"So. Shall I get you a chai tea, or do you want something else?" He paused above her.
"Oh, a tea will be fine."
But he didn't immediately leave for the counter to order her tea. "You're okay, right?"
Maggie blinked up at him, alarmed. "I'm fine."
Thank God: his answering smile was relieved, a bit sheepish...and entirely credulous. "Okay. I'll be right back."
Maggie's heart beat very fast as she watched him stride purposefully toward the counter. This whole business was awful and ridiculous. She was nervous—with Ian. But only because he'd been behaving so very unlike Ian, or at least the Ian she used to know.
Maybe that meant this weird infatuation wouldn't last. As the shock of his heart attack faded, Ian's confidence—and arrogance—would return. His whole unlikable personality would return.
When that happened, Maggie wouldn't like him any more. There was no way she'd remain attracted to a man who behaved like her father.
But in the meantime, there had to be something she could do to attenuate this insanity. For heaven's sake, she was staring in fascination at his broad shoulders as he stood at the counter to give their order.
She shifted her gaze ever so casually when he turned to head back to their table, as if he were no more interesting to her than the vase of silk flowers centered on the tabletop.
"Our drinks should be up soon." Ian settled in the chair across from her. "Not exactly champagne, but..."
Looking up, Maggie rolled her eyes. "But taking over twenty-four hours to set up a computer system doesn't exactly merit champagne."
Ian lifted a shoulder. "Which is why we're about to drink tea and a decaf cappuccino." He smiled.
Relaxing a little, Maggie chuckled in response.
"You know, I hadn't thought to ask." Ian lightly tapped the tabletop. "Has this little deal of ours been messing up your social life?"
Maggie's relaxation vanished like an ice cube in hell. "Excuse me?"
Ian smiled crookedly. "Sorry. I didn't bring that up as a fishing expedition but more as an apology. It didn't even occur to me I might be, oh, I don't know...poaching?"
"Poaching?" The term was so antediluvian it took Maggie a moment to understand. Her eyes widened. "Since no man could own me, you could hardly be 'poaching.'"
"No, of course not. Right." Ian's eyes flicked away. "But it's a fact I've been monopolizing your time. So I just wanted to say I'm sorry if that's...made things difficult for you."
Maggie narrowed her eyes and regarded Ian closely. He appeared to be sincere. "There's no difficulty. I'm not seeing anybody."
"Ah." His gaze returned to hers. "Not, uh—pardon me if I have the name wrong. I'm trying to remember what the kids told me. Wasn't there a Paul?"
"Paul and I parted company a while ago." Paul had wanted to get married. Fond as Maggie had been of the kind-hearted veterinarian, she couldn't imagine marrying him. To be accurate, she couldn't imagine tying herself to any one particular person. She led her own independent life.
"Ah," Ian said again, looking at her.
"What?"
A corner of his mouth rose. "It occurs to me we're both a couple of date-less singles."
Maggie raised a brow. "Speak for yourself."
"Oh." Ian's head tilted. "Then you are seeing somebody, after all."
"No."
"But—?"
Maggie tossed her head. "I don't discuss my status in terms of a man. Whether I'm dating one or not. It's degrading."
"Hey, wait a minute. Aren't we discussing my status in the same way, whether I'm dating a woman or not?"
"Uh." He almost had her on that one. Maggie had to think quickly. "It's—it's not the same thing. Anyway, you aren't really single. You're a widower."
Something flickered in his eyes. "Ah."
"The fact you've been married," Maggie persisted, "makes it different."
He paused. "I'm not sure I'm following your argument."
Maggie waved a hand. How had she gotten into this mess? "You pledged yourself to someone. So you're not single, you're...encumbered."
Laughing, Ian agreed, "You can say that again."
Maggie scowled. "I'm not talking about the kids."
"No?" Ian looked inquisitive. "Then what do you mean?"
With a sigh, she looked away, trying to think. The subject of dating and encumbrances made her head whirl—but it was also a perfect opportunity to throw some distance between them. "You...had a relationship with my sister." Yes, yes! Remember that! "A long-term relationship. A committed relationship. A relationship that would still be going on right now this very minute if she hadn't been killed."
Silence fell over the table. Ian watched Maggie with a very dark, intent gaze. "Yes," he said softly. "That's true."
Maggie made herself look at him, made herself look into his eyes. She wanted to see his feelings for Sophia there. She wanted to remind herself he'd been Sophia's husband, he'd belonged to her.
And Sophia, sweet and submissive, had belonged to him, in a way Maggie would never want to belong to a man.
Ian gazed straight into Maggie's eyes. There she saw the emotion she'd been expecting, grief and love. But the sight acted on Maggie in a way she had not expected. Instead of feeling distance yawn between them, instead of feeling all the old walls rise again, she felt the remaining obstructions between them start falling until she was zooming right into the center of him.
He had loved her sister, just as she had. Well, okay, he'd loved her in a different way, a possibly not-so-great way, but still he'd loved her, and this was something they shared.
"You have a point," he went on, in the same calm, soft tone. "I have been married. It does make a difference."
Yes, it made a difference, but not the kind on which Maggie'd been counting. She was falling deeper, going under. He'd loved her sister. This fact didn't separate them but rather brought them together.
Ian leaned over the little table. "You're right. I am 'encumbered.' There isn't a day that goes by I don't remember I'm not married any more and why not. There isn't a day goes by I don't think about Sophia and wonder..." His voice trailed off and he shook his head.
"Wonder how things would have been, if only...?" Maggie finished for him.
With a wry smile, Ian leaned back. "Not any big surprise I'm still single and without a date, huh?"
With her own smile, Maggie shook her head, then stopped smiling when she realized what he'd just admitted. There'd been no other woman in his life since Sophia.
Still smiling, Ian asked, "So what's your excuse?"
Maggie blinked. "Pardon me?"
"Why aren't you involved with anybody?"
Maggie's mouth opened. Since she'd probed his situation, it made sense he'd probe hers, but she still felt flustered. "I thought I explained that." She cleared her throat. "I don't require a man to complete my life."
Ian laughed. "No, but you might require one for some other purpose."
Blood rushed traitorously to her face. Oh! If he only knew. Rattled, she blurted, "Why...I could say the same about you!"
Ian's laughter died. But he was still smiling as he murmured, "Touché."
Looking into his eyes then felt like going under the influence of a drug. He was thinking about the same forbidden subject she was. Never had Maggie been so aware of his animal presence: the potential of his well-formed lips and the strength with which his jaw might move.
A heavy heat built under her skin and she jerked her gaze away. "Say, I'll bet those are our drinks sitting on the counter." She spoke a little too fast. "You sit this time. I'll go get them."
Maggie didn't know whether to be relieved or worried that Ian actually let her go get the drinks. She didn't like to think he might have become as discombobulated as herself by that conversation.
One of them acting crazy was quite enough.
~~~
Ian felt dazed as he accompanied Maggie through the café's parking lot back to his car. It couldn't be the
coffee making him feel this way, it had been decaf. Clearly then, it had been the conversation.
"I guess we're not going to be too late," Maggie mumbled, fishing in her purse for Ian's keys.
As they'd spent barely twenty minutes in the café, Ian didn't think this statement bore discussion. But what a twenty minutes. He felt as though the huge burden he'd been carrying for the past three years had just been lifted.
Amazing. Simply talking about Sophia's death had made him feel...so much better.
Perhaps he should have talked about it before now. But would the conversation have had the same effect?
Ian tilted his head and regarded Maggie, now having found his keys and sticking the appropriate one into the driver's side door. To be honest, he didn't think he could have talked about Sophia with anyone but Maggie. Or at least it wouldn't have been as helpful. Being Sophia's sister, Maggie understood, and she was strong, strong enough to take hearing some heavy-duty angst.
Maggie opened the car door and reached in to unlock the other doors. "Hope Mrs. Granby isn't going to be pissed off."
Ian paused before opening the passenger door. Over the roof of the Cherokee, he told Maggie, "We don't have to worry about Mrs. Granby."
"Hm?" Maggie tossed her purse into the car.
"We don't have to worry about Mrs. Granby," Ian repeated. "She isn't there."
Maggie's head came up. "What?"
Inwardly, Ian grimaced. He supposed he should have warned her about this before they stopped for tea and coffee. "Basically, Mrs. Granby quit."
"What?"
"Uh, let's get in the car." Preferring to discuss the matter in private, Ian opened his car door and climbed in.
Maggie scrambled in, too, and fixed her gaze on Ian. "What happened with Mrs. Granby?"
"Well, there was more to the conversation than you heard yesterday when I told her she didn't have to come. In fact, she was relieved and asked me if I really needed her altogether. Seems she had an offer for a full-time position, babysitting—as she called it—a 'real child.'" Ian paused. "A two-year-old."
Maggie was giving him the wide-eyed stare she'd been giving him a lot lately. "So...you're letting Andy babysit?"
Ian released a deep sigh. "Kind of a passive surrender to circumstances, but...I started to see your point about Andy, especially after he babysat with no problem yesterday. I have to let go a little. Trust him more. He is getting older and, well, I suppose I've been having trouble acknowledging that fact." He sucked in his lips. "It's a scary sort of thing to acknowledge."
Maggie simply stared at him.
Too much, Ian thought. He'd given her too much of his angst this time. This time she was going to tell him to handle his own emotional problems.
"Ian." She cleared her throat. "That's..."
He winced. "Long overdue?"
Her sober expression turned into a laugh. "I was going to say 'very mature of you,' but 'overdue' covers it just as well."
Ian felt himself relax. Maggie could handle a confidence of his here or there, an admission of weakness. She was tough. "No one can accuse you of lacking honesty," he told her.
Oddly, her smile froze. "Um, I try." Turning, she switched on the ignition. It was almost as if she wanted the powerful hum of the Cherokee's motor to put a pause to any more talk.
Ian frowned and replayed the conversation. She only tried to be honest? What could be preventing full honesty?
His eyebrows shot up. Her problem, whatever it was, the one she wouldn't tell him about.
Ian slid a glance across the car at her. She had her perky profile turned so she could back up the car, her auburn curls falling down her back. Since he'd been occupied today in setting up her computer, he hadn't been able to devote full attention to discovering what troubled Maggie.
Her face swiveled forward again and her work-roughened hand shoved the gearshift into forward.
Ian felt one corner of his mouth twitch into a smile. Correction. He had discovered at least one thing her trouble was not. A man. The other corner of his mouth twitched upward as he recalled the look on her face when he'd suggested a man might have, after all, some use to her. A chuckle threatened to rumble up from his chest. Priceless.
Ah, Maggie. She was her own kind of treasure.
Ian's amused smile took a long while to fade. His determination to figure out what was bothering her, however, correspondingly expanded. He owed her big-time. Besides, he was not yet ready to stare his own problems in the face. Who knew if he'd ever be ready for that?
Tomorrow, he promised himself. Tomorrow he'd take steps to find out if the source of Maggie's trouble was financial.
~~~
"You have an adult taking care of you," Maggie told Ian the next morning. "You don't have to come with me to the nursery today."
"What?" Ian glanced over his shoulder toward his study, where Jake, the father of Kathy's friend, was already puttering around with Ian's computer and apparently waiting for him. To Maggie's eye, Ian seemed vaguely bewildered, as if the situation weren't perfectly clear.
Maggie would go into work while Ian stayed home and entertained Jake.
"Andy can't complain you're alone," she clarified.
"Oh." Ian nodded. "That. Right." He sucked in his lips. "But don't you—?"
"I don't need anything." Except to avoid being alone with him. Since the previous evening and their heart-to-heart talk in the café, Maggie had decided this was imperative. Their intimate conversation had caused her insanity to bleed over from the physical into the emotional realm.
But it wasn't going any further than that. In fact, if she could make it through the weekend without any more private talks with Ian, she could stop this thing in its tracks. On Monday morning Ian had his one-week post-procedure appointment with his cardiologist. His restrictions would be lifted, and Maggie could go home. Once it sank in for Ian that he wasn't going to die, he'd revert to type. Maggie's whole stupid infatuation would disappear.
"See you later." Waving, Maggie went out the door.
On Sunday morning it wasn't as easy, however. Over the breakfast table, Andy threw a fit.
"What do you mean you're going to the nursery today?" he demanded when Maggie casually mentioned as much over her tea.
"Of course I'm going to the nursery." Maggie tried to project calm determination in the face of Andy's red-faced anxiety. She lifted her cup for another sip. "Just like I went yesterday. I have to be open on the weekend. That's when most of my customers come in."
"But— But—" Andy spluttered.
Ian looked amused. "But—who's going to take care of me?"
Maggie flashed him a frustrated glance. "Nobody needs to take care of you. Tomorrow, just a few hours away, you'll be able to drive and everything—once you see your doctor."
A strange expression crossed Ian's face, almost fear.
Surely he would be allowed to drive and everything after seeing his doctor, Maggie thought, suddenly considering the matter. But just in case, she added, "Anyway, you aren't alone today. You have both Andy and Kathy with you."
Ian scrunched his lips to one side while Andy turned even redder.
"Not me," he argued. "You can't count on me to be the responsible one."
"And I'm much too young," Kathy piped up, then shook her head as if she'd temporarily gotten lost. "Never mind. Nothing's going to happen to Dad. He's fine now. Don't you remember, Andy? They fixed him up at the hospital."
Andy threw his sister a dark look. "They did their best to fix him." He seemed to will Kathy to understand, without spelling it out for her.
Still wondering about that fleeting expression on Ian's face, Maggie lowered her cup of tea slowly. "Look, Andy, the whole bit about your father not driving was just a precaution, exactly like we already explained to you. And once even that precaution is lifted, it means the doctor considers your father to be as healthy as anybody else."
But even as she spoke, she wondered. Would it mean that? Was being able to drive a l
itmus test for general health?
Meanwhile, Ian sat playing with a piece of dry toast and not helping at all. Surely he didn't particularly want to get dragged out to her nursery today if he didn't have to.
Or did he also think he needed adult supervision? Had he not been feeling well? Was he worried about the result of his doctor's appointment?
Feeling less certain now, Maggie nonetheless struggled to hold onto her argument. "Your father doesn't need a babysitter, Andy. Any more than you do."
Andy pressed his lips together. "Okay. All right. But—that's after tomorrow. After he sees the doctor." Andy lifted his chin. "Until then, he needs someone with him, someone adult."
Ian looked up then, gazing at his son with clear admiration. Or was it relief?
Oh, dear. Perhaps he truly wasn't feeling a hundred percent. Maybe Ian himself was worried about being left alone?
"Oh, all right," Maggie gave in. She felt a dagger of fear at the idea of anything happening to Ian. "But if I have to watch your father, then you and Kathy will have to help run the store."
"No problem," Andy said, visibly relaxing.
"That'll be fun!" Kathy agreed and licked muffin sugar from her fingers. "When are we leaving?" For some reason, she looked at her father for an answer.
To his credit, Ian passed the ball to Maggie. "That's up to you. When should we leave?" He smiled.
Maggie was pretty sure it was a smile of relief. "Just as soon as everyone's finished breakfast," she said, addressing the whole family sitting at the table. Perhaps it was for the best that Ian spend one more day at the nursery, she decided, if he were still feeling shaky.
It was pure coincidence that her decision also meant she got to spend one more day with him. It didn't mean she actually wanted additional time with the man. Of course not. She wasn't self-destructive.
~~~
"Ian, you stay in the building here and help Kathy man the register." Maggie sounded like she meant business. "I'm going outside." Her lips pursed. "With Andy. Who's going to help me spread fertilizer."
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