ran through the house to get to the storage closet where Brooke kept the other gear she’d need. And when Madison opened the closet door, she gasped. Inside were new waders, and she knew without checking that they were her shoe size. The pair she’d used before had been so big she’d had trouble walking in them. Also, there was a new vest, the kind that had lots of little pockets to store lures and hooks. And on the floor was one of those old-fashioned basket creels, the kind that look so good but cost twenty times as much as a plastic bucket. Like the pole case, it had a pink bow tied around the strap.
“I shouldn’t do this,” she whispered even as she tried on the vest and picked up the creel. “I shouldn’t accept gifts from strangers. I shouldn’t—Oh, the hell with it,” she said, then grabbed the tall boots and went out the side door, avoiding the kitchen, where she knew that people would be bustling.
Within minutes she was near “the hole,” as Thomas called it, and as she neared it, she hesitated. What had he meant by “proposition”?
As she stepped through the shrubs, she saw that he wasn’t there and immediately, her heart sank to her knees.
“Good morning,” he said from behind her, making her jump.
“Do you always have to do that?” she snapped, annoyed with herself that she was so happy that he really was there.
“I like to keep the upper hand. You want something to eat? Or did you sneak around the kitchen before you came?”
“Very funny.” As he walked off, she followed him, her hands full of his gifts. When he stopped at the stream edge and picked up his own pole, she said, “Look, about these things. I couldn’t possibly keep them. How about if I just use them while I’m here?”
He didn’t look up from the tiny artificial fly he was attaching to the end of his line. “Whatever you want,” he said. “Food’s over there. I brought hot chocolate, so I hope you aren’t dieting.”
“Never,” Madison said honestly, then put down the boots and pole and went to the cooler; a big thermos leaned up against it. She poured herself some of the steaming hot chocolate, then took a brioche from the cooler and a couple of strawberries. Thomas hadn’t moved from the stream edge, and now he had his back to her and was starting his first cast into the water.
With her food in her hand, Madison sat down on a boulder near him. “So what’s this proposition?” She tried to sound lighthearted, but she could hear the edge to her voice.
“It’s not what you think,” he said, concentrating on his fishing and not looking at her. “But then, I guess you get hit on a lot.”
“Yes,” Madison said simply.
His line became entangled in something, and it took him a few minutes to free it; then he put down his pole and walked to the cooler just behind her. After handing her another roll and taking one for himself, he sat down on the rocky shore. “I think that you and I are a couple of misfits.”
Madison started to protest that, but she couldn’t, so she didn’t say anything.