“And?”
“And…” She absently scratched her thigh. “And they are nothing like what I thought they would be.”
“Okay. Tell me everything,” Trudi said.
“I’m not sure what there is to say. Libby is cute. She has this really curly dark hair, and she’s nice. But she’s kind of unrealistic. And Emma is… well, she’s beautiful. She has long blond hair and dresses like a fashionista. And she’s so thin.” She paused, thinking about how thin Emma was. “I think she might be an alcoholic.”
“Wow, really? Did you smell it on her?”
“No,” Madeline said. “I actually never saw her take a drink. But she kept talking about wanting one.”
“No offense, but I think I might want more than one in that situation. So what did you guys do? Did they bring pictures? Are they married? Kids?”
“I don’t know, really,” Madeline said. “We met and then basically, we argued about what to do with the ranch.”
“No way! Why would you do that? Why didn’t you talk first?”
Now Madeline wished she had. “There was a lot going on. It’s really weird doing the get-to-know-you thing when you’re sitting on a huge ranch you’ve supposedly inherited. My mind was elsewhere.” Madeline closed her eyes. The moment she did, an image of Luke’s gray eyes and slightly lopsided smile began to swim in her mind’s eye. She quickly opened her eyes. “It’s so damn complicated, Trudi,” Madeline said wearily, and told her best friend everything she could remember about the meeting at the ranch—with Trudi interrupting often, demanding details of what the ranch looked like, a description of the house, the details of the women she insisted on calling Madeline’s sisters, down to what they were wearing.
When Madeline had filled her in on everything she could possibly think of, including running into Luke at the Stakeout the night before, Trudi let out a low whistle. “Wow. What are you going to do?”
What was she going to do? That was the million-dollar question. Madeline didn’t like this feeling of not knowing what to do, or whom to do it with. She wanted to be somewhere where she knew the rules and what the day would hold. Where she dined on chicken, not buffalo, and her shoes were perfect for running around town. “Come home, I guess.”
The words had fallen off her tongue the moment they’d popped into her head.
“Are you crazy?” Trudi shouted. “What’s the matter with you? Madeline, it is an enormous opportunity for you. First, it’s the closest thing to paternal heritage as you’ve ever had. Second, has it occurred to you that they might need someone just like you to sort it all out?”
“Third, have you forgotten that I have a job?”
“You have a job where others can fill in for you for days. You have a savings account that could float the national debt. When’s the last time you took a vacation, anyway?” Trudi demanded. “Don’t think, I’ll tell you—it’s been three years. Three years, Madeline. What is one week going to do to your life? What is one week going to do to the DiNapoli listing, which I promise you isn’t moving any quicker than when you left? What’s one week to your mother, for Chrissakes? If you aren’t there next week she’ll find a new boyfriend and move on.”
“Hey!” Madeline said. “Thanks a lot! You make it sound as if I’m not necessary for anyone or anything.”
“You are very necessary to me. You are necessary to your office and to a couple of other people. But you are also someone who lives in a bubble—”
“God, not the bubble again,” Madeline groaned.
“Yes, the bubble!” Trudi snapped. “You live in it, and you will die in it if you’re not careful! You’ve had something really extraordinary happen and you ought to at least hang around for more than twenty-four hours before you run. Promise me you will stay outside that goddamn bubble for one week, Madeline. Stay long enough to at least know if your sister is an alcoholic or if the other one is as young and dumb as she sounds.”
“You aren’t giving me any credit, Trudi,” Madeline snapped back. “I’ve checked it out. There is nothing for me here but a phantom dad, two women I don’t know, and a huge mess of an inheritance. That’s not something you can box up and put on the shelf in a couple of days. No,” she said quickly when Trudi tried to argue. “I know what I’m doing.”
Trudi sighed with resignation. “You always do this, Mad. You always run away.”
“I am not running away!”
“Yeah, you are. You would rather let something like that ranch—which sounds gorgeous by the way—slip through your fingers than deal with the people involved because you are so afraid of rejection.”