Jameson (In the Company of Snipers #22) - Irish Winters Page 0,104
go so, so bad. Yet he’d relied on his gut, and he had that same feeling now as when he’d first met Maddie. This could also go so, so good.
She was working his phone. Then, “H-hello...? Is Krystyna there? Oh...” Silence. “Well. Umm… okay, well… umm… hi.”
Jameson pressed his nose in Maddie’s hair, content to breathe the flowery scent of this amazing woman into his soul, while she reached out for the mother who might just need her as much as Krystyna needed her baby girl.
“Umm…” Maddie stalled. She smacked her lips and gulped and breathed too hard until, at last, she whispered, “My name’s Maddie—”
“Maddie? Madelyn Bannister?” Krystyna shrieked loud enough Jameson heard her over the connection. “Is this you? Are you my baby girl?! Good grief, tell me it’s you! God, please let you be my Maddie! My baby!”
“It’s me, M-m-mom,” she choked through her tears. “Yes, it’s me.”
Jameson bowed his head and smiled. He didn’t need to see to know they were headed to Bailey’s Crossroads next.
Chapter Thirty
Maddie stared at the traditional American Foursquare home at the end of a neatly edged walk in Bailey’s Crossroads, Virginia. The walk led straight up a couple steps to a pair of hunter-green doors with frosted windowpanes. A sturdy brass knocker that formed a golden heart. One long, elegant brass handle. Two huge, red geranium plants in terracotta planters, one at each side of those doors. The matching hunter-green runner that started at the edge of a graciously large porch, ended at those doors. White lattice work concealed all lower sides of the porch, and plump Boston ferns in bright red pots hung from chains attached to the ceiling. The house was postcard perfect. Surely a teacher couldn’t afford to live here.
Weathervanes decorated every quaint, tidy home in this delightful neighborhood, where wide green lawns stretched like welcome mats from one home to the next. But the proud standard flying high at the steepled peak of this address on Melody Lane was as telling as the woman Maddie hoped she’d find inside. A tremendous, golden, perforated heart, each hole in it another cookie-cutter-shaped heart. Hope in that beautiful weathervane had echoed inside Maddie’s chest the moment she’d parked at the curb and turned off the ignition.
That SUV all by itself had made this day one of accomplishment. She’d felt as if she’d arrived when Jameson guided her through the automobile loan process, which hadn’t been difficult at all. But doing that with him made everything almost, well, fun. She’d been on top of the world. But now…
Her feet refused to move, and she was afraid she’d pass out. Her lungs had rebelled, refusing her breathing rights. Her poor heart now resided between her tonsils, which might also explain why her stomach felt it needed to climb out of her mouth. Tiny black dots danced at the edge of her peripheral. The only thing holding her steady and upright was the valiant, handsome man at her side, his left hand at her elbow, his white cane stuck out in front of them like a divining rod. Or a spear in case the gentle woman she hoped to encounter ended up being another dragon to vanquish. Like Rick Bannister.
“You’d think she’d be waiting, watching for me,” Maddie mumbled more to herself than to Jameson.
“She’s probably as anxious about this meeting as you,” he confided. “Put yourself in her shoes. She deserted her little girl. What would you say to that baby when she returned to you as an elegant, well-cultured woman?”
“I’m not elegant or cultured.”
“Oh, yes, you are.” Like the bulwark of strength he always was, Jameson wrapped his strong left arm around her shoulders and breathed into her ear, “One step at a time, Maddie. That’s how we get the tough jobs done. You can do this. I have enough faith in you for both of us.”
That right there was what made him different from the overbearing men in her life. Jameson offered endless encouragement, never bullying. He’d only ever built her up. Even when he’d been angry with her back at Delaney’s warehouse, he’d stayed at her side instead of letting her face Alex alone.
She huffed through her nose. Her poor heart fluttered like a sparrow had gotten trapped in her ribs. It hurt. The risk of this letdown was suddenly too great. Better to hold onto that little girl’s dream of a queenly mother, who’d merely stepped out of her daughter’s life because she had to rule an entire