“No.” She shook her head and posted up her automatic, camera-ready smile. Ta-da.
“This is Moonglow Bridge.” He motioned as the tires hit the metal bridge.
“I grew up here.”
“You lucky. Prettiest town on Texas coast.”
“Yes,” she murmured, “it is.”
Down the hill and around the first curve and they hit Moonglow Boulevard. Stately houses built during the early 1900s graced the right side of the road; the beach and seawall, alive with tourists, shops, and restaurants, were on the left.
Madison sipped water and watched the ocean gliding past like a ponderous dream, too much blue, long and endless. She’d forgotten how bright it was here. The beach stretched full of umbrellas, kites, and bodies. Light and casual and seriously, much too happy.
She didn’t trust happiness.
It faded.
Always.
The beautiful old Victorian where she and her sisters once lived with Grammy Chapman lay straight ahead. Built by their two-times-great-grandfather, Josiah Chapman, it stood out among the other buildings lining the beach. It was one of the few historical homes along the waterfront that had survived Hurricane Allen in 1980.
The three-story B&B looked like something from a fairy tale—all gingerbread trim, towers, turrets, dormers, and wraparound porches. Over the decades, five generations of Chapmans had painted it many shades and hues. Today, the color was a gentle aqua with violet shutters and white porch rails and columns. She and her sisters had picked out those colors, painted the house together.
Back when things were good.
A small orchard of Moonglow pear trees bloomed white in the side yard. Butter-yellow daffodils proliferated around the base of the pear trees. And in the tidy flower beds, irises and hydrangeas thrived, scenting the air with their sweet perfume.
Grammy adored those pear trees, and every fall she made preserves in her commercial kitchen. To supplement her B&B income, she packaged and sold the preserves online and through local vendors.
Madison hadn’t been home since Christmas. Almost half a year since Grammy, smelling of cinnamon and Shalimar, had wrapped Madison in her arms and told her how much she loved her. An erratic five months of giddy ups and sharp downs. Until now, she hadn’t realized the depth of her homesickness and she ached to go inside the house.
“Wait, stop!”
Startled, the chauffeur trod the brakes. “What’s the problem?”
A topless, doors-off Jeep blasted the horn behind them. The angry frat boy driver whipped around the town car, thrusting a proud middle finger skyward as he sped by.
The chauffeur eased the car over. “You sick?”
“No, no.” Madison waved away his concern. What was wrong with her? She had a mission. Get to Grammy. Fix this thing. No reason to stop, except . . . “Never mind. Just go. Please keep going.”
He made a chuffing noise and merged back into the flow of traffic.
She peered over her shoulder at the Moonglow Inn. Nostalgia took Madison’s hand and led her down memory lane.
In her mind’s eye, she saw the hopscotch squares they’d drawn on the sidewalk outside the white picket fence that surrounded the house. Shelley had been the hopscotch queen, athletic and leggy, but Madison kept an eye on her. Shelley cheated. Which, Shelley claimed, was Madison’s fault because she made too many impossible-to-keep rules.
From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed plump Pyewacket, curled on the front porch, swishing her tail. She remembered when Gia brought the skinny, bedraggled kitten home from the animal shelter, thirteen and full of angst for all creatures in trouble.
“Grammy,” Gia declared. “We hafta keep her.”
Madison pressed her fingertips to the window and watched until the house was out of sight.
At four P.M. on the dot, the town car deposited her and her luggage at the emergency room entrance outside Moonglow Cove Memorial Hospital.
She was here. Goal in sight. At least the get-to-Grammy part. The fix-this-thing part was more complicated.
Head throbbing, heart sinking, Madison stared at the red neon Emergency sign over the door. She felt the flutter of panic stir at the bottom of her spine and inch up vertebra by vertebra.
C’mon, Xanax, kick in.
She curled her fingernails into her palms and forced herself to slow her breathing, pulled in a lungful of hospital antiseptic mingled with fragrant ocean air.
The pneumatic doors opened and Darynda walked out, arms wrapped tightly around her chest as if she were chilled. Her snow-white hair was pulled back into her signature low chignon, elegant as the woman herself. She wore pleated gray slacks, a soft purple blouse and matching sweater, and silver kitten heels. No one would ever guess where she’d come from originally.
Darynda Fox was a self-described sand hill tacky, a Texas term for a girl who’d grown up poor in the sand hills of West Texas. She was the daughter of a cowhand, raised riding and roping and punching cattle. She was a crack shot with a rifle, and sometimes, Grammy affectionately called her Annie Oakley. Her vivid blue eyes shone like beacons in her wrinkled face, and her gaze latched tight to Madison’s. Without a word, she held her arms wide for an embrace.
Madison hesitated.
She and Darynda had never been buddy-buddy, but she was Grammy’s best friend in the entire world and she had taken up the slack after . . . well, after everything zoomed to hell in a wicker handbasket.
Madison steeled herself and moved in for the hug, catching the light honeysuckle scent of Darynda’s perfume. Quick squeeze and she was out of the greeting, stepping back, fetching another made-for-TV smile.
Willowy, graceful, Darynda dropped her arms. “It’s so wonderful to have you home, Maddie.”
“Thanks,” Madison mumbled, not knowing what else to say, and hitched her purse up on her shoulder. She was out of place on the hospital sidewalk of the coastal beach town in her white Ralph Lauren silk suit and Manolo Blahniks, her Louis Vuitton carry-on beside her. She’d come straight from the set of Madison’s Mark without going home to change, instead sending her assistant to her apartment to pack her bag while she wrapped up shooting.
Luckily, the morning show would go on summer hiatus in two weeks, and until then, her producer had coaxed a popular, retired talk-show host to fill in for her. But if things went well with Grammy’s surgery, Madison hoped to return to New York by next week at the latest.
And if things don’t go well?
Madison moistened her lips. She’d cross that bridge when she came to it. She met Darynda’s gaze. “Grammy?”
“Still in surgery.”
Alarm sent fresh pounding through her head. “It’s been hours!”
“Eight and counting. It could go even longer.” Darynda’s voice turned husky and tears shimmered in her sharp blue eyes.
“What happened?”
“About three weeks ago, Helen started having dizzy spells, and she fell a few times. I insisted she go to the doctor. She’s got brain cancer. Grade IV glioblastoma.”
Fear spread heat throughout Madison’s body. She didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded bad. “What’s her prognosis?”
Darynda briefly closed her eyes, wobbled her head. “Not good.”
“She’ll make it.”
Darynda didn’t respond.
“She will make it.” Madison injected steel into her tone.