First Chapter: Blindsided by Victoria Denault
Maggie
Pick up the phone for once, my brain hisses as I hook a left onto North Avenue and force myself to slow down. The last thing I need right now is a speeding ticket on top of everything else. Of course, since I’m headed to the police station I could just pay it when I get there, which would be convenient.
“You are seriously the only person I know who still actually calls people.” My sister Daisy’s voice fills my car suddenly. She doesn’t even bother with hello. “Even Uncle Ben and Uncle Bobby just text. What is wrong with you? If you’re trying to bring back phone calls, like high-waisted jeans or something, give it up.”
“You know who doesn’t text? Clyde,” I say sharply.
“Because he’s usually drunk,” Daisy says about our grandfather. She’s not being vicious, just factual. “And he dropped the only cell phone we ever gave him into a glass of whiskey.”
“Well he couldn’t text even if he wanted to right now because he’s IN JAIL.” I bark out those last two words as loudly as I can. My eyes dart down to my speedometer and I ease off the gas pedal.
“What?” Daisy replies, shocked. “Our grandfather is in jail?”
“According to my Tinder date, yes,” I reply as the light in front of me turns red and I’m forced to stop, and curse.
“Your Tinder date told you Clyde is in jail?” Daisy repeats and I can picture her lying on the lounger on the balcony of our dilapidated rental, a textbook beside her, pretending she’s studying when what she’s really doing is soaking up some of the last rays of sun before the fall days turn chilly. “How is this getting more confusing?”
“My Tinder date turned out to be a cop named Matt and Matt was meeting me on his lunch break, in uniform, because—and I quote—chicks dig the uniform,” I explain.
“Okay so we’re not seeing him again,” Daisy interjects flatly.
“No. We are not,” I agree and continue. “Anyway, when I told him my last name he got this weird look on his face and asked if I knew an old man named Clyde Todd, because he just arrested him for getting into a fist fight at city hall.”
“Who the hell was Clyde brawling with?” Daisy gasps. “Why was he at city hall? Are you sure it’s not mistaken identity?”
“Clyde Todd, age seventy, owner of the Todd Farm out on Route 2A,” I say and turn into the police station parking lot. I turn off my car and the call cuts out on my Bluetooth system so I grab my phone off the passenger seat next to my purse. “I’m at the police station now.”
“Okay. Keep me posted.”
“Will do.”
I get out of the car and march across the small lot to the squat, one story red brick building. I burst through the front doors and beeline straight to the counter. “Hi there, I’m Maggie Todd,” I say to the officer sitting there. His shirt says Martinez. Burlington isn’t a big city, but I haven’t had a lot of interaction with our police department, so I don’t know him. “Officer Martinez, sir, I was told my grandfather is here. Clyde Todd.”
“Ah yes. This morning’s public disturbance. Don’t know if we’re charging him with disorderly conduct, battery or public intoxication. Maybe all three,” he says easily, like this is no big deal. “Just have a seat over there with Mr. Adler. The arresting officer will see you both in a minute.”
Mr. Adler? That could be a few different men, and none of them would be a welcome sight. I’d been so focused when I walked in I hadn’t noticed anyone else in the lobby. I slowly turn from Officer Martinez to the pine bench against the far wall. Manspreading all over it like he owns it is my least favorite Adler. The one I have to spend every waking hour avoiding because we inhabit the same college campus. Tate Adler.
He’s glaring at me so I glare right back, and then walk over and sit on the complete opposite end of the bench, pressing myself into the arm so I can be as far away from him as humanly possible.
I stare straight ahead so I don’t have to see his shock of tousled dark hair and his wide shoulders or bulging biceps that poke out of his white T-shirt and always look like they’re flexing even when they’re not. But Tate is looking at me. I can feel his eyes still on me and I fight the urge to blush. I’m not embarrassed, but any time I get elevated emotions of almost any kind—from annoyed to sad to elated—my skin tends to pink. The joy of a very pale complexion. I blame the recessive redhead genes Daisy and I were both saddled with. I tap my foot as we wait because I’m so agitated the energy has to go somewhere.
“Can you not do that?” Tate’s deep baritone fills the room and he drops his head into his hands, elbows on his widespread knees. “Just sit still.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I reply coolly and tap my foot even harder, making sure the bottom of my sandal slaps the scuffed linoleum floor in the loudest way possible.
He groans to the point of almost growling.
“Am I exacerbating your little hangover? Maybe you shouldn’t have gone on a bender last night.”
“I’m not hungover. I’m just tired,” he replies. “Unlike you, I don’t go to every party on campus.”
I raise an eyebrow at that. I do go out a lot. I’m a college student, enjoying my life. But he’s a college sports star and last year, which was my freshman year as well as his, I saw him with a beer in his hand almost as often as a hockey stick. Not that I was looking for him, but Moo U and the city of Burlington are too small not to notice a guy you’ve known and disliked since birth. Especially when he’s also a hometown hero, which is how a lot of locals see him. Small town boy with big time talent and all that crap. “Why are you paying attention to where I go and what I do? Stalker, much?”
“Hardly. You’re hard to miss with the orange hair and ghost skin and that doppelgänger who follows you everywhere,” he mutters, and my jaw falls open.
“First of all, doppelgängers are unrelated people who look identical,” I correct him tersely. “And second of all, we’re not twins. She’s a year younger than me and I have freckles, but Daisy doesn’t. I have hazel eyes, hers are brown. And she’s taller by, like, two inches.”
He looks up from the linoleum in front of him long enough to give me an apathetic smile as he shrugs. “If you say so. I’ve never looked at either of you long enough to find a difference. As soon as I see you coming I turn around and walk in the other direction.”
“Really?” I shoot him a smile dipped in acid. “You usually have your head so far up your own ass I’m surprised you see anyone else at all.”
“Are you two going to start brawling like your granddads?” Officer Martinez asks.
My head snaps back around to the dark oak desk where officer Martinez sits watching us with concern. “Clyde punched George Adler?”
“Why else do you think I’m sitting here?” Tate asks me.
“Not just punched,” Officer Martinez says before I can answer Tate. “They were rolling around on the marble floor at city hall in front of the clerk. Kicking, punching, biting.”
“Biting?” Tate and I say in unison and then glare at each other before turning back to Martinez who nods vigorously.
“Oh yeah. Well, there’s no mark but George swears Clyde bit him.” Martinez chuckles but tries to cover it with a clearing of his throat. “I bet they’d have pulled each other’s hair if either of them had enough of it.”
He can’t hide his chuckle now so he excuses himself and heads down the hall mumbling something about going to see what’s taking the arresting officer so long. I turn back to Tate. “What did your grandfather do to get Clyde so upset?”
Tate rolls his eyes. “Oh please, everyone knows Clyde is an angry drunk.”
I open my mouth to combat that claim only it’s true. I could say something like “but it’s noon, not cocktail hour,” but for all I know Clyde had a couple before he left the house this morning. He usually carries a flask in his back pocket, so I don’t really have a leg to stand on. “Well George isn’t exactly known for his empathy and good cheer. At least not where we are concerned. He’s attacked my family verbally as far back as I can remember, so I’m sure he’s the one who escalated it to physical abuse.”
“Your granddad once came to one of my hockey games to yell insults at me,” Tate reminds me, those dark green eyes of his narrowed with disdain. “I was freaking twelve years old and he was in the stands chirping me like I was an NHL star on his most hated team.”
I vaguely remember this story. I would have been twelve too and my uncle Bobby was the coach of the local team that Tate was on. “Yeah but didn’t your grandfather used to show up to practices and scream obscenities at my uncle because he thought you weren’t getting enough ice time?”
“Tate Adler. Maggie Todd,” a voice booms from nearby and Tate and I both jump to our feet. Another police officer marches toward us. He’s big, burly, and frowning. Beside him is Ethel, the town clerk. She’s a tiny little silver-haired lady in a T-shirt with an airbrushed cat on the front. She’s smiling at us, but it’s awkward. The officer glances from Tate to me and back to Tate again. “You had a killer season last year, Tate. First time I can remember that a Burlington defensemen has led the division in shorthanded goals.”
Tate smiles, his shoulders go back and he nods. “Yeah, it was a great season. Although personally, I’d have liked to win the division.”
“That’s what this year is for, right?” The officer chuckles and I want to groan in disgust at this love fest but instead I bite my lip and read his name on his shirt.
“Officer Humphries, can you tell us what’s going on with our grandfathers please?” I interrupt with a polite smile.
“We’ve got them back there in separate cells so they can calm down. So far neither one wants to press charges against the other,” Officer Humphries explains. “I just finished taking Mrs. Morris’s statement since the incident happened directly in front of her.”
Tate smiles warmly at Ethel. “I’m so sorry you had to witness that. Is there anything I can do, Mrs. Morris?”
Ethel smiles at him like she’s a schoolgirl looking at her crush. “You can call me Ethel, Tate you sweetheart. And you don’t need to apologize. We all know George and Clyde don’t get along, but I certainly never saw them come to blows. I guess it was bound to happen eventually, but I didn’t expect it at the sign-up for the farmer’s market of all places.”
The fall farmer’s market. Of course. I sigh heavily and lift my eyes to the popcorn ceiling of the police station lobby. I asked my dad if he would head to city hall today and sign us up for a booth. The market runs year-round but has seasonal sign-up sheets as a way to help rotate vendors. He has been complaining we aren’t letting him do enough so I gave him this task. He probably wasn’t up for it though and didn’t want to admit it to me so he asked my grandfather, Clyde, to go.
My dad had a stroke in the spring – thankfully not severe, but it did affect his balance and his energy levels, which is a huge problem for a farmer. My uncles Bobby and Ben, who own a construction business, have begrudgingly jumped back into farm work part-time to help out, but it’s not exactly working out. My uncle Bobby forgot to sign us up for summer and we missed out on valuable income from the busiest market season. And now this.
“What, exactly, happened?” Tate asks gently and folds his arms over his chest, which is ridiculously broad.
“Well today was fall sign-up and everything was going smoothly, but then we got down to the last spot.” Ethel raises a hand to her chest like she’s having palpitations. Dear God, leave it to Clyde to traumatize the sweetest woman in Vermont. “George and Clyde were the only ones left in line. George was technically before Clyde. Clyde said George flirted with Katherine Oleson, who let him slip in line behind her, in front of Clyde. George denied it and Clyde called him a lying sack of…doo-doo. But he didn’t use the word doo-doo. And then George gave Clyde a rude gesture with his hands and Clyde yelled something I don’t dare repeat. And then…they just started throwing punches. It happened so fast I don’t even know who started it.”
Now Ethel is fanning herself like she’s about to faint. I step a little closer. “I’m so sorry, Ethel. Truly.”
“It’s not your fault either, honey.” Ethel stops fanning herself and pats my shoulder. “But the fact remains. We have one booth and two farms.”
“I suggested to George and Clyde that they should have to share it,” Officer Humphries says and Tate and I both tense up like we’ve been simultaneously poked with a cattle prod. He notices. “Yeah they both had the same reaction. Why do your families hate each other so much?”
“There’s not enough hours in the day to explain that to you, sir,” Tate mutters.
“His family stole some of our acreage,” I say confidently.
“Your family ran a tractor through our fence,” Tate counters.
“The fence George built on our property?” I reply. “And the gas pedal stuck. Even the police said it wasn’t our fault. You running over one of our goats on the other hand…”
“That wasn’t me, it was my cousin Raquel, and it was the middle of a whiteout blizzard so she didn’t see him. And your goat was in the middle of our driveway because you can’t seem to keep them in your own damn field,” Tate snaps.
I take a deep breath of the stale air in this stuffy room. “It was our first year goat farming. We didn’t realize they were such escape artists. Maybe if Raquel could drive without texting she’d have seen—”
“Forget I asked,” Officer Humphries interrupts. “The fact remains, though, if you guys can put these ancient grudges aside and share this booth, you both get to sell your products. Win-win.”
“No,” I say flatly.
Officer Humphries frowns. “Well then, unfortunately I have to tell you that my investigation shows there is no proof that George Adler cut the line. Ms. Oleson pleaded the fifth, and so it’s Clyde’s word against George’s word. So then the booth would technically belong to Adler Apple Farm.”
“What? Wait…”
“Okay then! Now that’s settled, can I take my grandfather home, Officer Humphries? I don’t mean to rush you but I have to get to practice this afternoon,” Tate says, smiling like a Cheshire Cat. I have seen women all over my campus swoon over that smile, but I simply want to rip it off his lips.
“I’ll release both Clyde and George, one at a time so they don’t get into another tussle. If they brawl again—anywhere, for any reason—there will be charges. Do you both understand me?” Officer Humphries says firmly.
“Yes sir,” Tate says with a smile. I nod curtly but can’t bring myself to smile.
As Officer Humphries heads off to retrieve our grandfathers, Ethel gives us a wave and heads out the front door and I turn back to Tate.
“Maybe we should rethink this sharing idea. Snap decisions are never the best ones. We could just keep Clyde and George away from the booth to avoid problems,” I say, backpedaling so hard I’m surprised I don’t break into a sweat. “Daisy and I and that younger brother of yours—Jace—could mend the fences the older generations broke.”
Tate laughs loud and hard and it makes my hands ball into fists. “I speak for both Jace and me when I say, no thank you. We’re good with keeping the booth to ourselves and the fences unmended.”
If we don’t share that booth with these assholes, we aren’t at the farmer’s market, and that’s a huge chunk of our fall income. And since we already lost our summer market income, it will be a big blow. Daisy is going to flip. My dad is going to melt down. My uncles are going to freak out. I am going to kill my grandfather.
“Do you even have enough apples to run a booth for three months?” I turn to face him, knowing my face is tomato red because I can literally feel the anger running through my veins like lava. “I know you’ve had some pretty dismal crops the last couple of years. Didn’t you have a bunch of scab apple trees?”
If looks could kill, Officer Humphries would be calling the coroner to come collect my body right about now. “Guess what? Even if we run out of apples and apple baked goods, I will find something else to sell. Hell, I’ll sell my body at that booth before I give it to you.”
“You’d be better off selling the rotten apples,” I shoot back, but he just smirks because he knows that’s not true. Tate Adler is built like some kind of action movie star—six foot one, tanned a golden-brown from the summer farm work, and the parts of him that aren’t muscled are chiseled. Ugh. Screw Tate Adler.
“You’ve only got your granny panties in a knot because it was my granddad who got there first,” Tate replies coolly. “If it was your booth, you’d tell me tough shit too and you know it.”
I turn to face him, arms folded across my chest. “You’re one hundred percent right.”
He isn’t expecting that kind of candor and the frown he’s been sporting disappears. Although I would never admit it out loud, even if I was tortured, his cupid’s bow mouth has the potential to be all kinds of sexy…if it didn’t spew the garbage his brain thinks up. “Is this some psychology-major mind game or something?”
“I’m a business major focusing on entrepreneurial studies, just like you. We have a lot of the same classes, like accounting,” I say. Since the semester started two weeks ago, I’ve watched him look up every time he entered the classroom to see where I was sitting and immediately walk to the opposite side of the room, so I know he knows this. “Also, I don’t wear granny panties. Anyway I’m agreeing that yes, I would have done the same thing, but you have the opportunity to be the bigger person here. Come on small town hockey hero, show the world you’re a bigger person than me.”
Was that too much taunting? I know hockey players love a challenge. Uncle Bobby, who was the last local player to get drafted to the NHL, has never turned down a challenge or a dare in his entire life. He swears it’s because of the competitive nature he developed playing hockey. And for the quickest little second, I think Tate might take my challenge. But George Adler appears from the bowels of the station and comes marching up to us. He’s a tall, burly man with a barrel chest and thinning gray hair that used to be dirty blond. His polo shirt and jeans are in good condition and show no signs of the scuffle he had with Clyde, but there’s a slight red abrasion on his chubby right cheek.
George stops in front of Tate, turning his entire body so that I’m behind his back, out of view, and he says to his eldest grandchild. “I’m sorry they bothered you. I had them call Raquel but she didn’t answer her phone, and they wouldn’t let me leave without supervision. Like I’m a goddamn toddler.”
Tate frowns. “If you don’t want to be treated like a toddler, Gramps, then maybe don’t get into infantile fights. Let’s go. I’m late.”
George and Tate leave without another word or even glance at me. Son of a…
The door to the back swings open again and Clyde appears in all his hunched over, bloodshot-eyed glory. He has the audacity to walk right past me and grumble. “Hurry up. I want to get the hell out of here.”
I follow behind, scowling at the back of his balding head. We’re crossing the parking lot when Matt, my brief Tinder date, pulls into the lot in his police cruiser and lowers his window. “Hey gorgeous! So it was your gramps? That’s wild!”
“Yeah. Wild,” I say tersely. Clyde has kept on marching to my car. George Adler has climbed into the passenger side of Tate’s beat-up pickup, which is only a parking stall away from where I’m standing. So of course Tate has chosen to stand beside his truck and eavesdrop over leaving. Great. Matt smiles up at me and I’m sure he’s leering at me behind those mirrored shades. In the fifteen minutes our date lasted, his eyes kept sweeping from my chest to my ankles, which made me regret the short strappy sundress I’d chosen to wear.
“So…we should probably reschedule our date, huh?” Matt lowers the sunglasses long enough to wink at me. “We had one hell of a vibe going before you ran off, didn’t we?”
I’m about to tell him the vibe he was getting from me was repulsion but I’m not in the mood for another confrontation or to have a cop in town on my bad side or to give Tate Adler more of a show. So instead I just make a weird sound in the back of my throat and mutter. “Call me.”
“I ain’t got all day, Magnolia!” Clyde barks, and I turn and leave Matt without so much as a goodbye wave. I keep my head tipped down, eyes on the pavement as I make my way past Tate. I do not want to see his reaction to any of this.
I wait a second, until Tate has pulled out of the parking lot, before pulling out myself. Clyde turns to me and opens his mouth but I slap a hand up between us. “I don’t want to hear it. You can explain at the farm—to everyone—how you got arrested and cost us a spot at the farmer’s market. Until then, not a word, Clyde.”
“Mag—”
“Not. One. Word!”