Stirring Up Trouble (21 page)

Maddie couldn't fight it. It would just make things worse. But why now? Why when she was about to rush into Emmett's arms and make everything better. She looked up longingly at the water tower. Emmett wasn't standing there any longer. The moment had passed. The sheriff finished her Miranda warning.

“Do you understand these rights as I've explained them to you?”

“Yes,” she said reluctantly as he hustled her toward his car. He opened the back door and helped her inside. “You've got to be kidding me!” she shouted at the Fates as he slammed the door.

“Nope,” the sheriff said as he climbed in the driver's seat and started toward the station. “I never kid about warrants.”

Emmett's plan was going
perfectly. He watched the bakery anxiously from his perch. His heart leapt into his throat as Maddie came running from her shop, waving her hands. It'd worked. She would forgive him. She was in love with him, too. All he had to do was meet her at the bottom of the water tower and tell her he was sorry and everything would work out.

Then the cop car stopped in Maddie's path. Emmett clutched the railing, watching anxiously as Sheriff Todd talked to Maddie, then led her to the car in handcuffs.

Okay, so the plan wasn't going perfectly. He needed to get down.
Now.

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.”

“That's what the check was for,” she said, sudden realization dawning on her face. “She was really mad about that.”

“I bet.”

Maddie smiled, the expression eventually fading into confusion. “I don't understand why you had to keep it a secret, though. A lot of people change jobs and move to a new town. Why didn't you want anyone to know?”

“I wanted a fresh start, an easier life here than I had in Florida. Money had proven to be a major complicating factor in my life, so when I simplified, I decided I didn't want anyone to know I had much. Even you. Especially you.”

“Because I was a snob,” she said. “And I'd only be interested in you for the money.”

It was a statement, not a question, so Emmett could only nod. “You were so certain that I was just a blue-collar, borderline criminal. I didn't want you to know the truth. And when things changed between us . . . I wanted you to want me as the broke, low-key bartender I wanted to be, not for what I had or what I could give you.”

“You could've told me. It wouldn't've changed how I felt.”

“I didn't know. There was always that chance that you would expect me to go back to that kind of work, or push me to sell the bar and do something more respectable. It was easier to just keep lying than to tell the truth and risk it changing things.”

Maddie nodded. “You know, you probably weren't that far off. The Maddie who got arrested the last time might've thought that way. But this Maddie loves you just the way you are. If you want to swim in gold coins like Scrooge McDuck without spending a cent, while working at a bar, then that's what you want. And that's okay.”

Emmett broke into a wide grin. “Would you repeat that one part again?”

“The Scrooge McDuck part?”

“No. The part where you said you love me.”

Maddie looked into his eyes. “I love you, Emmett.”

It was music to his ears. “This isn't how I expected any of this to go,” he said, thumping the metal bars with his knuckles. “I have flowers for you and everything, but they wouldn't let me bring my bag in here. It's certainly not where I thought I'd be when I said this, but I love you, Madelyn. I climbed a hundred feet in the air to tell you and the whole town just how much I love you.”

He leaned into the bars, pressing his face against the cold metal to kiss Maddie. His heart was light in his chest as he tasted the lips he thought he might never kiss again. He slipped his arms through the bars to wrap around her waist and pull her close. The metal was a frustration, allowing them to almost touch each other the way they wanted to.

“I wish Sheriff Todd would hurry up. I want to get you out of here so I can give you your flowers and get us back on track to our special moment.”

“This is a special moment,” Maddie said. “So, I'm in jail, it happens. What's important is that you're here to get me out. That's pretty romantic. The only thing that could beat it is you climbing up that water tower just for me.”

“I climbed down it, too,” he added. “Faster than I wanted to, but when I saw you get arrested, I knew I had to hurry.”

“So romantic,” Maddie said, kissing him again.

“Mr. Sawyer!” Sheriff Todd announced as he came back into the holding area with Emmett's backpack in his hands.

Emmett untangled himself from the bars and turned to look at the older man who had changed all his plans for the day. “Are you done with the paperwork so I can pay Maddie's bail? I'd really love for us to get out of here.”

“Uh, yeah, here's the thing . . .” Sheriff Todd said, fumbling for his keys. “You can pay her bail if you'd like, but you're not going anywhere right now.”

“Why?”

The sheriff unlocked the cell door and gently shoved Emmett inside with Maddie. “It seems as though someone vandalized the water tower today. Not only did you self-incriminate by writing your name, you brought the evidence of your guilt with you into the police station.” He held up the bag and the cans of spray paint inside made a telltale clinking sound as they collided.

Emmett started laughing. The sheriff looked at him like he was crazy, and he just might be, but he didn't care. He wrapped his arms around Maddie and held her tight without any pesky bars between them. “A small price to pay,” he said, pulling her into the kiss he'd wanted to give her since she told him she loved him. Everything around them faded away as he lost himself in the divine pleasure of holding Maddie in his arms.

“I'll, uh, just leave you two alone while I finish booking you both,” Sheriff Todd said, disappearing down the hall again.

“I don't care that I'm in jail,” Maddie said. “As long as you're with me.”

Emmett looked into her eyes and kissed her again. “Let's not make a habit of this, though. I think Judge Griffin will be none too pleased to see us in his courtroom again. We'll probably have to paint the water tower again.”

“That's okay. I'll take a picture to commemorate the moment. The bigger question is whether you think you can stand to climb back up there again?”

“With you by my side,” he said, “I can do anything. But frankly, I hope this time we just pay a fine. I've got the money and I'm not afraid to use it.”

“Money isn't everything, you know.”

“Nope, it isn't. There are lots of things in life to enjoy. There's love, laughter, and with you . . . lots of yummy pastry. But if having money keeps me from climbing that ladder again, I'm happy to be able to write a check. I don't want to die before we can start our lives together.”

Maddie laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck. “You're not going anywhere, mister. We've got a lifetime of loving each other ahead of us.”

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