Tonight was going to be interesting, Emmett thought to himself and poured another drink.
Ridiculous. This was ridiculous.
Maddie looked at her clock. It was past ten thirty and the music hadn’t stopped. She’d called the police department and they said they’d send over a car, but nothing had changed.
Even if the music did stop, she couldn’t sleep. She was too wound up with irritation. Flinging back the covers, she turned on the lights and started getting dressed. She pulled her hair into a bun and shuffled downstairs. She was going over to the bar and dealing with this herself.
Stepping out onto her porch, she paused for a moment. The bar was overrun with people. The parking lot was full and there were cars lining the sidewalk up and down the street. There was even a police cruiser parked there. She’d seen the marquee advertising that the Maui Dragons were playing tonight, but she had no clue who they were. Apparently other people did.
She wasn’t going to let that stop her. If she backed down now, Emmett would never quiet down. It’d gotten exponentially louder in the last two weeks, which made her wonder if Miss Francine had given her bad advice. She’d told her this was war, so Maddie was ready for battle, but she felt like even when she won, she was losing.
How long could the two of them keep this up? He was breaking the law; surely the fines would eventually hurt his business. As for Maddie, there were only so many protests and tea parties she could organize. If a near-daily fine from the police wasn’t enough to quiet things down, what else could she possibly do?
She was about to find out.
Taking a deep breath and steeling herself, she marched across the street and through the front door of the bar. She’d actually only set foot into Woody’s once before, when she tried to talk to Emmett about the noise the first time. Bars were not exactly her hangout of choice, although she knew her brothers liked to come here and watch football. Maddie didn’t care about any of that.
Inside, she was immediately struck by the stale stench of beer, pretzels, and the unmistakable body odor that comes from too many people crammed into a room too small and too warm. If the police didn’t work out, perhaps she could call Mack the fire chief. They had to be over capacity for a place this size.
It was also louder than she ever expected. She’d thought it was loud when she listened to the band from her bedroom, but this was a whole new experience. How these people didn’t have bleeding ears, she didn’t know.
Turning away from the band, she headed toward the bar to find Emmett. Before she could lay eyes on him, she found an unexpected traitor sitting on a stool and sipping a soda.
“Simon Chamberlain!” she shouted, although the music dulled the effect of the sharp accusation.
Simon turned to look at her, but he didn’t seem impressed by her arrival. He set his drink down and leaned his elbow on the bar. “Evenin’, Maddie.”
“Don’t you Evenin’, Maddie me. I call the cops to shut this circus down and find you here enjoying the music.”
“I wrote him a ticket,” Simon said with a shrug that supposedly made everything okay.
“And?”
He shrugged. “And he didn’t care. He promised me the set would be over by eleven. It’s almost time, so why don’t you go home, have a nice cup of chamomile tea, and by the time you’re ready to go back to bed, the music will be over.”
“I don’t like your tone, Simon. I’ll not be patronized by my baby brother.”
“You say that like you’re so much older than I am. Get over yourself.”
She hadn’t gone to the bar to be insulted by her own brother. He was the law, and yet, he was ignoring the law to suit himself. “Whose side are you on, Officer Chamberlain? Are you taking bribes from Emmett?”
“Hey now.” Simon stood up and gazed down at her with an unhappy expression, drawing his brows together. He’d certainly grown a lot over the last few years. For so long, Simon had been the pipsqueak of the family. In high school, he shot up to the same height as his brothers, but he was thin and lean like a beanpole. It seemed like age and the uniform made him appear larger and more intimidating than she remembered.
“You might be my sister but I’m not going to let you insinuate something ugly like that,” he warned. “It’s not a felony, it’s a noise ordinance, Maddie.”
“Madelyn,” Emmett said, pushing between them. “Didn’t expect to ever see you in here again.”
Maddie took a step back. She didn’t like being that close to Emmett. He was so tall and broad shouldered he made Simon suddenly look smaller. It was bad enough she could feel Emmett’s body heat radiate through his shirt, and smell the woodsy scent of his soap. That alone made her pulse shoot up and her cheeks burn. She didn’t need to risk actually touching him.
“I don’t want to be here,” she snapped, moving even farther away from the two men. “I’d much prefer to be asleep, but you seem determined to make that impossible.”
“I’m sorry,” Emmett said in a deep soothing voice that almost made her believe him. “Would you rather I gather twenty drunks to sing Disney songs outside your bedroom window?”
Maddie couldn’t help the wicked smile spreading across her face. That had been a particularly fun day for her. She hadn’t planned it that way, but when the little girls insisted on singing, she decided they were far too talented not to share it with the world. But mostly with Emmett.
“Look at that smile,” Emmett noted. “You’re enjoying making me miserable. You’re a beautiful sadist.”
Maddie tried to ignore the sudden feeling of lightness in her chest when he called her beautiful. The sadist part that followed should’ve negated the compliment, but somehow it didn’t. She hadn’t had a man say she was beautiful in a really long time. If only the words hadn’t come out of the mouth of the last man she wanted to hear them from.