She covers her heart. “And they’d make bedazzled T-shirts that sayI’M WITH TROUBLE, so they’d definitely get selected and then win a car.”
“Which they decide to share.”
Harriet waves this time to get our attention. “What’s happening here, anyway? I thought you were going to be the chef of James’s new restaurant—why are you making deliveries?”
Madison leans on the counter again, and I already miss her attention. “The sun came up and I thought,I bet Harriet has been dying to see me!So I hopped right in James’s truck and here I am. Just for you.” Madison bats her eyes at a stoic Harriet.
“I’d find it more believable if you said you’d already been demoted to a hired hand,” she mumbles, but it’s loud enough for Madison to hear. Something about those words has me taking a step closer to the counter. I must look ready to argue because Madison’s hand clutches my wrist—chipped pink and yellow nails holding me back.
“No chance,” she says to Harriet. “And I’ll have a table waiting just for you at our opening. Can’t wait to wow you.”
Harriet lifts a mocking brow. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Madison smiles, letting me know she’s fine, before I unload Harriet’s stuff. She grabs some locally made boiled peanuts for the road.
Unfortunately, things don’t improve like I hope at subsequent stops either. Charlie Bristol tells Madison how happy he is to see her back in town, but then laughs when she tells him the reason for her return.
“You?” he says like she’s in on the joke. “The same girl who sold severely underbaked cookies in the senior bake sale and gave us all food poisoning?”
“I was seventeen!”
He squints. “But wasn’t there another incident while you were teaching over at the elementary school?”
“I don’t think so,” Madison mumbles, then turns sharply to me. “Anything else in the truck I can grab?”
Charlie claps. “I remember! You nearly burned the damn school down. Left something in the oven, right? What was it?”
Through her teeth, Madison says, “Banana bread. For the teachers’ luncheon.”
Charlie cackles. “That’s right! School evacuated and the fire department came and all the kids had to go home early. I think every elementary school parent in Rome hated you that day because they all had to call out of work early.”
“Yeah, well, the teachers loved me at least,” she says, but it lacks her usual fire.
We have two more nearly identical stops with people all giving Madison their two cents, and she doesn’t let me intervene either time. Even when one of the guys says he’s glad Madison is back because he always had a good time with her. I wanted to shove the suggestive wink he gave her down his throat.
Somehow, it seems I’m more bothered by everyone’s commentsthan Madison is. She laughs off every single rude statement and leaves with a different snack. She’s on her fifth one: a little bowl of green beans from the BBQ joint we just left.
She’s over there singing with her hand out the window and hair tangling around her face as we drive to the last stop, and when we pull into the driveway of the house, I finally give in to the thought that’s been spinning in my head. “Are you not bothered?”
Her short hair sways against her jaw as she turns to me. “About what?”
I let out a mirthless laugh. “About everything those shitheads have said to you all day. Bringing up all that negative stuff from your past?”
She shrugs. “Didn’t bother me.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You swear on all of your future powdered sugar donuts?”
“James.” Her eyes lock with mine, all jokes gone. Serious Madison has entered the room. “It didn’t bother me because . . . it was all true. But not in a depressing way.” She laughs once. “How do I explain it? I’m . . . home. I thought I was going to thrive in New York because no one would know me there. No one would know that I was Madison Walker, the girl whose parents died when she was eight. And it’s true, I got to be whoever I wanted to be in the city. But all I found was my heart doesn’t like being surrounded by strangers.
“I didn’t have anyone that understood why I couldn’t get out of bed on my dad’s birthday. No one to get why I’d hunt down every slice of pie in the city, only to cringe because none of them tasted like they came from the Pie Shop.” She smiles, but it’s sad. “These people know me. They’ve seen me in my happiest and worst moments—and I know they’ll still show up in droves to support me at the opening. They’re family. And family roasts family. Plus . . . Iguess, I’m excited to show them I can succeed at something too. Because I’m determined to this time.” She pauses. “If I can get my mojo back.”
I stare at her through heavy brows for another minute—looking for any cracks forming under the surface. But I don’t see any. I think she’s telling the truth.
“All right. I guess I believe you.”
