Stirring Up Trouble (5 page)

“I wish it were a promise,” Maddie said, planting her hands on her hips, “but that would require you keeping the noise down so I can stay away.”

Emmett snorted in contempt. “At this point, I'd unplug the jukebox so I don't have to see your face ever again.”

“If only that were true,” Maddie snapped.

“If
what
were true?”

“Seriously, you guys, you're disturbing the peace,” Simon complained. “Don't make me take you in. I'm off duty and I'd much rather go home and go to bed than head back to the station and fill out all that paperwork.”

“That you don't want to see my face,” Maddie continued. “I think that's a lie. You seemed quite pleased by it earlier.”

“And you weren't pleased?” Emmett challenged. “You certainly acted like you were having a good time. You were practically purring in my arms.”

She had been. But she wasn't going to admit how easily she reacted to his touch. That kiss had set off explosions in her walled-up libido, knocking down barriers and freeing the beast she'd tried very hard to keep tamed. Emmett was not the kind of man she was usually attracted to. Everything about him flew in the face of the values she held dear. And yet, when he touched her, all bets were off. Her body had betrayed her in that moment and she'd have to fight twice as hard to resist him from now on.

“I was exhausted and you took advantage of that.”

“Oh, please.” Emmett rolled his eyes. “You wanted me to kiss you.”

“I did not!” Maddie stomped her foot on the sidewalk. “The last thing I want is a man like you touching me.”

“You guys kissed?” Simon asked, looking thoroughly confused by the conversation blowing past him.

“Don't lie, Fancy,” Emmett said. “You stood there with those pouty lips and looked up at me with big, innocent eyes, asking if I thought you were beautiful when you know damn well that you are. If you didn't want me to kiss you, what was that all about?”

“It's none of your business what that is all about!” she shouted. Maddie wasn't about to admit to him that she hadn't been kissed since Paris. That she was lonely in that big house with nothing but her business to occupy her mind. That would just expose her Achilles' heel to a man who was her enemy, despite everything that had happened tonight. “I don't have to explain my actions to you.”

“You're right, you don't,” Emmett said, holding up his arms in surrender. “And I don't have to explain my actions to you, either.”

“You're both under arrest,” Simon said, his voice flat. “You have the right to remain silent . . .”

With their arguing back and forth, it took Maddie a moment to realize that her brother was reading them their Miranda rights. “Simon, what are you doing?”

“. . . if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you,” he continued.

“Is your brother seriously arresting us?” Emmett asked.

“Yep,” Simon confirmed after he finished his spiel. “Sheriff Todd said that the handcuffs tonight were your last chance and if you two started any more trouble, I was to haul both of you in for disturbing the peace.”

“You can't be serious,” Maddie said. Arrested?
Her?
She'd never even gotten detention in high school, much less committed a crime.

“Serious as a heart attack,” Simon said, clamping a cuff back around her newly freed wrist.

“You're not going to handcuff us together again, are you?” she asked with a pleading edge in her voice.

“Nope.” Simon pulled out a second pair of cuffs. “This time, you each get your own set.” He twisted her arm behind her back and clicked the other handcuff into place before turning and doing the same to Emmett.

“Okay, now, off to the sheriff's department. March or I'll put you in the back of my squad car and Instagram it before I drive you around the block.”

Maddie immediately started down the street. She couldn't risk this moment getting memorialized on social media. This was humiliating enough. Thank goodness it was dawn on a Saturday. Any later and someone might actually see her perp-walk down First Avenue toward the police station.

It was quiet when they arrived. It surprised her after all the police dramas she'd seen on television, but, then again, Rosewood was hardly a mecca for hard crime. Simon led them back to his desk, where he began the paperwork. To her horror, he made them pose for mug shots and then fingerprinted them both for their brand-new criminal case files.

“I can't believe I now have a criminal record!” Maddie wailed, trying to get the black ink off her fingertips with the baby wipe Simon gave her.

“I guess you'll never be First Lady,” Emmett said. He was slumped in his chair as though none of this bothered him at all. Apparently, this wasn't his first arrest.

“You shut up. This is all your fault.”

“I doubt that,” Emmett said flatly.

“I certainly haven't been arrested before,” she said.

“And I have?” he challenged.

“Haven't you? You seem remarkably calm for a first-time offender.”

“You don't know anything about me, Fancy, so don't pretend that you do. You sit in your fussy little historical home and bake your snooty little pastries, all the while judging everyone around you, but you don't know anything, little girl.”

“I know better than to let a man like you kiss me a second time.”

“Oh, good, we've gotten that cleared up. I was worried you might want me to do it again, and I'd hate to disappoint you.”

“Disappoint
me
? Please. I'll be just fine without your whiskey-tainted breath on my lips.”

They paused in their argument as another officer came in. He sat down at a desk opposite Simon's and started filling out some paperwork.

“Whatcha got, Grady?” Simon asked.

The other officer looked up with a grin. “We've got another giant penis. This one is on the water tower.”

“Damn,” Simon swore. “That's going to be hard to clean off.”

“It's the fourth one in less than three weeks. The
Rosewood Times
has started calling him the Penis Picasso.”

“Penis Picasso?” Simon nearly choked on the words. Emmett chuckled in his seat beside her.

Maddie shook her head. She hadn't heard anything about more crude graffiti popping up, but she wasn't surprised. The teenagers in town were bored. Rosewood was a dull place for kids that age. Outside of school activities and sports, there was nothing to do. It wasn't much better for the adults in town. That's why so many of them loitered at Woody's and drooled over local gossip. But the
Penis Picasso
? Who would come up with a name so ridiculous? It would just call attention to the artist and make them go out of their way to do more.

All she knew was that if a penis showed up on the side of her bakery, heads would roll. She'd track that little bastard down and watch him repaint her wall.

“What've
you
got, Simon?” Grady looked over at Maddie and Emmett as they sat sulking in their chairs.

“Disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct.”

Grady frowned at the two of them. “Isn't that your older sister?”

Simon sighed. “It is. It's such an embarrassment for the family, you know? I'm sure it will break my grandmother's heart to know her oldest granddaughter is a common criminal.”

Maddie wished she had free hands to reach out and throttle him. “Oh, Granny's gonna hear about it all right,” she taunted, “but when I'm done, you're going to be the one in trouble, Simon. This whole thing is totally uncalled for.”

“Oh yeah?” her brother challenged. “We'll just wait and see what she has to say after you go in front of the judge Monday morning.”

Maddie shot up in her chair. She thought she would pay a fine and go home. Facing a judge made it seem a lot more serious. Her best friend, Lydia Whittaker, had a run-in with the local judge the year before over an incident during the Rosewood Fall Festival parade. Her antics had ruined it for everyone, traumatizing the newly crowned Miss Rosewood and nearly breaking Ivy Hudson's neck. The judge had thrown the book at her, giving her a huge number of community service hours and an outrageous fine. But in Lydia's case someone could've been hurt, and frankly, she deserved it. This dustup with Emmett wasn't nearly as serious, and yet her stomach started turning somersaults in her belly. “The judge?”

“Yep,” Simon said with a smile that unnerved her. “I can't wait to see what Judge Griffin says about your little neighborhood battle.”

Chapter Five

Maddie was the
walking dead by the afternoon. She was in the kitchen with her head down on the counter, asleep, when the door chime startled her awake.

“Let's go to lunch,” she heard her friend Lydia shout from out front.

Looking down at her watch she realized she was past due to eat. Maybe some food and a caffeinated drink would help her make it to closing time. “Give me a minute,” Maddie shouted back. She slipped out of her apron and checked herself in the mirror before grabbing her purse.

“How about we go get a slice at Pizza Palace?” Lydia suggested with a perfect and practiced smile. Lydia had always had the looks and poise of a Miss Alabama finalist. Her thick blond hair was styled flawlessly. Her cornflower-blue eyes were bright and lined by dark, full lashes. Her straight, white teeth nearly glowed against the golden tan of her skin.

Frankly, although they were best friends, Maddie rarely liked to stand beside her. She was an attractive woman, too, but it was hard to remember that next to Chef Barbie. She wasn't just beautiful; she was the talented executive chef at Whittaker's.

Maddie self-consciously smoothed her hand over her hair and nodded. Pizza Palace was close, fast, and easy. “Okay.” She flipped the
WILL RETURN
sign, locked the door, and walked with Lydia down the sidewalk to the local pizza place.

“So, what's been going on with you?” Lydia asked as they settled at a table with slices of pizza and drinks.

Lydia typically opened with that so once Maddie answered, she could dominate the rest of the conversation with her life's drama, guilt-free. Maddie didn't really mind, since she didn't usually have much going on. Her love life was nonexistent. Lydia didn't really care about renovations in the bakery. Listening to Lydia's tales kept things interesting. Today, however, she had more to tell than usual.

“You look rough today,” Lydia continued. “If I were you, I'd invest in some good concealer for those under-eye circles.”

“I don't need concealer,” Maddie snapped. Lydia was always too quick to point out things like that. “I need more than two hours of sleep a night.”

Lydia leaned in with interest. “Is there something fun happening that I don't know about? Is some guy keeping you up all night?”

“No and yes,” Maddie answered. “No, it isn't fun, but yes, Emmett Sawyer is keeping me up all night.”

“The hot bartender?”

“I suppose you could say that, although it's hard to notice when we're fighting about the noise at the bar. We've been going back and forth for weeks. This morning, it reached a head and we both ended up getting arrested.”

Lydia wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Arrested? God, Maddie. Does your daddy know?”

Maddie wasn't sure. Simon might have said something. “I haven't spoken to anyone about it yet.”

“I'm sure he could make all that go away.”

Maddie shrugged off her suggestion. It was entirely possible that her family could pull strings and fix this for her, but she wasn't sure she wanted that. Emmett already treated her like an entitled little princess. That's exactly what he expected her to do.

“I mean, what's the point of being the most important family in town if it doesn't do you any good? I wish I'd been able to get out of my little situation last year. Community service is not fun.”

She didn't have much to say about that, so Maddie took a bite of her pizza and let it lie. She didn't look up again until she heard Lydia make a sound of irritation. Maddie turned in time to see Pepper walk past their table to order at the counter. Normally, Maddie would've said something smart, but she held her tongue today. The last time she said something ugly about Pepper, Grant tried to stab her with a serving fork. She needed to keep peace in the family, and Pepper was going to be a part of that soon enough. Maddie actually went as far as to wave at Pepper as she left with her takeout.

“I can't believe Trailer Park is going to be a Chamberlain,” Lydia complained, using the old nickname they'd both called Pepper in high school.

Maddie winced, hoping Pepper was out of earshot. “Lydia,” she chastised.

“What? You can't tell me that your granny is happy about all this.”

“She actually is, although I don't think Grant would care either way. He does what he wants.”

Lydia made another irritated sound. “Then she must be getting senile.”

Adelia Chamberlain was anything but senile. Maddie thought about pointing out that Lydia's poor attitude just made her sound jealous, but she didn't think that would help things. She needed to finish her lunch and get through the longest day ever.

Saturday night after closing the bakery, Maddie drove out to the family home on Willow Lake. She opened the front door of the antebellum mansion and waltzed in as though she still lived there—which she had, all her life, until she went to Paris, and then after she returned for a year or so before she bought the Victorian on Daisy Drive. The house was quiet when she entered, a far cry from her childhood.

At one time, the twelve residents of the house had kept it in a state of constant chaos. Add in a few friends of the children, a lady over to have tea with Granny, and the whole house was abuzz with activity. Now, the house seemed sad and lonely. Grandpa Chamberlain had died several years back. All six of the kids had moved out. Her baby sister, Hazel, was the last to go off to college just a month ago. That left her parents, Norman and Helen, her grandmother Adelia, and the two servants, Cookie and Winston.

“Hello?” Maddie shouted into the open hall at the bottom of the staircase.

“I'm in here, dear.”

Maddie instantly recognized the voice of her grandmother. That was exactly who she was here to see. Her father was a lawyer, so you'd think Maddie would go straight to him with legal troubles, but despite what Lydia said, that was a last resort. Her father would beat his chest, call his friends, and before she knew it, Emmett would lose his liquor license and have to close down the bar.

While that would solve her problem, that wasn't what Maddie wanted. Despite their back and forths, she didn't want Emmett to lose everything he'd worked for. All she wanted was to get out of this legal snafu and find another way to make peace with her neighbor. That's where her grandmother came in.

Maddie found her in her library behind the large mahogany desk. She was in the middle of some correspondence and bill paying, judging by the sprawl of paper, envelopes, and an open checkbook on the blotter.

“Evening, Granny.”

Adelia Chamberlain looked up from her paperwork and smiled at her granddaughter. “Hello, Madelyn. What brings you to the house? Isn't it your bedtime?”

It certainly felt like it. Getting two hours of sleep, spending all night handcuffed to Emmett, and losing even more time at the police station had left her with zero energy. But this was important. “Almost. I needed to talk to you, though.”

“Have a seat,” she said, gesturing to the chair. “I'll have Cookie bring us some tea.”

Maddie expected her grandmother to ring the old brass bell she'd used to summon the help her whole life, but instead, she picked up the phone on her desk and typed away, squinting at the screen despite the glasses perched on the tip of her nose.

“Did you just
text
Cookie for tea?”

“Yes, dear. It seems far more civilized, don't you think?”

It did, she just didn't expect her aged grandmother to have anything to do with gadgetry like that.

“So what's the problem?”

Maddie took a deep breath before she launched into her tale. She started with the noise, the battles, and finally, with the handcuffing incident that led to the arrest that morning. She left out the kiss. That would just complicate matters, and she refused to admit that she had a weakness where Emmett was concerned.

“When do you see Judge Griffin?” Adelia asked when the tale was finished.

“Monday morning. I'll have to close the shop for a few hours.”

Adelia nodded thoughtfully but didn't say anything. That made Maddie anxious. She knew full well that her grandmother and Judge Griffin were friends. Before her grandpa died, they'd all played golf and vacationed on the Gulf together. She shouldn't have to piece all this together for her grandmother.

Cookie, the woman who ran the kitchen at the Chamberlain mansion, arrived just then with a platter. She sat it on the edge of the desk. “Evening, Miss Madelyn. It's good to see you.”

“How are you, Cookie?”

The plump older woman grinned at her. She was eternally pleasant, which Maddie could never understand. As a child, Cookie had been Maddie's favorite person in the world. She'd let the oldest Chamberlain daughter into her sacred kitchen and taught her to bake. It'd changed Maddie's life and for that, she would always be grateful.

“I'm doing well,” Cookie said as she poured two cups of tea. “I've got a lovely roast in the oven if you're staying for dinner. Just be sure not to eat too many of these shortbread cookies or you'll ruin your appetite.”

Maddie's eyes widened as she noticed the delicate china plate filled with her favorite cookies in the whole world. She would never admit it to another living soul, but Cookie's shortbread was her Waterloo. No matter how many times she attempted to make them or how many times Cookie went over the recipe with her, she could never get them to turn out just right.

“Oh, Cookie, you know how much I love these. It'll be hard to stop eating them.” Especially when she was desperate for caffeine and sugar.

Cookie grinned. “Let me know if you need anything else, Miss Adelia.” Without another word, she slipped from the room and disappeared into her tiled domain.

They both took a moment to doctor their tea with various sweeteners and cream. Maddie had eaten three shortbread cookies and nearly emptied her teacup before she worked up the nerve to press her grandmother about her predicament.

“So, do you think you can talk to him for me?” Maddie finally pressed.

Her grandmother's white brows went up curiously. “Talk to whom, dear? Emmett?”

“No,” Maddie frowned into her teacup. She could hardly imagine her grandmother giving Emmett a second glance, much less hold down a long discussion with him. “To Judge Griffin. Before my court appearance.”

“Oh, yes. Of course I will,” Adelia said with a comforting smile and a soft pat on Maddie's hand. “I'll speak to him tomorrow after church.”

Maddie felt a rush of relief wash over her. With that tension easing from her body, she felt the last of her strength leaving with it. She'd operated today on pure adrenaline and now the magic had worn off. There was no amount of tea that could perk her back up. She was exhausted.

“You know,” her grandmother said, “it's Saturday evening. The bar is going to be loud again tonight and you're not going to get the rest you need.”

Maddie closed her eyes and inwardly groaned. “I know. I need to get that whole house soundproofed.”

“Well, that's not going to happen in the next hour, so why don't you sleep here tonight? The way you look right now, I'm worried you'll end up in a ditch somewhere on your way home. Stay for dinner, get a good night's sleep, and spend tomorrow with the family, since the bakery is closed. Then, you'll be well rested for your hearing with Judge Griffin on Monday morning. I'll have Winston put fresh linens on your old bed.”

It sounded wonderful, and Maddie was too tired to argue. She felt like she could sleep from now until church the next morning. Even as she set down her teacup, she could feel her body start to sway in her seat.

“You poor thing, you're not even going to make it to dinner. Go upstairs right now and I'll have Cookie bring you a sandwich to nibble on in bed.”

Maddie nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”

Standing, she made her way out of the library and up the stairs. She didn't even wait for Winston to make up the bed for her. Kicking off her shoes, she collapsed facedown on top of the comforter and passed out.

It was quiet. Too
quiet.

Not the bar—Woody's was rarely quiet and tonight was no exception. This evening it was filled with the typical sounds of a Sunday afternoon—professional football and the occasional group cheer or groan depending on how the game was going.

Things were going fine, and yet, Emmett kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. When the cops didn't come Saturday night, he'd almost called the station to make sure the officer they sent over hadn't gotten in a wreck on the way.

Perhaps the brush with the law had cooled Maddie's guns. It certainly hadn't thrilled Emmett, but the less it seemed to bother him, the more it irritated her, so he played it off like it wasn't a big deal.

It actually bothered him that she seemed to think being arrested was commonplace for him. Apparently, in Maddie's universe, poor people were the same as criminals. And of course she presumed he was poor—why else would anyone toil in a run-down old bar if they had another option? Surely he must've spent more than one night on the wrong side of iron bars.