Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Protectiveness of the woman to his right hummed in his blood like the chorus of a familiar and beloved song, made more potent now that their future was on solid ground.
“Ready?” he asked, looking down at her.
“Yes,” she said, smiling, sunlight spilling across her cheeks. “For anything.”
Madden swallowed hard, knowing he would be overcome with love every single time he looked at his wife for the next seventy-odd years. Probably more so with every new day. “Let’s go,” he said gruffly, opening the door, the little bell ringing overhead to signal the arrival of customers—
Applause broke out.
Both of them looked around the diner, searching for the reason for everyone clapping . . . until they slowly realized the applause was for them.
Rather, for Eve.
Madden recognized more than a few faces in that crowd. People who had attended high school at the same time as them. Women who’d been picketing outside Eve’s father’s club years earlier. Town familiars. They were looking at his wife with a combination of regret and pride, applauding her, leaving Eve visibly stunned. And he knew her well enough to know something healed itself inside her in that moment. Something even he was incapable of reaching. A misconception about her character she’d disproved long before anyone else in this town had caught on.
Madden’s own pride in her nearly took him down.
“This makes a good case for staying in Cumberland, I suppose,” he said to his wife out of the corner of his mouth.
She looked up at him in a way that allowed him to see all the glorious years ahead with this woman at his side. “Actually . . .” Her throat worked. “I think it’s a good case for leaving. I have nothing left to prove.”
“You never did, love.” Madden brought Eve’s hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. “Whatever you want to do, wherever you want to go, I’ll be there.”
“I know,” she said, confidently, squeezing his hand.
“What will you do with the club?”
At first, she appeared thoughtful, then decisive. “I know exactly what to do with it.”
Epilogue
Eve looked back at Madden where he sat in the driver’s seat of his truck and she couldn’t remember a time in her life when she’d felt lighter and more confident in the direction she was going. In the last two weeks, she’d broken the lease on her apartment and done countless hours of paperwork to relinquish the Gilded Garden. With his shoulder nearly healed, Madden had been going back and forth to New York for practices and games, helping her pack during every available moment in between.
Truthfully, they probably could have packed up her place in one week, instead of two, but they couldn’t stop ending up in bed. Eve’s neighbors were being a whole lot nicer to her since the media frenzy had catapulted her from devil incarnate to saint in the eyes of Cumberland’s residents, but the constant moaning and squeaking bedsprings coming from her apartment had to be testing the limits of their goodwill.
Today, she would move to Madden’s apartment in New York.
From there . . . who knew?
The world was suddenly a big place full of possibilities and enough to make even the strongest person doubt themselves a little, but she had faith. And she had love. Her next endeavor, whatever it might be, would be about proving her skill as a businesswoman, not about proving herself as a human being. As someone who deserved respect.
She’d had that earned since the beginning. Just by being herself.
Now she smiled at Madden through the windshield and he sent her one back, the pure happiness on his face making her heart roar with joy. What a life they were going to have, she and this man who would rebuild a new home on his aunt’s property so her niece, nephew, and sister would have a place to call their own someday soon. The gesture was so purely Madden and one of the numerous reasons she had no caution to throw to the wind.
Caution didn’t exist with a safety net this big and wonderful.
Madden nodded at her from the driver’s seat and with the added boost of confidence bolstering her, Eve faced the front door and knocked.
Veda answered after about thirty seconds, wearing one sock and a gigantic T-shirt, her bangs facing fourteen directions. “Yo?”
Eve suppressed a smile. “Hey. Got a minute?”
“Sure,” Veda said, visibly confused. Nonetheless, she stepped back, allowing Eve to enter the small Cape Cod–style home. “My parents are out of town, so there’s not a lot in the fridge I can offer you,” Veda went on, quickly peeling off her other sock and stuffing it behind a couch cushion. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry, I already had breakfast and way too much coffee.”
“Is that Madden out in the truck? Does he want to come in too?”