Grave Homecoming (A Maddie Graves Mystery Book 1) by Lily Harper Hart Page B

No, what she had to do was step up her game. Cassidy was determined to claim Nick as her own, and she wasn’t going to let Maddie stand in her way. Nothing was going to stand in her way.

Seven
    “Thanks for giving me a ride home,” Maddie said, shifting in the passenger seat of Nick’s truck and fixing him with a small smile as they idled. “You didn’t have to. I would’ve walked. It was only a few blocks.”
    “You were a little shaken up,” Nick said. “I don’t blame you. It’s not every day that you stumble across a dead body – especially in Blackstone Bay.”
    “No,” Maddie agreed, rubbing her temple to ward off an imminent headache. “You expect it in the city. You don’t expect it here.”
    Nick smirked. “Did you see a lot of dead bodies when you were down south?”
    “Just a few,” Maddie murmured.
    Nick stilled. “Are you being serious? I can’t tell.”
    Maddie shook her head. “Oh, sorry, I was just … .”
    “Maddie, tell me what you were just thinking,” Nick prodded.
    Maddie searched his face, fighting the urge to reach out and touch it. When they were younger, she couldn’t stop herself from touching him. Even now, that’s all she really wanted to do. “I was just thinking that my life is … a mess.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I made it that way,” Maddie replied, shrugging.
    “How?”
    Maddie averted her eyes from his. It made it easier to fight the urge to touch him. “You know, when I left Blackstone Bay, I had no intention of coming back. I thought … I thought it would be so much easier to start a new life in a place where no one knew me. I just didn’t want to be … me.”
    “What was so bad about being you, Mad? I happened to like you a great deal.”
    “You were the only one.”
    “That’s not true,” Nick said.
    “It is,” Maddie said. “All I had was you, and Mom, and Granny … and a world of people who looked down on me.”
    Nick rolled his neck, cracking it as he bobbed his head. “Maddie, I’m not saying that growing up here was easy for you, but it wasn’t as hard as you seem to remember. I know there were some girls – stupid Marla Proctor – who terrorized you.  They didn’t hate you because they looked down on you, though. They hated you because they were jealous of you. You just don’t seem to realize it. That’s high school, though. You’re an adult now.”
    “I don’t feel like an adult,” Maddie said, pushing the rest of his statement out of her mind so she could mull it over later.
    “What made you decide to come home?” Nick asked. “Was it really just because Olivia died?”
    “No,” Maddie said. “I’ve spent the past five years wanting to come home.”
    “You have?” Nick seemed surprised. “Why didn’t you just come home then?”
    “I was scared to,” Maddie admitted.
    “What’s so scary, Mad?”
    Maddie didn’t answer him, at least not head on. “When I left, I didn’t think I was running away from anything. I really didn’t. I thought I was running toward something.”
    “What were you running toward?”
    “Freedom.”
    “And did you find that?”
    “Not in the least,” Maddie said. “I found … nothing. It wasn’t what I thought it would be. Once I was out in the real world, I just wanted to … come home.”
    “Why didn’t you?”
    “I was scared to see you,” Maddie said, her voice small.
    Nick shifted in his seat. “Why? Was it because of the way you left?”
    “I need you to know, I never meant to hurt you,” Maddie said, lifting her tear-filled eyes so they were even with his. “I just thought it would be easier. I used to sit by the phone and wait for you to call when I was in college. It was … painful. Then we’d talk for twenty minutes, and I would be miserable the whole week waiting for you to call again.”
    “I wasn’t happy either,” Nick said. “I missed you. I missed you a heck of a lot more when you stopped taking my phone calls.”
    “I thought a clean break would