by Susan Crosby
“Would he have used me for...for—”
“He would have attempted to make you his mistress certainly. He admired you greatly.”
“Gosh, I’m so flattered.”
A fleeting smile crossed his lips.
“What about when he got tired of me?”
“I don’t know. You’re older than they like.”
“Oh, stop, Diego. I can’t take all this flattery at once.”
“You’re bright,” he continued. “He may have let you return to your own life—if you didn’t know too much. He may also have found a place for you in his business. Like the others, he would have kept you in line with drugs, or threats to your family. Or he might have killed you if you’d resisted too strongly.”
Maggie folded her hands on the table to steady them. “Don’t hold back, now. You can give it to me straight.”
“It doesn’t serve either of us to pretend any longer, does it?” He let his chair drop onto all four legs.
“How long have you been an FBI agent?”
“Three years. I got a bachelor’s degree in criminology from Berkeley, then I worked in a crime lab analyzing data. I was accepted to the academy the first time I applied.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were an agent?”
“I was undercover.”
“Surely other agents are married and go undercover. Their wives must know.”
“I believed that the less you knew, the safer you were.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t trust me.”
“I could not share with you. It could have jeopardized the entire operation. I knew it was winding down. I did not think I would have to keep the secret for long.”
“But I’m your wife.”
J.D. hesitated. He leaned back and crossed his arms. “No.”
He watched her face pale. “I’m not your wife?”
“The marriage license was as phony as the rest of my ID. Duran isn’t my name.”
“Duran isn’t... I’m not...” She flattened her hands on the table. “What is your name?”
“Shaunnessey.”
“Shaunnessey,” she repeated dully. “The judge—”
“Is my father.”
Her expressive face revealed everything—shock, hurt, growing anger. Similar to how he felt when he’d realized she’d tape-recorded him without his knowledge.
“Well, that simplifies things, doesn’t it? No divorce, no annulment, no legal mess whatsoever,” she said, shoving away from the table and standing. She picked up her glass of water and turned her back on him, but not before he saw the glass almost shake loose from her hand.
“I did stop Hastings from having you.”
“Thank you.”
Her blatantly sarcastic tone attempted to put him in his place. He wouldn’t let it.
“I was protecting you, Magnolia. If nothing else, give me credit for that.”
Maggie slammed the glass on the table. “You don’t think I could have gotten myself out of that situation if I’d had knowledge beyond the little you shared? You think I married you because I thought I needed to be protected?”
“Didn’t you?”
“Silly me, I thought I married you to give us a chance to know each other. If you were honest with yourself, you’d admit that you offered marriage not because I needed help but because you wanted to be with me, too.”
“I was keeping you out of Hastings’s reach.”
She lifted her chin. “I don’t believe you would have offered marriage as a solution to another woman. I believe you offered it to me because you wanted me. There has always been something strong between us. This was a way to indulge your fantasy.”
He scowled. “I was protecting you. And look how you paid me back. By secretly recording me like some criminal.”
She had no answer to that. “I need to go home,” she said, picking up her book bag and starting out of the room. He blocked her path.
“We have an issue remaining, Magnolia.”
“Drop me a note.”
“We made love.”
“We had sex.” She let her words hang in the air, cold, hard, accusing. “I absolve you, Diego.”
“We did not use birth control.”
“Well, don’t sweat it, honey. Jazz won’t come after you with a shotgun.”
“If you are pregnant, I deserve to know.” His hands fisted. “A child deserves a father. I did not grow up with mine. I know what that is like.”
Maggie closed her eyes. She wanted her love for him to die a sudden death. Instead, it was being kept alive by life support, waiting for her to give him the words that would decide their fate.
“I’ll be in touch with you in three weeks,” he said into her silence. “You should know by then, right?”
I know now. The words hid behind her own cowardice. He was crowding her, standing so close she could hear him breathe. So close she couldn’t take a deep breath herself. She couldn’t show any weakness, especially now.
He curved a hand around her arm. “Will you tell me the truth?”
Maggie swallowed hard. Was this the last time she would feel his touch? Oh, God, how could she survive the rest of her life without it? She wanted to hate him for his secrets, for his willpower to keep them. She didn’t hate him—couldn’t hate him.
So this is what dying feels like. There wasn’t a light waiting, drawing her in. There was just darkness and cold and loneh-ness.
“I’ll tell you the truth,” she said, lifting her chin.
He let go of her with his hand but not his gaze. “I’ll drive you home,” he said after a minute.
“I’ll see myself home, thank you.”
“I’ll drive you.”
She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
The ride was short and silent. He pulled up in front of her apartment.
“You can pick up your things anytime,” she said in a monotone. “Just come when you know I’m not here. Give Jazz the key when you’re done.”
“Magnolia—”
She cut him off with a gesture. “Don’t use that soothing tone with me. This is the most painful thing I’ve ever, ever done. I’m sorry I taped you. Despite what you may think, I did trust you. I just wanted to know more about you. I could have handled anything, Diego, anything, because—”
She pressed a shaking hand to her mouth, stopping the words. She jerked the door handle and pushed herself out of the car.
He leaned across the seat. “I should come up with you, check things—”
“Your responsibilities have ended, honey. Now, don’t you be worryin’ none about me. Brendan would remind us of Shakespeare’s immortal words. ’Hasty marriage seldom proveth well.’ Guess we never stood a chance, huh? Adios, Zorro.”
The shrill wail of her security alarm pierced the wall of stoicism she’d retreated behind. She punched in the code, then pounded the wall beside the panel, wishing she could rip it out.
She let the anger come first, a powerful tornado that swept up the floating debris of regret, rejection and loss. The storm sucked it into the dark whirlwind, leaving behind only the joy. The moments of wonder. The laughter. The friendship. The love.
She reached for the shimmering light of love that was left when everything else swirled away.
Needing him, she went into his bedroom, dragged his pillow up and hugged it to her. His scent clung to the fabric, the scent that had brought her peace when he’d held her close, the scent that had made her body quiver and her heart soar.
“I wish I’d never met you.”
His words wrenched a sob from her, just as his fever had freed the truth from him.
Now she had to find a way to live with it.
Fourteen
“I saw your bedroom light on,” J.D. said to his father as he was welcomed into Duncan’s house a week later. “I hope it’s not too late to stop by.”
“Not at all. Misty will join us in a minute, if you don’t mind. She’s making herself presentable.”
They walked in tandem down the hall, heading by habit for Duncan’s den. “If I’m interrupting something—”
“You are. But that’s all right. We were married night before last.”
Grinning, J.D. pounded him on the back. “Well, hallelujah! I can’t think of better news to come home to. It took you long enough.”
The judge scratched his head, a lopsided grin taking ten years off him. “We would have held off for you to be best man, but after waiting so many years for her I wasn’t taking any chances she’d change her mind.”
“He’s lying,” Misty said as she breezed into the room. “I was the one who was worried. I’m still pinching myself. Hello, J.D. Welcome home.”
“Mrs. Shaunnessey,” J.D. said after he hugged her. “Welcome to the family.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t figure out your connection to Duncan. I guess because you don’t look like a Jimmy, which is all he ever calls you,” Misty said, glancing from one to the other. “Now that I know, I can see the resemblance, in looks as well as pigheaded obstinance.”
“Well. I feel complimented. How about you, Dad?”
Duncan smiled. “How was Florida, son?”
“Six days of sunshine that I saw from inside a building. I couldn’t wait to get back to Fog City so I wouldn’t feel so deprived.”
“Looks like you have a solid case, Jimmy,” the judge said. “You did a good job.”
“The list of charges grows daily. It’s been gratifying.”
“Have you seen Maggie?” Misty asked.
J.D. picked up a letter opener from the desk and toyed with it. “I just got home.”
“And you came here first?”
“My love, please—”
“Stay out of this, Duncan. You told me yourself he was the biggest fool alive.”
Duncan offered his son a sheepish grin in apology as she turned back to J.D.
“I’ve got Maggie busy developing a new line for my company,” Misty announced. “Moonlight and Magnolias. I haven’t told her the name yet. I hope she’ll be pleased.”
“That’s great,” J.D. said, stabbing the letter opener into an envelope lying on the desktop. “Great. Now all she needs is a husband, a handful of kids and the white picket fence.”
“Seems to me she had the husband part of it.” Duncan plucked the weapon away, rescuing his correspondence from further wounding. “Go see her, son. Ask her if that’s what she wants.”
“She already told me. She was moved around a lot as a child. She wants to live in the same house forever, for her children to have the stability she never had. You know if I want to advance in the Bureau, I will probably be transferred several times.”
It was the reason he hadn’t ever let himself imagine a permanent life with her. He couldn’t give her what she wanted, what she deserved.
A succinct expletive shattered his self-pity. Misty, hands on hips, advanced on him. “You’re an idiot.”
She wasn’t calling him anything he hadn’t called himself. He’d done nothing but think about Magnolia for the past week, worried if she was all right, wondered if she was pregnant.
Hoped that she was pregnant. There would be no decision to make if that were true. She would marry him. Period.
“Almost twenty-five years ago,” Misty said, grabbing his arm and turning him to face her, “your father defended me on solicitation charges. It was the lowest point of my life. I’d run away from an abusive husband. No one would give me a job. There weren’t shelters available as there are now. I was a mess. But I swear I never attempted to sell my body. However, some streetwalkers had taken me under their wing, seeing a fellow victim, and I got caught up with them in a police sweep one night.”
She reached out to her husband, who came to her side instantly.
“Duncan saw past my bruises and my scars, even the invisible ones. He was the kindest, gentlest man I’d ever known. I didn’t believe he could be real. I figured it was just a tactic I hadn’t been exposed to before. Kill ’em with kindness or something. He got the charges dropped, helped me divorce my husband, found me a respectable job. Then when my life settled down, he came calling.
“I put him off. I let him be my friend and occasionally my lover for all these years. But I wouldn’t let him into my heart. Then you and Maggie got married. Day in and day out I saw her happiness, and it hit me, how foolish I’d been to have denied myself that same joy. It was my fault alone, but it wasn’t only my loss. Because I would never cut Duncan free completely, he hadn’t moved on with his life.”
“You don’t have to do this, my love,” Duncan said, pressing a kiss to her temple.
“If I can atone In some way through your son, I’m going to,” she said fiercely. “Maggie’s trying so hard to put on a happy face for everyone, but all of us who love her see the truth. She’s making herself sick with blame.”
J.D.’s heart turned over. “She is ill?”
“Go see her,” Misty said quietly. “Settle this. Either make her yours completely and forever—or set her free. You both deserve that.”
He took her hand in his, pausing for a moment to get his bearings again. “A week of soul-searching had already led me to that conclusion. But thank you for your honesty. Mom.”
Misty lifted one perfectly arched brow. “If you ever call me Mom again, hon, I’m going to cut you out of the will.”
Her lights were on. Even though she’d gotten off work at midnight, she was still up now, an hour later.
He should have called first. Having someone knock on her door at this hour was bound to frighten her. His cellular phone was in the glove compartment. He considered using it, shrugged, then climbed out of the car.
When he reached the top of her stairs, he blew out a breath, straightened his sweater and knocked on her door. Seconds ticked into aeons.
“Who is it?” Her tone was no-nonsense, her voice strong.
“Diego.” Diego. He’d never called himself by the name she always used, yet it had come automatically, comfortably.
“What do you want?”
Huh? “I want to see you, Magnolia. Please open the door.”
“We agreed on three weeks.”
What the hell? “So, I’m early. Don’t make me stand out here and yell. Someone will call the police.”
“A deal’s a deal. Go away.”
He smiled at the belligerence in her voice. “I have my key. I know the code.”
“I changed it.”
“No, you didn’t. You told me I could come get my things. You wouldn’t have changed it until after I’d done that.”
A moment of silence passed, then, “Are you here for your stuff?”
“Would it be too much trouble?”
After a minute he heard the click of the lock.
“Come in,” she called.
He stepped in cautiously, closing the door behind him. She was nowhere in sight.
“I boxed up almost everything,” she called from her bedroom. “You can start carrying it to your car. I’ve just got a couple more things to get.”
He glanced at the cartons stacked neatly beside her computer. “Can’t you even look at me, Magnolia?” he called back.
She stepped through the doorway and his heart turned cartwheels up his throat, halting his ability to speak, as the truth burst from him in an explosive jolt. He was in love with her. Somewhere along the way, he’d fallen deeply, irrevocably in love with her.
“Hi,” he said finally.
She looked at him with huge, serious eyes. She didn’t move, but he could see her shrug her armor on.
“How are you?” she asked politely.
“Not so good.”
Bewildered, Maggie frowned. What was he doing here? What kind of new torture did he have in mind? “Your jacket is in the closet. Here, take this, too.”
She passed him a long, narrow box.
“The pearl necklace you gave me.” She grabbed his grandmother’s rings and twisted them up her finger. Please, Go
d, let me get through this without crying. Please.
“Don’t take them off.” His hand curled around her wrist, stopping her. His left hand. The wedding ring she’d given him gleamed as she pushed her rings back in place. She lifted her gaze slowly. What did it mean? What—
He framed her face with his hands. His eyes glittered darkly, then softened to liquid chocolate. “I missed you, Magnolia.”
A moan tumbled from her before she could catch it. She clamped his wrists, holding on as she felt her resolve crumble.
“I missed you too,” she whispered, her heart pounding. “Oh, Diego, I missed you so much. So very, very much.”
He brushed his lips across hers gently, a light drag of flesh to flesh, tentative, searching, questioning. He breathed her name again and again until she clung to him, calling out his. He lifted her in his arms.
“You have lost weight. You have not been taking care of yourself.” His voice was gruff and oh, so dear.
“It doesn’t matter.” She pressed her lips to his neck, twining her arms around him as he laid her on the bed, pulling him down with her, making him her blanket, her comforter. Still, she shivered in anticipation.
She knew she should wait for the words from him. The right words. Or maybe she should say them first. “Diego—”
“Shh. We’ll talk later. For now I just want to hold you, and feel you quiver, and hear your sighs of pleasure. I feel as if I’ve waited my whole life for this moment.”
His mouth came down on hers. His tongue slid across her lips, dipped inside as she opened to him, and mated with hers. A primal sound vibrated from his chest to hers. She sucked in a breath and wrapped her legs around him as he moved against her, pressing kisses to her temples, her eyelids, her cheeks, and finally her mouth again.
Needing to be free of restriction, he whipped his clothes off between hungry kisses, then forced himself to slow down, to make a memory of the moment. He stretched out beside her, leaning across her to turn on the small lamp beside her bed.