All for Maddie (5 page)

Fuck him. I wasn’t letting
him ruin my night. It wasn’t that often that I had a night with friends,
without my daughter. I wasn’t about to let him get to me. If he insisted on
doing whatever it was he thought he was doing, I would give it right back. I
turned back to Naomi and took the lead, placed my hand on her hipbone, held my
bottle of beer out, and swayed my hips with hers.

I sat the next one out,
needing a breather and another beer. I not only had Jaron staring at me, I now
had Alex too. I didn’t give a shit. I was drunk and carefree. I grabbed Jaron’s
tattooed arm and pulled him toward Charlie, Ryan, Naomi, and now Charlie’s wife
Ada when ACDC started, letting me know what highway I was on. I sang it at the
top of my lungs as Jaron swayed into my ass. I turned toward him, placing one
leg between his and let him grind into my front. Jaron could move. He was sexy
as hell when he danced.

He laughed and pulled me to
him as the song ended, and the weatherman let us know of a possible
thunderstorm after midnight.

“Let’s get out of here,” I
whispered. “It’s going to storm.”

Jaron laughed and took my
hand. He was okay with that request.

“Hey, where you guys going?”
Naomi called. I turned my gaze right to Alex staring at me with a vengeful
glare. What the hell was that guy’s problem?

“Where do you think we’re
going,” I taunted Alex more than Naomi.

“You can’t drive. You’re
drunk,” she protested, not wanting me to leave.

“I can drive a golf cart
drunk,” I assured her.

“Oh no, you can’t. I’m
driving,” Jaron said.

“See, Jaron wants to drive. I
love the way Jaron drives. Jaron is an amazing driver,” I called to her.

“Get your ass over here, you
dirty girl,” Jaron laughed, sliding me over.

Reed was okay in bed. He got
the job done, but Jaron was awesome in bed. Jaron wanted to do more than jump
on and jump off. Jaron always made me explode time after time.

I was ripping his shirt off
before we made it up the porch steps. We both laughed when we fell, landing him
on top of me as I continued to undress him.

“You want it right here?” he
asked, lifting my shirt over my head. I let him. I didn’t care. I didn’t have
any close proximity neighbors. He could do me right there.

I reached for his belt buckle
and he stopped. “Get your ass in the house,” he demanded. I spun around,
laughing again as we both stumbled our way inside.

“You smell like a campfire,”
he accused, unbuttoning my jeans and walking me backwards toward my bedroom.

“My pussy doesn’t,” I
laughed. It was the beer. Had I been sober, I would have never talked like that
and never would I have said something like that to Reed. No way, he was too
straight and narrow. Jaron was rough around the edges and had a smooth bad boy
persona about him. Jaron was also thirty-five. I was only twenty-one. My dad
would have killed him if he ever found out that Jaron was the one who taught me
things that would make your head spin and your toes curl.

“You want me to smell your
pussy?” Jaron asked.

“No, I want you to taste my
pussy and then let me taste it,” I countered. He laughed.

“You just made my dick get
hard,” he assured.

“Good, let me see,” I coxed.

“No, I have to taste you
first, remember?”

“Okay,” I agreed, sliding out
of my jeans.

“No panties?” Jaron asked,
eyeing me from the waist down.

“I knew I wouldn’t need them
tonight.”

“I love a girl with no
panties.”

I pulled myself back on my
elbows as Jaron crawled over me, kissing me down my chest as he did.

“I love a girl with no bra
too,” he hinted, unsnapping it with one hand.

I slid it off my shoulders and
to the floor.

Jaron took my nipple into his
mouth and tugged gently, sending shivers down my spine and straight to my
throbbing sex. There was nothing like drunk sex with Jaron. He did things to me
that made my insides coil.

“Get down there, Jaron,” I
demanded, needing the attention on my aching core.

He snickered and moved south.
I opened my legs and dropped my head as he stroked me, slowly all the way to my
sensitive nub. I moaned once I felt him suck tenderly on my clit, sending my
eyes rolling back into my head. Okay, this wasn’t going to last long.

“Hmm, right there Jaron,
right there,” I moaned, feeling the build of an unbelievable orgasm. Jaron
inserted two fingers and massaged my upper wall, stimulating my g-spot. That
did it. I was practically screaming as my juices flowed.

Jaron didn’t give me time to
recover, before he was moving up my body and holding me to my request of
tasting myself on his mouth. I did taste myself and moaned again as he moved
into me, kissing me. I tasted more beer than myself after a few moments. I was
going to be sore the next day.
That
I was sure of. That’s another thing
about Jaron; he twisted you into more positions than the normal mind could
think of.

“Shit, Jaron, STOP!” I
shouted, remembering the fact that we had forgotten the condom.

“Where are they?” he asked,
sliding out of me, knowing exactly what it was we needed.

“In the nightstand drawer.”

Jaron slid on the condom and flipped
me over moving in behind me where he finally broke, sending us both over the
edge and collapsing to the bed in heavy pants.

“Jesus Christ, girl,” he
rasped and then laughed when he picked up a little shoe in my bed.

I laughed, breathing the same
speedy breaths as him.

“You’ve got to go,” I said.

“Yeah, okay. Did you want to
pay me now or later,” he asked, being a smartass.

“Hmmm? I think I already paid
you,” I protested, squirming from beneath him. “Or you could just stay and let
my dad pay you when he brings Maddie home in a few hours.”

“Nope, I’m good on that,” he
assured me sliding into his jeans. “And you did not pay me. I didn’t get a blow
job.”

“Next time. I promise.”

I sat on my porch watching
Jaron drive down the dirt road in my golf cart. He wouldn’t bring it back. I
would either have to hitch a ride with my dad or walk back to the resort. Leaned
up against the wooden balustrade I let my mind wonder to where it didn’t want
to go, but needed to.

Why the hell was Alex there? He
had never been there before. Was he really feeling that guilty for what he did?
Maybe I should talk to him and let up. We were just kids. Maybe he wasn’t that
kind of man. Maybe it was only that one time and he felt horrible. But Maddie,
I couldn’t let him know about her. My dad, I couldn’t let him know either. One
thought led to the next, until I was reliving that horrific time in my life.
Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Maddie was my whole
world, and if I had to be raped to have her, I’d do it all over again.

I never got the chance to
think about an abortion. I waited too long. I was almost five months pregnant
before my dad found out. Dana had walked into my room when I was standing in
front of the mirror and turned sideways, contemplating on how much longer I
could hide it. Her mouth fell clear to the floor and she sank to my bed, white
as a ghost.

“Oh my God, Whit. Your dad is
going to flip. What have you done?”

I started bawling. He was
going to kill me. He thought I was this perfect little girl. How could I tell
him that I was pregnant? He was going to be so disappointed in me.

“Who, Whitley?”

“I cried harder.” I couldn’t
tell him or her that either. I wasn’t even supposed to be at that party. There
was no way that I could tell either of them that Alex Wesson raped me. I not
only got pregnant my first time, I was raped my first time. You would think you
had a better chance of getting hit by lighting than that. I was so scared and
had no idea what I was going to do.

Of course, I lied and said
that it was a boy by the made up name of Jason, someone that had spent the week
at the resort. My dad was beyond furious with me, and I’d never felt the shame
like I felt at that moment. I knew at that moment that nobody would ever know
what Alex Wesson did to me. Not even Kylie. She assumed the same thing as
everyone else and was pretty quick to jump on the angry wagon with everybody
else. She was under the assumption that I had lost my virginity to some hot boy
that stayed at the resort, and that I didn’t tell her. I would take that
skeleton to my grave.

<><><> 

I did have to walk out the
dirt road back to the resort. My dad never came back with Maddie and of course,
Jaron never brought my golf cart to me. Not that I expected he would. My head
hurt like hell, my legs were sore from being twisted into unique positions, and
I had cottonmouth from all the beer.

“You look rough,” my dad
stated as I entered the main gate office.

“Mommy!” Maddie yelled,
running to me.

“Hi, pretty girl,” I said,
picking her up. “I feel rough,” I told my dad, going straight for the coffee
that nobody seemed to be able to make but me. Oh, but they didn’t have a
problem emptying the damn thing. Okay, so I was a little irritable.

“Jump down, sweetie,” I said,
sliding Maddie down my body and to the desk in front of my dad.

“I feed a fish,” Madelyn
stated. I gave my dad a dirty look.

“We already fed the fish,” he
reminded her.

“I feed em again,” she said,
holding his face between her little hands.

“In a little bit,” he said,
kissing her lips.

“You’re such a sucker,” I
accused while filling the pot. That little girl had my dad wrapped so tight
around her finger it was pathetic. But in his defense, I too had that effect on
him growing up. It was just him and me until he met Dana when I was ten. I used
to control the string around his finger. I guess I still did to a certain
point. I knew there was nothing that my dad wouldn’t do for me. Moreover, I
couldn’t be happier that he had accepted my baby and loved her as much as he
did.

“Dana Ray, you forgot to set
the trash out. You look rough,” my stepmom said, entering through the back
door.

“Thanks,” I said, willing the
coffee to drip faster. “You have to deal with this for a little bit, Dana,” I
begged, seeing the first car heading to the office to checkout. I couldn’t deal
with it yet. Not until I had some caffeine in my system.

“Well, I was going to deal
with all of it. You’re off this weekend, remember?”

“Shit, I am. What am I doing
here?”

“Shit,” Maddie just had to
say. Why did she only say the words that were going to get me that look from my
dad? Yup, that one right there.

“Let’s get out of here
Maddie, before Papaw puts us to work.”

“I have a feed a fish.” She
stomped the red cowboy boot to the floor. It was the middle of summer. Why she
insisted on wearing those damn things was beyond me. They looked lovely with her
lavender shorts and pink top.

“Are you taking your bike
home?” my dad asked, derailing her fish thoughts.

“I have a ride it. You watch
me, K?” she said taking my hand.

I carried the bike down the
steps and set it on the blacktop. I kept her at the front of the lot when I saw
the white sports car coming our way. Thank God he was leaving. I never looked in
his direction when he got out of his car, leaving the blonde waiting in the
passenger seat.

“You feeling okay?” Jaron
yelled from the dining room deck.

I couldn’t yell the choice of
words that I wanted to, not with Maddie there anyway. I smirked and tilted my
head, hoping he could see my go to hell expression. My eyes were literally away
from Maddie for a split second. I quickly turned when I heard the thud and then
the scream. She drove right into the side of Alex’s sports car as he pulled
out.

I picked her up and looked at
her. “You’re okay. You have to watch what you’re doing.”

Alex jumped out and ran his
hand over the side of his very expensive front fender.

“You almost ran over my kid,
and you’re worried about your car?” I asked, rubbing Maddie’s back.

“Hey, you okay?” he asked,
touching her arm. I turned, jerking her away from him.

Maddie just had to go and
look up at him. I will never forget the look in his face. It was like an
instant realization. He stared at her in disbelief. I was praying to God
almighty himself, that he didn’t see it. That he didn’t see the same little
cowlick on the right side of her forehead that he had, that he didn’t notice
the same uniquely gray, green eyes that he had, or that he didn’t relate her
long dark lashes to his. He did. I knew he did. It was written all over his
face.

“Whitley?” he said in question.

I picked up the bike and
stormed away with my daughter. I knew what he was asking, and I wasn’t
answering.

Maddie and I spent the day at
our little beach. I packed us a picnic. We sat in the sand eating peanut butter
and banana sandwiches, chips, and spear pickles. I didn’t pick the combination.
She did. Maddie loved her pickles. You could bet they were on my grocery list
practically every Saturday morning.

“Did you have a fun
birthday?” I asked, pulling a strand of hair from her mouth.

“Uh-huh, I have a birfday a
morrow too.”

“You can’t have another
birthday till you are four.”

“I be four a morrow.”

I wasn’t even going to try. I
would hear about her birthday for a few days yet, and then she would forget it.
I picked my phone up, hearing the beep and read the text message from Reed,
You
want to get together later?

“What that say?” Maddie
wanted to know, leaning over my leg to see for herself.

“It says Madelyn Rae Bradshaw
is the prettiest little girl in the whole world. She should finish her
sandwich,” I pretended to read. She giggled.

No not tonight, long
weekend
, I texted back. I couldn’t handle Reed, not that it would have
lasted long, but still.

“What that say?” Maddie
asked.

“It says: Madelyn Rae
Bradshaw looks like she is ready for a nap.”

“Her not,” Maddie assured me,
looking up to me.

I cleaned up our picnic while
Maddie played in the shallow stream, and then sat in the sand watching her and
of course contemplating Alex. I wasn’t overly worried. It wasn’t like I had
ever come after him for anything. I didn’t need anything from him. I would have
burned his money had he offered it, right after I spit in his face. I mean, the
nerve. Why the hell would he think it was okay to come here? Did he think he
was going to impress me with his fancy sports car? Make me jealous by bringing
his little bimbo here? I didn’t get it. What would be his motive to show up
here?

“I done now,” Maddie decided.
I knew it was just a matter of time. I’d already seen her yawn three times. I
stood and picked up our bag.

“Put your shoes on so you
don’t step on a bee,” I coaxed.

“You carry me?”

Ugh…I put her shoes in the
bag and picked her up, feeling the wet from her shorts soak my shirt.

“You’re getting too big,” I
said kissing her cheek. She was tired, I could tell.

“I have a birfday a morrow,”
she assured me.

Nope. No comment. Not going
there, again.

Not only did Maddie have a
nice long nap, so did her mommy. She fell asleep on the loveseat watching the
new movie that I would see a hundred more times, I was sure, and I napped on
the couch,.

It was almost four in the
evening before I woke, instantly turning to the loveseat to find it empty, only
the crumpled up blanket and pillow remained. I looked to the door. Phew, she
hadn’t escaped. I sat up and looked toward the kitchen, no mess. Two for two,
this might not be as bad as I was accustomed to. I slid off the couch and
looked in her room to find her sitting on the floor, playing with the new dollhouse
that Jaron had gotten her.

“Hey baby,” I said, smiling
at her, happy that she woke up happy.

“Dis mommy have a cwean a
house,” she explained, holding up the mommy doll.

“This mommy needs to do that
too,” I also decided.

<><><> 

I hadn’t heard a word from or
about Alex in over two weeks. I quickly forgot all about him, and settled my
nerves. Not that I was expecting to hear from him. I was sure that the Maddie
scare had sent him running for the hills.

 I went back to my normal
life at the resort, continuing my routine. Saturday morning grocery shopping
entailed of Maddie standing beside me in the truck until we got to the main
road, and then forcing her into her seat, screaming of course. Sunday
afternoons were spent at our special little sandy beach. Bath time continued to
be crying with the whole soap in my eyes deal. The work week consisted of
either waiting tables or working the front office and yes, I still needed Reed.
He was safer than Jaron. Jaron was my occasional drunk sex, Reed just kept me
satisfied. I didn’t need nor did I want any more than that. My spoiled rotten
child kept me plenty entertained.

Friday morning was crazy busy
in the front office. Every cabin in the entire resort was booked, all thirty-five
of them. Not counting all of the tent campers checking in. I no sooner got one
guest checked in and another would be pulling in. It was still irrational at
one o’clock in the afternoon. Thank God, Jaron had volunteered to come and get
Maddie for me. I couldn’t keep one eye on her with the traffic coming in and
out.

I saw the well-dressed man
pick up a jar of the homemade strawberry jelly and look around the little
store. I never understood why people like him came here. You could tell he was
a city slicker. At least change your clothes. This was a camp ground with a
river, fish, campfires, and I was sure this guy wasn’t used to roughing it.

“Sorry about that. It’s kind
of crazy around here this time of year,” I said to the man when it was finally
his turn. “Last name?” I asked, turning to the computer.

“Oh, I’m not here to check
in. I’m here to serve you. I just need a signature right here, stating that you
did receive the legal documents.”

“Legal documents?”

“Yes ma’am. You are Whitley
Bradshaw, correct?”

“Yes. Legal documents for
what?” I asked, hoping that it had nothing to do with what my mind was playing
out.

“Just sign right here Miss,
and you can open it for yourself.”

I signed the line that had my
name printed out beside it. I felt the lump in my throat, but it was nothing
compared to the one that just balled up in my stomach when I read the header. ‘River
County Municipal Court.’ I didn’t get to read any of it. I had to slide it
under the keyboard when my dad walked in.

“What’s wrong? You sick?” my
dad asked, seeing the expression on my face.

“Uh, no. I’m not sick. What’s
up?” I asked, feigning sanity.

“Naomi will be late tonight.
Can you work the dining room for a couple hours?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“You are sick. No
complaining?” he asked with a frown.

I smiled as much as possible.
“No, Maddie needs a new pair of cowboy boots. She won’t stop wearing hers, and
they are getting too small. I don’t mind. I’ll work the dining room.”

“I can buy her a pair of
cowboy boots, Whit.”

“I know you can. I don’t want
you to. I can handle it.”

He smiled a proud smile.
“Where is she?”

“Jaron came and took her for
me. It’s been crazy here this morning.”

“Dana is almost done with
breakfast. I’ll have her go get her.”

“She doesn’t have to. Mathew
will be here in an hour. She’s fine. She loves hanging out with Jaron.”

“Yeah, but I’m not so sure I
like her hanging out with Jaron. I’m afraid of her leaving with a tattoo or her
right ear pierced or something,” he joked.