Driven To Distraction

by Judith Duncan

  Feeling as if she was connected to a live current, she reached down to disengage his hand. “I have to get up,” she said, her voice quivering a little. “Kelly will be up in a minute.”

  He slid his other hand under the waistband of her slacks. “No.”

  Maggie didn’t know whether to laugh or to throttle him. “Tony,” she said, striving for firmness, “I have to get up. Kelly will be coming upstairs any minute.”

  He finally opened his eyes, but then closed them again. “Hell,” he muttered, his tone disgruntled. But he relaxed his hold.

  His irritability made her smile, and she leaned down and gave him a light kiss. “Just go back to sleep, Parnelli.” He didn’t make it easy for her when she tried to disengage herself, but the minute she was free of him, he rolled onto his side, one arm hanging over the edge of the sofa. The early morning coolness made her shiver, and she picked up the antique afghan of her great-grandmother’s that was draped over the sofa—the one she had forbidden anyone to touch—and covered him with it. Unable to just leave him like that, she brushed back his hair, then leaned down and kissed him again. He didn’t move a muscle.

  Hearing the shower shut off downstairs, Maggie resolutely turned toward the hallway, trying to rub some circulation back into her numb arm and feeling as if she was on some kind of high.

  She washed her face, combed her hair and changed into an old sweatsuit in two minutes flat. She was in the kitchen putting on a pot of coffee when Kelly came up the back stairs. Dropping her canvas backpack on the chair at the end of the table, she shot her mother a curious glance as she went to the fridge. “How come you’re up so early?”

  Not quite able to meet her daughter’s gaze, Maggie closed the lid on the tank of the coffeemaker, then slid the carafe onto the element. “I heard your alarm,” she responded, keeping her tone perfectly casual. “And I wanted to warn you that Tony’s asleep on the sofa.”

  Her hand on a pitcher of orange juice, Kelly went dead still. “Pardon?”

  Maggie wiped some dribbles of water off the counter. “Tony’s asleep in the front room.” She tossed the cloth in the sink, then turned, bracing herself to face her daughter. Leaning back against the counter, she folded her arms, wishing she could spare her the brutal truth, finally she met her gaze. “The police officer that was killed yesterday was Tony’s ex-partner,” she said quietly. “They sent for Tony early yesterday morning, and he was at the hospital all day. I went over to see him last night. He was there by himself, so I brought him home.”

  A stricken expression on her face, Kelly set the pitcher down on the counter with a thud. “Oh God, Mom, how awful.”

  “Yes, it was,” she answered softly.

  A worried look appeared in Kelly’s eyes. “How is he?”

  Maggie gave her a reassuring smile. “It’s hit him pretty hard, but he’s okay.” She looked down and straightened the fringe on the mat with her toe, then met Kelly’s gaze dead on. “He doesn’t need our sympathy, honey,” she said quietly. “He just needs us to be here, okay?”

  Kelly nodded and shoved her hands in the pockets of her shorts, her expression stark. “I feel so bad for him.”

  “I know you do.” Straightening, Maggie went to her daughter, giving her shoulder a reassuring pat. “So do I.” The teenager stared at her for a moment, then sighed and opened the cupboard to get a glass. “Are you going to stay home with him today?”

  Maggie gave a warped smile. “You mean play hooky, Kelly Lynn?”

  Kelly shot her a glance over her shoulder, a look of wide-eyed innocence on her face. “Gee, Mom. What’s that?”

  “Yeah, right,” she answered wryly.

  Kelly grinned. “You should try it, Mom. A little larceny is good for the soul.” She got down two glasses, then gave her mother a bright, mischievous look and went to the archway. “Hey, Parnelli,” she yelled. “Do you want some orange juice?”

  There was a loud thump in the living room.

  Maggie shot her a reproving look. “Kelly! He was sleeping, for heaven’s sake. What possessed you to do that?”

  Kelly grinned and fluttered her eyelashes. “Gee, Mom. I don’t know. Maybe because I didn’t want him to think he had to hide out in there.”

  Tony appeared at the doorway, his eyes bleary with sleep, looking as if he just climbed out of somebody’s ragbag. He also looked just a little bit cranky. “Damn it. You scared the hell out of me.”

  Kelly grinned and poured two glasses of orange juice. “I take it that’s a yes.”

  He raked his fingers through his tousled hair, then scrubbed his face. Resting his hands on his hips, he gave Kelly a baleful look. Her eyes dancing, she handed him a glass of orange juice. “What was that big crash? Did you fall off the couch?”

  He narrowed his eyes at her, a glint of humor appearing. “What are you doing? Pushing your luck?”

  She held up both hands in a conceding gesture. “Hey. I know better than to poke a bear.” She nudged the bottom of his glass. “Have a slug, slugger. I think your blood sugar is a little low.”

  He gave her a long, cautioning look, then lifted the glass and downed half of the contents. Folding his arms, he leaned back against the counter and fixed his attention on Kelly. “Are you always this loud in the morning?”

  Finishing her juice, Kelly opened the fridge and reached in for a bagged lunch. Pushing the door shut with her elbow, she looked at him, clearly enjoying herself. “Are you always this sweet and adorable?”

  Staring at her, Tony shook his head, a glint appearing in his eyes. “You’re just full of sass and vinegar, aren’t you?”

  She grinned at him. “Yep.” The teenager picked up a banana from the basket of fruit on the table and stuffed it in the pocket of her jacket. She gave her mother a mischievous look. “Have fun playing hooky, Ma. And stay outta trouble, okay?”

  She raised her hand in a farewell salute to Tony. “See you later.”

  Kelly left, letting the back door slam behind her, and Maggie glanced at Tony, amused by the look on his face. “Considering it was your first skirmish of the day, you held up relatively well.”

  Bracing his hand on the corner of the fridge, Tony stared at her. “You could have warned me about her.”

  Maggie smiled as she reached into the cupboard and got out two mugs. “I take it you’re not exactly a morning person.”

  “Not exactly.”

  Maggie filled the mugs with coffee, then handed him one, trying not to laugh. “Here. Maybe this will get your engine started.”

  He took it, then looked at her, a glimmer of amusement appearing in his eyes. “You think it’s funny, don’t you?”

  She grinned at him. “Yes, I do.”

  He stared at her, the glint fading, changing to something dark and intense, something that made her pulse falter. Without taking his eyes off her, he set his cup on the counter, then took the steaming mug from her hand, setting it beside his. The steady, somber look in his eyes set off a wild flutter in her chest, and she stared up at him, unable to move. He caught her wrists, placing her arms around his neck; then he drew her flush against him, his gaze locked on hers. “So…” he said, his voice very soft, very husky. “Are you going to work or are you going to stick around?”

  Maggie gazed up at him, knowing the question had nothing to do with her going to work or not; this was about them. She experienced a rush of fear. He was so much younger, and their life-styles were so very different. She was terrified of the day when he would realize it was all a big mistake, that she couldn’t give him what he wanted.

  But she would worry about that later. Now all she had to do was for once in her life throw caution to the wind. Take a chance. Let go. Step onto the high wire.

  Her heart hammering like a wild thing, she drew a deep, shaky breath and took the biggest step of her life. “I’ll stick around.”

  Letting his breath go, Tony closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers. “You sure as hell took your sweet time making up your mind.
”

  Cupping the back of his head, Maggie closed her eyes and swallowed hard, loving him so much her chest hurt. It wasn’t quite so scary on the high wire when he was holding her like this.

  Taking her face between his hands, he tipped her head back, covering her mouth with a sweet, searching kiss that robbed her of breath and made her legs want to buckle. And by the time he finally pulled away, she was breathing like a long-distance runner. Rubbing his thumb along her bottom lip, he smiled down at her, a twinkle in his eyes. “You ever played hooky, Burrows?”

  Mesmerized by the gleam in his eyes, she shook her head.

  “Well,” he said, giving her a grin that had trouble written all over it, “we have to start by taking our clothes off.”

  Her uncertainties fading away to nothing, she gave him a steady look, somehow managing not to laugh. “Really?”

  He slid his hands down her back and under the elasticized waistband of her sweatpants, the gleam in his eyes intensifying. “Yep.” Then he cupped her buttocks, pressing her flush against him. “You can even play it on the kitchen table if you want.”

  She gave a little huff of laughter, resisting the pressure of his hands. “I think I need to buy you a dictionary, Parnelli.”

  He gave her another grin that came straight out of the bedroom, then lowered his head, lightly brushing his mouth against hers. “Nah. I’ll show you instead.”

  Suddenly out of breath and tingling all over, Maggie tightened her arms around him, then grasped a handful of his hair. “Then you’d better show me fast,” she demanded, putting pressure on his head.

  He laughed against her mouth, tightening his arms around her hips. “You gonna participate?”

  She gave his hair a firm jerk. “I’ll show you participation, Parnelli.”

  He laughed again and backed her hard against the fridge, thrusting his knee between her legs. Then he pulled her up against him and kissed her in earnest, turning her whole body into one big erogenous zone.

  Maggie opened her mouth beneath his, her senses slipping out of orbit. To hell with tomorrow. She was going to live today.

  Chapter 10

  Maggie stared at the printout spread on her desk as if it were written in some foreign language, her mind refusing to compute the data. It was a company’s year end, and the deadline for filing was four days away. And right now she felt like pulling all her hair out. Trying to release the tension in her shoulders, she closed her eyes and tipped her head back, willing up some calm. Okay. She was going to get focused. She was going to quit letting her mind wander and she was going to get down to business.

  Dropping her hands, she stared blindly at the flashing cursor on her computer screen, the little blinking block taunting her. It was Friday afternoon, the last week of July, and she wasn’t due to take the rest of her vacation for another two weeks. Which was not good, seeing that she had developed the attention span of a two-year-old. If she were Frank, she would have fired herself. She was about as productive as a slug, and her damned mind kept taking long-distance trips. And it was all Tony Parnelli’s fault.

  Realizing the absolute irrationality of that thought, Maggie dropped her head to her desk, letting her arms hang and wishing with all her heart that she could unplug what was left of her mind.

  She didn’t know what she was doing—maybe she was just manic-depressive. One minute she would be so high she felt as if she were flying, and the next so low she couldn’t have dug herself any deeper with a steam shovel. Up and down, up and down—it was as if she was trapped on some crazy emotional roller coaster and there was no way off.

  She wiped away a tear that had mysteriously leaked out. Without lifting her head, she pulled a tissue from the box on her desk and listlessly blew her nose, not caring one iota that she was lying all over someone’s business receipts.

  God, but she was a mess. She was so much in love with Tony, she couldn’t even think straight. And everything was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful when she was with him. He dragged her to the races, he’d managed to talk her into learning to drive his bike and he did the most adorable things—like when he climbed into her bedroom in the middle of the night to bring her some roses, which he had swiped out of her own garden. And on top of all that, he was an honorable man. Even that night he sneaked in with the roses he wouldn’t stay because of Kelly.

  Maggie blindly reached for another tissue, wiping ineffectually at her nose. And all those times when they had some privacy together—those times in his apartment, in his car or in a field somewhere—she couldn’t even bear to think about because they were so unbearably beautiful, so damned electric that her insides would turn to jelly just remembering them.

  Managing to expel most of the pressure built up in her chest, she took a deep breath, aware that there was a paper clip pressing into her face. Okay, okay. She was just going to lie here for a moment and get herself together. She wasn’t going to let that awful sinking feeling take root in her belly—that feeling that would rise up to haunt her in the middle of the night. That one that she couldn’t quite control. Resting her forehead on the stack of receipts, Maggie closed her eyes, gathering her determination. She was going to brace herself, then she was going to finish this damned account and then go home and make dinner for Kelly and Tony. Once she was with him, everything would be okay.

  “Are you in a coma or are you just in the middle of a heart attack?”

  Maggie resisted the urge to bang her head against the desk. Heaving a sigh, she sat up, trying to look halfway competent. She picked up a pencil. “Go away, Frank. I don’t want to talk to you.”

  Her boss chuckled, then reached over and picked the paper clip off her cheek. “Maybe we should just get your nose pierced.” He tossed the bright green paper clip onto the printout. “Then you could have a whole string of paper clips hanging from your left nostril.”

  Maggie experienced a tiny flicker of amusement. “Hang them on your own left nostril and leave mine out of it.”

  He leaned over her shoulder and looked at the printout. “Having trouble?”

  She placed her arm across the paper, as if they were in elementary school and he was trying to cheat. “No.”

  Before she had a chance to stop him, he snatched the statement from under her arm. “Hmm,” he said, scanning the columns.

  Maggie snatched the printout back and slapped it on her desk. “Don’t mess with me, Frank.”

  Folding his arms, Frank hitched his hip on the corner of her desk. “Now, Mary Margaret,” he said, adopting a patronizing tone, “you would be doing me a big favor if you’d just have a fit and dump that on my desk. My wife says we gotta go looking at wallpaper tonight, and I ask you, why me?” He gave her a hangdog smile. “But if you didn’t get your work done, then I’d have to work late, wouldn’t I?”

  Maggie propped her chin on her hand, enjoying his performance. Frank could look like the most pathetic person alive when he put a little effort into it.

  “So you gotta give me that file, Maggie,” he said, looking woeful. “I’d rather deal with head lice than shopping. What in hell do I know about wallpaper, for Pete’s sake?”

  “You’re so cute when you fib, Lucciano. You know that?”

  “I am not fibbing.” He actually started to sweat. “She’s decided to redecorate the whole damn house. It’s a fifteenroom house—do you know how many rolls of wallpaper that’s going to take?”

  Maggie gave him a long, scrutinizing look. “You aren’t just trying to be nice because you caught me with my face planted in my desk?”

  “Hell, no!” He tried to pull the printout from under her elbow. “Give it to me, Burrows. Pink pansies on blue flocking—” he shuddered “—are enough to give me cold sweats.”

  Maggie studied him for a moment, then lifted her elbow, letting him pull the file free. He was such a sneaky devil that she wasn’t entirely sure she bought the blue-flocking business.

  He headed toward his office, pausing at the door to yell, “Go home! I don’t
want you hanging around, screwing up my alibi.”

  Her head still propped in her hand, Maggie considered him as he closed his door. She would swear she could hear him whistling. A touch of humor surfaced. Blue-flocking, indeed. In a pig’s eye. He was so sweet.

  A heat wave had hit the city the week before, and it was sweltering. There wasn’t a whiff of breeze, and heat radiated off the sidewalk like a blast furnace. By the time Maggie walked home, she was so hot she hardly had the energy to put one foot in front of the other. She had stopped off at the store, and the bag of groceries she was lugging felt like it weighed a ton. She smiled a little when she saw the Keep Off sign on her freshly painted front step. Tony had run compressor hoses from the shop to her house the night before, and he and Spider had sanded the step, then used a spray gun to paint it. It took them less than an hour to do what it would have taken her a week to accomplish.

  Skirting the wet paint, she followed the sidewalk around to the back of the house and opened the old-fashioned-wrought iron gate, relieved to get in the shade. If she’d known it was so hot out, she would never have left the air-conditioned comfort of the office.

  She rounded the corner of the house and stopped in her tracks. Tony was stretched out on one of the chaise longues, his T-shirt draped over the back of the chair, his arms folded across his naked, tanned chest. He had on a pair of faded cutoffs, with a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes, and he looked as if he didn’t have a care in the world. There was a large, frosty pitcher of lemonade sitting on the table beside him, along with two ice-filled glasses.

  Her day suddenly lightened, and she found herself smiling. “Hi. You expecting somebody?”

  It wasn’t until he lifted his hat and pulled off a headset that she realized he’d been listening to a Walkman. Tossing his hat on the deck, he used the two collapsible arms to hoist himself out of the chair; then he crossed the deck and met her at the top of the steps. He shot her an amused look as he took the bag of groceries from her. “I called the office, and your boss said he’d sent you home. He gave me some big story about finding you with paper clips stuck to your face.” The gleam in his eyes intensified. “So I figured you must have flipped out on poor old Frank.” Resting the bag of groceries on the railing, he leaned over and gave her a light kiss. Then he straightened and grinned at her, the devil dancing in his eyes. “So what happened, cookie? Did you loose a dime?”