Maggie's Guardian (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Adams, Anna

  One deep concern bound the women to each other. Maggie. And Maggie had given Tessa courage that made him see how badly he’d failed his wife. Broken and guilty, he hadn’t possessed enough strength for himself, much less an extra portion to offer Tessa when she’d needed it.

  He forced himself to his feet. He was still a man, and he was trying not to be a coward about his feelings toward Tessa. He couldn’t do more.

  He hit the power switch on her computer and listened to the machine whirring to life, rather than the voices of the family group upstairs.

  No good detective ever involved himself with witnesses or suspects. Tessa and Maggie had involved him, but it wasn’t too late to keep his eye on the job.

  He listed his tasks. Stop letting Tessa and Maggie distract him. Figure out how to manage the tenderness they engendered in him. Find the animal who’d killed David.

  He pushed another chair close to the computer desk. No matter where she sat when she came back, he intended to see the files close up. Opening her word-processing program, he also opened the file she’d last used, on her clients. He sat in the desk chair and left the second one for her.

  But she didn’t come right away, and his eyes felt as if they were about to spring out of his head. He braced his elbows on the desk and lowered his face, resting his fingertips against the pressure points that ached most on his face.

  At last, the Worths left Tessa’s room. He didn’t have to wait long. She opened her door, but when he looked up, she pressed a finger to her lips.

  Gripping the baby monitor in one hand, she came down the stairs. Fierce concentration scarred her face with a frown. She avoided the desk, except to set the monitor down before she wandered the room, gathering a toy, a half-full bottle, her own buff-colored leather gloves.

  She looked at him again as she scooped her purse off the sofa and tucked the gloves inside. “I always lose these,” she said.

  He’d once suggested they allow for glove-hunting time before they went anywhere together.

  She tugged at the white turtleneck that hugged her slender throat. Instantly he could taste her, feel the soft texture of her skin against his lips, as if he’d kissed her mere seconds ago.

  He swallowed a groan. She no longer trusted or wanted him, but her disinterest only fired his need for her.

  With a lightning glance from her green eyes, she dropped one of Maggie’s blankets on the end of the sofa and straightened. At last, she came toward him. His breath escaped his body on a gasp, and his legs straightened in front of him.

  Reaching the desk, she lifted her hands behind her head and twisted her dark blond hair into a knot at the nape of her neck. Her long fingers made even the simplest action an exhibition of graceful movement.

  How many nights had he held her hands to the moonlight as they’d lain in bed? Tessa’s sure, sensual fingers had seemed to hold the key to every question he would ever think to ask.

  She’d accepted his drive to be the best at his job. She’d loved him despite his occasional distraction. Until Keely had died.

  Time had deepened the distance between them until there’d been no “them.” Only divorce papers and Tessa’s resolve to move to Maine and forget he and Keely had existed.

  As she held her hair up with one hand and used the other to rummage through her things on the desk, he asked himself if he should have fought harder, if she would have listened if he’d insisted she stay in Boston and they try to work out their problems.

  She stopped searching through the papers as if she felt him watching her. He looked down, but the lushness of her full breasts seduced him. He meant to look away, but her sweater hugged the indentation of her waist and so did his gaze. His palms remembered her hips, their gentle curves a constant source of frustration to her and her mother. He folded his eager hands across his stomach to stop himself from pulling her onto his lap.

  Her legs, in faded jeans, conjured an image of the pale brown birthmark just above the bend of her knee, the small, leaf-shaped stain he’d kissed again and again until she’d sworn she couldn’t bear the stroke of his tongue.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she asked.

  Drowning in a rush of need, he licked his dry lips, but her taste was in his mouth and he couldn’t speak.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “If you aren’t going to move so I can reach, will you hand me that pen next to the phone?

  God, he needed a drink. He needed anything that would stop him from wanting her. He didn’t have to take her hand, but he cupped her fingers and pressed the pen into her palm.

  Her suspicious gaze cooled him a degree or two. She twisted out of his grasp and wove the pen through the layers of her hair to hold it in place.

  “Nice ’do.” He tried to tease her, to prove he could subsist on the detached relationship that came a hell of a lot easier to her.

  But his voice gave him away, and she zeroed in on the need he couldn’t hide.

  She smiled, and the corner of her mouth trembled. “I’m hardly likely to care if I impress you, am I?”

  Avoiding her eyes again, he noticed the smudge of baby carrots on her cheek and the formula stain on her sweater. He also saw the flutter of her heart beneath the thin knit material. None of Maggie’s mess stopped him from needing Tessa.

  But say she could still care, say he made her admit she could want him the way he wanted her tonight. What came next?

  Who the hell knew?

  Wrong answer.

  Work was the right answer. He turned to her computer screen.

  “Let’s start a new file.” He fought a nervous urge to clear his throat. “We’ll edit in the facts you can show Weldon without betraying confidentiality.”

  Turning his mind to the job at hand, he tried to ignore an unrelenting ache that started in his scalp and radiated through his body. It might be migraine. It might be loss, pure and simple. He didn’t look closely enough to find out.

  He still missed Tessa—his wife. In this house that was new to him, neither his nor hers in his mind, he’d forgotten he wasn’t supposed to notice her as a woman.

  “Let’s start with Carlson again. As the head of a company, he’ll be the busiest. I think we should see him first tomorrow.”

  “Then you don’t remember how lobstermen work. Mr. Swyndle will be doing something on his boat before you’re conscious in the morning.” Her smile took the sting out of her comment. It made her seem approachable.

  If she were a suspect, this would be the moment he took advantage of her weakness. He’d pry the truth about Joanna out of her before she knew he’d closed in.

  He turned his chair toward the computer, the squeak emphasizing his foolish decision. He couldn’t help thinking like a cop, but damned if he always had to act on it.

  SEVERAL HOURS and a defined plan later, Noah tossed Tessa a distracted good-night as he went in search of more aspirin. Yawning, she climbed the stairs and slipped into her room. She eased across the floor to check on healthy, sleeping Maggie. Tessa tucked a blanket around the baby.

  What a day. She’d started out lying to Noah about Joanna, or at least coloring the truth pretty hard. How long till he investigated the police chief who was hiding in his family’s Presque Isle summer camp while he waited for Weldon to uncover the whole truth about Joanna’s investigation? The former chief had allowed her cremation to go forward without proper toxicology results, and Tessa doubted David had paid him enough to make the crime worthwhile.

  She wondered why Noah hadn’t pressed her for the truth that morning. He wanted her help with her clients, and maybe he was more vulnerable to her than she’d ever understood. He cared, and he wasn’t that good at hiding his feelings.

  Fortunately, his own need seemed to upset him so much he hadn’t discerned hers. Tonight she’d hovered at his side, dictating and editing what he’d written, and somehow she’d kept herself from stroking the hard curve of his shoulder. She’d barely managed not to bury her face in his hair. If he hadn’t been so determi
ned to avoid looking at her, she might have begged him to touch her.

  Which would have been her most foolish mistake yet. For herself and for Maggie. Though she’d left Noah a year ago, she’d always wished she could have stayed. She’d forced herself to go, working on autopilot as she’d packed her things and started the divorce.

  Back then, he hadn’t wanted her.

  He’d already wrapped himself in the life he’d made before he’d known her. She’d still lived in his house, slept in his bed, tried with all her might to remind him she was his wife. Until she’d finally taken the hint. Without Keely, he hadn’t wanted a wife.

  Shut firmly out, she’d made a life of her own, away from Noah and away from her parents, who’d told her freely they’d expected the divorce. Noah had measured up to their original expectations, no matter what her mother said now.

  Tessa had learned to value herself, and she didn’t intend to give up her hard-fought confidence. Not even for passion that had shimmered like an unsubstantiated promise between Noah and her all night.

  She tiptoed to the navy-tiled bathroom to brush her teeth. At a first glimpse of her flushed cheeks in the mirror she groaned in humiliation.

  Big surprise. No matter how bad he’d be for her, she still wanted the only man she’d ever loved. Her body responded, though she refused to waste more time on a man whose job had been her rival.

  Her enemy had bested her. Why fight when she’d long since posted the flag of surrender?

  She rinsed her mouth and patted her face dry with the yellow towel that had warmed all evening on a heated rail. She’d learned to enjoy other physical comforts. Only a fool would fight to keep Noah in her life.

  Tessa hung the towel back where it belonged, carefully straightening the corners. She changed into the flannel pajamas that had seemed to materialize with her divorce papers. She checked on Maggie again and then restlessly switched off the lamp and opened the curtain to peer outside.

  Snow covered every surface. Ice glittered on the roof next door. None of it was cold enough to chill her thoughts.

  Frustrated with her own weakness, she pulled back the bedclothes and clambered between sheets where the cold finally reached her. Shivering, she congratulated herself on making the right decision tonight. Life with Noah was a dance whose steps she was safer forgetting.

  IN THE MORNING Tessa asked Eleanor to look after Maggie while she and Noah talked to her clients. Following behind her, Noah cautioned the Worths against venturing too far from the safety of the house.

  Tessa nearly gave in to second thoughts. Leaving Maggie, even with Eleanor and Joe, felt risky, but it was the only way to check out the guys on her list.

  While Noah warmed the car, Tessa gave her cell phone number to Eleanor who was getting breakfast for the baby. As Maggie gnawed contentedly on her fat spoon, Tessa hugged her again, until the baby whacked her on the head. Laughing as she rubbed her forehead where the spoon had thudded, Tessa kissed Maggie goodbye and then backed out of the room, all but positive she was inviting disaster.

  Opening the front door, she battled frigid wind. Sunlight, too bright to stand, reflected off the ice and snow. She shaded her eyes. Steps and the short, sloping lawn separated her from Noah, who looked frozen in his ineffective bomber jacket. Beyond him, her neighborhood stretched—salt-splashed cars and morning papers, and children, wrapped up like small, colorful snowmen on their way to school.

  Noah hunched his shoulders as he scraped snow off his car. Wind kicked more snow across her yard, whipping Noah’s hair and snatching her breath away.

  At her short gasp, Noah turned. With one hand jammed in his pocket, he clutched something small and square between the black leather fingers of his glove. He barely nodded her way.

  “What are you doing?” She crunched across the icy grass.

  “I lost my scraper.” He pulled his other hand, bare, out of his pocket to brush ice off the credit card he’d used to clear narrow lines on the windshield.

  “Where’s your glove?”

  He looked up, his gaze testy yet self-mocking. “I guess I lose mine, too.”

  Tessa bit her lip, but the cold ached in her teeth. Noah hadn’t forgotten or lost a single object since she’d met him. A memory like a movie that played in his head had been one of his major weapons against the bad guys.

  She spun toward her car, digging keys out of her purse. Breathing hard, she opened the back door and found her scraper. By the time she took it back, Noah’s car heater had softened the ice on his windshield. He reached for the hard yellow plastic in her hand, his body heat crowding her toward the car’s hood.

  “I’ll do it,” he said.

  “I can. My hands are warm.”

  He didn’t argue, but he didn’t move, either. He lifted his hand to blow warmth on his reddened fingers. Tessa liked the way he held his mouth. Mesmerized, she almost felt the heat of his breath. She passed him her scraper.

  “Was Maggie upset when you left her?” he asked.

  “No, why?”

  “Saying goodbye took longer than usual.”

  He hadn’t been with them long enough to know “usual,” but the past few days had begun to seem like the only past she could remember. Before was growing hazy.

  “I’m a little afraid to leave her.”

  “But she’s all right with Eleanor and Joe?”

  She frowned. Beating around the bush wasn’t like him. “You can see Maggie loves them.”

  “Did they have a problem with David?”

  “No. They were his parents, too.”

  “But he saw less of them without Joanna?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Joe told me yesterday on the way to David’s house. Did David tell you why?”

  “I assumed he had a hard time being around them because they reminded him of Joanna.”

  He looked doubtful. “Is that why he kept no pictures of her?”

  “What are you talking about? She was in a lot of his pictures last time I was at his place.”

  “I didn’t see one yesterday,” he said. “We found photos of Maggie on the mantel, but not one sign of Joanna.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “He was still trying to get over her, and you know grief comes back in waves. You don’t have any photos of your dad, and he died when you were ten. Maybe it was the same for David, and he suddenly couldn’t stand to look at her picture.”

  Noah grunted. He might agree, or he might think she was crazy. She couldn’t tell. He opened the passenger door, and heat blew into both their faces.

  “What kind of a murderer would steal family pictures?” she asked.

  “That’s what I’m asking myself. Weldon wouldn’t let me look upstairs, so you might be right. I didn’t get a chance to see if David just put them away.”

  “Joe must have gone upstairs.”

  “He was so upset I couldn’t make myself ask him. I’ll have to if we can’t get back in. Why don’t you call Carlson?” he said.

  She was dialing as he slid behind the steering wheel.

  “You know his number by heart?”

  She pointed left as he backed into the street. “I had to mediate every day for over a year.” She pointed at the first right corner, sheltered in the bare limbs of an overgrown oak. “Turn there.”

  The phone rang in her ear. Carlson’s secretary breezily wished her a good morning.

  “Lynn, it’s Tessa Gabriel. Is Hugh available?”

  “Morning, Tessa, I believe I can fit you in one day next week. When would be good for you?”

  This dance she knew well. “Today would be perfect, Lynn.”

  “You know Mr. Carlson can’t see you on such short notice.”

  Oh, yes, he would. “I should have called yesterday for an appointment, but with David’s death, I’ve been a little distracted.”

  “I’m so sorry about David. Mr. Carlson had me make a donation on his behalf. You should see the card in a few days.” She hesitated a second. “If they let
you back in your office.”

  Why would Hugh Carlson donate anything to anyone in David’s name? The huge spray of flowers he’d sent had towered over her at the memorial. His scrawled name had screamed off the card. That was Hugh. He’d done the right thing, but he wanted to make sure everyone knew it.

  “Lynn, why don’t you go in and tell him I’m on my way with my ex-husband. Hugh’s heard of Noah.”

  “The homicide cop?”

  “You’ve heard of him, too.” Tessa was surprised. She’d never talked about that part of her life.

  “Small-town chatter,” Lynn said.

  “If you get up and walk into Hugh’s office, he’ll yell and then get over it by the time we arrive.” She pointed out the next turn.

  The other woman hesitated. “All right,” she finally said. “But I’d better put you on hold. I don’t want you to hear him shouting at me.”

  Not for the first time, Tessa wondered if Hugh thought the ranting between him and his secretary impressed their visitors with his power. “Thanks.” She turned to Noah. “She put me on hold, but she’ll make him see us.”

  “Make him?”

  “She nudges him into doing what’s right for the company, and he’s smart enough to respect her judgment.”

  “This isn’t company business.”

  “Close enough. If he killed David, it’ll reflect on the company.”

  “You’re trying to say she thinks he’s innocent, even though a homicide detective wants to talk to him.”

  “Right.”

  “Since she doesn’t suspect him, you don’t, either?”

  Tessa examined his tone for signs of contempt toward the untrained. She found none. “Lynn probably sees more of Hugh Carlson than his own wife does.”

  “You said she likes him. She wouldn’t suspect someone she likes of doing what the killer did to David.”

  “Just like me?” she said.

  He nodded.

  “But we’re smart enough to be afraid when someone acts like a killer. Maybe it’s not in Hugh.” She couldn’t think like a murderer, and she didn’t want to think like a detective. “Are you expecting him to confess when we tell him we want to take my case notes to Weldon?”