Free Maddie and Wyn by Cameron Dane Page B

direction, dragging him through the flow of fellow eaters, to a crowded tent. “Want to try Cuban fusion?”
    “Sure.” Wyn’s work phone vibrated in his back pocket just then. When he shifted to get it, he forgot about their linked elbows and twisted her arm halfway behind his back. “Oops, shoot. Sorry. Are you all right?” Redemption was still a small enough community that if an emergency situation arose all law enforcement was required to report for duty.
    Once Maddie gave him the thumbs up that she was okay, he gestured toward to the other side of the tent while he stepped back outside. “Go ahead and get in line while I take this.”
    Maddie gave him the okay sign. He watched her secure a place for them as he put the phone to his ear. “Hello. Officer Ashworth speaking.”
    An unbearably deep voice Wyn would never get out of his head filled his ear. “Son, it’s time for us to talk.”
    The upbeat joy of the day bleeding out of him in a torrent, Wyn hissed, “I told you never to call me again.” Rage at his father blew through Wyn, heating his core past its boiling point. “And how in the hell did you get my work number?” Wyn did not pause or want an answer; this lack of respect and breaking of boundaries only fueled the flames writhing out of control inside him over this man. “That is a violation of my job. You have no right.”
    The coward on the other end of the line had the audacity to sigh before he said, “You won’t pick up my calls on your personal lines anymore, son.”
    “Damn right I won’t.” Shoulders hunched in, closed in on himself like an island in a sea of people, Wyn lowered his voice to a damning whisper. “And I’m not changing today either. Good—”
    “I loved her,” Graham Ashworth interjected, his low tone ragged. “I swear I did. I loved her so much it broke me when she got sick. I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t hold up under the level of love I felt and the pain she suffered. You—”
    Sick to his stomach, Wyn ordered through clenched teeth, “Don’t ever call me again.” If he heard another word from this man right now, he would throw up. “Goodbye.” This time, Wyn didn’t wait for his father to get another word in. He jammed his finger on the End Call button and shoved the phone back into his pocket.
    Standing still while the crowd moved like fish swimming upstream around him, Wyn inhaled and exhaled fast and hard, struggling to normalize his breathing. Every time his father called, every time the guy managed to wiggle past Wyn’s paralyzing shock to spill more of his tale of unfathomable love that had crippled him and forced him to walk away from his wife or die himself through watching her suffer, Wyn grew more disgusted, not less, and an insidious poison inked into his bloodstream a little bit more.
    Wyn remembered being a kid. He recalled how much he looked like his father, and how similar their demeanors were. People had often told him they were so much alike.
    Maddie came up beside him and touched his elbow, jerking him out of his stupor.
    “Hey?” A couple of small plates in hand, looking up at him with too much knowledge deepening the gray in her eyes, Maddie rubbed her shoulder against his arm. “Are you okay?”
    Still tight all over, Wyn jerked his head in a nod. “I’m fine.”
    “Liar,” Maddie said back, no hesitation or backing down one bit.
    With her heels dug in, Maddie looked up at him without blinking, somehow menacing with her hippie chic getup and two small plates of delicious smelling food in her hands.
    “Okay, fine,” Wyn backtracked, knowing he could either do it now or after ten minutes of steely looks from her that would break him down. “I had a shit moment of dealing with a phone call from my father—” he put a finger on her lips before she could get a word out, “—but we’re having a good time today, and you’ve planned a good time for the rest of the night,” they still had music and some sort of horror