by Webb, Peggy
Maggie’s laugh was shaky. “They must be powerful motives.” She waved her hand at his elaborate costume. “You certainly went to a lot of trouble.”
“You’re worth it, Maggie.” They were still standing together in the corner of the large game room. Behind them the nursing-home residents were chattering with excitement as they compared presents. Adam’s broad back hid Maggie from view.
Maggie mentally slid between the satin sheets again, taking Adam and ecstasy with her. When she could speak, her voice was muffled. “I don’t understand.”
The red cap and fuzzy beard were a blur as Adam bent swiftly to claim Maggie’s lips. The soft beard brushed across her face, and the pompom on the end of the cap tickled her nose. His mouth seized hers boldly, tasting, probing, exciting her. The tickling beard and the annoying pompom faded into nothingness as Maggie pressed herself against Adam.
His hands defined her body through the soft jersey of her jump suit, wrapping her waist and sliding downward over her hips. Maggie’s whole body shuddered with longing for this forbidden man.
He released her with a suddenness that startled her. “Damn,” he growled. “Neither do I.”
Maggie spun around and jerked the top drawer of the game chest open. Her hand moved frantically about, searching for the Christmas sheet music. “I think it would be a good idea for you to leave, Santa.”
How dare he kiss her like that in a public place and then back off, claiming not to understand? He was the one who had come here.
“We have songs to sing.” That statement didn’t make sense, even to her; but she didn’t care. Being around Adam Trent was getting to be more than her nerves could take. She turned around, holding the music in front of her chest like a shield. “You’re blocking my way, Santa.”
“Now, wait a minute, Maggie.” Adam reached around her, putting his hands on the game chest, pinning her in on either side. “I didn’t come here to make you mad.”
“Then why did you come here? To make a spectacle of me in public?” She pressed the sheet music against his chest, trying to shove him aside.
Amusement turned up the corners of Adam’s mouth. “Why, Ms. Merriweather,” he drawled, “you’re so good at creating your own spectacles that you certainly don’t need my help.” He winked broadly at her. “What’s the matter, Maggie? Can’t you take the heat without your horn? Or would you prefer a tabletop? Perhaps we can recreate our scene over there on top of the piano.”
“I’m not interested in recreating anything with you. Now, move!”
“I haven’t answered your question yet.”
“I’m no longer interested in the answer.”
“You’re a magnificent little spitfire, and that red outfit you’re wearing suits you to a tee.”
“Did you mention tea, Santa?” Emma Vinson spoke up behind them. “Come on over here. We were going to serve punch and cookies a little later, but we’ve decided to do it right this minute.” She put her tiny, blue-veined hands on Adam’s sleeve and tugged. Adam turned to face her, and she clucked her tongue. “There you are, Maggie. I thought you had gone out to steal a van for us.”
“Emma...” Maggie began warningly.
“Maggie steals vans?” Santa raised his bushy white brows at Maggie and chuckled. “I might have known.”
“Of course,” Emma said serenely. “Our Maggie will do anything for us.”
Emma Vinson stopped dead in her tracks, her lace-up, rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the wooden floor. “How do you know our Maggie?” She peered keenly up at him, her brown eyes snapping. “Do I know you?”
“Emma. Santa Claus is Adam Trent.” Maggie hoped that Emma would remember the significance of the name before she prattled on and revealed their reason for being in the Holly Springs National Forest the Wednesday before.
Emma peered around Adam’s broad chest at Maggie. “The Adam Trent?” she inquired breathlessly.
Maggie nodded her head.
“Oh, my,” Emma breathed. She remembered. She also remembered the way he had held Maggie’s hands at the gas station. And she loved romance far more than she did intrigue. She grabbed Maggie’s hand and thrust it toward Adam. He took it automatically. “Maggie, you bring Santa on over to the punch table. I think he’s earned a little something to drink. I’ve got to go tell Fannie Mae.” Emma scooted off with a spryness that belied her seventy-six years.
Adam chuckled. “I like that lady.” He held Maggie’s hand as if he had not the slightest intention of ever letting go.
“Mrs. Emma Vinson. She was already a resident when I started coming here, three years ago. She’s a remarkable lady. Mac says she fought and overcame cancer about five years ago.”
“Mac? The one who is still in love with you?” Adam stopped and looked down into her face. There was something in his eyes that she couldn’t quite fathom.
“Who told you that?”
“I overheard it when I came in.”
“You were eavesdropping?”
“No. I was standing in the doorway, adjusting my pack. I heard somebody say Mac is still in love with you.”
Maggie laughed. “If you believe everything these dear ladies say about me, you’ll think I’m the most sought-after woman in Lee County. They’re prejudiced, and they fantasize a lot.”
“Who is Mac?” Adam Trent was pursuing the subject with a single-mindedness that amazed Maggie. What possible difference could it make to Adam?
“Mac Jennings is director of Deerfield and a friend of mine. A long time ago we were engaged.”
“And he let you go?” Was that amusement or amazement in Adam’s face? It was hard for her to tell behind all the whiskers.
“As a matter of fact, he insisted that I go.” Maggie chuckled, remembering Mac’s perspiring, flustered face when he broke their engagement. “Mac couldn’t understand my ardor for causes. Few people do.”
They were standing now at the punch table. The ladies of Deerfield had outdone themselves with the decorations. A white felt cloth appliquéd with Christmas trees, snowmen, and Santas covered the rectangular table. Three wise men, made with leftover scraps of satin and lace and decorated with discarded rhinestone jewelry, sat among the holly and mistletoe in the center of the table. A mouthwatering assortment of cookies was stacked high on the trays surrounding the punch bowl.
Adam attacked the cookies with the eagerness of a two-year-old.
“Maggie,” he said, grinning up from his laden plate, “how about joining the Adam Trent cause?”
“What cause is that?”
“Rescuing a poor, deprived banker from starvation.”
“From the looks of your plate, I’d say you don’t need any help. Haven’t you eaten today, Adam?”
“Not since breakfast. The Board meeting was a bear, and then there was a minor crisis in the loan department...” He let the sentence trail off as he looked from Maggie to his plate. “If you’ll sit with me on that sofa over there, I’ll tell you why I came to Deerfield today.”
He smiled that brilliant smile, the one she knew would melt all the dummies at Madame Tussaud’s into puddles, and Maggie capitulated.
She didn’t capitulate, really, she told herself as she followed Adam to the brown tweed sofa. There was no good reason not to join him. She was, after all, twenty-eight years old and perfectly capable of carrying on a normal conversation with a normal man. She glanced covertly at his profile as he sat beside her devouring cookies. Perfectly fabulous man would be more like it, even in that Santa suit.
She was strongly attracted to him, and she knew it. Would she be forced to make a terrible choice between Adam and the cause she believed in so fervently?
“Have a chocolate chip cookie, Maggie.” Adam leaned over and stuffed one into her mouth. He laughed as a few crumbs fell on her chin, and he reached up to wipe them away. “I’m afraid I took more than I can eat.”
The ordinary gesture made her shiver with delight. She straightened her back and inched away from Adam on the sofa.
There was no choice. She wouldn’t allow their involvement to go that far. Could a few impulsive kisses be called an involvement? That was stretching credibility when the other person was Tupelo’s most eligible bachelor. She relaxed at the thought.
“I’m waiting, Adam.”
“For another cookie?”
She grimaced at him. “For an explanation. Did anybody ever tell you that you are the world’s most maddening man?”
“Only my calico cat.”
“Adam.” Maggie hoped she sounded threatening, but she doubted it. A woman in her condition couldn’t threaten a cat.
He winked. “Sorry about that.” Placing the empty plate on the coffee table in front of them, Adam turned a serious face back to Maggie. “I came to Deerfield today to invite you to attend the Waterfowls Incorporated banquet with me Friday night.” He held up his hands to quiet her protest. “Before you say no, hear me out. I believe you will learn some things at WI that will help you to understand my viewpoint, the hunter’s viewpoint.”
“I understand all I want to about the hunter’s viewpoint. I don’t need educating by you.” The word dripped with contempt. How could she forget the challenge he had flung at her that day in the woods of Boguefala Bottom?
“Maggie, I came here to make peace with you, not to start another fight.”
“Who’s starting another fight?” She batted her lashes at him in a gesture he probably thought was calculated instead of innocent. Adam was no dummy. “I just turned you down, and you got testy.”
Adam sat very still on his end of the sofa. It was a controlled, icy stillness. “What are you afraid of, Maggie?”
What if she told him the truth? What if she said, “Adam, I’m afraid my attraction for you will make me lose sight of my goal?” He’d probably laugh all the way back to that stuffy bank of his. He had made his feelings for her exceedingly plain: She was a challenge for him, and he intended to tame her. Well, not while she still had possession of her senses, thank you very much.
She lifted her chin so that she could give him one of her haughty looks. At least, that was what her brother, Jim, called it.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Adam. I’m not afraid of anything, particularly you.”
Adam’s muscles strained forward, almost as if he were reaching out to touch her, but he never left his seat.
“Stubborn Maggie,” he whispered. “Of course you’re not afraid of me. Any fool can see that.”
The moment stretched between them, heavy with unspoken emotion. At last Adam stood up. “Call me if you change your mind.”
He left her sitting on the sofa and walked toward the center of the room to say good-bye to the Deerfield residents. Emma and Fannie Mae patted his arm and cooed over him. His smile said it all. He loved every minute of it. Maggie hands curled into tight fists as she watched him. Why did he have to do everything so well? He could at least be a hater of little old ladies. Then she could happily mow him down and leave him bleeding on the pavement without a backward glance.
Maggie’s teeth worried her lower lip as she watched Adam Trent, a.k.a. Santa, make his way to the door. She almost ran after him to say that she had changed her mind about the banquet, but instead she picked up his empty plate and carried it to the kitchen. Maggie had never before backed away from a real challenge. Her retreat from Adam was uncharacteristic. She slammed the plate into the sink with unnecessary vigor.
Broken glass tinkled against the porcelain sink as the plate shattered. It was all Adam’s fault. Muttering, she picked up the pieces. There wouldn’t be an unbroken piece of china left in Tupelo if she continued to react like this to these unsettling encounters with him.
She finished picking up the party plates (with no more accidents), apologized to her ladies for leaving Deerfield so early, and headed home to Belden. She needed to talk to somebody.
o0o
As soon as she had parked her pickup, she went around the side of her cottage and across her backyard toward Martha Jo’s house. Sam picked up a stick between his teeth and trotted after her, wagging his tall. He was hopefully eager for a game of fetch.
Maggie bent down and patted his head. “Not today, boy.” His eyes looked up at her so mournfully that she relented and tossed the stick. “Just once,” she told him.
Leaving Sam bounding after his stick, Maggie entered the small thicket of pine trees that divided her property from Martha Jo’s. The quiet solitude of the trees soothed her as she passed through them on the way to the small redwood cottage on the edge of the woods.
Martha Jo had seen her coming and stood holding the door open. The light from inside the cottage made a bright path on the brittle grass under Maggie’s feet.
“It must be important or you wouldn’t have come after a long day at school and an afternoon of bingo.” Martha Jo always got right to the heart of the matter. That was one of the reasons she was Maggie’s best friend.
“I need your advice,” Maggie told her as she stepped into the warm cottage. Walking into Martha Jo’s house was like stepping into a museum. Antique tables, railroad lanterns, brass spittoons, and even an old buggy seat decorated the den.
Martha Jo swept a stack of student papers aside and motioned for Maggie to sit on the sofa. “Fire away.”
“It’s Adam Trent.”
“I thought so.” She waited for Maggie to continue.
Maggie smiled fondly at her friend. Martha Jo’s hair looked like a rag mop, and she generally supplied a stream of witty banter that kept people laughing. But when the chips were down, she could be counted on for good, solid advice.
“Adam and I are avowed enemies over this hunting business, but every time we are together, the sparks fly.” She hesitated and then plunged ahead. “Somehow, we always end up in each other’s arms.”
“What’s wrong with that, Maggie? He’s a powerfully attractive man.”
“In more ways than you know,” Maggie murmured. She jumped up from the sofa and began to pace the floor. “It’s just that... doggone it! He’s a hunter.”
“And that makes him one hundred percent evil?” Martha Jo raised skeptical eyebrows. “Come on, Maggie. You know there’s no dividing line between good and evil.”
Maggie leaned her elbow on the oak mantel and looked down into the fire. “He’s asked me to go to the Waterfowls, Incorporated banquet with him Friday night.”
“Do you want to go?”
“Yes... and no. I’m torn right down the middle by this whole thing. If Adam were different and if I were different, there wouldn’t be a problem. As it is, I feel like going to the banquet with him would be compromising my principles.”
“And that’s what life is all about, isn’t it, Maggie? Compromise.”
Maggie whirled around from the fire and smiled at her friend. “Compromise is not capitulation, is it?”
“Nobody ever said it was.”
“Lead me to the phone.”
“Now you’re talking.” Martha Jo uncrossed her legs and jumped up from the sofa. “I think I’ll have a cup of coffee, Maggie. Do you want one?”
Maggie looked up from the phone book, holding her finger in the T’s so she wouldn’t lose her place. “Ugh!”
CHAPTER SIX
Maggie’s ponytail cascaded down the back of her shocking red football jersey, Number 90, a souvenir of her college dating days. She hitched up her army pants and tackled the mass of second-grade papers spread over her kitchen table.
In the middle of her second set of two plus two’s, the doorbell rang. She wasn’t expecting anybody, but company was always a welcome diversion.
Adam Trent stood in her doorway, immaculate and handsome in a dark gray business suit.
Maggie clutched her door handle until her knuckles turned white. “Today is Thursday.”
“I know.” He smiled. “May I come in?” And then he was inside her den. Without waiting for a Yes, of course or a Please, do he just marched right in and made himself at home.
“I thought the banq
uet was tomorrow night.” She put the antique rocking chair between her and her unexpected guest. Why had she made that phone call and why was he so scrumptious and why was he here? She felt suddenly as shy and tongue-tied as some of her own students.
“It is.” He smiled that enchanting, disarming smile, the one that made her forget his hunting and his biased opinions of FOA and his highhanded way of kissing her. “I’m on my way to the library to hear a lecture on socioeconomic trends in the Soviet Union, and I thought you might like to join me.”
Was he kidding? Socioeconomic trends in the Soviet Union? She’d just as soon sit through a tooth-pulling exhibition.
“I know I should have called to see if you already had plans, but I came on... impulse.” The slight hesitation indicated just how foreign impulse was to Adam Trent’s nature. He had never done anything on impulse until he met Maggie, and she sensed it.
“I’m swamped with papers to grade, and, to be quite frank with you, I’m not in the right frame of mind for a lecture that highbrow.”
Adam peeled off his jacket and draped it casually across the back of her sofa. Loosening his tie, he grinned at Maggie. “To tell you the truth, I’m not either. Where are those papers?”
Maggie watched him in amazement. Just what did he think he was doing? “You’re not suggesting what I think you are, are you?”
“Yes. I’m quite good at second grade math. A whiz, in fact.” He rolled up his sleeves. “You did say you were ‘swamped’?” His left eyebrow inclined over his dazzling blue eyes. “I’m offering my assistance.”
Maggie clutched the back of her rocking chair and tried to breathe normally. How could she trust a man who paraded around in a Santa Claus suit? He had to be up to something. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Well, because...” Because he looked good enough to eat and because he wore three-piece suits and she wore football jerseys and because she just wouldn’t be responsible for her actions if he stayed in her cozy little house a minute longer. “...because I draw smiley faces on the papers.”