Chapter Seven
“They’re finally asleep, thank God,” Jake said, joining Maggie out by the pool, a little after 10:00 p.m.
She sighed wearily. “I’m glad to hear it.”
Jake pulled up a chair and sat down beside her. He was glad to see she was still in the demure but sexy coffee-colored velvet dress she’d been wearing at dinner; he really liked the way she looked in that. He was not so happy to note she was apparently still mad as hell at him for his recently admitted shenanigans. Which doubtless explained her reason for sitting alone and brooding in the darkness of the Texas night, next to the shimmering blue of the lit pool.
“Still mad at me?”
Maggie turned her head. He’d never seen her more furious than she was at that instant.
“I’d have to care to be mad,” she announced flatly.
“Ouch!” he said, in response to her insult. Already sorry about the way he’d behaved—Jake knew he never should have invited Mac Malone over in the first place—Jake winced.
She scooted her chair away from his with a screech and continued in a voice that trembled with outrage. “You really are a rotten, scheming lowlife scum!”
Double ouch, Jake thought. On the other hand, he wasn’t the only one in the wrong here, and the sooner Maggie realized that, the better. “So I made a point tonight.” He moved his chair closer to hers again, so they could still argue intimately and their voices wouldn’t carry. “So what?”
“And that point was what, Jake?” Maggie surged out of her chair. “That you couldn’t pick a potential husband for me if you tried—which thus far, I might add, I don’t think you have.”
Jake stood. In an effort to help her calm down, he put his hands on her shoulders. “My point is, Maggie honey, that you can’t script falling in love with someone. You can’t make it happen. It either does or it doesn’t. The time is either right or it isn’t.”
Maggie shrugged free of his light, easy grip. “Well, for your information, according to Sabrina, we all make our own destiny and according to my inner clock,” Maggie fumed, stalking away from him, “the time is very right for me to marry and settle down.”
Jake had no doubt that was true. Problem was, his inner clock wasn’t telling him the same. So he did the only thing he could when talk got too intimate and too close to home. He changed the subject.
“Who the heck is Sabrina?” Jake demanded.
Maggie flushed and threw up her hands. For the umpteenth time since she had trespassed onto the Rollicking M, she looked sorry she had ever spoken. “Never mind who Sabrina is,” she told him shortly.
Which in turn made him all the more curious. “Not so fast.” He grabbed her before she could exit and hauled her close. “You can’t throw something like that out and just walk away,” he told her.
“I’d like to know why the heck not.” Maggie poked him in the chest and tossed her head. “You do as much all the time, only telling me what you want me to know.”
A mistake, Jake realized instantly. “So, set a good example and show me how it should be done,” he coaxed softly. He didn’t want Maggie to be a mystery to him.
Maggie sighed. “She’s this fortune-teller I know.”
“Fortune-teller,” Jake echoed, astonished.
“See?” Maggie scowled at him. “I knew it was a mistake, confiding in you.”
No, it wasn’t, Jake thought. “Now, Maggie honey, don’t be that way.” In fact, confiding in him was the smartest thing she’d done so far. If not for him, she’d still be pursuing her ridiculously organized husband hunt full-time.
Desperate to make peace with her once again, Jake hooked an arm around her waist, sank into a chair and pulled her onto his lap, all in one smooth motion. When she tried to get up, he anchored her implacably. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” he confessed, brushing the hair from her cheek. “Honest.” He placed a palm over his heart. “I was just surprised, is all.”
Maggie continued glowering at him wordlessly and she did not uncross her arms, even when he tried to pry them loose.
“Please,” Jake persuaded softly. “Tell me?”
“As much as I love to hear you beg,” she deadpanned insincerely, “the answer is still and will continue to be no.”
Jake noted that even though her arms were crossed tightly in a defensive position in front of her, she wasn’t trying to get away from him anymore. He took solace in that. “Has Sabrina read the fortunes of your brothers and sisters, too?” he asked, stroking a hand lightly from her shoulder to her elbow.
Again, Maggie pulled her upper body away from him. “I don’t have any sisters. Only brothers.”
Now they were getting somewhere, Jake thought, glad that his oblique approach to finding out more about Maggie was working. “How old are they?” he asked curiously.
Maggie settled her bottom a little more squarely on his lap. “They’re all younger.”
With a great deal of effort, Jake ignored the delicious heat transferring from her curvy derriere to the front of his jeans. “Where are they?”
“They all live here in Texas,” Maggie told him, her face glowing with familial pride. “Deke is a rancher in San Angelo, Billy is an ex-pro football player turned teacher and coach—he lives in Houston. And Frank is an Austin businessman.”
Though she had answered his question, it was also clear to Jake that Maggie was working to keep a great deal of psychological distance between them. “What do your brothers think of this husband-hunting scheme of yours?” Jake asked.
Maggie shrugged and, relaxing a bit as she talked about her family, finally unclenched her arms. “They think I’m crazy, of course,” she said with affection in her voice. “But they’re all for me leaving the New York life behind and returning to my roots.”
Jake gave that some thought. He could see Maggie with three younger brothers, all trying their damnedest to both protect her and talk some sense into her. “How come they’re not trying to fix you up?”
Maggie’s chin jutted out stubbornly. “’Cause I won’t let them, that’s why. I don’t want them involved in my love life.”
“Why not?” Jake asked. He’d bet they were involved in everything else. There’d been too much unchecked affection in her voice for them not to be.
“It’d be just too weird.” Maggie sighed. Absently, she toyed with a button on his shirt as she explained, “I had to be both mom and dad to them after my parents died. So our relationship isn’t the normal one between siblings, as I’ve always had to be the superresponsible one among us.”
Jake thought of the sacrifices that must’ve required for her. The fact she hadn’t resented having to make them only made him respect her all the more; she was one lady with a lot of heart and soul. “They must love you very much,” he said softly, thinking how much his own two nephews already loved her after spending only two days with her.
Maggie’s eyes grew liquid with happiness as she reflected on her family. “Yeah, we’re close.”
“That’s nice. It’s important to have family,” Jake said. Briefly, he rested his face against the softness of her hair.
“Yes, it is.”
Jake stroked her shoulder gently as he inhaled the floral scent of her shampoo. He drew back curiously. “So, how did you ever get hooked up with a fortuneteller?” he asked.
Maggie grinned. Her blue eyes danced in a way that let him know she considered the fortune-telling to be pure fun. “You just won’t give up, will you?” she teased.
“Not in this lifetime.” Jake returned her smile playfully, then waited. As he had hoped, Maggie confided in him.
“I saw Sabrina for the first time when I was a kid. I was visiting my cousin Hallie in Chicago. She and I and a friend of ours, Clarissa, went to the SummerFest fair in Bridgeport every year. Sabrina had a tent set up there and she told our fortunes.”
“What’d she predict for you?” Jake studied Maggie’s face, realizing she was every bit as stunningly beautiful on the inside as she
was on the outside.
Maggie smiled, a little shyly. “She told me I’d marry a cowboy.”
And not only am I a cowboy, Jake mused, but she keeps calling me ‘cowboy’, too.
Aware Maggie would not be happy with anything less than true love, given and received, he asked, “So how come you’re looking for millionaires then?” Why wasn’t she out looking for romance?
Her head shot up. She regarded him with astonishment. “Because I’m wealthy. And I don’t want anyone either marrying me for my money and success, or feeling inferior or upset because I do possess them.”
That made a lot of sense. “Was that a problem with your ex-fiancé?” Jake asked softly.
Regretfully, Maggie nodded, and went back to playing with the buttons on his shirt. “I learned, during the fight we had when we broke up, that the thing that most attracted him to me was the fame and fortune. Naturally, that wasn’t a pleasant surprise.”
“Naturally,” Jake agreed, having a very good idea how much that must have hurt a tenderhearted woman like Maggie.
“And since I plan to live a rather low-key life from here on out,” Maggie continued practically, “I didn’t want that to be the case with anyone I marry. So I’m looking for someone not the least impressed with what I’ve done.”
“Someone who loves you for who you are in here,” Jake touched the area above her heart.
Maggie nodded.
Their eyes met, held.
“You understand.”
And that pleased her, Jake noticed, very much.
“I’ve had to put up with the same, ever since I started making real money,” Jake confessed. “Women who wouldn’t look twice at me when I was a poor cowpoke now practically break their necks to let me know they’re available and put themselves in my path.”
She grinned, realizing that he had unwittingly just described her, too. “Like me,” she said.
“Oh, not quite like you,” Jake drawled. No one was quite like Maggie.
Silence fell between them once again. Jake couldn’t quite say how it was happening, but she was growing on him, breaking the self-imposed shell of isolation he’d built around himself years ago. Then, it had been the only way he could survive. Now, he was beginning to wonder if that had been the right path to take after all. Maybe he should let someone get a little bit close to him. Someone like Maggie.
He paused. “Did you mean what you said tonight at dinner about staying out of the public eye? Or were you just trying to let Mac know in a not-so-subtle way that you were not going to be his ticket to fame?”
“I meant it.” Maggie released a beleaguered-sounding sigh. “I really am tired of being speculated about in the press. Heck, people don’t even believe I’m really quitting modeling, if you believe the latest gossip in Personalities! magazine. They think it’s all a giant publicity ploy.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. I want out. I want a more normal life, with a husband and kids and family vacations and car pools and baseball games and trips to the supermarket. Despite all the advice to the contrary, I really am going to say goodbye to public life. And when people see the announcement of my marriage in the Houston newspaper—not on the society page but with all the other happy local couples—when they read I plan to concentrate on making a home for my husband and myself and our children from now on, that I intend to learn the business of ranching from the ground up, they’ll know it’s true.”
What Maggie was describing was, unbeknownst to her, uncomfortably close to his life with Louellen. She, too, had been a homemaker and mother who shared his interest in the ranch. She, too, had valued family and their life together above all else. To the point she hadn’t wanted to waste a second of it. What Maggie didn’t know was that he couldn’t go back to that. Couldn’t take those kinds of risks. Not anymore.
Jake stiffened unhappily. Maggie swiftly followed suit.
Her hands on his shoulders, Maggie levered herself off his lap and stood. “Well, if it helps, Jake,” she announced loftily, apparently mistaking the reasons behind his sudden wary silence, “I forgive you for tonight.”
As much as Jake did not want to admit it, he knew he would sleep better, knowing she wasn’t still mad at him. “How come?” he asked her curiously, as he rose, too.
Maggie shrugged as they stood face-to-face. “I wish to heck I knew.”
They continued staring at each other. Though she was doing her best to hide it, he could’ve sworn he saw the same yearning reflected on her face, that he occasionally felt in his heart. The yearning to be close to someone, even if it was only for the moment this time, instead of forever.
He continued to study her. Loving the way she looked in the dress. Wishing he could see her without it.
As the seconds drew out, and their eyes continued to meet, her chest began to rise and fall rapidly, as if she’d just run a long distance. “Well,” she said, a little faintly, backing away from him just a tad, “I better go on up and get some sleep. The boys will be up early and I did promise them something special tomorrow.”
Jake remembered. “And I promised them a visit to the video arcade,” he said.
“Right.” She admonished him with a lift of her brow. “So they can spend all those quarters you gave them for disrupting my date tonight.”
He grinned sheepishly and since he could do nothing else, owned up to his deliberate mischief with an unrepentant grin.
“You are shameless,” Maggie continued to admonish as she planted a fist on her hip.
“Yeah, well…what can I say?” Jake traced the compelling silhouette of her body beneath the clinging lines of her dress. He knew she wouldn’t believe him if he told her he did not normally do things like this. “I was inspired,” Jake confessed. The same way, he admitted recklessly, that he was inspired to do this. Giving in to an impulse that had been dogging him all night, he hooked an arm about her middle and dragged her closer.
“Jake, what are you doing?” Maggie demanded, flushing, though he was pretty sure that even as she asked she knew.
Jake also noted that although she’d laid her forearms across his chest, wedging distance between them, she wasn’t resisting all that much, in fact hardly at all.
He cupped the back of her head with his hand, tilting her head up to his. “Giving you the good-night kiss you deserve,” he said softly.
And then he did what he had wanted to do all evening, he covered her mouth with his. He gave her no quarter; to his stunned amazement, she gave him none back. It was all heat and passion, all deep, searing need. He wanted to consume her the way she was consuming him, and he nipped at her lips with his teeth, then dipped his head to kiss her throat, her collarbone. She moaned and collapsed against him. The trembling of her body was all the encouragement he needed. Tipping her head back and raking both hands through her hair, he lowered his lips to hers. He kissed her until they fought for breath, until she urged him on with her tongue. He kissed her with a sweetness and a tenderness he did not know he still possessed. And it was that vulnerability that made him pull away, in the end.
When he released her, he was as shaken as she apparently was, and no less dazed and confused. Which was no surprise, he figured, since he hadn’t expected to feel like this again—if he had ever felt quite like this—any more than he had expected her to come into his life.
And that alone, was reason enough to stop. At least for tonight, he reasoned cooly.
He needed another day—at least—to think about what he was getting himself and her into here. To know if he would be able to cut his losses and move on as had become his habit. When she discovered, as did the others, that he could no longer love—not the way she needed or wanted anyway—when she discovered it just wasn’t in him…not anymore…
“Well, good night,” Maggie said softly.
Jake felt guilty, knowing she was privy to none of his thoughts, knowing she still felt there was a chance to have everything with him. He swallowed. Reined himself in. “Good ni
ght.”
If he was any kind of gentleman, he told himself as she turned and walked away from him, he’d let her go now, before she got hurt any more. But he was no gentleman. And he hadn’t been for some time.
Watching her walk back into the ranch house, Jake knew no matter what happened that it would be a long time, if ever, before he forgot the gentle and loving way she had melted against him.
“MAGGIE, I’M TELLING YOU,” Hallie said as they talked on the phone early the next morning before the boys got up. “It’s a mistake to get involved with a bad boy, and that goes double when it’s with a bad boy you know is not going to marry you!”
“Are we talking about me or you?” Maggie asked, aware the two of them had been so busy catching up on the men in their lives she hadn’t had time to tell her about Sabrina yet.
“Both.”
“So bad-boy Cody Brock is giving you a hard time, now that he’s back in the house next door,” Maggie surmised, able to tell Hallie still had a king-size crush on him.
“Not the way you think. Not the way he used to,” Hallie replied, a bit too defensively.
“Then why do I hear that undercurrent of worry in your voice?”
“Because even though Cody seems to be a lot nicer and more successful now than I ever thought he would be when he finally grew up, he still hasn’t been over his wild streak all that long,” Hallie confessed with a troubled sigh.
Which meant what, exactly, Maggie wondered, as her worry over her cousin increased. “You’re talking in riddles, Hallie.”
Another silence, this more telling than the last. A sigh. A low, anguished wail. “Oh, Maggie,” Hallie blurted out, sounding more upset than Maggie had ever heard her. “Cody’s life is a wreck right now. He has a baby girl named Amy.”
“Is he married?”
“No. And, for the moment, anyway, he has sole custody.” Hallie paused, then confided reluctantly. “It’s a long story.”
Maggie just bet it was. “And you’re in the middle of this?” Maggie asked her cousin, amazed. Somehow, she would have expected Hallie to run in the other direction, considering how relentlessly Hallie guarded her heart.
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