Page 36 of Defending Madison

I smirk. “You’re always so interested in feeding me.”

“Of course. I love to watch you eat. It’s one of my favorite pastimes.”

He’s wearing me down. “What the fuck is going on, Dixon?”

He gently pulls my arm and leads us to a bench. “I think you should call me ‘Preston’.”

My forehead furrows, my brain scrambles for a pithy response but all I come up with is his first name. A name I’ve never used before. “Why Preston?”

He pulls out his phone and taps it, handing it to me. “Listen.”

I take the phone and put it to my ear. He’s talking like he’s leaving a message. “I’m sorry, Madison. I fucked up. Brian is making me leave you without telling you. I’ve just left you in bed. I was planning to go for a run and then waking you and making love to you again. Maybe leaving is for the best.” He exhales. “This is so hard for me to admit, but you scare me.” He laughs, and it sounds like when someone is nervous. “I never imagined finding someone to claim as my own. It’s probably why I didn’t give a second thought to marrying Meredyth. She was the safe choice. I knew she’d never want anything else from me. But you, you’ll demand everything from the man you choose, and I wasn’t ready. I had a dangerous job. It wouldn’t be fair to commit to you and then get killed. So, I’m going to bide my time until the stars align, you realize I’m the man for you, and forgive me. Then wecan be together. Hopefully I won’t continue to fuck it up as we go along. Oh, I should have told you about my marriage.”

Madison watches a young family as they stroll around our bench. It’s time for me to come clean. I take out my phone to open the recording app and press play. I hold the phone out to her as she turns her head to me.

“What is this?”

My voice narrates my thoughts about Madison from a few weeks before. “I made a mistake in leaving you without saying goodbye. I can only imagine how much I hurt you when you realized I had left. I cringe at the thought that you might never forgive me. Please forgive me…” She hands the phone back to me and I press pause.

“There are hundreds of messages like that. Most of them are on the cloud, which I had to buy more space because of all of them.”

“When did you leave this message?”

“It was after I left you that morning after hunting.”

I turn and slug my fist into his chest. “So, you’ve shared everything to this imaginary message app, but not me?”

He pulls me into his arms. “I’m sorry. I thought it would be best to wait until you were ready, and then I realized I can’t make that decision. I kept myself at arm’s length, keeping tabs on you from afar, but not engaging except when we ran into each other. That was wrong. Let’s start over. I’m claiming you, Madison. That’s why I want you to call me Preston. So, we can put the past behind us and start fresh.”

I push back. “Dixon, I don’t need to call you something else. I don’t know if I can just start over.”

He sets his forehead against mine. “Please try. I want to be the man you deserve. I want to build a life together.”

My brain is struggling to absorb the plethora of information. “What makes you think you’re ready now?”

He whispers. “I think about you all the time. You’re the most important thing in my life. When I think of the future, I think of you. I’m retired. I can follow you anywhere you go.”

Squeals and chatters from monkeys in the zoo break the surrounding silence. I kiss his cheek. “I need time to…”

I hug her tight. “Take the time you need. I’m not going to leave you ever again.” I stand and take her hand, helping her to rise. “Let’s go see those obnoxious monkeys.”

DIXON

Madison sleeps against me as I chat with Cameron on the flight back to Dallas. He’s another Campbell cousin and one of the owners of the Quad. “How’d you guys put together the Quad?”

“There are six of us who talked about figuring out how to live near each other. Our grandparents, of course, offered us land to build on at their ranch, but we wanted to be in the city. My brother, Calder, happened upon three of the properties in the area for sale. He went in search of more property to make a larger complex. The abandoned hotel needed a lot of work when we bought it at an auction. The warehouse where we made the condos was the perfect place for us all to live together.”

I nod. “You’re lucky to have family.”

His brow lifts. “You don’t have family?” I glance to the sleeping woman next to me as Cameron smiles. “No other family?”

Shaking my head, I stroke Madison’s arm. “I’m an orphan. I had group homes and one good foster home. My foster motherwas kind, but she took in kids to supplement her income, so no. No other family.”

“That sucks, man. Does she know how you feel?” He gestures to Madison.

I chuckle. “She’s figuring it out. I gave Madison access to the messages I’d left myself over the years, so she has a good idea how much she means to me. Now, I just need her to forgive me for being stupid and let me in.”

The plane wheels run along the tarmac at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. I nudge Madison. “Sweetheart, wake up.”

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