Page 16 of Madison

Madison stood up and had Kyle stand as well. That’s when Mary stood up and said that they’d switched out her kid. That the kid standing next to him wasn’t their child.

“They killed my son.” Mary started wailing and crying about how they’d killed off her only child. That was when Edgar asked about the daughter that they were supposed to have had. It was mayhem then.

Wayne slapped Mary, knocking her to the floor and screaming at her about having another kid without telling him. While she was down, he kicked her a few times in the ribs. The police were brought in to tear them apart, but it was obvious to everyone in the courtroom that the judge wanted order. If he banged his gavel anymore, it was going to break down the desk that he was behind.

Mary was cowering behind the chair that she’d been sitting in and screaming at Wayne for him hitting her. As soon as he was pulled off her, Mary leapt, no other word for it, up on the officer’s back and began biting him for hurting her man.

Shoving Layla behind him so that she’d not be hurt, he also pulled Kyle into the hiding spot while keeping an eye on his parents and Amy. Christ, it was going to be a long time before order was gotten.

Just as he was thinking of leaving so that he’d not be brought into this thing, whatever it was, there was gunfire. No one moved other than to drop to the floor, covering their head with their arms. He and his brothers stood still, wanting to make sure that everyone in their family hadn’t been hurt. It was Fowler, coming here for this trial, who sounded off, asking them one at a time if they’d been hurt. He was happy to see that none of them had been hurt by the gun going off.

Chapter 5

Layla was called into the hospital to help out with the people who had been hurt while scrambling away from the mad woman who held the gun. Most of the wounds were injuries like a broken arm. One had to have several stitches when she’d fallen over a broken chair. Nothing major for those people. It was the officers who had taken the biggest hits.

No one was sure how Mary had gotten it right away, but she was dead, and it didn’t look good for the three officers who had been shot. They were still trying to figure out how she’d managed to shoot one shot and get three men at the same time.

“There are two children coming in. One has a broken leg, no doubt about it. The other one is…well, she told us that she fell, but I no more believe that than you have wings.” She didn’t know what to say to that. Layla had woken up this morning with a dragon curled around her body like it was giving her a big hug.

She’d not told anyone yet, not even Madison. But it freaked her out all the same. As she was examining the little girl first, she could see that she’d fallen down a flight of stairs. Having her records brought to her, she was surprised that she’d not been seen before. To her, it looked like she had said, she’d fallen down a flight of stairs when she’d been at home.

The little boy, his name was Roger, did indeed have a broken leg. After giving him something for the pain, she spoke with the parents. It was the best and most believable story that she’d ever heard.

“He broke his leg on the trampoline about an hour ago and didn’t move but continued to sit on the stupid thing without calling for help. He didn’t want to add to what was going on, he told us.” The mother was sobbing, and it was the father that was telling her what had happened. “Lucy had just fallen down the stairs, prancing around like a child will do when she’d fallen. We were…we were trying to see if she’d broken anything when my wife decided that she might need more than we could handle. That’s when we found Roger sitting in the middle of the trampoline, hurt and crying. I can’t imagine the kind of pain he was in when he did that. It broke my heart how much he worried about his sister. He actually said for us to go on to the hospital so that she could be looked at.”

The father cried then. Layla had to fight hard in not joining them in their sorrow. She usually wasn’t such a softy, but the tone of their voices and the way they were holding onto each other made her believe everything that they had told her.

It took her all of two hours to get done with the shift she was on. The hospital was very busy for the better part of the day into the evening. When she was clocking out, she had a moment of pause when there was a code blue called out for the fifth floor. David was standing there, just outside his office, when he told her to go home. She’d worked more than enough today. Thinking that he was right, exhaustion slammed her hard, and she barely made it out to her car. She was so tired right then.

For the rest of the afternoon and well into the evening, all she did was lay on the couch that had been delivered the day before and got caught up on some of her emails. At six, when they were to have dinner, she made her way to the kitchen to see what was on the menu. Anything she decided as she was famished by then.

Madison and Kyle had shown up while she’d been resting, and Layla was so happy to see them. After getting hugs and seeing the clothing that Madison had gotten for the young man, she relayed the information that she’d gotten from the boy’s attorney.

“So I have to go into the system, and that system is you and Mr. Madison. I didn’t know that was an option.” She told him that she hadn’t known either. “But he’s also telling me that this is a temporary situation and I shouldn’t get too comfy.”

“I don’t think that I said that, Kyle. He said that he wants the best for you, and they have to find out if you have any other relatives out there and he didn’t know how long that would take. See? I never mentioned you not getting comfy.” Layla hugged Kyle when it looked to her that he still didn’t believe her. “We’ll talk about this and the options that we have and see what we can do about this.”

“I would like this to be my forever home. I mean, you already know what a stellar kid I am. Right?” She looked at Madison. There was no way that she was—

“If we can, would you like to adopt him? I’m all for it if you are. I know that we have a lot of stuff to sort out, mostly about your sleeping down the hall, but that would be an easy fix, don’t you think?” When she looked at him, he winked at her, and she had to smile.

Madison had been flirting with her for the last few days. Touching her softly. Curling her hair around her ear when he was around. He’d even massaged her feet when she came home from a particularly long shift. Telling him that she’d love to be a mother before becoming a wife, he suddenly stood up only to get down on one knee to hold a beautifully wrapped box in front of her.

“I should have done this weeks ago. I know you would say that I’ve been a prick, mean ass, and even a bastard, anyone that has been around me would attest to that.” She didn’t say anything, not agreeing or disagreeing with him. He laughed. “All right. But since I’ve realized that I’m in love with you I then wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. And with Kyle, if you’d like.”

“I would like that. Are you getting to the point sometime soon? My dinner is getting cold and I’m—” Madison told her that he was getting there, that she needed to hush. “Yes, of course. Get to the point, however.”

“I think that I’ve picked the most unromantic woman in all the world.” Kyle kicked him, and they both laughed. “All right. I saw this ring, and I knew that it was perfect for you. The color of the diamonds were the perfect color of your blue eyes. The band even has that slight curve to it that reminds me of your lovely hair. Layla Jean Marks Walsh, will you settle for me? Have as many children as you wish with me? Make me not just a better man but also to take me as your partner, whatever trouble that you wish to get into? I love you, my darling wife.”

Kyle kicked him again, and Madison turned to the younger man, telling him that he’d forgotten what he’d told him. About the house and, for heaven’s sake, put the ring on her finger.

“I don’t want this to get out there, but I’ve been taking romantic advice from a ten-year-old. We did good, didn’t we?” Kyle rolled his eyes and left them there. He came back just as Madison was standing up and pulling her into his arms as he slipped the ring on her finger. As she knew it would be, it was a perfect fit.

“I’m starving. I’d leave you now to get on with whatever you have plans for, but I’m too hungry to let you continue. Plus, now that I’ve seen the two of you together, kissing—gross, I don’t like that the two of you are around me when you do that. Please. Let’s just eat so I can go to my room. Blah.” She and Madison, much to Kyle’s embarrassment, kissed him on his cheek, too. She was so much in love with the kid that she found herself thinking of him as her favorite son. Even though they didn’t have any children yet.

After dinner the three of them sat around the living room talking about the upcoming trial for the law firm of Schuster and Schuster. It had seemed like such a prestigious firm but it was only two brothers who had inherited it from their father. As they had no children, either of them, it was going to be sold for the name and clients. That was before all this crap started to hit the firm. Other families had had the same thing happen to them as it turned out and the people were coming out of the walls it seemed to get their portion of whatever was left of their funds.

She supposed that she was one of the lucky ones as they’d not been able to get to her money. But they did find out that they’d been gambling on the horses, thinking that with her money to cover it, they’d be rich sometime soon. Idiots. What the hell were they thinking? They weren’t. That’s what had happened.

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