A Second Chance at Love: A Hometown Hero Series Novel Read Online Free

existence. Without Dean there, she had little value, after all.
    “The same,” Arielle shrugged. “Unable to believe that he’s actually going to die.” She rubbed her pale fingers with bright red tips over her eyes and dipped her head forwards. “He is really going to die. He is, isn’t he?”
    Madeline nodded wearily. “Yes, mama. And soon.”
    Arielle dipped her head lower, and when she was able to speak again, her voice was a slender husk. “Who did you meet in town?”
    Madeline kept her expression neutral as she lifted the coffee cup to her lips and sipped it gratefully. “A little girl, by the beach.”
    Arielle wasn’t really listening. She was staring at the tabletop, completely distraught. She had spent her life – since she’d turned sixteen – with a man who treated her like a possession. Madeline had never understood how her mother had put up with his domineering ways. But it was clear now that her love had not been out of duty. Arielle’s heart was genuinely breaking at the certainty that her husband was in his last days.
    “Have you heard from KB?” Madeline asked, referring to her brother by the nickname he’d had since childhood. Being the fifth in a line of men to carry the same name had a tendency to cause confusion. The moniker KB neatly avoided that.
    At the mention of her son, Arielle’s expression briefly lifted. In her firstborn, she saw the almost complete reflection of her husband. “He’s still in Hong Kong. You know how depended upon he is. It’s not like he can just up and leave the bank at a moment’s notice.”
    Madeline sipped her coffee again. The implication was subtle, but obvious to Madeline, who’d spent a lifetime being unfavourably compared to her brother. She, Madeline, was less depended upon. She’d received the teary phone call from her mother and dropped everything to be back at the ranch. Never mind that she was a successful human rights lawyer in her own right. True, she kept a minimal caseload so that she could play the part of the congressman’s wife, but she was still busy and well regarded. Just the week earlier, she’d heard that she’d won a protection visa for a child who had fled her own war torn country to escape the abuse of her parents and uncle. The case had been all over the press, but it didn’t matter to anyone in Whitegate.
    Here, the Bartlett Ranch was its very own universe, and Kenneth was the sun and centre of it. KB and Arielle were planets in his orbit and she, Madeline, was simply flotsam on the outer edges of the universe. Trapped by the sun’s gravitational pull, but unable to properly break free.
    “Did he say when he plans on leaving?”
    “Soon.” Arielle’s voice cracked. “Emily emailed this morning to say she’s trying to get him to wrap up swiftly.”
    Madeline smiled at the mention of her sister-in-law. Though they couldn’t be more different, whenever they saw one another, they enjoyed a true companionship. “I’m glad.”
    The storm was coming in closer now, and lightning flashed outside the large bay window, followed by the distant rumble of thunder. “I love storms,” Madeline said with a deep breath. She fixed her gaze on the old tree house high up in the nearest oak, remembering days spent huddled in the timber construction, rugged up and staring out at the pouring rain.
    “You always did,” Arielle said with a tight smile. “Funny creature that you were. I had such a battle with you, though you wouldn’t know it to look at you today. Time was, I couldn’t lay my hands on you for all the grime and mud you insisted on rolling about in.”
    Madeline’s smile was equally forced. “I was a nature child. I loved the outdoors.”
    “I don’t know why. All that ghastly mess. Do you remember the time your brother had to rescue you from the stream?”
    Madeline drank her coffee, though she would have preferred to employ one of Ivy’s eye rolls. “He didn’t rescue me, mama. He pushed me in and then