“I need more money,” Dad said in that naturally loud and gravelly voice of his.
“I asked you not to call unless it was an emergency.” Adam’s initial panic was instantly replaced with annoyance.
“Being out of gas three hundred miles from El Paso in the middle of a nowhere Texas desert is an emergency.”
“Just use some of the extra money I already gave you.”
Madison touched his shoulder and lifted her head to mouth, “Who is it?”
“My dad,” Adam whispered.
“I’m out of that money,” his dad said.
“How can you be out of that money?” Sheezus. Adam had given him five thousand dollars to set up a shared house with his buddy Jose who lived in El Paso. He’d also given his father the use of one of the cars he owned but never drove.
“I took Honey shopping.”
Adam groaned inwardly. What was he doing with her again? “You took your ex shopping on my dime?”
His dad laughed gleefully. “She ain’t my ex no more thanks to your dime. She’s gonna come down and see me in El Paso in a couple weeks.”
Adam was sure she would. As long as his idiot father had some of Adam’s spare cash to blow on her.
“Well, are you going to help me out, or what?”
Or what, Adam wanted to say, but instead he said, “I’ll wire you enough cash for some gas—”
“And supper?” Dad interrupted. “I ain’t ate nothing all day, and you know I need to have something in my gullet when I take my pills.”
Adam’s stomach sank at the mention of the pills. His father’s most current overdose had done even more injury to his aging heart. They’d discovered the damage after the overdose. The doctor had said he’d probably had a heart attack over a year ago, but hadn’t had the sense to go to the hospital with his chest pains. Fucking idiot. Someone had to look after him. Adam hoped Jose could keep him under control better than Adam could. Jose was an okay guy. He had a criminal record, sure, but he’d served his time and was walking a straight and narrow path now. At least he was according to Adam’s father.
“And supper,” Adam conceded. “But that’s it. I’ll send Jose money for your half of the rent and utilities directly.” Since the old man was entirely untrustworthy with a stack of cash.
“Yeah, yeah. I fucked up again. You knew I would. Why do you sound disappointed?”
“Can I talk to him?” Madison asked.
Adam turned his head to gawk at her. Why in the hell would she want to talk to his father? She’d taken the phone from Adam’s hand before he could refuse.
“Mr. Taylor?”
“Who the hell is this?”
Adam was close enough that he could hear his father’s boisterously loud voice.
“I’m Madison Fairbanks. I’ve been wanting to meet you.”
“Why?”
“I’ve been treating your son.”
“Treating him?” The old man chortled. “You mean banging him. He told me about you.”
Madison glanced at Adam, her blue eyes wide with curiosity.
Adam looked away. Yeah, he’d discussed her with his father last weekend and had explicitly forbidden Dad from fucking things up for him by being himself around Madison.
“Our relationship has progressed with time,” Madison said, a hint of amusement in her tone, “but initially I was his rehab counselor.”
“You can lead a junkie to rehab, but you can’t scrub him clean.” The old man apparently thought he was hilarious as he cackled with glee.
“That’s true,” Madison said. “Getting clean is a lot of hard work. A person has to want to be clean to stay that way. Do you want to get clean, Mr. Taylor?”
Adam scowled at the floor. He still wasn’t one hundred percent sure he wanted to be clean. He did know he never wanted to disappoint Madison. She’d worked so hard to get him clean. He planned to stay that way. For her. He could do anything—no matter how challenging—as long as it was for her.
And soon—very soon—she would be his legally.
Chapter Eleven
Adam directed the bike onto a desolate road in some long-forgotten bayou. He parked on the shoulder and turned to Madison, who was holding his waist.
He took his helmet off and accepted hers as well, watching her run her fingers through her curls and loving the way the sunlight dappled her body through the scattered leaves overhead. Near the road, the trees weren’t so dense, but the canopy thickened over the green-tinged water that rocked in gentle waves beneath the strange twisted roots of the mangrove trees.
He slapped at a mosquito buzzing near his ear and offered Madison an arm so she could climb from the back of the bike.
“Well, you wanted to see a real bayou while you were here,” he said. “What do you think?”
“It smells funny,” she said with a laugh.
Adam covered his nose against the offending odors of wet decay and funk. “Is funny another word for bad?”
“In this case?” She pursed her lips and then crinkled her pert, freckled nose. “Yes.”
He laughed and climbed from the bike to stand beside her. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, so glad that the discomfort between them the night before had been chased away by the morning sun. As far as he could tell, they were back to their normal, easy camaraderie. The woman, and her ability to forgive, amazed him. He’d already forgiven her for her wild times at the club the night before, and he was working very hard on forgetting. The forgetting was a little more of a challenge. Especially when she flinched every time she sat down.
He drew her closer to his side. It was the simple moments when they were alone and silent—touching but not overly physical—that he relished with her. But he felt sort of stupid for feeling that way. Sex with Madison was always spectacular, and he knew he should cherish that intimacy most, but he’d never been with a woman long enough to feel completely comfortable with her—not necessarily inside her, just with her. The emotional part of being with a woman was entirely new to him, and damned if she didn’t have the power to destroy him.
He held her against him, fingertips toying with her now frizzy curls, as they stared out into the murky, smelly waters and tried to decide if the large, elongated object floating near a particularly gnarly mangrove root was a log or an alligator. They slapped at mosquitoes and watched a heron wade near the shore hunting for fish, laughing when the bird noticed them and flapped its expansive white wings.