A Wedding for Maggie

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  Her eyebrow arched. “I beg your pardon?”

  “We’re gonna get this ironed out right now. Maybe you don’t like confrontations, Maggie, but you better get used to ‘em if you continue comparing me to Joe.”

  Maggie gave the tie on her robe another tug for good measure. She was dismayingly aware of the way the chenille clung to her damp skin. “Just because you don’t like the truth doesn’t mean I’m comparing you to anyone.”

  “Truth.” His voice lowered silkily. Dangerously. He stepped closer. “There’s a concept. Why don’t we be truthful?”

  She took a half step back before she caught herself His shirt hung loose from his wide shoulders and she forced her eyes away from the way his undershirt—one of those scoop necked, sleeveless kind—clung to his chest. “If you’re trying to intimidate me, it won’t work.”

  “No intimidation, Maggie. Just some good, old-fashioned honesty and truth.” He lowered his head over hers, his voice flowing over her. “You saw me talking with the doc and you were jealous.”

  She crossed her arms, needing the few precious inches of space it forced between their bodies. “No.”

  “Since jealousy is undoubtedly one of those emotions you figure is too earthy for your overactive conscience to tolerate, you chalk it all up to me being like Joe.”

  “Oh, and since when are you an expert in psychoanalysis?”

  His jaw hardened and something came and went in his eyes before they very carefully went flat. He straightened and moved away from her, leaving her cold. Bereft. “You’d be surprised,” he muttered, raking his fingers through his hair, as if he were suddenly weary. “Rebecca is a friend,” he said flatly. “Not much more than an acquaintance. We hardly know each other. Believe me or not.”

  “Like Angeline is a friend?” Maggie wished the words back when he looked at her as if she’d knifed him in the chest and left him to bleed.

  “What do you know about...Angeline?”

  Not enough. Not enough to understand why her name makes you wince. “The papers.” She swallowed, making herself continue. “Notes you leave in your room.”

  His back was to her, his shoulders tense. But when she would have placed her hand on his back, wondering how she could make amends when she wasn’t sure it was even possible, he spoke. “The only woman I’m involved with is you, Maggie. Accept it or not. And don’t mention that name to me ever again.”

  He scooped up his vest and his keys and without ever looking back, he left.

  Chapter Eleven

  When Maggie awoke the next morning, she lay in bed, listening to the hiss of the shower coming from the bathroom. She blinked and peered at her watch. Daniel had gotten off to a late start.

  She cautiously climbed from the bed, but her stomach for once stayed steady. She dressed in her new pair of black leggings and a thin, clinging, black turtleneck, over which she pulled a loose-knit red sweater. By the time she finished making her bed, the shower had ceased.

  Knowing she was the ultimate coward, she hovered in her room for another solid five minutes before cautiously opening the door. A coffee mug sat on the breakfast counter across the living area. The door to the bathroom was open. She could see the steamy mirror from her vantage point.

  She stuck her head out a little farther. Daniel’s door was shut.

  She scooted into the bathroom and quietly shut the door. Then had to stand there for a long moment while she battered down the ache that rose in her when Daniel’s scent—clean soap and the woodsy aftershave he preferred—engulfed her.

  When she opened the door again a few minutes later, face and teeth cleaned, and her hair pulled into a neat knot at her nape, she thought perhaps she’d succeeded in missing him.

  But Daniel was standing at the counter, sipping his coffee and studying a set of blueprints he’d spread across the wide surface. If he was still angry over last night, he showed no signs of it when he looked back at her.

  “Coffee?” he asked, turning again to his drawings.

  She cleared her throat. “Ah, no. Thanks. The caffeine.”

  He didn’t comment.

  Maggie’s teeth chewed the inside of her lip. He wasn’t wearing his usual blue jeans this morning, but wore finely tailored black trousers. His shirt, instead of the sturdy cotton he usually wore, was still white, but even from several feet away she recognized it as silk. The clothes only emphasized the impossible breadth of his shoulders and the narrowness of his waist and hips. Even the butterscotch waves of hair had been slicked back from his strong features.

  She tugged at the long hem of her sweater and walked past him to get a glass of water. “You’re not working on the house today?”

  He looked up from the drawings. “Your appointment is today.”

  She nearly choked on her water. She hadn’t even gotten an opportunity to tell Jaimie about her appointment with Dr. Foster. Or the reason behind it. “How did you know that?”

  His lips twisted. “Honey, there ain’t much about you I don’t know.” He lifted his mug, leisurely sipping. “Jaimie is still sleeping. Matt said she had a rough night. I talked to Emily. She said she’d keep the girls for the day.”

  Emily was much further along in her pregnancy than either Jaimie or Maggie. Yet she had the girls with her so often, no matter what she’d said last night after the Halloween party. “But

  Her argument died on her lips when he pinned her with a cold look. “What goes on between us stays between us,” he said flatly. “Don’t take it out on the rest of ‘em. We watch out for each other. Everybody’s glad you and J.D. are back here.” He looked back at his drawings. “’Cept you,” he added before draining the rest of his coffee.

  “And you.”

  He didn’t deny it, and Maggie felt something inside her wither.

  “Get some food in you,” he said after a moment. “Then we’ll leave. I want to stop off to see a guy who does furniture refinishing.”

  Only a day before she would have argued with him. But that was before she’d seen him bob for apples just to make her daughter happy.

  Before she’d seen the torment in his eyes last night and before he’d carefully banked it and walked away without saying goodbye.

  Before she’d had to acknowledge, at least to herself, that he’d been right: she’d seen Daniel dancing with the doctor and she’d been jealous. Hideously so. It was a first for her, and not a pleasant one.

  She brushed her palms down her sides. “Have you eaten? I could—” she swallowed “—make you some waffles.”

  He didn’t seem to see her figurative olive branch. “Had breakfast with the hands,” he said. He rolled up his drawings and slid them into the tube. Then he finally looked at her. “Snowed all night,” he said. “Dress warm.”

  The “guy” who did refinishing must have been nearly a hundred years old, Maggie decided when they stopped off at his hole-in-the-wall shop. She didn’t doubt that the man knew his stuff. There were snapshots of beautifully finished furniture tacked up on every inch of available wall space.

  But when Maggie heard what the man intended to charge Daniel for the privilege of refinishing the delicate settee, she nearly choked on the exorbitant amount.

  She pulled Daniel aside. “That’s too much.”

  He shrugged. “He’s upholstering the cushion, too.”

  “I’m telling you, it’s too much. The materials would cost less than a tenth of what he wants to charge you.” She tilted her head, lowering her voice even more. “Just because you can afford it, doesn’t mean it’s right for him to charge you that.”

  “Maggie, it doesn’t matter.”

  “I’ll do it.

  His eyebrows peaked. “You?”

  “Yes, me. For heaven’s sake Daniel, I’ve done a lot of work with wood. I can refinish that settee and anything else you need. I learned how to sew and upholster when I was a teenager.”

  “I don’t want you tiring yourself.”

  She shook her head impatiently. “I’ve let you
coddle me since I came back to the Double-C. It’s driving me up a tree.”

  “The baby—”

  She instinctively pressed her palm flat against her abdomen. “Do you really think I’d do something to endanger this child?”

  His jaw cocked. “I’ll think about it. I said,” he repeated inflexibly when she opened her mouth, “I’ll think about it.” He ushered her toward the door and told the proprietor they’d be in touch.

  She decided it was as much of a concession from him as she’d get.

  Dr. Foster was located in the same office as he’d been when Maggie was a patient of his before. The waiting room was the same, with chintz chairs and ladies’ magazines littering the glass-and-brass coffee tables.

  The only difference was that this time Daniel was with her. The only person to ever accompany her to the obstetrician’s office when she’d carried J.D. had been Jaimie.

  He sat in the feminine chair, one spit-shined boot propped on the knee of his fine trousers, his hair waving over his forehead, looking wholly appealing.

  Maggie wasn’t the only one who thought so. She caught several of the sideways looks he received from the other women also present in the waiting room.

  When the nurse finally called Maggie’s name, she rose, feeling nervous. What if something was already going wrong? What if—

  “Gonna stand out here all day?”

  She looked up at Daniel, who’d also risen from his chair. “I—”

  He tucked his hand behind her back and nudged her toward the nurse who waited in the doorway leading to the exam rooms. “It’ll be fine.”

  He’d been saying it all along. But honestly, how could he possibly know? Then his eyes softened, just a faint warming of that cool silver, and she found herself believing him.

  He didn’t sit back down, however, when she walked toward the nurse. He followed right along, his warm hand never leaving the small of her back.

  With the nurse walking beside them as she escorted them into the doctor’s consulting room, Maggie couldn’t very well make an issue of Daniel accompanying her. Then they were seated in the twin chairs in front of the doctor’s wide desk, and the nurse walked away. But again Maggie didn’t have a chance, because the doctor himself entered the room. He gave them a harried smile and sat down, pulling Maggie’s chart to the center of his desk.

  He flipped it open, studied it, then looked up. He seemed to eye Daniel for a moment, as if he was trying to place him. “Well, Maggie, it’s been several years, hasn’t it. What brings you here?”

  She moistened her lips. “I’m pregnant.” And as she said it, she realized it was only the second time she’d admitted it aloud. First to Daniel when she’d told him over the phone. And now.

  Dr. Foster nodded, his attention going back to the file. “You’re living near Weaver still?” He glanced over the rims of his glasses to see her nod. “Then you must know that Weaver has a fine physician right there. Dr. Rebecca More-house. She has hospital privileges here. Surely it would be more conven—”

  “Are you saying you don’t want me as a patient?” Maggie couldn’t bring herself to look at Daniel.

  He shook his head. “Not at all. I merely wanted to be sure you were fully aware—”

  “I am.”

  The doctor glanced at Daniel, who remained silent, much to Maggie’s relief. Though she figured sooner or later he’d have quite a lot to say about the matter. “Okay,” Dr. Foster said. He rose and stuck his head out into the hall. The nurse appeared and he handed over the chart to her. “Phoebe here will take you back to the exam rooms,” he told Maggie. “I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”

  Maggie followed the nurse, casting a nervous glance toward Daniel. He’d risen also but, thank heavens, didn’t try to follow her and the nurse. He was in the waiting room when she came back out again thirty minutes later with a prescription for prenatal vitamins and a packet of brochures and information in her hands. “The Preg Pack,” the nurse had wryly called it.

  Daniel paid the bill while Maggie scheduled her next appointment. She had to nearly bite off her tongue to keep from making an issue over Daniel’s assumption that he’d pay the doctor fee. If they were going to have any chance at all, Maggie had to start putting aside her desperate need to control every little thing.

  The thought made her stop in her tracks.

  He strode on ahead of her across the parking lot toward his truck. It was snowing again. Gentle drifting flakes that clung to the brim of his hat and the shoulders of his black wool coat.

  Daniel would change his mind, she fiercely reminded herself. He would.

  He reached the truck, then turned to wait, his eyes hidden by the low angle of his cowboy hat.

  She clutched the packet of materials to her chest and started walking again. But her heart thundered with the knowledge that Daniel’s changing his mind wouldn’t be a reprieve for her, after all.

  Moistening her lips, she dashed a snowflake off her nose and stopped beside him, hesitating when he opened the truck door and waited for her to climb inside. She fingered the edge of the manila packet. “Dr. Foster says I’m doing fine. That the...baby seems fine, too.”

  He took the packet from her and tossed it onto the seat. “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “I talked with the doc while you were getting dressed.”

  Of course. She moistened her lips again and put her foot up on the step. Daniel caught her waist, and she closed her eyes for a moment when he helped her up into the cab.

  He started to close the door, then paused, thumbing his hat back a notch. His eyes drifted over her face. “You okay?”

  Maggie nodded. “Fine,” she whispered. Except she’d done what she’d told herself she wouldn’t.

  She’d fallen in love with Daniel Jordan Clay.

  And he was marrying her for one reason only.

  Because of the baby.

  If Maggie thought that sleeping in the guest suite with Daniel had been awkward before, it was nothing compared to the way she felt the next morning as she lay in her bed.

  What had she become, anyway? She was here, living in the big house with people she cared about, under false pretenses. Living a lie.

  She was carrying a baby who would bear the Clay name. If Dr. Foster was to be believed, there was no earthly reason why Maggie wouldn’t carry this baby safely to term.

  She’d fallen in love with a man who didn’t love her.

  Sighing impatiently, she tossed back the covers and got out of bed. Lying there moping accomplished nothing. She showered and dressed again in leggings and a sweater. Ivory this time. After tidying her bedroom she went into Daniel’s room, stopping short when she found his bed already made. The pile of papers on his dresser was conspicuous by its absence. She nibbled the inside of her lip, glancing over the room. It was as tidy as a freshly cleaned motel room. He hadn’t even left one of his leather belts laying about. Not one sock. Not a damp bath towel. Nothing.

  The sick feeling swelling in her stomach had nothing to do with morning sickness. She wasn’t even sure how long she stood there, looking at the terribly tidy room. But her eyes started burning and she swallowed the knot in her throat before slowly crossing the room to the closet. Her hand trembled as she reached out and nudged the door.

  Her knees went weak at the sight of the clothes hanging inside. Daniel’s dress boots—the ones he’d worn to her doctor’s appointment—were tumbled on the floor. She touched the sleeve of one of his white shirts. If the situation had been different, she’d have slid that shirt off its hanger and buried her face in it. She’d have worn it, feeling closer to him simply by the connection of a shirt.

  She hurriedly shut the door and turned away from the closet and went upstairs.

  Jaimie was sitting at the kitchen table, making out a shopping list. Maggie could see J.D. and Sarah playing on the floor in the mudroom, pretending they were in a cave, complete with a blanket stretched over their heads from wall to wall.


  Getting her vocal cords to work took some concentration, but she finally managed. “Where is Squire?”

  Jaimie glanced up at her, and her easy smile faded as she took in Maggie’s pale face. “He drove down to see Gloria. He’ll be gone several days I imagine. Do you feel all right?”

  Maggie swallowed. She wouldn’t feel all right until she stopped pretending. “Would you, um, mind watching J.D. for me this morning?”

  Jaimie set down her pen. “Of course I don’t mind. She and Sarah are inseparable.” She reached out and caught Maggie’s arms, tugging her down to the chair beside her. ”You look like you’re ready to pass out. Are you sick?”

  “No,” she managed.

  “Well, you’re as white as a sheet. What’s upset you?”

  Nothing but her own fears. Nothing but the debilitating relief of seeing Daniel’s clothing still hanging in his closet. Relief that brought damnably easy tears to her eyes. “Hormones,” she said on a choking laugh.

  Jaimie’s eyes narrowed, and Maggie could practically see the wheels turning in her friend’s mind. And it was a relief. To let it all pour out.

  Her pregnancy.

  Daniel’s marriage demand.

  By the time she finished, she felt dizzy with the load lifted.

  Jaimie just sat there, staring at her.

  Maggie looked down at her hands. “You’re shocked.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out,” her friend said bluntly. “I should have known there was something between you two.” Then she smiled brilliantly. “Pregnant. Oh, Maggie.” She leaned forward and gave her a tight squeeze. “I’m so happy for you,” she said when she sat back. “You’re feeling good, though? No problems with the pregnancy?” Her eyes widened. “Good grief, you’ve spent hours working on your wood orders. Maybe you should be taking it easi—”

  “Now you sound like Daniel.”

  Jaimie still looked dazed. But her smile still flirted with her lips. “How far along are you? You have been to the doctor, haven’t you?”

  “I saw Dr. Foster yesterday in Gillette. He says everything looks good.” So far. She smoothed her palms down her thighs. “I’m sorry.”