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“I don’t want this to end,” Maddie said, as they settled themselves into a new cabin for the nine-hour ride.
“Maybe we should just keep going. Where does this train stop?”
“Washington, D.C.,” he said. “And then I think it goes on to New York.”
“Oh, let’s keep going,” Maddie said. “I’d love to go to New York. We’d have so much fun.”
“I thought you wanted to see your grandparents,” he said.
Maddie nodded. “I do. But we can do that later. We only have six weeks before you have to go home. I want to do everything and see everything.”
He pulled her down beside him in the seat, settling her on his lap. “We can’t keep spending money like this. You’re going to have to stop running and face your mother.”
“But I’ve saved for this,” she said. “Why can’t I just go where I want? It’s my life now. And my money.”
“I need to find work,” he said. “I can’t keep sponging off of you.”
“You’re working for me,” Maddie said. “You’re like my bodyguard and tour manager and traveling companion all in one. I can pay you.” She drew a deep breath. “All right, let’s just get this whole money thing out of the way.”
“Money thing?”
“Yes. You always come back to it and I want to put it all out on the table. How much do you need to make? Now, think carefully because I want it to be enough so that we never have to discuss this again. And I don’t ever want to hear you whining about how much we’re spending. We spend what we spend. End of story.”
“I don’t need you to pay me.”
“But you said you had to find work. And I want you to work for me. For as long as you can.” She paused. “Six weeks. How much would that cost?”
“Six weeks?” Kieran said.
Maddie smiled. “All right. Six weeks.”
“I have to spend some of that time in Bitney.”
“We will. We’ll go there after New York.”
A knock sounded on their cabin door and Maddie jumped up to open it. The attendant stood outside. “Dinner will be served in an hour. Is there anything I can get you?”
Maddie shook her head. “We’re fine. How long before we get to New York?”
“Arrival time is 10:00 p.m. tomorrow night,” he said. He turned to leave, then stopped. “By the way, you might be interested in knowing that we have a celebrity on the train. Some country singer named Maddie West. I don’t know who she is, but some of the passengers said they saw her get onboard. If you see her, let me know. They all want an autograph.”
Maddie swallowed hard, her spirits falling. “I’ve never heard of her,” she said.
“Well, we don’t often have celebrities onboard. They usually fly.” He shrugged. “If you need anything, just call. I’ll be back to turn down your bed later.”
“Thanks,” Maddie said. She shut the door behind him, then turned to Kieran. “We have to get off this train.”
“Why? There’s no reason. We’ll just stay in our cabin and get off at Cincinnati, like we planned.”
She shook her head. “No. I want to get off at the next stop.”
“Maddie, no one has to see you. You’ll be fine.”
She cursed softly. “You told me you wouldn’t argue. That we’d go wherever I wanted to go.”
“I know I said that,” Kieran countered. “But this is crazy.”
“Well, so what. I’m crazy. You knew that from the start so don’t act so surprised now. I don’t want to be trapped on this train. We’ll get off at the next stop and we’ll figure out what to do from there.”
“You can’t run forever,” he said.
“I can try.”
“I thought you were going to call your mother and let her know you were safe.”
“I don’t want to talk to her,” Maddie said, leaning back against the door. “I know what she’s going to say to me. She’s going to tell me I have to get back in the studio and work on the next album. And then, she’s going to tell me about the tour she’s been planning for Japan and Australia. She thinks I don’t know about it, but that I won’t be able to say no if it’s all planned. That’s what she does. She makes it so I have no choice. But now, I have a choice and I want to get off this train.”
“All right,” Kieran said. “We’ll get off at the next stop.”
Maddie nodded, relieved that he finally agreed. Everything had been so perfect, she didn’t want to risk spoiling it all. If he saw—if he knew—what her celebrity life was like, he’d run in the opposite direction as fast as he could.
“How long do we have?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I could ask the attendant.”
“No. We’ll just get off.” She sat down next to him. “I’m sorry. I know you should have a say in this, but you don’t know what it’s like. It’s overwhelming. Everyone wants something—an autograph, a photo, a chance to say hello. And I can do that, I love to do it, when I’m in the right mood. But I don’t want to do that now. I don’t want to smile and be nice. I just want us to have this time alone.”
“All right,” Kieran said.
He held out his hand and Maddie snuggled against his body. “I’m a bad person,” she murmured.
“Yes, you are,” he said.
Maddie pushed back, shocked by his glib agreement. Kieran chuckled, then dropped a kiss on her lips. “You pay me to agree with you, Maddie. I’m just doing my job.” He paused, then kissed her again, this time lingering over her mouth, his tongue tracing the crease between her lips. “You’re not a bad person, Maddie. You’re the best person I’ve ever met.
The best.”
He always knew exactly what to say to her to make her feel better. “I don’t want to seem ungrateful,” she said hesitantly. “Because I’m not. These people who buy my CDs and come to my concerts, they’re just wonderful. They’ve made my life what it is. But sometimes, it doesn’t feel like it’s my life. It feels like theirs. And I get … resentful. And then guilty. And then depressed. It’s just one big pile of negative emotions.”
“That’s understandable,” he said. “You deserve to have a life outside your profession. Everyone does.”
“You always say the right thing,” Maddie said.
“I’m just telling you the truth. Now, don’t you think you should call your mother and tell her you’re all right?”
Maddie shook her head. “She’ll just yell at me and tell me I have to come back. I’ll feel guilty and then I’ll give in. You don’t know my mother. She knows exactly what buttons to push.”
“But she is still your mother. She’s probably sick with worry.”
Maddie knew that contacting her mother would be risky. She’d have to turn on her phone and no doubt there’d be hundreds of texts and messages waiting for her. They saw each other every single day and she still managed to send Maddie ten or twenty texts each day.
“She’s like this dark cloud that hangs over me all the time. And I kind of like being out in the sunshine.”
“Then get rid of the dark cloud,” he said.
She held her BlackBerry out to him. “You do it. That way, I don’t have to look at the messages. Just tell her that I’m fine. I’m taking a break and I’ll call her next week.”
“All right.”
Maddie waited as Kieran typed in the text. “Send,” he murmured. He glanced up. “Do you want to wait for a reply?”
She shook her head. “No. Just shut it off. I’ll deal with it later. Hopefully, she won’t send the FBI after us.”
Kieran gave her a dubious look. “She’d do that?”
“You don’t know my mother. I’m sure she’d try her best to avoid a big scandal. But if it’s the only way to get me back, who knows what she’ll think of.” She drew a deep breath and let it out. “I do feel better now. That dark cloud is gone.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Thank you.”
“I’m just here to please,” Kieran said with a wicked smile.
“Then you better get to work on that. We don’t have much time left and I’ve never done it on a train.”
KIERAN GRABBED MADDIE’S hand as they jumped off the train just a few moments before it began to pull away from the station. He glanced around. The station wasn’t much, just a small shack not much bigger than a one-car garage. There wasn’t even a ticket agent inside. “Well, this is strange,” he murmured.
“Where are we?” Maddie asked.
“Dyer, Indiana.”
“Maybe we should have waited,” she murmured, taking in their surroundings.
“No, it’s all right. There’s a phone booth over there. We’ll find a car rental place and give them a call. They’ll bring a car over and we’ll be on our way.” They walked over to the phone booth only to find that the phone book was missing.
“Do you have internet on your phone?” Kieran asked.
Maddie shook her head. “I could call information.”
“It looks like there’s a busy street on the other side of the tracks. Let’s walk over there and find someplace for dinner and we’ll get our plans together. If we find a gas station, we can ask for a phone book there.”
Kieran grabbed her bag and hung it over his shoulder along with his, then took her hand. Maddie grabbed her guitar and they started down the long sidewalk next to the tracks. They crossed over when they found a spot leading to the parking lot. To Kieran’s relief, they had their choice between a pizza place, a bowling alley and a sports bar.
“Well, what do you think?”
“Definitely bowling,” Maddie said with a smile. “I’ve always wanted to give it a try.”
They walked through the parking lot and Kieran opened the front door for her, but Maddie paused. “You take the guitar. Give me my bag.”
“Good idea. But if anyone asks me to play, we’re going to be in trouble.”
The place was busy, but no one seemed to notice their arrival. They walked to the bar and sat down, Kieran dropping the bags and guitar at their feet. He ordered a beer and Maddie asked for a Coke.
She glanced around uneasily, fiddling with her hair and trying to blend in with the surroundings. Kieran took her hand. “What?”
“They’re playing my song,” she whispered, pointing overhead.
Kieran listened to the tune over the sound system and grinned. He’d never heard her music before but he should have known it was Maddie. It sounded exactly like her. “Wow. That’s pretty nice. You’re going to have to sing that one for me sometime.”
When the bartender returned with their drinks, Kieran paid him, then nodded. “We just got off the train and we need a car. Is there a rental place around here?”
The bartender nodded. “Sure is. There’s one out by the airport. Enterprise, I think. And there’s another the next town over. I have a buddy who owns a used-car lot there. He also has rental cars if you don’t want to go with one of the chains.”
“We’re going to need a cab, too,” Kieran said. “To get to the rental agency.”
The bartender chuckled. “Well now, that’s a different story. This isn’t exactly Chicago, although we’re almost considered a suburb these days. But, hey, I’m off work in another hour. If you stick around, maybe bowl a few frames, I can call my buddy and let him know I’m going to bring you around. It’s not far. A few miles down the road.”
“That would be great,” Kieran said. “Thanks.”
“Can I get you anything to eat?” he asked.
“Sure,” Maddie said. “I could eat.”
The bartender stared at her for a long moment, his forehead furrowed into deep lines. “Do I know you?”
Maddie shook her head and quickly took a drink, hiding behind the glass. “I don’t think so. This is the first time I’ve ever been to Dyer.”
“Lots of people say she looks like that country singer, Maddie West,” Kieran said. Maddie kicked him beneath the bar and Kieran tried not to wince. “She lets it go to her head sometimes.”
The bartender shook his head. “Nope, that’s not it. I’ve seen Maddie West in concert and she looks nothing like you. Maddie West has long blond hair.
And she’s a lot taller than you are. And a little bonier. Someone needs to feed that girl a burger or two.”
“Bony? You think Maddie West is bony?” Maddie asked.
“That’s a compliment,” Kieran teased, giving her a playful shove. “He’s paying you a compliment.”
“Thank you,” Maddie muttered. “That’s real nice.”
“My name is Jake,” the bartender said as he set a menu in front of them both. “When you’re ready, I’ll send a waitress over.”
“I think we should bowl,” Maddie said after Jake wandered away. “I feel kind of conspicuous sitting here. You know, kind of … bony.”
“You think you’re conspicuous now? Wait until we’re out there. The last time I bowled, I was—” He shook his head. “I was just a kid. We used those big bumpers on the lane. You think they’ll let me use those?”
“No! But how hard can it be? You pick up the ball and roll it down the thing and then it knocks those posts down.”
Kieran laughed. “You sound like an expert. The thing is an alley and those posts are pins. And I don’t know how to score.”
“Yeah, well, scoring has never been a problem for you,” she teased. “Besides, we don’t need to keep track. We’ll just see how many pins we can knock down.” She jumped up from her stool and grabbed his hand. “Come on. It will be fun.”
Kieran picked up their belongings then grabbed his beer. They walked over to the counter and rented two pairs of shoes. Then they found their spot on the third alley.
