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Matt shrugged. “How should I know? All I can tell you is she was granted a few months off to figure it all out. At least, that’s the rumor. Everybody’s calling it a health issue, so it may be cancer for all we know...”
Matt continued to talk, but Collin was barely listening. Madison was pregnant? Collin remembered that they’d used a condom, although little good it had done them since it had broken sometime during the act. Or acts... He’d made the assumption she’d been on the pill because she’d told him, “Don’t worry about it.” Looked like he should’ve been worrying about it.
“...she gets to hang out on North Captiva for the summer, so it’s nice to be related to a partner.”
“What do you mean? She’s on North Captiva?”
“House-sitting for her uncle Rashad,” he said. “For the summer. That’s why I’m here, picking up her caseload while she has a health sabbatical or whatever.” Matt rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed by the new developments, but Collin hardly noticed.
“The rumor is she’s pregnant, though?” Collin pressed. Suddenly the neckline of his crisp new shirt seemed too tight. Why hadn’t she told him if she was?
“That’s what Rashad’s paralegal said. She’s a notorious gossip, but she also sits outside the man’s office and has bionic hearing...” Matt shrugged again.
Collin felt hot and cold all at once. Madison was pregnant? With his child. Had to be his. She’d said that she hadn’t slept with anyone in more than a year...and something in his gut said Madison didn’t sleep around. She just wasn’t the type.
He needed to find out if it was true.
Because if she was carrying his baby, there was only one thing he could do.
He wasn’t going to be like his own father who had never been a true parent. The man who’d never bothered to marry his mother, even after she’d given birth to two children. No, he’d vowed to be the opposite of that man in every way possible. Then he remembered the timing. He had the next few months off. He’d get on a boat, head out to North Captiva and find out if Madison was pregnant or not.
Because if she was, there was no way he’d abandon his son or daughter. He’d have to marry her.
That was all there was to it.
CHAPTER ONE (#ud00a440a-1043-50bb-b65d-bf9de3e14c2d)
MADISON REDDY CLUNG to the edge of the small ferry that was shuttling her from the Pine Island Transportation Center to North Captiva, a small island on the west coast of Florida, just north of Sanibel Island. Known for the big shells swept into the Gulf from the currents in the Atlantic and for its lack of cars, North Captiva housed three hundred residents. They navigated the four-mile long island via golf cart and bike. Madison’s uncle Rashad had been more than generous in giving her time off from her job and a place to stay for a few months while she figured out what she was going to do. Her uncle had married but never had children, and in some ways, he had adopted her as his own.
“Go there. Take a little time off,” her uncle had told her in his office when she’d revealed in tears that she was pregnant. “If you don’t want to have the baby, there’s an excellent clinic in Fort Myers. If you do, then that’s fine. You can spend your pregnancy there, have the baby and come back to the firm. Your job will be waiting for you.”
It sounded like a plan from a hundred years ago—hide an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, have the baby in secret and then pop back up in society. But frankly, Madison was just grateful that Uncle Rashad had saved the lectures and was simply letting her, as a thirty-year-old woman, make her own decisions.
Rashad had been like a father to her, ever since her father died when she was fourteen. Rashad was even more generous, she thought, than her father would’ve been, but that was how seriously he took his responsibility to look after her—and her mother.
Still, she did need some time off to work this out. Her brain felt like muddled mush, and she needed some distance and a few weeks to decide what she’d do next. Her gut already told her there was nothing to decide. She was going to keep the baby, but she had to figure out how.
“You can live with me, and we’ll raise her together,” her mother had offered over tea the previous afternoon. “Or him.” Her mom had retired from the firm last year, so she had ample time on her hands.
“Mom, I can’t...ask you to do that. You’ve earned your retirement.” More than earned it, being a single mom. Her mother, whose cool blue stare never left her face, tucked a strand of dark auburn hair behind her ear as she studied Madison.
“There’s no asking,” her mother had said as she leaned over the small table at the coffee shop and gave her only daughter a big hug. “You don’t have to ask me to do anything. It’s my pleasure. Whatever you decide, I’m with you.”
It had felt good to have her mom in her corner, but her mother had always been on her side, the two of them an inseparable team since her father died. Even with the support, though, Madison wasn’t sure how she’d make it work. Could she really ask her nearly seventy-year-old mother to watch a baby for fifty or sixty hours a week? It didn’t seem right. She could get a less demanding job at another firm, but then what? Less money? Now she had a baby to think about.
You could tell Collin, a small voice in her head whispered. Doesn’t he have a right to know?
She instantly swatted the annoying thought away like it was a mosquito. Tell him, so he has an opportunity to weigh in and insist she get an abortion? Forget it!
She assumed he’d be anti-baby. There wasn’t anything soft and fuzzy about the man, and he’d made it more than clear these last few months that he considered their one-night stand exactly that—one and done.
But right now, all she cared about was holding down her meager lunch of saltines and water. She clung to the ferry’s railing at the back of the boat, willing herself not to hurl as the crystal blue ocean sped by. Madison always prided herself on having a stomach made of steel; she never got food poisoning, and only once in her life ever had the stomach flu. She never even got a hangover. But...this...this was different.
Her stomach roiled and she leaned over the side of the railing but managed not to throw up. Not yet.
“Seasick?” asked a sympathetic elderly tourist sitting near her in the oversized pontoon boat, wearing a bright pink flamingo visor, raising her voice over the wind.
Madison’s face flamed as she hurried to wipe her mouth. This was so embarrassing. Seasickness? Never once in her life. “Uh, yeah,” she lied.
“Try to look at the horizon, that will help,” the lady offered. Madison nodded and then stared off into the distance, but she knew it would do no good.
Collin Baptista. She’d fallen victim to his green eyes, and the fit, muscular body that looked so good in those suits. Never mind that he was the most arrogant know-it-all prosecutor she’d ever met. Collin was all the things she hated about prosecutors—his full-of-himself, holier-than-thou attitude that somehow failed to rub juries the wrong way. He’d never met a defendant he thought might be innocent or, at the very least, deserve his sympathy. He’d once asked a jury to put James Miller, a nineteen-year-old kid with a partial scholarship to the University of Indiana, away for three years for shoplifting a pair of earbuds. Forget that the kid was stealing them as a Christmas present for his single mom who worked two jobs. True, he’d hit the security guard, who’d tried to stop him, although the guard had gotten away with just a black eye.
Collin had told the jury the kid was violent, but Madison thought the punch he’d thrown was a mistake he regretted. In some ways, they might have both been right; the kid could’ve gone on to be more violent the next time. Or he could’ve learned his lesson. Now, locked away in jail, he’d almost certainly become more violent in order to survive.
Madison saw the world in a hundred shades of gray, but Collin Baptista saw it in stark black and white. Guilty or innocent, right or wrong, no in-between. She couldn’t believe she’d fallen into bed with the man. But then again, she knew why: Jimmy Reese, the horrible white supremacist. They’d faced off as opposing counsel on that case, but in that one instance, they’d both agreed. The violent, hateful man needed to be in jail. The fact that they had common ground at all was a turn-on, one she hadn’t expected.
Besides, she knew herself. She was attracted to overconfident men, and Collin was their poster boy. He possessed unwavering confidence, an ability to command the room and a certain fearlessness. Once, when a convicted murderer got loose in the courtroom, he’d simply clotheslined the man as he made a run for the exit, laying him flat on the floor before the bailiff could even react. Nobody would ever accuse Collin Baptista of being a pencil-neck lawyer. He oozed alpha-male sex appeal, and she was the first to admit she liked it.
And she wasn’t the only one. He had a reputation for loving and leaving the ladies, had slept with half the female clerks in the courthouse. He was known for never being serious, never having a steady girlfriend, always playing the field. After their night together, when Collin pretended it had never happened, she ought to have seen that coming. She’d only been yet another challenge, the charismatic young prosecutor who had women falling at his feet. Still, the rejection had hurt her pride.
Just add it to the list of jerks I’ve slept with. Not that it was a big list, but still. If there was a jerk in the room, she’d find him every time.
She was not going let him know their one-night stand had resulted in a pregnancy. Sure, she could go after him for child support, but she wasn’t a charity case. She could take care of herself...and this baby. She just needed to work out a plan. He’d left her messages lately, but she’d doggedly refused to respond to them. He’d only said, We need to talk, which could mean anything, and besides, the last thing she wanted to do was be on the phone with the county’s most dangerous cross-examiner, known for his ability to eviscerate an unwilling witness. She knew if she talked to Collin, her resolve to keep the pregnancy secret would dissolve. Another wave of nausea hit her as she leaned over the side of the railing and lost the saltines she’d tried so hard to keep in her stomach. Baby, you’re making this really hard on us both, she mentally scolded. How am I supposed to feed you if you eject everything I eat?
She wiped her mouth with a tissue and sighed. Nobody ever mentioned that morning sickness could actually be morning, noon and night sickness. One more thing about pregnancy she never knew. Just like the bone-tired fatigue that would creep up on her at all hours of the day and the pregnancy hormones rushing around her body, inducing her to cry at the drop of a dime. She’d even gotten teary at a car rental commercial last night. Madison shook her head. The pregnancy was already making her soft.
If only her friends from high school knew. They’d voted her least likely to have a family and most likely to own a business by twenty-five. Madison had always focused on her career and made her personal life secondary. But Madison wasn’t about to apologize for her ambition. She wasn’t going to be like her mother: a stay-at-home mom who’d been completely unprepared for the workforce when her husband had suddenly died. They’d had several hard years, with her mother cleaning homes and working odd jobs, before her uncle helped her mom get paralegal training and then hired her in his own firm. Madison had watched her mother struggle and vowed never to be so unprepared. Family and kids weren’t her priority—financial security was.
The shore of North Captiva came closer as the small ferry approached the dock. Madison recognized the North Captiva Island Club, home to swimming pools, boat rentals and the island’s best restaurant. She saw the golf carts lined up in the small dirt parking lot near the office, the bright Florida sunshine bathing everything in a warm glow. She remembered the island from when she was a kid and her parents had taken her there on vacation, using her uncle’s house. Now, as an adult, she welcomed the getaway. Here, she could think. Figure out what she planned to do. Alone.
“Hope you feel better, dear,” the woman in the flamingo pink hat said as she moved past her to climb off the boat. Madison followed, and once her sneakered feet hit the wooden dock, she instantly felt better. Either it had been the boat making her morning sickness worse, or she was just relieved to be back in the place that held so many prized childhood memories. Uncle Rashad had been very generous to her mother and her, hosting them every summer, even after her father died. The clubhouse had received a new coat of paint since she’d last been to the island, a few years back, but otherwise, everything seemed the same.
Madison glanced at the line of golf carts parked near the tennis courts and didn’t see her uncle’s telltale silver four-seater, the one that looked less like a golf cart and more like a dune buggy. Usually the North Captiva club staff had everything waiting for guests, including transportation from the dock. Burly workers flexed their muscles as they took cargo from the ferry to the shore—crates of food, luggage, coolers. The island might be remote, but it was hardly rustic. As the crew unloaded her luggage and her plastic bin of groceries, Madison headed into the main office.
She saw Yvana Davis, the resort’s manager she adored and had known most of her life, standing behind the counter. The woman wore a uniform of a golf shirt and khakis, accessorized with sparkling dangle earrings and a colorful scarf around her head. There was no way Yvana was going to let the club dress code cramp her style. Now, however, a frown replaced her usual smile. She was trying to deal with what seemed to be an unruly tourist.
“But there are spiders,” cried the forty-something brunette, who wore a floor-length wrap dress and sparkly slip-on flats and held a quivering lapdog in her arms.
“Inside your house?” Yvana asked, raising a dark eyebrow and putting one hand on a generous hip. Yvana made eye contact with Madison and gave her a nod of recognition.
“No, outside,” whined the woman with the Boston accent. Madison, meanwhile, felt the nausea return. She didn’t know if it was because of the woman’s nasal voice or the fact that it was a little hot inside the office, but she was definitely feeling sick again.
Yvana pursed her lips. “Honey, this is Florida. We got bugs bigger than your dog. Hell, our bugs will eat that adorable little thing.”
Madison hid a smile. That much was true.
“Well, I’m just asking someone to spray,” the indignant woman said. “And...the garbage just... It just stinks. It’s thoroughly disgusting. The dumpster’s full of rotten fish and goodness knows what else, and it was full before we arrived...”
At the idea of fish rotting in the hot Florida sun, Madison’s stomach lurched. Please stop talking about trash. Or I’m going to hurl. Again.
She glanced around for a bathroom...a trashcan...but found nothing. I can hold it, she thought. I can will myself not to throw up... And the woman will stop talking about trash. Any minute now.
“Trash pickup isn’t till tomorrow,” Yvana said, tapping her pink nails on the counter and clearly starting to lose her patience.
“Well, something needs to be done. There’s rotten eggs in there, something that smells like spoiled meatloaf and probably some awful shrimp salad and...”
Madison lost it. Her reaction came hard and fast with no time to react. Even as she tried to cover her mouth, she threw up what little was left in her stomach—she was surprised there was anything—all over the tourist’s sparkly shoes.
“Oh...my Gawd!” shrieked the woman. “What on earth...” Her face twisted in revulsion.
“I am so very sorry. I...” Madison wanted to say she was pregnant, but she couldn’t get the words out, not with the angry woman glaring at her. “Let me see if I can help...” Madison moved forward but the woman batted her away with one hand.
“Get away from me!” she cried, backing off while clutching her dog.
Yvana obviously couldn’t resist, as she instantly emitted a cackle. “Well, goodness me. That is something. Want a tissue?” Yvana held out a tissue box to the tourist, who frowned at the offering as if it had spider legs. Yvana gave one to Madison instead.
“Maddie, here, child.” Her expression softened instantly. “You okay? You look like death warmed over!”
“I’m not contagious... I’m just...” She clutched at her mouth once more.
Yvana jumped into action, tugging a trash can from behind the counter up to her. “Here, honey.”
Madison grabbed the metal wastebasket. Luckily, nothing more came up.
“These were designer shoes. They’re ruined and...they cost $200 retail, and now...” The tourist stomped her feet.
“I’m happy to pay for them,” Madison said, wondering where she was going to find an extra $200. Her budget was tight, and even with the money she’d tucked away, she was about to take unpaid leave from work and she needed every dime she had.
The woman wasn’t placated. “I ought to sue,” she threatened. The tiny white dog in the crook of her arm barked as if he agreed.
“Careful,” Yvana warned. “This lady is one of the best lawyers in town. If you sue, you’re going to lose, sister.”
The tourist’s face grew more pinched. She opened and closed her mouth, seemingly at a loss for what to say. Her cheeks grew redder than a ripe tomato.
“Well, I’ve never had such poor service in all my life. Do I have to call your supervisor?” The annoyed woman hugged her little dog to her chest and delicately lifted one foot to shake off some of Madison’s vomit.
Madison just shook her head. Yvana didn’t have a supervisor. She damn near ran this place and nobody was foolish enough to go toe-to-toe with the woman who owned a fourth of the island and knew everyone. An older resident on the island had left his entire share to her when he passed away five years ago—she was the one who’d cared for him and he’d had no living children.
Yvana had a heart bigger than the Gulf of Mexico but also a temper that was legendary. You got on her good side, and Yvana would do anything for you, but get on her bad side, and you might not have your power turned on for days.
Yvana narrowed her eyes at the indignant tourist.
“Mm, hm.” Yvana gave her a once-over. “My supervisor is out,” she lied, since she was her own supervisor. “But I’ll write a note and make sure she gets it.”
“Well,” the tourist muttered. “I...”
Yvana glared at her and then turned back to Madison.
“Maddie, honey. Sit down before you fall down.” Yvana put her back to the other woman who, with nothing more to do, stepped out of her shoes and bent down to pick them up, careful to keep her fingers clean. She headed out of the office in a huff. Yvana ignored her and moved Madison over to a chair, then scurried over with the tissues she’d held out to her earlier.
Madison reached out as if to start trying to mop up the spill.
“No, no. Sit. I’ll call someone from the janitorial staff to handle that,” Yvana said.
“I am so sorry. God, how embarrassing. I normally don’t do this. I never get sick.” Madison sat down in the chair still feeling a little woozy as Yvana fetched an unopened water bottle from her desk and handed it to her.
“Not every day that you’re pregnant, either,” Yvana said, tilting her head to one side.
Madison stopped mid-drink, stunned. “How did you know that?”
“Oh, I just know.” Yvana looked so serious that for a second Madison worried that she’d somehow begun to show, although her stomach was still flat. Yvana threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, I’m kidding, honey. Rashad told me.”
“Uncle Rashad! He wasn’t supposed to tell anyone!” Madison grumbled, wishing she’d been more explicit with her uncle about this being a private matter.
“Oh, he swore me to secrecy, don’t you worry,” Yvana said. “He just wanted me to know because he asked me to keep an eye on you. And by the look of things—” she nodded at the mess on the floor “—you might need a little bit of TLC.”
“I’m fine.” Madison wiped her mouth with a tissue. “I just need some rest and—if this baby will ever let me keep anything down—some food.”
“Soda water, then, and I might have something that could help settle your stomach. Something I ate when I was pregnant with my twin boys.” Yvana rolled her eyes. “Thought I’d about die from that pregnancy. I threw up right till the end of the second trimester. I never let those boys forget it, either.”
Yvana grinned, and Madison had to laugh. She shook her head and glanced out the window to see the tourist throwing away her shoes in a nearby trash can. Then the woman hobbled in the hot sand over to a waiting golf cart that a man—her husband, Madison presumed—was sitting in and got into the passenger seat, fuming.
“I should apologize to her again,” Madison said.
“You’ll do no such thing. One apology was enough for her. She’s been in my office every day since they got here, complaining about everything under the sun. She once came in here and complained about there being too much sand. On a beach. Can you imagine?” Yvana slapped her side. “She’s worse than my ex-husband. He’d complain about the heat if the sun was shining and the damp if it was raining. Never could be satisfied, just like that woman. That, Maddie, was pure payback.”
Madison smiled. She hadn’t heard anyone call her Maddie for a long time. It was a name reserved for people who’d known her since she was little, the nickname her father gave her when she was a baby. She’d visited North Captiva all her life, but it had been her special refuge after her father died. She and her mother had lived in her uncle’s house for nearly a year. She’d known Yvana most of her life and was grateful to the big-hearted woman who’d always looked after her.
“I didn’t see Rashad’s golf cart...” Madison said, nodding her head toward the window.
“No?” Yvana peered out. “Huh. I told Gus to get it, but he must be backed up today. Don’t you worry. I can drive you. The front office can watch itself for five minutes. But first, let me call someone to deal with this mess.”
* * *
YVANA EXPERTLY MANEUVERED the small tan-and-green golf cart emblazoned with the North Captiva Club logo through the sand trails of the island. A simple white post marked most turnoffs and to a visitor’s eye, easy to miss. Ahead of them, tourists who were new to the island studied a map, then scratched their heads. Yvana pulled over to help them find their way. Phone GPS didn’t work well here, and one sand-lined trail looked pretty much like another. As she waited, Madison craned her neck back to catch the sun’s rays, feeling comfortably warm and much less sick to her stomach. It must be the island weather, she thought. She was already starting to feel better. More hopeful.
Yvana asked the tourists if they needed help, but they waved her off, determined to find their own way.
“Tourists,” Yvana said as she waved at them and hit the gas. “They might get to their place before the end of the week.” Pity laced her voice. She took a sharp left then by a big white house with a wraparound porch, and a moment later, they were speeding along a little lagoon spotted with ducks and a couple of white cranes. Above them, a canopy of palm trees provided shade as they sped by in the little cart.
“Not any of my business,” Yvana said, “but you know what you’re going to do? About the baby?”
“I’m going to keep it. I’m not sure how. Mom offered to babysit, but I think that’s a lot to ask of her.”
“You got time to sort it out,” Yvana said, keeping her eyes on the road. “What about the father? What’s he doing in all this?”
Madison sucked in a breath. “Haven’t told him.” She thought of Collin’s smug face, his always-right smile. Won’t ever, either.
