by Webb, Peggy
Taming Maggie
Peggy Webb
Copyright 2012 Peggy Webb
Cover design copyright 2012 Kim Van Meter
Publishing history/Bantam Loveswept/Copyright by Peggy Webb, 1985 All rights reserved
Smashwords Edition
CHAPTER ONE
The four-wheel-drive pickup truck skidded on a patch of ice as it barreled along Highway 30 toward the Tallahatchie River. Maggie fought with the wheel, swearing under her breath, brought the truck back under control, and glanced at her watch. If she didn’t hurry she’d be too late. It was already five A.M., and thirty minutes before sunrise the hunters would emerge from their blinds, blasting ducks from the shy, ducks just like Donald and Baby Huey, her two pets.
She stepped on the gas and prayed as the truck careened off the highway and onto a winding dirt road. The bumpy road jarred her teeth as she bounced through the Holly Springs National Forest on her way to the river. In the predawn gloom, the trees looked like giant, silent ghosts. Maggie ignored the primeval beauty of the forest as she squinted for her first glimpse of the river. There it was, just ahead, its waters dim and murky.
Maggie squealed to a halt and jumped out. The twenty-degree weather blasted her, turning her nose a bright pink.
“Oops,” she muttered. “Forgot my hat.” She immediately scrambled back inside the warm cab of her truck and felt along the seat for her wool toboggan cap. Pulling it down over her wild tangle of honey-colored hair, she stepped back out into the wintry chill.
Maggie sprinted to the rear of her truck and lowered the tailgate. Using all the strength her athletically toned body could muster, coupled with sheer, stubborn determination, she dragged the aluminum rowboat onto the ground and toward the river. She shoved it into the water, where it landed with a plop like an ungainly, silver-bellied fish. She started to climb in and stopped. “Shoot! Forgot my trumpet.” She pulled the boat back up on the bank and hurried over to her truck.
The silver trumpet, pride of her high-school marching-band days, lay in its case. With tender pride she took it from the case and rubbed its shiny sides. “Baby, we’re going to make beautiful music today.”
A wicked grin played about Maggie’s full lips as she pushed the boat back into the water and stepped in, setting her trumpet beside her. Taking the oars in her hands, she rowed toward the center of the river. The dark waters lapped against the sides of the boat as it moved swiftly under Maggie’s expert stroking.
She rounded a bend in the river and headed toward a wide, open space that would give her a clear view of the ducks as they came in for a landing.
She put the oars in the bottom of the boat and sat shivering, waiting for the first sound that would herald the start of the battle. Out of the gloom it came, a hoarse cry from the west bank of the river, the low, urgent sounds of a hunter’s duck call.
She reached for her trumpet, her muscles tensed in anticipation. Her fingers, sticking out of the holes Maggie had cut in the ends of her gloves, clutched the icy trumpet. She dreaded putting the cold metal to her lips, but she would do anything for her cause.
Maggie held her breath, straining to hear the approach of the ducks. From high in the sky came the first answering calls as the ducks approached the river in a V formation, winging their way toward destruction.
Putting the trumpet to her lips, Maggie sounded the opening bars of the William Tell Overture. The brazen notes echoed through the silent forest, rising clear and loud in the morning air. The ducks that had begun their descent toward the river rose in alarm and soared back up into the sky.
From the west bank the blast of a shotgun sounded. Maggie watched in glee as the shot missed its mark. Not a single feather floated downward.
Maggie stood up, planted her feet firmly apart in the swaying boat, and yelled, “Hi-ho, Silver! Away!” Her lips were already numb from contact with the icy trumpet, but she didn’t care. The victory was hers. Triumphantly, she once more played the opening bars of what had become the Lone Ranger’s theme song. Without the urgency of the first time, the music took on clarity and precision that had been her hallmark in high school and college. It was a skill that had enabled her not only to play a “boy’s” instrument, but to outshine all the boys who’d played it.
“What the hell’s going on out there!” The enraged voice rose from a duck blind on the west bank of the river, and was followed by the appearance of a hunter of gigantic proportions, dressed from head to toe in camouflage green. His twenty- gauge shotgun was unbreached and slung across his shoulder.
“I’ve saved the ducks from assassination,” she yelled. She still stood tall in her aluminum boat, and if she had been on dry land she would have swaggered. The freezing trumpet dangled from her hand.
“Are you crazy? Get off this river before you get shot.”
“The assassin has scruples, does he?” Maggie taunted.
“Damned activist!” he roared back.
“You bet your smoking twenty-gauge I’m an activist!” Maggie rubbed her coat sleeve across her red nose to restore some circulation. The boat rocked from her slight movement, but she steadied it by shifting the position of her nearly frozen feet.
“This is duck season. Get off that river!” The hunter had moved to the edge of the water, closer to her drifting boat, close enough that she could see his face. It was vaguely familiar. Something about that strong, square jaw triggered a faint memory, but she couldn’t quite capture it.
“Try telling that to the ducks. They don’t know there’s a murder plot and they are the intended victims.”
While they were arguing, dawn had crept over the forest. The branches of the trees were tipped with pink and gold as the faint December sun spread its feeble warmth across the wooded hills of northeast Mississippi. The waters of the Tallahatchie River changed from murky gray to deep blue.
“Victims, hell! Now, get off that river before you freeze your butt.”
“Not until you put away that shotgun.” The boat had drifted closer to the bank, and she could see that the hunter’s eyes were deep blue, as blue as the Tiffany glass goblet sitting on the windowsill in her kitchen catching the sun. Beneath his camouflage safari hat, his black eyebrows were drawn together in a fierce scowl. She chuckled with malicious glee. Good, she thought. He was so mad at her that he had completely forgotten about slaughtering ducks. She clapped her nearly frozen hands together to get the circulation going.
“You must be insane. I’m here to hunt.”
“And I’m here to see that you don’t.”
“Just who do you think you are?”
“I don’t think: I know. I’m Maggie Merriweather, president and founder of Friends of the Animals, at your service.” She lifted her trumpet to her lips and blasted forth a high C. She chuckled as the hunter stepped back and muttered a word that would curl the ears of her second-grade students at East Heights Elementary.
A lone green-head mallard that had drifted in, unnoticed, stretched his iridescent neck in fright and lifted over the Tallahatchie River. The hunter reached for his gun, but he was too late. By the time he had loaded, breached, and aimed his gun, the male duck was out of range. The hunter shot into the air just on principle.
The bow of Maggie’s boat was now touching the west bank of the river. She could see the outrage plainly stamped on the hunter’s handsome face. A line of anger was etched around his lips. A name stirred in the back of her memory, a name associated with a newspaper story from about a year ago. If it weren’t for that hat, she might have been able to identify her adversary.
Maggie sat down in her boat and guided it in, consumed now with curiosity to learn the identity of the good-looking madman standing on the bank. She forgot the bitter cold in her quest for his identity.
&n
bsp; He stood with folded arms and watched her drag the aluminum boat onto the shore. With lithe sureness, Maggie secured the boat, grabbed her trumpet from the boat seat, and turned to face her foe.
“Well, Ms. Merriweather—and I’m sure a woman of your persuasions insists on being addressed as Ms.—you’ve succeeded in ruining a good morning’s hunt for me.”
“Well, now, Mr.—” Maggie stopped, hoping he would supply his name. He stood like a rock before her, his lips clamped shut in a tight line. Before the pause became too obvious, she continued speaking. “I’ve saved more than a few of my feathered friends from being mounted and hung on some wall for display.”
“What you’ve done today is deprive me of my supper.”
“How touching,” she said sarcastically.
“Yes, Ms. Merriweather, you’ve saved that duck from the stew pot.” He glared at her.
“Why don’t you try carrots?” she suggested.
“Do I look like a rabbit to you?”
“No, but 1’ll bet you’d like to put a cute little Easter bunny in that stewpot of yours too.”
“Bravo, Ms. Merriweather. How discerning of you.”
“Barbarian!” she replied hotly.
“Addlepated activist!”
“Well, at least I don’t hide my identity.” she shouted. Who was he, she wondered, this superbly built man towering over her? Why, he had to be at least six feet four to stand so tall above her own five nine. She had to find out who he was. She liked to know the names of her enemies.
“I didn’t hear you ask my name. But then, your manners do leave a lot to be desired.” He casually lifted his gun.
“What are you going to do, shoot me?”
A devil-may-care, pirate’s grin split his handsome, sun-bronzed face. “That’s not a bad idea.” he said as he unbreached his gun once more. “Actually, I had figured on telling you my name, since you’re so all-fired determined to know it.”
He pushed his hat back on his head, and Maggie noticed his hands. They were well-kept, the fingernails nicely manicured. They were the hands of a man who worked indoors. Like a banker... that was it! He was—
“Adam Trent,” he drawled. “And I’ll probably live to rue the day I told when you come marching onto my front lawn with protest signs.”
He was the youngest man ever to become president of Mutual Bank. That was why his face was familiar. Nearly a year ago the local paper had done a story about his phenomenal rise to success. He looked better in person than he did in print.
“Marching on lawns is not my style.” Maggie brandished her silver trumpet at him. “I go for the jugular vein.”
“As you can see, Ms. Merriweather, I’m not bleeding.”
“I wouldn’t speak too soon, Mr. Trent. This is only opening day. My cohorts and I intend to make these woods a nightmare for hunters.”
“Well, just keep out of my way, Ms. Merriweather. I’m not a patient man, and I don’t like activists.” He turned his back on her and muttered, “No matter how good-looking they are.”
“And I don’t like hunters. If you plant your hunting boots in these woods, Mr. Trent, be prepared to do battle with me.” She flung the words at his broad, stiff back as she stamped her aching feet on the ground trying to warm them. She was willing to give up plenty for her cause, but she didn’t plan on giving up her feet.
He whirled back around at her words. “Are you challenging me, Ms. Merriweather?”
“Precisely, Mr. Trent.”
“Then prepare to get a dent in your horn.” With that parting shot he grabbed his empty game bag and disappeared into the woods.
Never one to let somebody else have the last word, Maggie lifted the trumpet to her blue lips and played Taps.
“That’s for you and every hunter like you,” she yelled into the silent forest. Her only answer was the revving of a cold engine in the distance.
With adrenaline pumping like fire in her veins from the thrill of the first victory of the hunting season, Maggie dragged her boat back to her truck and began the arduous task of maneuvering it aboard. She put all one hundred twenty pounds of herself to bear on the task, and, with a fierce will, managed to get it accomplished. With the boat secure, Maggie climbed into the cab of her four-wheel-drive and headed home to Belden.
She was whistling and humming, clipping down Highway 30 doing seventy, when she heard the siren behind her. “Well, shoot,” she muttered as she pulled off the road. “Who would have thought they’d be out this early in the morning?”
“Going to a fire, lady?” The blue-coated officer of the Mississippi Highway Patrol grinned at her.
“You caught me red-handed, sir. Just please don’t cart me off to jail.” Maggie smiled her most engaging smile. Sometimes flirting helped, and she wasn’t above trying.
“Your driver’s license, please, ma’am.” He looked unimpressed.
Maggie groaned. She thought of the chunk this ticket would take out of her paltry schoolteacher’s pay.
After the dastardly deed was done, Maggie started her truck on its way: formerly a blue streak of lightning, it now resembled a blue snail. She inched her way back to her country cottage on the lake and parked in her garage. Sam and Muffin and Frisky barked joyous greetings and followed her inside for their usual tidbits.
Frisky Beagle’s toenails clicked on the brick floor as he did his whirling-dervish dance. Maggie chuckled and reached into the cabinet for the dog biscuits. Her eyes fell on the Tiffany glass goblet on her windowsill, catching the morning sun. Her hands stopped in midair as she watched the sun sparkle on the deep sapphire glass and cast a brilliant blue reflection across her white curtains. Fascinated, she decided Adam Trent’s eyes were exactly the color of that goblet. She dreamily put the copper kettle on to boil.
There is only so much waiting a dog will stand. Frisky’s sharp bark brought Maggie back to the matter at hand. Good land! Whatever had possessed her to be standing there like a moron, thinking of Adam Trent? She rummaged around in the half-empty box and came up with biscuits for Frisky, Sam, and Muffin. Wagging their tails, they disappeared out the doggie door, a hinged affair in the bottom of Maggie’s kitchen door. She laughed as Muffin struggled to squeeze her chubby behind through the small door.
Leaning over, Maggie lifted the hinged door and called to the obese bulldog, “I’m going to have to put you on a diet, Muffin.”
Muffin lifted her pug nose in disdain and marched to the other side of the garage, totally ignoring that outrageous suggestion.
Maggie peeled off her cap and parka and her heavy boots. Then she began to work on her second layer of clothes. She was down to a pair of baggy army pants and a red sweat shirt when Martha Jo came breezing through her patio door.
Plopping herself into a kitchen chair and propping her tiny feet on the table, she looked Maggie up and down and gave a small nod of satisfaction. “Tell me all about the victory,” she commanded. The wind had turned Martha Jo’s red hair upside-down and given it the appearance of a rag mop on top of her head.
“Don’t you ever say hi?” Maggie scolded her as she put the tea up to steep.
“Hi, and tell me everything that happened, and what does a poor little ole girl like me have to do to get a cup of coffee?” Martha Jo plunked her feet down on the floor with a loud bang and propped her elbows on the table.
“You know I don’t drink coffee. If you want coffee, go to the truck stop.”
“What! And expose this body to the view of all those lecherous old men?” She wiggled her bottom in her size-fourteen slacks and laughed.
Maggie poured two cups of steaming orange spice tea and joined her friend and fellow schoolteacher at the sun-washed antique table. “I got up at four o’clock this morning, loaded my trusty trumpet into the pickup, and drove forty miles in the dark to Tallahatchie River bottom.”
“Your devotion to the cause touches my heart.” Martha Jo took a sip of her tea. “This stuff is awful. When are you going to start serving a decent cup of
coffee?”
“Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Aw, come on, Maggie.” Martha Jo took another sip of tea and made a wry face. “If I live to be a hundred, I might get used to it. Then what happened?”
“It was perfect.” Maggie’s green eyes sparkled in the early morning sunlight as she talked. “The ducks came in and I scared them clear to Mexico with my trumpet.” She and Martha Jo laughed heartily at the success of the mission.
“Were there any hunters there?”
“Just one.” Maggie bent over her cup and looked smug, knowing that Martha Jo was dying to know more.
The grandfather clock ticked loudly in the corner of the kitchen as the minutes stretched out. Maggie sipped her tea and waited.
Finally Martha Jo could stand the suspense no longer.
“Well, for Pete’s sake! Who was it?” she exploded.
“Adam Trent.”
“Adam Trent? Tupelo’s wonder-boy banker? Mississippi’s most eligible bachelor?” She groaned and raked her fingers through her mop of hair. “Why didn’t I go with you?”
Maggie laughed. “You said you wouldn’t get out of bed at four o’clock on Saturday morning for anybody except the President of the United States.”
“Isn’t that just my luck? While I’m innocently sleeping my life away, you’re in the woods with a heartthrob!”
“Does that mean you’re going with the pot-and-pan brigade next Saturday?” Maggie was referring to the group of Friends of the Animals who planned to march through the woods in Boguefala Bottom beating on pots and pans to foil the first deer hunt of the season.
“Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.”
“Then, drink your tea. You’ll need your strength,” Maggie told her.
Martha Jo rose and yanked her hat down over her ears. “Ugh. Keep your brew. I’m going home for a cup of good coffee. See you at school tomorrow.” She banged breezily out the kitchen door and disappeared in the direction of her cottage, next door.
Maggie stretched and yawned. “If I don’t get my circulation going, I’ll fall asleep.” She walked over to the coat rack to get her parka, and her eyes fell on the blue goblet. Adam’s eyes. Her hand absently caressed one puffy sleeve as the goblet winked at her in the sun. She grabbed her coat and whirled out the door as if pursued by demons.