“Right.”
“The difference being?”
“The difference being he’s my deputy. And he could get called to work at a moment’s notice and leave you stranded.”
“And Sonia, the doctor, wouldn’t have that same problem?”
Ty hit the stop pedal on his car pretty hard, and for once Maggie understood the necessity of having this strap over her body. He turned to her and pulled off his glasses. “I don’t want you going out with another man, okay? If you’re going strolling with anyone, it’s going to be me.”
“But you said you didn’t want to.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Why?”
His green eyes bored into hers. “Just because.”
“Well, now, that’s understandable.”
“Maggie, you’re starting to piss me off.”
“Tell me the truth, Ty.”
He hesitated. “You’ve been abused by men in the past. I don’t want any man to hurt you again.”
“And Jinx would? I have a hard time believing that, seeing as he’s been nicer to me than—”
Ty took her face in his hands and kissed her. She didn’t know all that much about kissing and kept her lips tightly closed. But, oh, it felt good anyway.
He pulled back for a second, looking at her with smoke in his eyes she’d never seen before. “Relax, Maggie. Relax your mouth.”
She did, and before she knew it her insides were exploding. His mouth moved over hers, their lips connecting in a way she’d never known. His lips were alternately hard and soft. He pushed them against her, and then he stepped back some and just kissed parts of her. Not just her lips, but her face, too. She was in heaven.
Before she wanted him to, he ran his thumbs over her face and then let her go. “That is why I don’t want any other man strolling you around town.”
Dizzy didn’t even begin to explain her feelings. While he seemed so normal, putting those glasses on his face again, and moving that stick to put the automobile into motion, she was holding on to anything she could grab to keep her steady. “Oh, my Loosie,” she whispered.
Ty felt like a total shit. He’d never lost control like that before. He just hated her egging him on about spending time with Jinx. Or anyone, besides him.
He’d love to believe that it was purely protection for a person who’d been battered in his town, but that would be stupid. A jealous monster had risen up through him, and he wanted to imprint himself on her. He wanted her. Exclusively, totally, he wanted a woman who by all he knew shouldn’t even be here.
It wasn’t even how pretty she was. He’d had pretty. It wasn’t that she was smart and curious. He’d had smart and curious. It wasn’t even that she was vulnerable. Or maybe it was. He’d felt something of the same protectiveness with Josie, his dog. But he sure as hell had never wanted to make love to his dog. Right now he’d give anything to make love to Miss Margaret Prescott.
Make love. Another strange thing. He should be thinking “have sex.” He wanted to have sex with her. Except that didn’t seem right, either. He wanted to make love.
“I’m really sorry about that, Maggie. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I’ll take a wild guess,” she said. “You wanted to kiss me.”
Leave it to Miss Margaret to cut to the chase. “Yes, I wanted to kiss you.”
“Good, because I wanted to kiss you, too. But I think I need better practice.”
Ty almost lost control of the car. “You do? I thought it was pretty damn good once you chilled.”
“Once you chilled, cowboy. I didn’t know how to kiss. You had to chill to teach me.”
He let his blood stop boiling before he said, “There’s much more to kissing than what we did. That was just step one.”
He shoved the left turn signal on.
“How many steps are there?”
He looked to her. “At least six.”
“Before we arrive at your mother’s, might I learn at least step two?”
Ty had never shifted his car from four to neutral before, but he did it now.
Tyler’s mother’s home was stunning in its simplicity. It was a sweeping, white, one story with large, black shutters, but the roof was unlike any she’d ever seen. It had windows in it. And the shingles weren’t shingles, really. At least, not like any shingles Maggie had seen before.
Ty apparently had noticed her interest because he said, “Solar power.”
“I’m sorry?”
“My mom’s house runs on solar power.”
Maggie got out her little notebook and wrote the term down. She’d noticed that sometimes her constant questions got on people’s nerves, including Ty’s, so she’d made it her mission to start learning all of these things by herself.
She pointed to what looked like a long glass house to the left and rear of the house. “Hot house?”
“Or greenhouse. Yes. My mom also grows all of her own vegetables and flowers. She’s big on gardening.”
“And it shows,” Maggie said. “The landscaping around the home is scrumptious.”
“Scrumptious, huh? Louise teach you that one?”
“Yes. That’s what she called you. I liked the sound of it.”
“You realize scrumptious implies loving the taste of something? Wanting to just eat it up?”
“What’s your point?”
Ty chuckled as he took her elbow and guided her down a clay-colored walkway. As they got closer to the door, Maggie started getting nervous. The house seemed so elegant, and she was dressed in these jeans things with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She felt like the house itself, and its owner, deserved the respect of her guests wearing something much more formal.
Ty reached for the knob, but the large black door swung open before he could touch it.
“About time!” said a woman, who must be Ty’s mother. And she couldn’t have been further from what Maggie had expected if she’d been a goat. About the only thing she and Ty had in common was that twinkle in the eyes that threatened mischief at any moment. But her eyes were a stunning blue. Her hair was light brown and cut around her face in that wispy style Maggie had seen on TV. It suited her. And she was at least three inches shorter than Maggie’s five-seven, and about a foot shorter than her son.
But what really stunned Maggie was what Mrs. Coltraine was wearing. She had on what Maggie could only describe as very tight black britches, tucked into very tight, shiny black boots that came right up to her knees. Her white shirt looked like a man’s, with buttons holding it together top to waist where it was tucked into the pants. The scary part was, in one hand she was holding a hard, black hat and in the other she was tapping a short whip against her thigh.
Mrs. Coltraine eyed her from the sandals on her feet right all the way up, but stopped abruptly at Maggie’s mouth. “Tyler Isaiah Coltraine! You’ve been kissing the poor girl! And from the looks of her lips and cheeks, it was no step-one kiss. It was at least a step-two, maybe even a three, yes?”
Maggie felt more mortified than she’d ever been in her life. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I asked him to. It’s not his fault, Mrs. Coltraine.”
“Thanks for the great welcome, Mom,” Ty said. “And you might want to lose the riding crop. I’m betting Maggie’s scared to death that you’ll be using it on her.”
Ty would win that bet.
“Oh, please, honey,” his mom said, dropping the whip and the hat onto a table beside the door and dragging Maggie into the house. “I sure as hell didn’t mean to embarrass you. And forgive me. I was out working the horses.”
“You have horses?” Maggie asked.
“Eight of them. Do you ride?”
“Oh, yes!” And then she looked at the woman’s outfit again and said, “But only sidesaddle.”
“Oh, honey, if you can ride sidesaddle, you can ride dressage. If you ask me, I don’t know how women ever managed to stay on a horse sidesaddle.”
“I’ll teach you if you teach me,” Maggie said.
Mrs. Coltraine’s face lit up, and Maggie almost gasped. How she hadn’t realized before that Ty’s mother was utterly lovely she couldn’t imagine.
The woman took her arm and started dragging her farther inside. “You’re forgiven for kissing this girl, Tyler,” she threw over her shoulder, and Maggie giggled.
She turned back to Maggie and said, “Come on in. We’ll fix up that scratched face right quick. Tyler, go away.”
“I’m not going anywhere until she’s comfortable.”
“Are you comfortable, Maggie?”
“Do you have a TV, Mrs. Coltraine?”
“My name’s Bree. And yes, TVs in almost every room in the house, including the bathroom. Don’t want to miss NCIS during my bubble baths.”
“Oh, I think I’ve seen that one. The very good-looking but grumpy secret agent?”
“Special agent, but yes, that’s it. I’m totally hooked.”
“Do you have a computer?” Maggie asked.
“One desktop, three laptops.”
“Do you know about the Internet?”
“Who doesn’t these days?” Mrs. Coltraine stopped. “Well, except for a few people, I suppose. But if you’re interested, I’ll teach you all about it.”
This was just getting better and better. “Do you like to go shopping, Mrs. Coltraine?”
“What woman in her right mind doesn’t?”
“Do you know how to sell things on a place called eBay?”
“Do I ever!”
“May I please work for my room and board while here?”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I can’t stay unless I pay you back somehow. I can clean. I can cook. I can bathe the horses. I can help in the hot house. Please?”
“Well, if it’s that important to you, you have a deal, Maggie.”
Maggie looked back at Tyler, who had the dazed look of someone who’d just been knocked upside the head. “I’m comfortable.”
“But—”
“But nothing, son of mine,” Ty’s mom said. “You don’t get her back until you actually deserve step four.”
“Do I get supper?”
“Only if you plan to take her out. I’ve got a date.”
“With who this time?”
“Is it any of your business?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. I’m going out with Trevor Witherspoon.”
“This is your third date with him. I don’t like it.”
“Tough noogies. Now are you taking this poor girl out?”
“I’ll take her out.”
“You’re taking her to Le Duex, so dress appropriately.”
“No!” Maggie said. “I have nothing to wear.”
Mrs. Coltraine—Bree—gave her about a five-time over. “Think I’ve got just the thing. Ty, go home and dress up.”
“Oh, but what if it doesn’t fit me?” Maggie said.
“What size is she Ty? Four? Six?”
“The clothes were Jackie’s,” Ty said. “I eyeballed it. I don’t know sizes.”
“By the time he gets back here,” Bree said, “it’ll fit you. Ty, skit.”
“Right,” Ty said, still looking a little out of it to Maggie.
“Ty, you don’t have to do this,” she said.
“Of course he doesn’t,” Ty’s mom said. “I can set you up with—”
“I’ll be back in three hours,” Ty said, giving his mother a look that Maggie couldn’t even name. It wasn’t anger exactly. Maybe more like exasperation? But when his mother winked at her, she stopped worrying and felt excited about it all. She was going on an unescorted date! With a man Louise called a dreamboat!
Five
When Maggie opened the door that evening she totally forgot about how self-conscious she’d been while Bree had made it her mission to turn Maggie into a “sex kitten.” Another term she’d scribbled in her notebook to look up at the first opportunity.
He was dressed in what apparently was a modern-day man’s gray suit. Underneath it was a white shirt she now knew was called Oxford style that brought out the swarthiness of his skin. And a gray, navy, and black striped necktie. The word scrumptious didn’t even begin to cover it. She could, quite simply, gobble him up.
Unlike this morning, he appeared to be freshly shaven, and emanating from him was a fresh, masculine scent.
And then she realized that while she’d been staring at him, he’d been staring at her right back. And it suddenly occurred to her that he’d fixated on her legs, which, for the first time in her life were bare from just above the knee to her toes. She had an immediate desire to cover them. A man had never seen her legs before.
As Bree had been hemming the dress—which she referred to as the perfect little black number that was a must for every woman’s wardrobe—Maggie had protested that she couldn’t possibly wear something so, so revealing, but Bree had kept assuring her that this dress was more demure than she’d see on any of the other women in the restaurant tonight.
Maggie had stared at herself in a full-length mirror. Bree had been right that it was quite demure up top. At least from the front. The neckline actually came up to her neck, and the sleeves were long. That was the good news. The bad news was that the back was made up only of crisscrossed strips right down to the waistline. And then, of course, there was the issue of her legs.
She’d seen, of course, as they’d driven through town earlier that day, that many, many women were wearing shorts and exposing much more of their legs than she was now. The problem was, these were her legs, and she had no idea if they were good legs or bad legs.
She’d also wanted to put her hair up in a bun, as she was so used to wearing it back home. Bree had insisted she wear it down.
Back home. So much had happened, she hadn’t really thought of Philly as home the last few days. And she didn’t have time to think of it now, because a scrumptious man was standing in front of her, staring at her legs.
“You look . . . very nice,” she said, giggling inside at the understatement.
It looked like it took him effort to drag his gaze from her legs to her eyes. “You look beautiful,” he said, his voice sounding a little grainy.
“I feel a little self-conscious.”
“Please don’t, Maggie. I’m going to be the envy of every man in that restaurant.”
She smiled, feeling a little better. “You exaggerate, sir.”
“No exaggeration, Mags. You ready?”
“No.”
“You hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Well, we’re not going to put anything in your tummy standing here.”
“Will there be those hot dogs things at this restaurant?”
He laughed. “I sincerely doubt it.” The disappointment must have shown on her face because he added, “But I promise, I will get you those hot dogs real soon. Okay?”
He stepped aside and waved his hand. “After you.”
Maggie took a deep breath. “Here we go,” she said, and walked over the threshold. Hearing his swift intake of breath, she turned back. “What?”
“Oh, Maggie, trust me, I will be fighting off every man in Little Fork.”
Fortified, she smiled up at him. “Aren’t women of the twenty-first century supposed to do their own fighting?”
“I’m making an exception for you,” he said, putting his hand on the small of her back as they walked to the car. “Because you haven’t had enough practice.”
“You’re full of it,” Maggie said.
“Louise again?”
“Sonia.”
He held open the door and she felt awkward a moment while slipping into the seat, because the dress slid up her thigh a little as she settled in. But as he pushed closed the door, she distinctly heard him say, “Thank you, Mom.”
“Oh, that was simply wonderful!” Maggie said, slipping a little more gracefully into the car this time. Which Ty thought was a shame, because her thigh stayed hidden from view.
He
tipped the attendant, then jogged around to his side of his Miata and into the driver’s seat before some other guy tried to jump in first and kidnap her. He’d been right on the money. She’d charmed every single man in the restaurant, from the maitre d’ to their waiter to the ten or so acquaintances who’d stopped by to say hello. Normally on a date he didn’t mind disruptions from people who wanted to say hello. Tonight he’d wanted to tell them all to eat dust.
Very unusual for Ty. His male ego, of course, usually enjoyed the idea that he was the envy of other men. Not tonight, no, sir. He’d simmered with jealousy every time Maggie had turned her thousand-watt smile on another guy.
“Glad you liked it,” he said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice. Of course he was happy she’d had such a good time and was willing to try foods so new to her. The problem was, her delighted laughter had enchanted every man in the place. And if she hadn’t noticed a few of the glares from women at other tables, he certainly had.
“I want to thank you,” she said, laying her small hand on his arm.
“You already have. About fifty times, but who’s counting?”
“No, I don’t mean for the meal, although that was wonderful. I mean for the way you smoothly answered the questions about who I was and where I’d come from.”
It had been more like, “Where’d you find this little beauty?” accompanied by the occasional leering wink. He’d wanted to punch every single one of them.
“So what was your favorite part?” he asked.
She laughed. “The truth?”
“Of course,” he said, praying she wasn’t going to say it was all the men trying to flirt with her right in front of him.
“All of the jealous looks I was getting from all the women,” she said. “I’ve never been envied before.”
That surprised and flattered the hell out of him at one and the same time. And it was really cute. “Well, honesty deserves honesty, Mags, so I have to tell you they weren’t jealous of you being with me; they were jealous of their dates being more interested in you than them.”
“Men are so dumb,” Maggie said on a sigh.
“We are not dumb. You’re just a little . . . naïve.”
Ladies Prefer Rogues: Four Novellas of Time-Travel Passion Page 28