A line has formed.
Wally takes the mic. “We’re going to take a break to let you folks thank Ms. Killian for gracing us with her talent. Back in a few.”
Maggie signs autographs and chats while keeping one eye on Andy. He beelines toward Penny. She barely meets his eyes, but she nods. The girl is shy, that’s for sure. After they exchange a few words, she joins him at the bar. A few minutes later, Maggie sees fresh ginger beers in their hands. Maggie finally begs off from the patrons wanting to talk about her music to join them.
“Hey, you two. Penny, you have a great sound. What did you think, Andy?”
“I think she is wonderful.”
The two stare at each other like there’s no one else in the room.
Maggie laughs. “I meant about the music, Andy. You’re here as my student.”
Penny breaks eye contact and swivels to Maggie. “You teach? I’d love to take lessons from you.”
“Well, Andy’s my first student. Ever.”
“I can be your second.”
“She could take lessons with me,” Andy suggests. His voice quivers a little, like he’s not used to being this forward with girls. A non-Amish girl, at that.
Maggie shrugs. “We could do that.” She recites her number, and Penny types it into her phone.
Andy says, “There’s the woman Paco was sparking.”
He doesn’t point, but he nods at a curvy brunette in her late twenties or early thirties standing near the pool table in the back room. She’s sipping her drink through a straw, then stirring the ice cubes. There’s a cluster of women around her. One looks familiar to Maggie. Had she seen her out on a date with Gene a few months before?
“Maggie. Didn’t you just bring down the house?” A female voice drips sarcasm to Maggie’s left, even as it slurs.
Maggie looks over. Sheila. She’s way, way drunk, and probably carrying concealed under her puffy lavender vest. “Time to scat, Andy.”
“But . . .”
“What, Maggie, are you running away from me?” Sheila says.
Maggie turns away from Sheila, imagining a bullet through the back. She ignores Sheila and answers Andy. “You can meet me outside, then.”
“No! I mean, I can’t let you go out there alone.” He shoots a glance at the glowering, staggering Sheila, then turns his attention back to Penny. His brow furrows. “I, um, I don’t have a phone, Penny.” Maggie knows this is an Amish thing, and she aches for him for a moment. Dating outside his community in Montana is a challenging thing. “But I’d like to see you again.”
“We’re going to take music lessons together.”
“How about I get the two of you together Monday night?” Maggie suggests.
Sheila stares daggers through her. “Hello?”
Penny looks down. “Sounds good.”
“I’ll see you then.” Andy’s face relaxes.
Penny smiles sweetly. “Thanks for the drink. Nice to meet you, Maggie.”
Sheila’s voice elevates to a screech. “I’m talking to you, Maggie Killian. You can’t ignore me just because you think you’re some big hotshot.”
The curvy brunette and the familiar-looking friend appear beside Sheila, and now Maggie is sure it’s the same girl she saw out with Gene.
She narrows her eyes at Maggie. “You.”
Andy takes Maggie’s elbow. He’s never touched her before. “Let’s go.”
“Definitely.”
Andy hustles her ahead of him toward the door. Maggie is really glad she’s sober, or she’d be ending this night in a public catfight.
Sheila’s voice isn’t far behind them. “Run like a little bitch.”
“What did Hank ever see in that beast?” Maggie mutters.
The cold slaps her in the face when they hit the sidewalk, but it’s not nearly as shocking as what she sees. Hank is standing there, arms crossed and legs slightly apart, looking like a Remington bronze.
“Hank!” She throws her arms around him, but stops short of climbing him and biting his neck like she wants to. “You’re here.” Their noses bump, and his is icy cold.
“I decided to come straight here instead of stopping at home.”
She nuzzles into his neck. “I’m so glad. I missed you. I’m sorry I was jealous yesterday.” She cranes her head back and catches a sight of the dimples. Something inside her chest flutters.
He presses his lips to her ear. “I missed you, too. Let’s get your boy home and crawl into bed.”
She shivers. “I’ll race you.”
Eighteen
Before Maggie, Hank, and Andy can leave, the door to the Ox flies open. Sheila barrels out with her two sidekicks.
“There she is,” Sheila says. Then, “Oh. With you.”
Maggie and Hank lock eyes.
“Unprovoked, I promise,” Maggie says.
“She tried to cause a problem yesterday. Why should today be any different?” He kisses her, his warm lips all the reassurance she needs. “Let me see if I can stop this.”
They break apart. Sheila is still bristly, but starting to deflate.
“Enough, Sheila. I told you yesterday. You’re a great woman. But I’m not the guy for you.”
Her eyes glisten. “You were. You could be again.”
“Come on, Sheila.” The brunette tugs on Sheila’s arm. Then to Hank, she says, “Sorry.”
“Thanks, Mary.” To Maggie he says, “This is Mary Marton. You already know June, I think?”
Sheila jerks her arm away from her friend. “Get her away from me, June.”
Maggie says, “Nice to meet you, Mary. Hello, June.”
Mary says, “Nice to meet you.”
June scowls and moves between Mary and Sheila.
Two men a few years older than Andy walk out. One says, “Hey, thanks for playing, Maggie!”
She waves. “You’re welcome.”
Hank shoots Maggie a questioning look, but then turns back to Sheila. His voice is rock solid. “No, I never will be again. My heart belongs to Maggie.”
“You said she’s moving back to Texas.”
Maggie’s mouth flies open.
Hank holds out an arm, stopping Maggie before she can advance on Sheila. Or him. “You asked me about her place in Texas. I told you she’s going back to take care of things. And that’s all I said. You need to stop this. Get on with your life.” He turns to her friends. “We’re leaving. Get her back inside. Better yet, get her home to sober up. She’s got to teach in the morning.”
The women nod. Sheila crosses her arms and plants her feet.
Hank takes Maggie’s arm and starts walking her away. “I want you and Andy to drive ahead of me. Andy, you’re on duty.”
Andy falls in step with them and pats his ribs. “Don’t worry, Hank. I’m carrying.”
Maggie smiles. “That’s not very Amish of you.”
“Hank left me in charge of you.”
“Is that why you were upset that I rode out with Michael?”
“Not exactly.”
“What?” Hank asks.
She looks over her shoulder. Sheila and her friends are still arguing. The temperature is falling, and the cold is seeping into Maggie. She wraps her arms around her midsection. “I’ll tell you at home, babe. I’ve got to get Bess’s heater on.”
They walk a little farther and reach Maggie’s magenta truck behind the courthouse.
“I’m back on the street out front. Come around and wait for me so I can follow you.”
Five minutes later, Andy and Maggie chug off with Hank behind them. Bess finally heats up five minutes before they reach the ranch.
Andy says, “I’ll walk from the main house.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. It’s not far.”
“Okay. Thanks, Andy.”
They get out. Hank parks beside Bess. All the lights are off, inside and outside the house. Andy waves and slips away into the darkness.
A hard body crashes into Maggie. Her squeal is cut
off by warm lips, her fall arrested by strong arms around her. They lean into the cold metal of her truck. She hooks a leg around Hank’s hip, pulls herself up, then wraps the other around him and locks her ankles, all without breaking their intense kiss. But then she pulls her lips away and sinks her teeth gently into the base of his neck.
Hank groans. “Don’t let go of me.”
She doesn’t.
Somehow they make it in the door, up the stairs, and to the bedroom without Hank crashing or Maggie falling. He kicks the door shut behind them, then staggers to the bed, where they topple.
Maggie laughs as it crashes to the floor. “Whoops. I think we need a permanent fix.”
“I’m on it. Just not right now.” He grabs her face and holds it between his hands, his pressure possessive and just the right side of rough. “I fucking love you. It’s driving me crazy. I thought it was bad before. When we were younger. But I feel like a kid again.”
“Oh God. Me, too.”
His lips rove across her face to her ear, then down her neck. He stops suddenly. “It’s not always a good thing, but it’s always amazing.”
Maggie knows exactly what he means. “Less telling. More showing. If you can. With your broken unit and all.”
“My unit is fully functional.” He laughs. “Did I mention I fucking love you?” Then he rips off his shirt, and all telling stops.
Nineteen
“I can’t decide what I like best about sex with you. Wanting you, having you, or the afterglow.” Maggie traces her finger across and around his sculpted chest.
“Stop. You’re going to kill me.”
“Is it hurting you?”
“Is what hurting me?”
“Well, you’re, um, looking ready to go again. And you did injure yourself, after all.”
He smiles. “The bruising is bad, and it’s crooked. I look like I got the worst of it with a bull hoof to the crotch.”
“But it’s treatable, right?”
“Bull injuries?”
“No. Sex injuries.”
“What the hell kind of nonsense is that?”
“If it hurts, then you should get it looked at.”
“It will only hurt if you laugh at it.”
“I won’t. But if it does.”
“Maggie, I didn’t see a doctor for a broken back. I’m sure not going to see him for a crooked penis.”
“Let me see.”
“No.”
“Seriously, just stand up.”
He sighs, but stands naked in the moonlight.
Maggie tilts her head. “It’s black and blue. Mostly black.”
“I told you so.”
“And you look like you’re signaling a right turn.” She scoots to the right on the bed. “You want me to keep going? I feel like I should run a lap around the room. To the right, to the right.”
“Didn’t we just discuss you not laughing at it?”
She makes a zipping motion over her lips. “Not laughing. But I don’t think you should run around naked in public anytime soon.”
He takes the left side of the bed and pulls the covers up over them. “No public nakedness. Unless I tie my horse to sagebrush.”
“You lost me, cowboy.”
“Have I never told you that story?”
“Um, obviously, no.”
Hank puts his arms around her and pulls her against him, a little spoon to his bigger fork. “I was working for an outfitter to make extra cash during hunting season.”
“Before you met me?”
“Yep, but not long before. I was moving our camp while he took the clients out. It was Indian summer, perfect weather, and after I finished setting up the new camp, I took my favorite horse from the string—Dollar—down to the creek”—which he pronounces crick in the Wyoming fashion—“where there was a hot spring. The only thing near the water was sagebrush, but Dollar was a good old horse, so I looped his reins around it. I took off everything but my hat, and I got in the hot spring and relaxed the dust off. All of a sudden, I saw a big gray horse running by me back to the old camp, dragging the sagebrush. I jumped out and into my boots and started after him, walking slow so as not to spook him.”
“In nothing but your hat and boots?”
“Nothing but.”
“Did you catch him?”
“I sure did. But not until after I scared the bejeezus out of two women hikers, who couldn’t quite look me in the eye. One of them pointed behind her and said, ‘Your horse went thataway.’ So I tipped my hat and said, ‘Yes, ma’am. Thank you. You ladies have a nice day,’ and skedaddled after him.”
Maggie starts to chortle. Her laugh builds to a hee-haw. “Oh, Hank. I’m going to pee.”
“Not on me.” He tickles her, and she rolls away, screaming and clutching her sides, with tears running down her face. “Someone is ticklish.”
Tickling turns to kissing, and kissing into round two. When they’re back to the afterglow stage, she pokes him.
“You’re a mess. I can just picture you in the boots and hat. You know, you could have taken the hat off and covered yourself.”
“There was a lot going on. It didn’t occur to me until too late.” He smiles at her. “I’ve matured. And now I have stable income, so I don’t need to go running off naked after horses into the mountains.”
His words jiggle loose a thought. She should update him. About her day. Her altercation with Laura. The ride with Michael. The email from the realtor. She stalls. “How was Billings?”
“Makes me as glad as ever that I live here and not there. I spent a lot of money. Met with a few ranchers and a rodeo organizer. Made it without hitting a deer in both directions. About as good as it gets. How was your day?”
“Laura and I had . . . words.”
“Oh no.”
“She doesn’t like me.”
“I like you.”
“Thank God for that. I also napped. Michael got an ATV stuck, so after lunch I rode Lily out with him to count cows and got to cowgirl up and help him herd in two strays.”
“Michael doesn’t need your help for that,” Hank says in a grumbly voice.
“It was fun.”
“You could get hurt.”
“Stop. There’s more. We saw an eagle.”
“Not uncommon around here, but nice.”
“Yes. Oh, and I got a call from a record label. The ones that bought my music when my label went under.”
“You’re a rock star. What did they want?”
She snorts. “They wanted me to record a new album. To capitalize on my current notoriety. But they insisted on a morality clause since I’m such a live wire.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“Nope. So I told them to fuck off.”
“Good for you. Although I do wish you’d play again, music girl. But you don’t need it like that.”
She summons up her courage for the tougher topic. “I also contacted a real estate agent.”
He squeezes her. “You’re putting your place on the market?”
She hears the smile in his words and feels guilty because she knows she’s going to burst his bubble. “Well, not exactly.”
“What, then, exactly?”
“I might. Eventually. Honestly, I’ve been waffling back and forth about what to do. Selling my place is a consideration. Even fixing it up and selling it. But also fixing it up and working it.” She turns to face him and puts her hands on his cheeks. “Just listen for a second, okay?”
“I’m not liking this.”
“Shh.” She touches a finger to his lips. “I’ve got Gidget’s farm. It’s a hundred acres. There’s a place next to it, about the same size, that we could lease. And I made an inquiry on a few hundred more acres nearby. Just to see what it would cost to set up down there.”
“Set up what?”
“Double S.” She gnaws the inside of her lip.
“I already told you, I can’t do that.”
Can’t or won’t? His words are stin
ging nettle, but she covers up her hurt. “Okay. Well, I still need to figure out how to compare apples to apples on my options. I’ve contacted some contractors for estimates. What would I make rebuilding and running it versus selling it as is versus fixing it up and selling it.” She withholds one option: selling off her inheritance of Gidget’s farm, the Warhol, and the antique Jaguar. She doesn’t want to let them go. Plus, it just seems dilettante. Not like her. She wants to support herself, and the inheritance is a last resort.
Hank is so quiet he seems to be soaking in sound like a black hole in space.
It eats at her until she blurts out, “I’d think you could trust me and be happy for me. I’m trying to follow my heart.”
“Follow your heart? I thought you followed your heart to Wyoming. To me.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Honestly, Maggie, I’m not a hundred percent sure I do. Last time we ended with you running off to work in Nashville. Now it sounds like you’re gearing up to run back to work in Texas. I can tell you one thing. I’ve spent fifteen years apart from you, wanting you. I’m not spending another fifteen that way.” He turns his back on her and hauls the covers up in one swift move.
“Hank.”
“Good night, Maggie.”
“Don’t be this way.”
He flips over, his mouth inches from hers as he speaks. “Funny, that’s exactly what I was trying to say to you.” Then he rolls back over, leaving her alone and shivering on her side of the bed in the dark.
Twenty
Hank is gone before Maggie wakes the next morning. She sits up. He must have left early, because he didn’t let Louise out. The dog is whining like she does when bacon’s frying on the stove and she isn’t getting any. Spoiled mutt. Maggie only let her in after Hank fell asleep the night before, so it’s not like she’s been trapped inside for long.
Maggie feels like whining, too. She can’t figure out whether their rift is her fault for bringing up Texas or Hank’s for being stubborn and sensitive, but she knows she doesn’t want to fight. Her heart hurts. Damn, love is hard. Love, or whatever this is called. There may be a reason she’s never succeeded in a real relationship before.
Maggie Box Set Page 60