Trouble in Sudden Falls: A Sudden Falls Romance (25 page)

She dug her fingernails into his back, urgently trying to get closer to him. She bit his shoulder as he rocked into her. Moments later he was on his back on the other side of the bed, breathing heavily.

“I promise I didn’t intend for that to get so out of hand, but Rogan’s alarm will be going off in less than ten minutes.”

“We could do a lot in ten minutes.”

And so they could.

“Daddy, guess what!? Guess what!?” Rob peered over the rim of his coffee cup at Jack as Jeff flew into place next to his brother and took up the chorus. “Guess what!? Guess What!?”

Rob had not been his usual chipper morning-person self for some time, and it was starting to concern Emma. She looked over at her husband who was chugging his coffee like it was the only thing that would keep him going.

“What?” Rob growled, with a decided lack of patience. They continued to dance around and wiggle in their exuberant, six-year-old way. “Calm down, guys, I’m right here,” he said in a much sharper tone than Emma hoped he’d intended.

Their little faces fell in tandem and Emma felt her neck prickle with annoyance.

“Boys, why don’t you tell your dad tonight? We’ll save good news for him as a treat so he’ll be good today.” She gave Rob a pointed look.

Jack and Jeff looked at each other and she could tell they were already scheming. They took off without a backward glance.

She pointed at Rob. “You can be as surly as you want to me, but Do. Not. Mess. With. The. Cubs,” she finished between gritted teeth.

Rob’s shoulders fell. “Yes, Dear.” He shook his head as if in irritation with himself. “I’m sorry. I’ve been stressed out and irritable and I’ve been taking it out on you guys. It’s not your fault.” He sighed and rubbed his temples.

“No, it’s not.” He looked fairly pitiful, and she started to feel bad for chastising him. “What’s going on? Why so stressed?”

He shrugged. “I have a lot of stuff at work and the election is a few months away and I haven’t been sleeping well.” He swiped a hand over his face. “Ignore me, babe. I’ll try to pull it together, okay? Tell the boys I’m sorry?”

She shook her head. “Uh uh. You tell them.”

He looked like he might argue. She might be a marshmallow with him on everything else, but when it came to the kids, she knew when to stand firm.

“All right.” He lumbered to his to his feet and shuffled off to find the boys.

“And hurry it up. We’re almost late.”

“I’ll drop them all at school.”

Emma smiled and crossed the kitchen to him. “They’ll love that.” She reached up on tip-toes and smooched him on the cheek. “No matter what anyone says, you’re not so bad.”

He landed a gentle pat on her bottom. “Neither are you.”

With a call of “Love you!” up the stairs, she made her escape, her mood much improved. One crisis averted, she headed to the store to find a worse situation unfolding.

Two patrol cars sat in front of the store, the kaleidoscope of their lights adding to the general chaos. The police chief and two patrol officers stood in front of the door as Maddie huddled in her sweater, chewing on her lip.

“What happened?” Emma crossed the porch to Maddie.

“Someone threw a brick through the window on the front door. It had a threatening note tied to it.”

“Oh, not the antique beveled glass,” Emma said.

Maddie shook her head and made a sound that was somewhere between a sob and a chuckle. “Only you, Em.”

“It was original!” Emma defended. “It’s going to cost a mint to replace.”

“Believe me. I’m aware.”

“Was anything taken?”

“No. It happened after I arrived this morning.”

“Were you hurt?”

Maddie shook her head. “No. Fortunately, I was in the back starting the coffee pot. If I’d been by the register, I could have gotten cut by flying glass.”

“Any thoughts on who might do this?”

“Not off hand.” Maddie tightened her arms around herself. “I mean, sure, there are a lot of people who weren’t thrilled that I came back to town, but I don’t think anyone has it out for me. The weird thing is…” Maddie trailed off.

“What?” Emma prompted after a long moment.

Maddie gave her head a sharp jerk as if focusing her attention. “Sorry. The weird thing is, this kind of stuff was happening to me in D.C. all the time. Not bricks through windows, specifically, but creepy notes and my stuff rifled through when I’d been away from home.”

“You think you have a stalker that followed you here?”

“I hope not. In D.C., I was ninety-nine percent sure it my ex-husband. He wasn’t thrilled that I left.”

“What if it wasn’t your ex? Or what if he followed you here?”

“It stopped as soon as I got a restraining order. And I called his office this morning,” Maddie admitted. “He was at his desk.”

“You talked to him?”

She shook her head, then grinned a little. “No, I hung up as soon as he answered.”

The police chief, Ryan Gibson, ambled over and nodded at Emma. “Mrs. Watson,” he said in greeting before turning to Maddie. “There’s not much more we can do here. We’ll take the brick and the note, along with the other letters you received, and see if we can some fingerprints off of them. I’ll let you know what we find. I’d recommend having a security alarm installed.”

Maddie nodded and Emma reached out a hand and patted her shoulder in support.

Ryan handed Maddie a sheet of paper. “There’s one local company and several in Cincinnati that do alarm systems.”

He stepped toward the edge of his porch. “Ladies.”

Emma watched as Ryan and the two patrol officers got into their cars and drove off, then turned her full attention to Maddie who leaned against the porch railing, biting her lip and staring off into space.

“You okay?” Emma asked.

Maddie sighed. “One more thing I didn’t need, you know?” She was beginning to feel a bit punch drunk. Was it only a few hours ago that she’d woken up next to Eli? It seemed more like a lifetime.

“Let’s get the mess cleaned up. At least the weather’s warmed up. I guess we’ll have plenty of fresh air today,” Emma said.

Maddie pushed away from the railing and turned to go into the store. The sound of footsteps pounding up the walk had Maddie spinning in momentary alarm.

Her heart rate began to slow as she saw Rogan leap onto the porch at a dead run, skidding to a stop when he reached her side

“Maddie! What’s going on?”

Maddie rushed to reassure him. “Just a bit of vandalism. Nothing to worry about. What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at school?”

“I finished my high school classes and I have an hour or so before my next class at the college. I wanted to stop to see Fluffy first.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Better. The vet said I can probably bring her home this weekend.” He looked around at the broken glass. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

She didn’t even know where to start. She wanted to go back to bed and see if doing the morning over might make it go better. It certainly had started off on the right foot. She fought a grin for a second before the reality of her life crashed down.

“I think we can handle it,” Maddie said, not knowing that she could handle anything, but feeling certain she didn’t want Rogan to see the breakdown she felt coming on.

He patted her arm awkwardly. “OK. I’ll be back from school by four. Call the house if you need anything, okay?” In spite of his off-beat fashion choices and the multitude of holes in his head, he was a good kid. He stepped down the sidewalk and picked up a bike he’d leaned against the fence.

“Where’s your car?”

“It died. Eli thinks it’s probably the alternator. His mechanic is picking it up today.”

“Bummer. Need a ride?”

“Nah. You’ve got enough to deal with. See you later,” he called as he pulled away from the curb.

Maddie watched him pedal off before turning to the mess inside and wondering how she was going to pull it together.

Emma took the sheet of paper from the police chief that Maddie still held in her hands. If Emma’s intention was to take over, Maddie was all too happy to let her do so. “I’m going to go in and see how quickly we can get one of these security companies out here.”

Twenty minutes later, they’d picked up the glass, called the security company who would arrive within the hour and Maddie felt like she might make it through the rest of the day. Then the phone rang.

“What’s this I hear about the police being at the store this morning?” her mother asked without even a hello.

“The Sudden Falls gossip tree is in rare form today. You don’t even live in town anymore.”

“My question is why I had to hear it from Jackie rather than you.”

“It only happened an hour ago. I’ve been a little busy, Mom.”

“What happened?”

“We had some vandalism.”

“So people in town really dislike you that much?”

It was at that moment that Maddie seriously considered clicking the phone’s “off” button. “Thanks, Mom. Tactful as ever.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

Maddie rolled her eyes and rested her head against the doorframe from her cramped back office into the hallway. “I don’t know who did it. The police are looking into it.”

She heard the bell above the door ring and Emma called back. “They’re here.”

“Mom, the security company is here to install an alarm system. I’ll try to give you a call over the weekend.” She resisted the urge to tell her mother to hold her breath and wait for the phone. She didn’t give her a chance to interject before she clicked the off button and set the phone down.

Chapter Fourteen

“I’m going for a run. Want to join me?” Eli stood in the doorway in a blue T-shirt that read “I would like to apologize in advance for my behavior tonight”, gray athletic shorts and running shoes.

Rogan looked up from his calculus homework, more tempted than he would have admitted. “Raincheck? I’ve got homework.”

“It’s Sunday. You spent all day yesterday in the books and you’ve been studying for hours today. I haven’t even heard music or the computer going. You can take a break.”

Rogan bristled at the idea of Eli telling him what he should be doing. “I don’t run unless I’m being chased by wild dogs,” he said.

Eli’s face fell and Rogan began to feel like a jerk. Eli shrugged. “Okay. I thought it would be fun.” He turned out of the doorway and headed down the hall.

It probably would have been fun. Maybe he could take a short break. “Hey, Eli,” he called. “Give me two minutes. I’ll go with ya.”

Eli poked his head back in with a smile on his face which made Rogan glad he’d changed his mind. “Cool.”

They took Oakwood Avenue out of town until it turned into a quiet county road. The hills were at a minimum, the temperature was perfect and every few minutes Eli would point out some phenomenon of nature: a deer, baby rabbits and even a fox. It was early April at its finest. Eli kept the pace steady, and Rogan had little trouble keeping up.

“So what’s with the sudden homework-a-thon?”

“I really want to do well this quarter. I’m hoping to take classes over the summer so I can get the last of my high school requirements out of the way. That way I can do college full time next year.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but don’t get so obsessed with your schoolwork that you forget to have a little fun.”

Rogan gave him a double-take. “Did you hear that sound?”

Eli looked around. “What sound?”

“The sound of the President of the PTA shredding your membership card.” Rogan said.

“Smart-alec,” Eli said. “We’re not running fast enough if you can still make jokes.”

Eli picked up the speed a bit and Rogan had to start putting forth real effort to breathe. “What’s wrong with wanting to do well in college?” The rush he’d felt when he realized he’d gotten straight As for the first time in his life had been awesome. He wouldn’t mind feeling that every term until his college career was over. “I’ll need good grades to stay in and to move from the Community College to a four-year school.”

“I’m saying don’t get obsessive,” Eli said.

Rogan halted in his tracks. “I can do it, you know,” he said wondering if Eli doubted that.

Eli turned and started jogging backwards, never slowing his pace. “I’m sure you can.”