by Janet Dailey
All of that was issued over her shoulder as she walked across the living room toward her bedroom. Wade's refusal drifted after her.
"No, thanks, I don't care for anything."
"Suit yourself." She wasn't going to force any refreshment on him … or serve him.
She ducked into the hallway, sparing a moment of gratitude that the living room was in order and not strewn with Mike's things, or hers. Tossing her shoes and bag on the bed, she walked to the closet and began rummaging through the hangers for a pair of slacks.
Wade's statement kept running through her mind. He wanted to speak to her about something that was in Mike's interest, yet it had nothing to do with custody.
What could it be? School? Perhaps a private one? Not a boarding school — she would never agree to that. If it didn't have to do with his education, what did that leave?
Maggie was at a loss to come up with an alternative idea.
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Chapter Four
ASOUND IN THE HALLWAY caused her to turn around and her pulse rocketed in alarm at the sight of Wade lounging in the doorway, dark and innately powerful like a predatory beast.
She pivoted back to the closet, grabbing the first slack hanger her fingers touched.
Anger had always been her best defense against his subtle domination.
"I told you I wouldn't he long."
"Don't forget I was married to you." He straightened from the door jamb and wandered into the room. "I know how long it can take you to dress. Long becomes a relative term. When you say you won't be long, I always wonder, compared to what?"
His blandness bordered on indifference, yet his criticism irked Maggie. "I never claimed to be as speedy or punctual as you. I doubt if anyone can meet your standards."
She glanced at the blue plaid slacks in her hand and began searching through the closet for a coordinating blouse.
"What is this?"
At his question, Maggie looked over her shoulder. He was pulling out the old robe she had stuffed in the wastebasket. There was a hint of mockery in the ebony depths of his eyes.
"You know very well what that is … and why it's there!"
She yanked a pale blue blouse from its hanger. The color intensified the green of her eyes, glittering with irritation.
With her change of clothes in hand, Maggie stalked angrily to the bed.
"I promised Mike I would apologize to you for that outburst yesterday, but I don't think I can ever forgive you for showing up unannounced like that. If you knew how much trouble I went to trying to he sure the house was clean, going to the beauty parlor, and buying a new outfit, and you find me looking like something out of a comic strip. It wasn't fair!"
"So in a burst of temper you threw Old Faithful away." Wade gave the quilted robe a considering study. "It has seen some better days."
For a moment Maggie was silenced by the fact that Wade had recognized her favorite robe, even to the point of recalling the name she had given it. She mentally shook away the feeling of surprised pleasure. So he had a good memory. What did it matter?
"Yes, I threw it away."
Her admission was callously indifferent to the memories attached to the garment. "I have a beautiful new robe in the closet. If I'd been wearing that, at least I wouldn't have looked quite so awful."
"I've seen you looking worse." He let the robe fall back into the wastebasket.
"That isn't any consolation!" Maggie snapped.
"Remember the Sunday we went looking at boats and you fell off the dock into the water?" Wade recalled with a husky laugh. "I think you were wearing a new dress."
"I didn't fall!"
Maggie slipped out of the ivory top and tossed it angrily on the bed. With jerky movements she began unbuttoning her blouse.
"My heel hooked in one of the boards and I lost my balance. I don't recall getting any assistance from you. You just stood there laughing!"
"What could I do? I was holding Mike. Good thing, too, or you'd have drowned him." He was still chuckling, maliciously, Maggie thought. "God, you were a sight! Water dripping from everywhere, your hair looking like a red floor mop."
"I didn't think it was funny then! And I don't think it's funny now!"
Impatiently she tugged at the buttons on the cuffs of her sleeves, finally freeing them and shrugging out of the blouse.
It joined the crumpled heap of her top.
"Your sense of humor was missing when you waded ashore. As I recall, you did a slow boil all the way home. We had one whale of an argument when we did get back."
"And you slammed out of the house and didn't come back until after midnight," Maggie reminded him.
"Yes." The faint smile left his mouth. "Our fights always ended one, of two ways — either me slamming out of the house, or right here in this bedroom."
"Most of the time you were slamming out of the house."
The waistband of her skirt fastened behind. She managed the button, but in her agitation she caught the zipper in the material of her skirt, then in the silk of her slip.
"Damn!" she whispered in an angry breath.
"No, most of the time the arguments ended in the bedroom," Wade corrected her statement. He saw the difficulty she was having with the zipper. "I'll fix it for you. The way you're going at it, you're going to break the zipper."
Before Maggie could object or agree, he was pushing her hands out of the way.
The touch of his fingers against her spine brought instant acquiescence as a whole series of disturbing sensations splintered through her.
The warmth of his breath trailed lightly over the bareness of her shoulders, his head bent to his task. The musky fragrance of his cologne wafted in the air, elusive and heady.
From the corner of her eye Maggie could see the glistening blackness of his hair and experienced a desire to slide her fingers into its thickness.
His physical attraction was compelling. She was on dangerous ground.
She wished she had objected to his presence in her bedroom, or steered the conversation away from how their arguments had often ended. It aroused intimate memories it was better to forget.
There was a slight tug and her skirt zipper slid freely. In proportion to its downward slide, her pulse went up. There was a crazy weakness in her knees, muscles tightening in the pit of her stomach.
"There you are, with no damage." His hand rested lightly on her hip, momentarily holding the skirt up. Maggie couldn't move, couldn't breathe. "I had forgotten how little there is to you."
In a thoughtfully quiet voice, Wade referred to the slightness of her build and how easily his hands could span her waist.
Maggie searched for a quick retort, saying the first thing that came to mind in order to deny that his touch was disturbing her.
"There was always enough of me to satisfy you," she insisted with a husky tremor, and immediately wanted to bite her tongue.
"Yes."
His hand slid to her waist to turn her around, releasing the skirt and letting it fall around her ankles. "There was always more than enough of you to satisfy me, wasn't there?"
Both hands rested on her waist, sliding up to her rib cage. The silk of her slip acted like a second skin, the imprint of his hand burning through.
The smoldering light in his eyes stole the breath from her lungs.
"And you received an ample share of satisfaction, too," he added.
That look awakened all the sleeping desires that had lain dormant.
As his mouth descended toward hers, Maggie trembled.
Would his kiss be the same? Could it still spark the blazing flame of her passion?
Curiosity and familiarity overpowered any thought of protest. She was caught up in the sweeping tide of the past when kissing Wade had been as natural as arguing with him.
Her lips yielded to the possessive pressure of his kiss. That same fiery glow spread through her, hot and brilliant.
His grip on her tightened, threatening to crack
her ribs, as if he, too, experienced the same glorious reaction. Her arms glided slowly around his neck, her fingers seeking the sensuous thickness of his hair.
The sweetly pagan song in her ears was the wild drumming of her heart while the heat coursing through her veins turned her bones to liquid. Her slender curves fitted themselves to the hard contours of his length, firing her senses with ecstasy.
There had never been any lack of skill in Wade's lovemaking before, but it was better now. More wonderful. More destroying.
Because now that Maggie had been without that special thrill for these past years, she realized the worth of what she had lost. Having lost it, it was even more beautiful to find it again.
His kisses were like rare wine, and they went to her head. She was spinning away into a rose-colored dreamworld where only the crush of his hands and mouth held any reality.
Then the kiss was ending, before her hunger was satisfied.
Wade was lifting his head, staring deeply into her slowly opening eyes, which were as yet unwilling to return to the present.
Gradually her vision focused on the frown darkening his face.
"Old habits die hard, don't they?" he mused with a trace of cynicism.
His hands were still supporting her passion-limp body. A flurry of new questions raced through her dazed brain. The fresh memory of his kiss wiped away others that dealt with the bitterness and anger of their divorce. She wondered if she had deliberately blocked out the good times of their marriage, needing to remember the bad to keep from missing Wade.
He had said that he wanted to speak to her about something in Mike's interest. An entirely new possibility presented itself to her. After that shattering kiss, could it be that he was going to propose a reconciliation between them?
Yesterday Maggie would have found the suggestion appalling and rejected it out of hand.
Now … Now, the idea filled her with hope, cloud-touching hope.
Suddenly she had to know.
"Why, Wade?" There was an aching tightness in her throat. "Why are you here? Why did you want to see me?"
He let go of her and pulled her arms from around his neck. A muscle twitched along his jaw, constricting in sudden tension.
Not until all physical contact between them had been broken did he answer her question.
"I came to tell you that I'm getting married again." Maggie went white with shock, but Wade was already walking toward the door and didn't see her reaction. "I think I'll take you up on that offer of a drink while you finish changing."
He disappeared into the hallway.
She thought she was going to be violently sick. That announcement had never occurred to her. To be truthful, she had never considered the possibility that Wade would remarry.
Although why she hadn't, she didn't know. That supremely male aura of his had always drawn women. Besides that, he was eligible and successful. Those two reasons alone were sufficient cause for many women to want him.
Hysterical laughter welled in her throat, and she jammed a fist into her mouth to choke it back. It was all so pathetically funny! She had thought he might want to come back to her.
How arrogantly stupid! Physical desire hadn't been able to keep their marriage afloat before.
What had ever made her think it would bring them back together?
Thank God that pride had kept her silent, demanding his masons before stating her desire. Imagine the humiliation if she had told him what she felt.
Maggie moaned and buried her face in her hands. She wanted to rush over and shut the door, close out the fact of Wade's announcement until she had the strength to cope with it, to face and accept it. But it couldn't be done.
There wasn't time to pull her scattered feelings together. He was waiting for her.
"Old habits die hard," Wade had said after he had kissed her. Maggie knew that was how she had to regard it.
A kiss between two ex-lovers who had found themselves in familiar positions on familiar grounds. The kiss had been a natural progression of events, but without the meaning it had held in the past — at least, not on Wade's part.
In a numbed state, Maggie finished changing her clothes.
She added a brush of shadow and mascara to her eyes and a coating of tinted gloss to her lips, a splash of color in her otherwise pale face.
She ran a quick comb through her flame red hair. Drawing deeply on her reserve strength, she walked out of the bedroom to rejoin Wade.
He wasn't in the living room. She continued through the dining room into the kitchen.
He was standing at the counter, turning when she entered, a glass in his hand.
"I decided I needed something stronger than beer." He lifted the glass, a lone ice cube clinking against the side, amber liquid covering the bottom.
On the counter behind him, Maggie saw the opened bottle of Scotch.
Wade caught her glance. "You still keep it in the same place — behind the flour canister."
"Yes." Was that raspy sound her voice?
"Do you want me to pour you a drink?"
"No."
God, no! Maggie thought vehemently.
As wretched as she felt, one drink wouldn't be enough. She'd want to drown herself in the oblivion of alcohol and it would probably take more than one bottle to dull the pain.
"I'd rather have coffee, thanks."
Walking to the sink, she partially filled a saucepan with hot water and put it on the stove.
Then she reached into the cupboard and took out the jar of instant coffee.
Normally she disliked it, but she kept it on hand for mornings that she overslept and didn't have time to make coffee in her percolator. Now, she realized she was using it for a different kind of emergency as she spooned the brown crystals into a cup along with three teaspoons of sugar.
"You never used to sweeten your coffee," Wade observed.
His memory was much too good.
"It's the only way I can stand drinking instant coffee," Maggie lied.
In actual fact, she had heard that black, sweetened coffee was good for shock, and at the moment she felt numbed to the bone.
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Chapter Five
SHE FELT THE PENETRATIONof his gaze between her shoulder blades, but she hadn't yet the composure to face him squarely.
There was an indefinable tension in the air, even a second's silence hanging heavy. Bubbles formed quickly in the pan of water on the stove. Maggie removed it from the burner before it came to a boil and poured the steaming water into her cup.
As she stirred the coffee, she took a deep breath and exhaled the words, "So you're going to get married. It looks as if congratulations are in order, then."
Although she turned to lean her hips against the counter, she again avoided directly meeting his steady gaze, holding the cup in one hand and continuing to stir the coffee with the other.
"We agreed five … six years ago to seek our happiness elsewhere."
"It was obviously the right decision, wasn't it?" Maggie countered, much too brightly. "I mean, you've found someone else. She must make you happy or you wouldn't be planning to marry her."
"That's right."
There was a certain grimness in his answer as he lifted his glass to his mouth.
But the admission brought a sharp, stabbing pain in the region of Maggie's heart. It glittered briefly in her jewel green eyes before she lowered her lashes to conceal the reaction.
"Who's the lucky girl?"
Maggie sipped at the coffee and nearly scalded her tongue.
"Her name is Belinda Hale."
"Belinda," Maggie repeated, and lied, "that's a pretty name. Is she from Alaska?"
"No, from Seattle, but I met her while she was visiting some friends in Anchorage."
"It sounds like a whirlwind courtship." As theirs had been. She couldn't help questioning dryly, "Is that wise?"
"Don't worry —" there was a wry twist to his mouth as he swirled the liquor in h
is glass "— I don't intend to make the same mistake twice. I've known Belinda for over a year now."
"Oh. Well, I'm glad." The coffee had cooled sufficiently for her to drink, but Maggie nearly gagged on the sweetness. "I understand that you're doing quite well. Mike mentioned something about you getting a promotion."
"Yes, I'm a vice-president in the firm now. I have total charge of the Alaskan operation, pipeline, terminals, new drillings, everything."
He explained with no attempt to boast or impress Maggie with his importance.
It had always seemed foredestined to Maggie that such a thing would happen.
Wade had always enjoyed challenges and responsibilities.
Since he was aggressive and ambitious, as well, it was a natural outcome of his efforts.
"Your fiancée must be very proud of you. Of course, being the wife of an executive isn't an easy job. I hope your Belinda is up to the task." She couldn't care less. In fact, part of her hoped his new wife would prove inadequate.
The jealous part of her.
"Belinda is well versed in the role of an executive's wife. Her father is chairman of the board."
Her eyes widened at the announcement, the bitterness of sarcasm coating her tongue. "How convenient. Did your vice-presidency come before or after you put the diamond on her finger?"
Black anger burned in his gaze. "The promotion came a year ago. It was at a cocktail party celebrating my new office that I met Belinda for the first time. I'm not attempting to marry into power. I stand or fall on my own ability."
"Sorry, that was a cheap shot," admitted Maggie. She took another sip of the heavily sweetened coffee and began to feel its bracing effect.
"I do wish you every happiness, Wade. You know that." In a more rational moment, she would mean it very sincerely, even if the words did stick in her throat now.
"I didn't come here this afternoon to obtain your blessing." His voice was mockingly dry. "If all I wanted rode was inform you of my coming marriage, I could have accomplished that with a long-distance phone call from Alaska."