by Eve Gaddy
But it was.
TUCKER HAD LEFT WORK early so he could talk to Maggie about the best way to approach his parents when they told them about becoming foster parents. He wanted to be prepared because he had a feeling they were going to ask some difficult questions. Particularly his father, who Tucker knew was still suspicious of their motives for getting married. When he arrived at home, he only had to follow the music to find Maggie. He tracked her down to the room they’d converted into a home gym, with a weight bench, free weights and—since Maggie had moved in—a punching bag.
Extremely loud headbanger rock and roll blared from the stereo system he’d installed. Evidently Maggie had been doing some serious boxing. She wore a tank top, shorts and her boxing gloves and was barefoot and slick with sweat. His mouth started watering and he reminded himself they had things to talk about and seducing Maggie was not on the list of smart things to do. Damn it.
He watched her for a moment, a frown gathering as he realized how savagely she was going after the bag. He’d seen her at this before, but he’d never felt raw fury coming off her in waves. Even when she’d been mad at him over his supposed engagement, she hadn’t been this angry. What in the hell had happened? He hoped it wasn’t something to do with Grace. Maggie clearly had no idea he was there, so he walked over and turned down the music.
“Turn it back on,” she snapped. She punched the bag with her right hand. Smack. Then her left, a quick double jab before returning to beat the bag with her left again.
He didn’t do what she’d said, just watched her trying to decimate the bag. She apparently got tired of boxing and started with some Tae Kwon Do moves, a series of kicks interspersed with those repeated jabs.
“What’s wrong?”
Smack. “Nothing’s wrong.” Another jab and a kick. “Turn the damn music back on.”
“If nothing’s wrong why are you beating the crap out of an inanimate object?”
“Because I like to.” She kept at it, grunting with the effort.
“Did you talk to your parents?”
“Yes.” She bit the word out as she sent a particularly hard punch into the bag. “But not about the foster parenting. They’re moving, so there’s no need to worry about them.”
“Your parents are moving?” That was the first he’d heard of it. “Where? Why?”
She whirled and delivered a roundhouse kick to the bag. “To Florida.” She hit the bag with a combination one-two jab and kick. “To be with my precious sister—” she hit the bag twice “—and their precious grandchildren.”
Her breath was coming hard and her words were jerky, but he heard her clearly. He walked over to her and put his hand on her arm. “Do you want to talk about this?”
“No, I want to beat the hell out of this punching bag.” She shook him off and glared at him. “Don’t mess with me, Tucker. I’m not in a good mood.”
He wanted to gather her in his arms and comfort her, but she was obviously not in any mood to be consoled. “Come sit down,” he said and took her arm.
She resisted at first but then she let him lead her to the weight bench and sit beside her. He took one of her hands and started to pull off her glove. “You’re going to hurt your hands, if you haven’t already.”
Her eyes were stormy. A hard, brilliant green, but Tucker saw the hurt behind the anger. Again, he wished she’d let him comfort her. It surprised him how badly he wanted to console her. “Was this move a surprise? Or had you known about it? You haven’t said anything.”
She shrugged and let him take off the other glove and gently massage her hands. “It wasn’t a total shock. They’d been talking about it, but I didn’t think they were going to go. My mother wanted to do it but my dad had been resisting.”
“Why did they decide to go now?”
Her eyes were bleak, not hot with anger. Gray and empty. “Because my sister—my younger sister—is pregnant again. With her fourth child. My mother’s all in to the grandma thing.”
A wealth of unspoken emotion lay behind those words. He didn’t need a psychology degree to understand that. “Have you told your parents how you feel about them leaving Aransas City? About them leaving you?”
“No.” Wearily, she lifted a shoulder. “What’s the point? They want to be with Lorna. Lorna needs them, they said. Period. End of discussion.”
“You might let them know you need them, too.” He looked at her hands and imagined kissing them. Then imagined going right on up her arm. To her mouth. And—Down, boy. What the hell are you thinking?
“I don’t need them.” She jerked her hands out of his. “I’m thirty-four years old, Tucker. I don’t have to have my mommy and daddy live in the same town to survive.”
“It’s not a matter of survival.” He studied her a moment, not buying the supertough act she was putting on. “Maggie, there’s nothing wrong with not wanting your parents to move. I wouldn’t want mine to move away. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting your parents’ emotional support, no matter how old you are.”
“Emotional support.” She gave a short, bitter laugh and glanced away. Her voice was tight when she said, “That’s a joke. It’s always been Lorna. I love my sister, but…she’s always been the needy one. I’m the self-sufficient one, the one who always knows what she’s doing. At least, that’s how they see me. And none of them, not my parents and sure as hell not my sister, even notice that occasionally I need someone, too.”
“And you need someone now.”
She nodded. “Yes. It’s just like before. It never changes. When I moved back here from Dallas…my mother was so caught up with Lorna and her second pregnancy, I might as well not have existed.”
It hurt him to hear the pain in her voice. “You needed your mother then.”
She looked forlorn, something he’d never associated with Maggie before.
“Yes. I wanted someone to talk to. Someone who loved me, who cared about what happened to me. I…wasn’t doing very well.”
Again, he wondered what had driven her to leave Dallas. For Maggie to admit to anyone that she wasn’t doing well was the same as another person telling the world they’d had a complete breakdown. “Did you find anyone else to talk to? A girlfriend, maybe?”
“No.” Her gaze hardened before she rolled her shoulder and looked away. “There wasn’t anyone. So I did what I always do. I sucked it up and moved on. I got over it. Talking is way overrated.”
“Maggie?” He waited until she looked at him. “I know it’s a long time after the fact, but you could talk to me.”
Her expression softened. “Tucker, you’re sweet, but I’m over that now.” She blew out a breath. “I’m just overreacting to my parents moving, that’s all. I’ll be okay. It was just a surprise that they’re actually going ahead with it.”
She wasn’t over it and he didn’t think she’d be okay. But she didn’t seem to want his help. He couldn’t have said why that realization bothered him so much.
“If you ever do want to talk, come to me. Okay?”
“Okay.” She put her hand on his cheek and smiled at him. “Thanks, Tucker. You’re sweet,” she repeated.
Sweet. His thoughts weren’t so sweet. She was braless and the thin tank fit her like a second skin. He wanted to cup her breasts, take his thumbs over the peaks, strip her shirt off and see how beautiful they would be bare. Wanted to taste her, caress her, make love to her….
He raised his gaze to hers. Her breath came faster and she stared at him with parted lips, her eyes big and dark with emotion. “Tucker…I—I can’t.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” She got up and walked to the door. “Sometimes I really wish I could just do what I want and not worry about the consequences. But I’m not built that way.”
She left the room and Tucker blew out a breath. She was right. If they made love it would change everything between them. And he didn’t want to change it, to risk…Damn it, he was falling for her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
TUCKER THOUGHT Maggie was going to lose it waiting for CPS to make up their minds over the next couple of weeks. She was grouchy, touchy and despondent. Everything that was hard to live with. Even so, he was having a devil of a time keeping his hands to himself. He wasn’t sure what that said about him, that he could find a woman so attractive in such trying circumstances.
Proximity. Maybe that’s all it was. He wasn’t falling for her. Not really. He was living with her, for Pete’s sake. Seeing her in various states of undress. Looking but never touching. It was enough to drive a man crazy.
One day Tucker got a phone call just as he was about to leave the office.
“It’s your wife,” his secretary told him, handing him the phone.
He took the cordless phone and walked back to his office. “Hey, Maggie. What’s up?”
He hoped it was good news. The wait was wearing on them both. He’d thought his mother and father had taken the news in stride when they first told them. At least, they hadn’t said much that evening. But since then, every time he talked to his mother, she asked why Tucker and Maggie weren’t starting a family of their own if they wanted children. And though he hadn’t told Maggie, Tucker had the feeling that his father, at the least, suspected the truth.
“Tucker, it’s—wait a minute.”
He heard her say something to someone else and a short while later she came back on the line.
“I can’t believe it.”
“Where are you? You sound like you’re at the bottom of a well.”
“I’m in the bathroom at the station. I was afraid I’d cry and the guys would never let me hear the end of it if they saw me leaking tears.”
“What’s wrong? Have they found Grace’s mother?” Tucker was growing more and more worried about Maggie’s reaction if and when they found the woman. Since marrying Maggie, he’d done a little research. Enough to know that in child custody cases, especially those involving foster care, judges usually came down in the birth mother’s favor, especially if there was no history of abuse.
He’d brought up the possibility of the mother being found or showing up and wanting Grace back a couple of times, but Maggie wouldn’t talk much about it. She simply said she’d deal with the matter when it happened. It was how she planned to deal with it that worried Tucker.
“No, we haven’t found her yet. Nothing’s wrong.” She paused, then burst out with, “Nina called. We get to have Grace.”
“Maggie, that’s great.” He needed to bury his reservations and his worries. This was what Maggie had wanted all along. He had to be happy for her.
“I know. I can’t believe it’s finally happening. Can you meet me at the house? We can pick her up anytime, they said. I think it would be best if you went, too, don’t you? They’ll be expecting both of us, I imagine.”
“I wouldn’t miss it. See you soon.”
Not long afterward, Tucker walked into the house calling for Maggie. She came out of the nursery holding the car seat, but when she saw him she dropped it and launched herself into his arms, laughing. “Can you believe it? I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited in my life.”
He spun her around and started to say something but she gave him a smacking kiss on the mouth, then smiled at him. So he kissed her back. Really kissed her, as he’d been wanting to do for weeks now. He crushed her in his arms, pushed his tongue inside her mouth, and she gave a low moan, her arms tightening around his neck.
He sank into her soft mouth, tasting, lingering, then slipped his hands over her curves and caressed her. Slowly, he became aware she’d wedged one arm between them and was pushing him away. He drew back and stared down at her. Her lips were wet from his kiss and he wanted nothing more than to drown himself in her and not come up until he was finally sated.
Then he looked into her eyes and knew it wasn’t going to happen.
“Tucker—”
He shook his head and released her. “Let’s go get Grace.”
She didn’t say anything else, just picked up the car seat and followed him to the garage where her car was parked.
Forty-five minutes later Maggie and Tucker walked back into their house with baby Grace and her belongings. On the way over and back, they both talked of other things and carefully avoided any mention of what had happened just before they left. But Tucker was damn sure not going to forget it and he didn’t believe Maggie could, either. Now wasn’t the time to talk about the two of them, though. Today was all about Maggie and the baby she’d wanted so badly.
“I’ve never seen you look this happy,” Tucker said to Maggie. She’d carried the baby into the kitchen with her and didn’t look like she intended to put her down for the foreseeable future.
“I’m not sure I ever have been,” she said, smiling down at the baby in her arms. “No, that’s not true. There was one time,” she said. “But it didn’t last.”
“Want to talk about it?” Tucker asked.
She smiled again and shook her head. “No. Today’s a happy day. I don’t want to think or talk about the past.” She paused and added, “But if I ever do want to talk about it, you’ll be the person I talk to.”
It should make him feel good that she felt she could confide in him. If she meant it. She was the most closemouthed woman he’d ever known. Beyond the few things she’d told him on their honeymoon, she hadn’t said much about her past. As far as he could tell, she didn’t confide in anyone. Not her parents, not her girlfriends and certainly not her husband. Was that because their marriage was a sham? Or because she looked on their relationship—their friendship, even—as temporary? Or did she just not trust him enough to confide in him?
“Is the chief okay with you taking time off work so suddenly?” Maggie had said she would take a leave of absence for a while, maybe up to several months before she went back to work.
“Yes, he was great. He’s known about it so he’s been prepared to deal with me suddenly leaving. He said to take as much time as I need. I told him I’d fill in occasionally when he needs someone extra. Maybe ease into part-time.”
“How do you think you’ll like staying home?”
“I don’t know. I’ve worked since I was eighteen and left home, so it will be a change. But I’ll have to go back sometime. I have to figure out how to work and take care of Grace since once we’re divorced I’ll be a single mother.”
He was really beginning to hate the sound of the D word.
Grace started fussing and Maggie picked up the bottle she’d been warming. “Here you go, sweetheart,” she crooned. “Let Maggie take care of you.”
Tucker followed them into the other room and watched Maggie feed Grace. She’d bought a rocking chair for just that purpose. “You’re going to have to teach me about child care, you know. I mean, the course was fine, but I know there are things I didn’t learn. So I can keep Grace if you need to go out. Or if you go in to work.”
Evidently surprised, she looked at him. “I didn’t know you’d be interested.”
“I have to be if you want CPS to believe we’re for real.”
“True. Okay, you can help me bathe her tonight. And I’ll let you give her the next bottle.” She watched the baby drink for a bit then said, “I keep thinking about what it will be like, staying home full-time. I’ve taken care of my sister’s kids but just for overnights or a few hours at a time. I’ve never stayed home with them, not for an extended period.” She shot Tucker a wry look. “Besides, I’m not exactly domestic.”
“Just because you don’t cook doesn’t mean you’re not domestic.”
She laughed. “Tucker, I don’t do any of the things my sister does, and she’s like the ultimate stay-at-home mom. The only thing I cook is rice. Oh, and canned sweet rolls. As for cleaning, I hate it. I’d rather face an armed robber than a dirty toilet.”
Tucker laughed. “So would I. That’s what cleaning services are invented for.”
“You should let me pay for half that, you know.”
>
“Maggie, we’ve been through this before.” He wasn’t about to take her money, but she kept trying.
“Isn’t she sweet?” Maggie asked, looking down at the baby with an expression of pure love.
“Yes, she is. And so are you.”
Maggie glanced at him and smiled. “Thanks, but sweet is about the last thing people think of when they look at me.”
“They don’t know you, then.”
She smiled again but didn’t respond further.
If ever he’d seen a woman with a whole lot of love to give, it was Maggie. She held nothing back from the baby. Apparently loving the baby didn’t scare her as much as the thought of loving…Whoa, why was he thinking about love? Sex on the brain was one thing, but love? They had a friendly, practical, temporary arrangement that didn’t include sex. Love had nothing to do with the two of them.
But it could. If he wanted it to. If he was willing to risk it. Even if he was, he thought, he was fairly sure Maggie wasn’t.
It was crystal clear that while the marriage was temporary to Maggie, the baby was not. What would it do to her if she lost custody of Grace?
And what would it do to him when their marriage came to an end? Could he really just walk out of Maggie’s life and go on as he had before? Did he even want to?
TWO WEEKS LATER Maggie realized that being a stay-at-home mom was harder than she’d ever imagined. She loved the baby and enjoyed being with her, but taking care of Grace full-time was no easy task, she soon discovered.
If it hadn’t been for Tucker, she really would have gone crazy. But he came home from work every day and spelled her, taking care of Grace so she could exercise or just relax. Plus, he talked to her, about his day or current events or sports. Whatever she wanted to talk about. She’d never been quite so isolated before. She hadn’t realized she’d miss the company of adults so much.
Even better, Tucker cooked. She felt guilty since it seemed the least she could have done was try to fix something for them to eat, but it was a skill she’d never mastered. She’d tried a couple of times, but the baby would start crying or something else would happen and the next thing you knew, she’d set off the damned fire alarm again.