Stupid, stupid, she cursed herself. “Actually, I’m not.” Because her hands were shaking, she slipped them into the pockets of her slacks and forced herself to meet his steady gaze. “I had to sub for a colleague that week who wrote the sports column. Nick Santos breaking his leg was big news, so I covered it.”
“You wrote an article about me?” His brows shot up. “What’d you write?”
She could have told him, word for word, every line she’d written. Every adjective, every verb, every noun. “That was almost three years ago, Nick. I’ve written hundreds of articles since then.”
“Gosh, thanks, Maggie,” he said dryly. “Remind me to call you whenever my ego gets a little too big.”
She almost smiled at his childlike pout. “Based on all these trophies, the calls might get expensive.” She glanced down at a notepad-size open phone book on his desk. “It looks like you’re already busy enough making calls. Are these all women’s phone numbers?”
Nick quickly shut the book. “Just friends.”
Friends. She thought of his offer yesterday to be “friends,” and could only imagine how his definition of the word differed from hers. Not that it really mattered, she decided. She had no intention of following that line of thought
He’d scooted forward, and his leg was touching her thigh now. A current of heat arced through her, then scurried through her entire body. She stepped aside casually, glanced over the other photos on his wall with the forced intensity of a student studying fine art. But it was an older picture, a snapshot in a simple black frame, that truly caught her attention.
Three young men, all devastatingly handsome, all with dark hair and wicked smiles. Dressed in a black racing suit, Nick sat on a motorcycle, holding a shiny gold trophy in his hand while he grinned widely at the camera. Lucas knelt in front, a half smile on his lips that didn’t quite make his narrowed eyes, and Ian Shawnessy stood in back, arms folded over his broad chest as he stared intently into the camera, his grin serious, but darkly sensual.
Bad boys, every one of them, Maggie thought, and her heart fluttered just looking at them.
She felt him move behind her, felt the heat of his body as he reached over her shoulder to straighten the picture she’d been staring at. “That was six months out of high school. My first win.”
The picture was straight now, but his hand lingered on the edge of the frame. She could barely breathe with his body draped over her like it was. He wasn’t even touching her, yet she felt consumed.
“Where’s Ian these days?” she asked conversationally, amazed that her voice held steady when her insides were shaking.
Nick shrugged, moved away and sat back down on the desk. “Ian moves around a lot. He can be difficult to track down.”
“Was he at Lucas and Julianna’s wedding?” Now that she could breathe again, she sucked in a deep lungful of air.
“He was out of the country. Business or something.”
Was he being vague? she wondered. But when she turned to look at him, her heart skipped. His gaze held hers, as dark as it was intense, the look of a predator, and she had no doubt who the prey was.
Needing a quick distraction, and some distance from the sexual tension vibrating between them, she turned quickly aside and moved to the back corner of the office where a door was ajar. “What’s in here?”
“My bedroom.”
“Your bedroom?” She turned back with a jerk, before she realized he’d moved up behind her. When she bumped into his chest, his hands went to her shoulders to steady her.
“Wanna see?” he murmured.
“I’ll pass.” She pushed away from him, but not as quickly as she intended, and certainly not with the cool conviction she’d resolved to portray. “A bedroom in your business. How convenient.”
“As a matter of fact, it is. I’ve been too busy to look for a house, so it was easier to just build a temporary living area. There’s even a kitchen. Sure you don’t want to see?”
He was teasing her, she was certain of it. Mocking her rejection of him. Chin lifted, she faced him, forced her own tone to be light. “Are you trying to make a move on me, Santos?”
He chuckled, then took her chin in his large hand and grinned down at her. “Sweetheart, you’ll know when I’m making a move, and there won’t be any ‘try’ about it. Besides,” he said, and his thumb brushed softly over her lips, “I made a promise, didn’t I?”
Something dark entered his eyes, and for a moment Maggie thought he was going to kiss her. God help her, she wanted him to kiss her. Her lips parted—
“Mommy, Nick, where are you?”
Nick dropped his hand and stepped away. She slowly released the breath she’d been holding, then gulped in another fresh pull of air before she turned to her son. He waved excitedly from the shop entrance.
“We’re in here, sweetheart.” The shock of what she’d almost done radiated through her, shot her back to reality like a bucket of cold water full in the face.
“Where do you want this fine piece of machinery?” The bike in one hand, Lucas stood behind Drew.
She waited a beat before following Nick out of the office, waited for her pulse to settle and the heat she felt on her face to cool.
She’d known better than to come here. No matter how many years separated her and Nick, no matter how much she wished things could be different, she could not allow herself to get close to him again.
But for now she had no choice. She saw the joy in her son’s eyes. He was the one person in her life she could never refuse. She would do anything for Drew, anything but let Nick Santos back into her heart again.
“Hold the wrench sideways,” Nick explained carefully, then covered Drew’s small hand with his own. “Fit it onto the nut and push it away from you.”
Drew’s face screwed up with concentration. When the bolt came loose, he laughed with delight and Nick found himself laughing right along with the child.
“I did it,” Drew yelled to his mother. “Mommy, I’m fixing my bike!”
Maggie smiled at Drew from the office. Nick had seen her watching them through the windows, carefully keeping her distance for the past thirty minutes while her son received his first lesson in mechanics. Every time Drew called out his latest accomplishment to her, she’d simply nodded and smiled, but she hadn’t stepped out of the office once, hadn’t even spoken.
Margaret Smith Hamilton baffled the hell out of him, Nick thought. She was a beautiful, sexy woman. Intelligent, successful at her work, a loving mother. She was way out of his league, hardly the type of woman he normally went for, and still he couldn’t stop thinking about her, couldn’t stop wondering.
While Drew ran over to show his mother the bolt he’d removed from the bicycle, Nick considered the possibility that he was interested in Maggie simply because she’d turned him down. But in his gut he knew there was much more to his fascination with her than the challenge. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, a feeling he couldn’t identify or define.
He rubbed at the back of his neck, but the feeling didn’t go away. It lingered, hung on quietly but tenaciously.
Sex and women had always been comfortable to him and he enjoyed them both, though certainly not to the degree that the tabloids had blasted across their headlines. He might not have been especially choosy with the women he’d dated casually, but the women he’d taken to bed he’d chosen with extreme care. Groupies had never been his style, neither had quick flings or one-nighters. The few close relationships he’d been involved in had always been exclusive, he’d genuinely cared about the woman, and once or twice he’d even considered the possibility of love.
But love, whatever it was, had always evaded him. Love, the kind that rang church bells and cried babies, Nick simply didn’t comprehend. No woman had ever gotten that far under his thick skin.
Of course, there was his fantasy woman, the woman who had haunted his dreams for the past five years. A woman with skin as soft and smooth as rose petals, a woman
who tasted as sweet as honey and cream. Even her scent still lingered in his mind, delicate, yet strangely exotic.
What a strange night that had been. He’d thought he’d made love to Cindy, his ex-girlfriend. Cindy had always been sweet, but they’d never really had a lot in common. Before he’d even gotten out of bed the next morning, he’d called her to talk about giving it another try, told her that he’d enjoyed being with her again the night before. Cindy had slammed the phone down on him, but not before she’d coolly informed him that she may have been at the party, but she most certainly had not “been with him.”
He must have stared at the receiver for a full five minutes before he could even hang up the phone. He’d been drinking, but he certainly hadn’t been drunk. How the hell could he have made a mistake like that? He’d never been that careless or negligent when it came to sex. He’d sat on the edge of the bed, his mind racing with scenarios of angry husbands and horrible diseases.
That’s when he’d looked at the bed and noticed the faint red spot on the sheets.
Good Lord. His mouth went dry as he stared at the sheet. A virgin? He groaned at the thought, cursed himself, then searched the room for something, anything that might reveal his mystery woman’s identity.
But there’d been nothing left behind to tell him who the woman was, only a cassette under the bed with a silly quote about cobblestones or some strange thing.
He’d called everyone at the party he’d known, even friends of friends, but no one remembered anything about her. He’d waited for her to call him. He’d even left a number he could be reached at after they checked out of the hotel. But as mysteriously as she’d come into his life, she vanished again.
That was the one woman, the only woman, who had ever gotten under his skin. He’d dreamed about that nameless, faceless seductress often after that, and though it had been a long time since the last dream, strangely enough, he’d had it again, just last night. It had been the same as always: he couldn’t see her face, couldn’t speak, and then she vanished, like smoke into the night.
Maybe he only wanted what he couldn’t have, he thought with a sigh, watching Maggie ruffle her son’s hair and laugh. A mystery woman and a woman who wouldn’t give him the time of day.
Still, despite her best efforts to convince him otherwise, he was certain that Maggie was not so indifferent to him. He reasoned it could be wishful thinking, but earlier, in his office, when he’d impulsively touched her mouth with his thumb, he’d watched her green eyes deepen, felt the shudder of breath from her lips. She might not have realized it, but she’d even leaned toward him, as if she’d wanted him to kiss her. As if she were asking.
He’d come close, so damn close. If Drew hadn’t stopped him, he was certain he would have kissed her. He wondered what she would have done if he had. Would she have opened those sweet lips to him and kissed him back, or would she have slapped him?
Life was chock-full of risks, he thought, and rubbed at his cheek. The risk of a sore jaw might be well worth finding out what Maggie Smith tasted like.
“Come see.” Drew took hold of his mother’s hand and dragged her out of the office. “Nick says I can put air in the tires, but we gotta get new ones first. Don’t we, Nick?”
“That’s right, pal.” Nick handed the youngster a clean rag. “We’ll have her fixed in no time.”
Grinning, Drew swiped the rag across his hands, then stuffed it into his back pocket the same way he’d seen Nick do. “Can I ride on your motorcycle now?”
Nick glanced at Maggie. She frowned darkly. “Another time, maybe. And anyway, after a hard morning’s work, we need hamburgers and chocolate shakes to build up our strength. My treat.”
“Nick—” Maggie lifted a hand to protest, but Drew was already bouncing with delight. With a sigh, she let her hand drop and shook her head. “Nick Santos, what in the world am I going to do with you?”
He’d like to tell her, in explicit detail. But there was a child present, so instead he grinned broadly and wiggled his eyebrows. “Anything you like, Maggie Smith. Anything at all.”
To his surprise, she laughed. The sound rippled through him like a familiar tune from the past, whispered softly to him like a long-forgotten lyric he’d heard before.
He blinked, and the moment passed. Smiling at his own foolishness, he swept Drew up and carried the giggling child to the washstand in the back of the shop.
And all the while, her heart aching, Maggie stood quietly by and watched them play.
Five
“Thanks for the ride, dear.” Two tins of fresh-baked cookies in her hand, Angela Smith slid out of the front seat of the car. “Ruby Peterson is going to drive us home after the bridge game, and your father’s already settled in to watch the football game in the bedroom. You just enjoy the quiet.”
Quiet was exactly what Maggie didn’t need. Quiet gave her too much time to think about things, and about people she didn’t want to think about. “Are you sure Drew won’t be any trouble?”
“Nonsense. Ruby’s bringing Tommy, her grandson. The boys will have a good time playing. Give your mother a kiss, Drew.”
The kiss he planted on her cheek was noisy and wet, and Maggie smiled at the pleasure of it, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before he’d balk at the idea of goodbye kisses. When she straightened the collar of his cotton shirt, he mimicked her and tugged right back at the neckline of her blue chenille sweater. “Grandma says Tommy is bringing his Robot Rider action cars and that I can play with them, too.”
“Just mind your manners, young man.” Maggie ruffled her son’s hair, loved the feel of the silky strands between her fingers. He bounced out of the front seat of the car before she could kiss him back.
“Oh, Margaret, dear.” With a thoughtful frown, Angela stared at the tins in her hands. “You know, I think I’ve brought way too many cookies for tonight, especially since Martha Wimpleman’s on a diet again. Why don’t you drop one of these tins by Nick Santos’s for me? He enjoyed my chocolate pie so much last week, I’m sure he’ll like these, as well.”
Maggie knew a setup when she saw one. Her mother hadn’t stopped talking about Nick since he’d come over for dinner. About what a handsome, single young man he was. But Maggie also knew if she told her mother she wasn’t interested, she’d only press all the more.
With an indifferent shrug, Maggie took the tin. “Sure, Mom.”
She contemplated tossing the cookies out the car window as she turned down Ridgeway Road and headed toward Nick’s shop, but she couldn’t bring herself to litter or waste food. She thought about eating them all herself, but then she’d only end up with a stomachache.
She didn’t want to see Nick, dam it. She’d already seen way too much of him. The visit last Saturday, then ice cream in town at Judy’s Creamery. That had been the worst. Watching Drew laugh with Nick and argue over what was better—chocolate with marshmallows and caramel, or vanilla with blueberry bubble gum. They both teased her over her own bland selection of vanilla dipped in chocolate.
She felt as if she were in a vise. Every time Nick looked at her with those dark eyes, every time he smiled, that vise tightened another notch.
That’s why she didn’t want quiet, why she didn’t want to think. With the quiet came the image of him touching her in his office, his fingers on her chin, the gentle caress of his thumb on her lips. Lips that still tingled. Lips that ached to be kissed.
How could she resist him? And even worse, did she truly want to?
She stared at the tin of cookies as if it were filled with snakes. A note. That’s it. She’d write a note and just leave it by the front door. He’d find them in the morning.
Satisfied with that solution, she pulled into the parking lot of his shop and turned off the engine. His truck was in the back corner, but that didn’t mean he was there. He rode his motorcycle most of the time. Either way, she’d sneak in and out and never be seen. She quickly scribbled a note on a scrap of paper from her purse and stepped out of the c
ar.
The night was warm, and a breeze carried the scent of coyote mint from a nearby field. A crescent moon shone brightly overhead, and the sky was clear, sparkling with thousands of stars.
As much as she enjoyed living in New York, with all its energy and vibrancy, the sky seemed higher here, the trees taller and the stars brighter. There was so much she missed about small-town life. The sense of community, the slower pace. The only horn she’d ever heard honk since she’d come back to Wolf River was Ethel Myers’s attempt to shoo a loose cow out of the middle of the highway.
Several times she’d thought about moving back. She could do free-lance work, or even take a job with a local newspaper. Her work had felt stale to her lately, and the constant chaos in her busy office ground on her nerves like knuckles on a cheese grater. She’d needed this leave of absence, not just for her parents’ sake, but for her own. The deadlines had been getting to her lately. The faster she worked, the more assignments they gave her, with tighter deadlines. And even more than all that, she missed her parents, wanted her son to see his grandma and grandpa all the time, instead of phone calls and letters.
But coming back had only been a dream, a fantasy. She could never come back now. Not with Nick here.
The front door to his shop was open a few inches, the lights were on inside. A song blared from a radio, about Hollywood Hills and Hollywood nights and Nick’s deep voice sang along. She smiled at his enthusiasm for the song, and in spite of herself couldn’t resist peeking her head inside.
He stood over a workbench, a screwdriver in one hand and a carburetor in the other. At least, she thought it was a carburetor. Because she was single, she’d had to learn a little about cars and mechanical things, but she still couldn’t say what the difference was between an axle and a piston.
She allowed herself a moment to watch him, to let her gaze linger on the dark waves of thick hair, the stretch of black T-shirt over wide, strong shoulders, the hug of faded denim over a fine rear end and Texaslong legs.
Secret Baby Santos Page 5