A Wedding for Maggie

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  “Get a grip,” she said under her breath. She straightened and tucked her damp hair behind her ears. Smoothed her palms down the sides of her khaki walking shorts. Told herself that her hands were trembling only because she needed her morning coffee.

  So why, then, did she dash down the stairs like the devil was at her heels when she looked cautiously out into the hallway to find the door to Daniel’s room open and the door to the bathroom shut?

  Matthew looked over his shoulder when she fairly skidded into the kitchen. He smiled at her as if it was an everyday occurrence and held up the full coffeepot. “Sleep okay?”

  Maggie nodded, relaxing. Matthew’s presence was as calming and welcoming as Daniel’s was unsettling. She removed a sturdy white mug from the mug tree on the counter, and he filled it before sliding the pot back into the coffeemaker.

  She leaned against the counter and cradled the mug, inhaling the wonderfully strong aroma. No hazelnut coffee here. No cappuccino or double lattes. Just good old coffee, strong enough to eat the metal off a spoon. She sipped. And hot enough to singe her throat all the way down.

  Matthew, his own mug in hand, sat at the table. “What got you up so early?”

  Maggie smiled faintly. “Old habits returning, I guess.”

  He nodded easily. “Jaimie’s been sleeping later these days. Takes a nap in the middle of the afternoon sometimes, too.”

  “Pregnancy will do that to you.” Maggie set down her mug. She felt strange just standing there, sharing coffee. She simply wasn’t used to being a guest in this household. “Why don’t I fix you some breakfast.”

  “You don’t have—”

  “Please. Makes me feel useful.”

  He shrugged, smiling wryly. “I’m not about to turn down your cooking, Maggie.”

  Pleased, she pulled open the refrigerator door and started assembling breakfast. After a few minutes Matthew took his coffee with him, and Maggie knew he was going back into his office beyond the stairs to work. It didn’t bother her. In fact, working alone in the spacious kitchen felt...nice.

  She’d just pulled a batch of blueberry muffins from the oven when she heard footfalls behind her. She quickly slid the muffin pan onto a trivet, not needing to look behind her to know who stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. Only one man had ever made the skin between her shoulder blades tighten.

  Without looking at Daniel, she poured a mug of coffee and set it on the table in front of the chair he’d occupied before. Before he’d left his home.

  He moved behind her, but instead of sliding out his chair, he continued to the pegs on the wall where his black hat hung. Maggie’s fingers tightened around the dishcloth she held. “Don’t you want to eat something?”

  His eyes were remote as he pushed his hat onto his head. “Tell Matt I went over to Jefferson’s.”

  Then he was gone.

  She blinked against the stupid burning behind her eyes. “I guess that’s a no.”

  Later that morning Maggie threw herself into Jaimie’s plans. They left Sarah and J.D. playing under the watchful eye of Leandra’s mother, Emily, at the neighboring horse ranch owned by Emily and Jefferson Clay. Squire Clay had brought young Emily home to live with them after her parents were killed in an accident. She’d been seven and had really been more “one of the boys” than anything else during the time she lived with them before Squire sent her off to boarding school. Of course, she’d grown up, and Jefferson had learned just how very female Emily was.

  Maggie had been torn between relief and disappointment when they didn’t come across Daniel when she and Jaimie dropped off the children.

  But Jaimie’s enthusiasm for an afternoon shopping in Casper was too hard to ignore, and Maggie found herself enjoying the afternoon as they shopped and had lunch in a small, pretty restaurant.

  They talked about everything under the sun, from pregnancy to calving season, to the rocky relationship Squire Clay had with Gloria Day. Eventually they even talked about Joe. About better times. And Maggie knew that Jaimie would be all right. That the happiness she’d found with Matthew Clay would help her grieve for the brother who, in the end, she’d hardly known.

  That evening after supper, Daniel stayed out in the barn until he figured Maggie and her daughter would be long asleep.

  And finally, when his back was stiff and his knees ached from sitting so long in one position, he silently went inside.

  A light had been left burning over the stove. Jaimie’s doing, he figured, and poured the last measure of coffee from the pot into a mug. It was barely warm, but he didn’t care.

  He wandered through the dining room, through the little-used living room. He was glad Squire wasn’t back yet from visiting Gloria. It would be all too easy to end up on the receiving end of the old man’s sharp eyes, and Daniel just wasn’t in the mood for it.

  Dan figured it was better If his father never knew what he’d been doing the past few years. It would probably bring on another heart attack. He damn sure didn’t need to live with that on his conscience, too.

  He headed upstairs only to have his eyes snared by the narrow sliver of light beneath the door of the bedroom that Maggie used. He was all set to walk right on by, but her door suddenly opened and she stood there with the golden light shining from behind her.

  Her eyes widened and color flitted over her high cheekbones. She was barefoot. Wearing nothing but a pale yellow sleeveless vest and matching pajama pants that revealed her red-painted toenails.

  She looked so warm and soft, so...female that it bit into his gut like a hot poker.

  He could see her throat work as she swallowed. Could see the way her pulse beat visibly in her neck. He deliberately let his gaze glide along her bare, too-thin arms, to her fingers, delicate, long and tipped in sexy red. He looked until he found what his eyes sought. The dull glint of a gold wedding band.

  He needed to go into his room. Shut the door, with him on the inside and her on the outside. Definitely on the outside. Meeting here twice like this in as many nights was nearly more than he could stand “Can’t sleep without the noises of the city?” His tone was quiet and dry as dust, and judging by her expression, about as friendly.

  “I was going to check on J.D.”

  He looked across the wide hallway to his niece Sarah’s bedroom. “Sounds quiet to me.”

  “Ah, yes. Yes, it does.” Her eyes shied away from his. “I guess I’ll turn in, then.”

  He didn’t know what devil prompted him to touch her bare shoulder. But he did. And she went still as a church mouse. He fancied he could actually hear her breathing cease.

  “Don’t.”

  He paused, his eyes on her shoulder. Despite her plea, he ran his fingers down to her elbow, before severing the contract “You’re too thin.”

  She smiled, but it looked forced. “You know the saying. You can never be too thin or too rich.” The words fell flat.

  He lifted her hand, tightening his hold when she would have drawn away. He felt the cold band around her ring finger. “Is this the new city look for you?”

  “What if it is?” she demanded faintly.

  He let go of her. “You’re too thin,” he said again.

  “So I’ve lost a few pounds,” she murmured, her shoulders hunched defensively. “Your shoulders are wider.” Her cheeks pinkened. “So what? Time passes. And why are you angry?”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “I’m not angry.”

  Maggie’s lips twisted. She dared a look up into his smoky eyes. “Right.”

  He smiled suddenly, eyes sharp and a dimple slashing alongside his wolfish smile “I could pretend to be angry,” he said softly. “Then we could kiss and make up.”

  Maggie’s heart tripped. “Very funny.”

  His smile disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. “Has the city taken away your sense of humor, too?”

  “Joe claimed I had no sense of humor,” Maggie retorted thoughtlessly

  “Ah, the sainted Joe.”
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  Maggie dragged her eyes away from the impossibly wide stretch of his shoulders beneath his usual T-shirt. “Daniel, please.”

  “You brought him up, Maggie Mae.”

  Her breath stalled, and she closed her eyes for a moment at the name. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t tell you how my heart bleeds that Joe’s six feet under?”

  She winced. “Don’t call me that.”

  “What?”

  “Maggie Mae,” she managed huskily.

  His eyes were depthless disks of silver in his bronzed face. He seemed to stand even closer, though she was certain he hadn’t moved. “Margaret Mary never seemed to fit you,” he said.

  It was also a name that Maggie had never liked. She’d been named after her mother. And heaven knew that Maggie wanted to be nothing like her mother, not even to carry the same name. But it was Daniel, only Daniel, who had ever attached the “Mae” to the “Maggie” that she preferred.

  “Maggie Mae used to suit you,” he added. “Maybe Margaret is more suitable now. Is that what they call you at your office? Margaret?”

  “No,” she said tightly.

  His head tilted and he smiled faintly, as if the whispered conversation, if you could call it that, amused him. “Go back to bed, Maggie, and sleep the sleep of the innocent. Little girl Greene is sound asleep.”

  Maggie felt anything but innocent. Not with him standing so close that she could breathe in the warmth of him. “J.D.,” she managed. “Her name is J.D.”

  “You are all hung up on names tonight, aren’t you.”

  She moistened her lips and looked him right in those unreadable silver eyes. “And you’re angry, no matter what you say. What is it, Daniel? The money? Joe didn’t leave me with any of it. Perhaps if you saw my apartment, you’d believe that.”

  His eyes went glacial, and she found herself backed into her bedroom, the door shutting in them both. Her breath climbed down her throat, nearly choking her.

  “Is that what you think? That I want the money back?” His teeth flashed, white and fierce. “Tris and Matt tracked down most of it. Or have you forgotten? We could have prosecuted Joe, and we chose not to.”

  She inched away until she bumped the dresser. “Because Matthew fell in love with Joe’s sister. And I haven’t forgotten anything.”

  “Really.”

  She closed her hands over the edge of the dresser behind her. “Really.”

  His brooding eyes rested on her lips, and it took everything she possessed to suppress the urge to moisten them. “Then you remember that afternoon, too.”

  “Wh-what afternoon?”

  He tsked, mocking. “You never could lie worth squat.”

  “Considering everything, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “How long before you go back to Chicago?”

  “We leave Sunday,” she said stiffly, aware that he considered that day to be none too soon.

  “Today is Tuesday.” He looked over her shoulder, toward the bed. “Wednesday, actually.”

  “You don’t want me here.”

  “No, I don’t,” he said smoothly, and Maggie felt her stomach tighten.

  “I didn’t know you were back until it was too late.” Or I wouldn’t have come. The rest of her thought remained unsaid. But he knew it as well as she did.

  “Oh, Maggie, I am well aware of that ” He lifted his hand toward her, his jaw tightening when she flinched. But he continued the motion, drawing a lock of hair away from her cheek. “Well aware,” he stressed.

  He lowered his hand at last, but he still stood far too close for her peace of mind. If she drew in the deep breath her starving lungs cried for, her breasts, covered only in the thin cotton, would brush against his snug T-shirt. She swallowed, pressing back against the dresser. “I think you should go.” Her whisper shook.

  He smiled and there was nothing humorous about the expression. He leaned over her, resting his big hands alongside hers on the dresser. “I’m done going. I’ll leave that for you.” He straightened suddenly. “Do you miss him?”

  Confusion swept over her. Then mortification when she realized he was referring to Joe. “Yes.”

  He nodded, and walked out of the room, opening and closing the door behind him without a sound.

  Maggie hugged her arms around herself, shivering. It seemed she could lie convincingly, after all.

  She walked toward the bed, her thoughts jumbled. Sitting on the nightstand beside the bed was her voluminous purse, and before she thought twice, she’d dragged it onto the bed beside her and removed a business-size gray envelope from its depths. She drew out the letter on its matching, conservative gray stationery and reread the contents. She knew the words nearly by heart, even though she hadn’t been in possession of the letter for a full week yet.

  Some things didn’t need much time to sink in. Apparently this report from the investigator she’d hired was one of them. After all, it wasn’t every day that you learned your husband, prior to his death, had become a bigamist.

  Maggie closed her eyes, trying to summon a picture of Joe in her mind. But the image was fuzzy. The most clear thing was his eyes. The same deeply green eyes that he’d passed on to their daughter.

  She sank back against the soft pillows. J.D. She would concentrate on J.D. Her precious daughter was the one good thing to come out of her marriage. It was Joe’s loss that he’d never realized that.

  She drew in a slow breath and carefully folded the letter, replacing it in the envelope. She didn’t miss Joe. She hadn’t for a very long time. Maybe her pride kept her from admitting it to others, Daniel included, but she admitted it to herself at least.

  She pushed the envelope back inside her purse and set it aside once more on the nightstand. The light caught on her narrow wedding band and she paused, staring at it as if she hadn’t seen it in ages Perhaps she hadn’t.

  She’d been wearing the ring since Joe placed it there shortly after her seventeenth birthday. She’d thought when he’d done so she would find the things she’d missed in her life. She’d been wrong. She’d kept the ring on since Joe left her, more for J.D.’s sake than anything. Her daughter, inquisitive and bright, had seemed satisfied when she’d asked Maggie why she didn’t have a daddy like some of her friends. Maggie had told J.D. that she did have a daddy. She’d showed J.D. the few pictures she’d kept from her elopement and the wedding band. She certainly hadn’t continued wearing it because she’d expected Joe to come back to her. And the ring had discouraged a few male advances that Maggie had been all too happy to avoid.

  Yet suddenly it was too much.

  She dashed out of her room into the bathroom, barely managing not to slam the door in her haste. She scrabbled with the water and the pretty little floral bottle of liquid soap. Her breath felt harsh in her chest as she squirted the slippery soap around the ring. She twisted it. “Come on. Come on.”

  It didn’t want to budge over her knuckle. She added water and more soap.

  The ring fell into the sink with a ting.

  Going still, she stared at it for a long while. Then she picked it out, slowly rinsed away the suds and dried her hands. She returned to the bedroom and tucked the band into her wallet. She supposed there might come a day when J.D. would want it. Mostly Maggie just wanted it out of sight.

  Then, her thumb rubbing over the very bare place where that ring had been for so long, she climbed into bed.

  And slept.

  Chapter Three

  Before Maggie knew it, Saturday morning dawned, bright and clear. She knew it was a perfect day for the weekend picnic that Jaimie had planned. But she could hardly look forward to it. Because, though she and Daniel had managed to avoid each other since that late-night, well, discussion, she knew there would be no way to avoid him at the picnic.

  She twisted her damp hair up off her neck and clamped a tortoiseshell claw-type clip on it to hold it in place, then went to make sure J.D. was dressed.

  Not only was J.D. dressed, but she was
plowing her way through pancakes at the kitchen table with her cousin Sarah on one side of her and Squire Clay on the other. He’d finished his pancakes and was working on the newspaper crossword puzzle.

  He glanced up, his craggy, carved face splitting into a smile. “Well now, child, don’t you look purty as a picture.”

  “Thank you.” Before she knew what she was doing, she’d grabbed the coffeepot and refilled his mug. “Where is Jaimie?”

  “She started feeling poorly right in the middle of flipping pancakes.” Without taking his attention from his puzzle, he poured a measure of coffee from his mug into the delicate china saucer that sat beside it, then drank the piping hot brew from it instead of the mug. “You just gonna hover there, girl, or sit down and eat a pancake or two?” He glanced up. “Might add a little curve back to your arms.”

  What was this preoccupation with her weight? But she pulled out a chair and sat. Her stomach was too nervous to eat a pancake, though, and she reached for a piece of dry toast instead.

  Squire finished off his one saucerful, then poured some more. “We haven’t had time to jaw much, you and I, since I got back yesterday. Jaimie’s kept you pretty busy.”

  Maggie tore off a corner of toast and nibbled. “She has a lot of energy.”

  He grunted in agreement. “Keeps my boy Matt on his toes.”

  She smiled. “I noticed.”

  “Guess you probably noticed, too, how Weaver’s growing,” he said. “You hear about the new doc in town?”

  “Jaimie mentioned her.”

  “Worked real hard to get the doc to come here,” he continued. “I’m a mite proud of it.” He continued on, his voice deep and graveled and familiar, and gradually, without having to ever say a word, Maggie felt herself begin to relax.

  “You’re looking a tad peaked, child,” he said, his sharp eyes not unkind. “I hope it’s not ’cause you’re grieving too hard over Joe.”

  So much for relaxing. A gnawing guilt spread through her because she knew that she wasn’t grieving at all. And she should be. Despite everything, he’d been her husband.