Page 36 of Taming the Boss

That was not Maddie, however, because she’d relinquished possession of her phone to my son, who gripped it tightly but hadn’t looked at it since we were in the store. We were currently in a HomeGoods store that brought to life vivid memories of my mother’s home brand. I kept scanning for her neutral logo of a house and swing in the yard, but I hadn’t seen it anywhere yet.

A good sign, as far as I was concerned.

“Hey, hold onto me.”

For a second, I thought Maddie was talking to me. My gaze veered to her, and I noted she had a hold on Owen, who was walking along beside her, his hand tightly grasped in hers.

I wasn’t jealous of my three-year-old son. Surely not.

“We’re just here for a toaster for your waffles,” she reminded him when he started to drift toward a toy display. But then she led him over to the toys just the same.

I followed, feeling like a third-wheel. “I can leave you my card and just wait in the car,” I began until she shot me a killer look out of her narrowed blue eyes.

“Don’t you want to help pick out your toaster?”

“No.”

“Well, you’re going to.” Her tone suggested I’d better not try to argue that point, no matter how tempted I was. “Go get a cart,” she added as Owen went straight to a display of stuffed zoo animals and snatched a giraffe with a long, floppy neck from the middle of the pyramid.

I obliged her, walking away as they giggled over something to do with the giraffe. The sound was so pleasant I didn’t rush my steps.

Owen didn’t laugh—or even talk—nearly enough. Or he hadn’t, before Maddie.

I had a feeling Maddie was going to change things for both of us. Even if I tried my hardest to resist her strawberry scent.

It had to be shampoo. Surely that wasn’t a perfume.

I was still pondering it as I wheeled the cart back to the toy display, despite getting lost not once but twice. Along with the store being loud, it seemed as if its aisles were endless. Crammed with shopping couples and families, everyone chatting and laughing as if they were all having the time of their lives.

And I couldn’t find Maddie and Owen.

Speeding up, I strode down one aisle to the next, swerving around knots of people, my gaze shooting right to left in wild swings. It wasn’t as if they’d been kidnapped. Surely they were around here somewhere. They hadn’t sent me on a meaningless errand so they could escape undetected.

Once, my parents had done similar, but this was a different situation. They hadn’t deliberately sent me off to find something so they could slip out the door and leave me to my own devices to find them—or not.

My parents had taken Sydney with them in her stroller since she was the baby. She couldn’t be left alone.

I always could be.

Eventually, they’d just sent me off to boarding school so they didn’t have to bother with me at all.

“Jude?” Maddie’s soft voice came from a nearby aisle.

She wasn’t trying to leave me in the dust. She was looking for me.

Feeling foolish, I headed toward her voice, dodging and weaving around customers with my wobbly green cart. Two rows over, there she was at the head of the aisle, Owen on her hip while he stroked the giraffe’s ears.

“There you are,” Maddie said expectantly. “We couldn’t find you. Did you get a toaster—” With a glance at my empty cart, she broke off. “Never mind. We can pick out one together.”

Together. Imagine that.

She led me a couple rows over to the kitchen items aisle, and Owen seemed as if he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to nuzzle his new giraffe or play with Maddie’s hair.

Or look at the many items crowding the shelves with no apparent rhyme or reason.

“Oh! Look at this one.” Maddie rushed to a bright yellow toaster with what appeared to be a large red rooster sketched on the side. “Isn’t this cute? Even the lever is a rooster.” She pulled it down and a second later, a boisterous cockle-doodle-doo erupted as the lever popped up again.

She giggled, clapping a hand over her mouth.

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