His mouth hardened for some reason. ‘I’d more or less made up my mind to buy that property, you know.’
Maggie blinked. ‘The one…?’
‘The one with the shed that was hijacked to house a stolen vintage car and bike; the one you locked us into,’ he said deliberately.
She blushed.
‘But I decided to get a second opinion,’ he went on, ‘from someone whose judgement I value.’
‘A second opinion,’ Maggie repeated as the words struck a chord in her mind and it started to race.
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I think Maisie’s name has cropped up between us before. She’s my right-hand man. I rely on her extensively.’
Maggie blinked furiously. ‘But there’s no Maisie at the McKinnon Corporation, I checked,’ she blurted out, then her cheeks burnt even more fierily. ‘I mean—’
‘That’s because I’m the only one at the office who calls her Maisie. Her real name…’ he paused and their gazes clashed ‘… is Mary Kelly.’
Maggie froze. ‘She… she told you?’ she breathed.
‘Yes.’
‘But that’s not fair! I had no idea who she was. I would never have—’ She stopped abruptly.
‘Told her you were pregnant otherwise? How about telling me? I gather you hadn’t planned to do that either.’
Maggie got up and paced around in deep agitation with the bottom line being—So much for the I can’t live without you, Maggie, bit.
Then she turned to him incredulously. ‘How would she know it was your baby?’
‘She didn’t. But she did know about what happened in the shed because I alerted her to be on the lookout for any unforeseen complications while I was away. When she came back to me with her report this afternoon, she told me it was you who’d shown her around—and the rest of it.’
Silence stretched between them until he added, ‘I was the one left to put two and two together—although Maisie is very adroit at reading between the lines.’
Maggie sat down again suddenly. ‘When I said there was no news, I think I must have been still in shock at seeing you again. My mind just went blank.’
‘OK, reasonable enough. What about the two months prior to tonight?’
Maggie rubbed her face, then she laced her fingers and said urgently, ‘I just haven’t known what to do!’
‘How did it happen?’ he queried grimly. ‘You seemed so certain you were safe; you told me you were on the pill.’
‘I was,’ she said hollowly and explained what must have happened.
‘Do your parents know?’
‘No.’
He stared at her, taking in the faint shadows beneath her eyes and her slender figure beneath the long white shirt and flimsy trousers. There was no sign of any changes in her as yet—or, yes, there was, he thought suddenly. There was a new air of vulnerability about her.
‘There’s only one thing to do,’ he said. ‘The sooner you marry me, the better.’
CHAPTER SIX
MAGGIE reached towards her plate and took a carrot stick out of the salad, a purely reflex action as the impact of what Jack had said hit her.
Then she stared at him with the wand of carrot in one hand and her mouth open.
A glint of humour lit his eyes. ‘A curious reaction. I can’t read it at all.’
She closed her eyes. ‘That’s because I can’t read my emotions at the moment at all.’ Her lashes lifted. ‘You’re not serious?’
‘Oh, yes, I am.’
‘But, apart from all the complications you so carefully pointed out to me at Cape Gloucester, you don’t particularly want to marry anyone, do you? Unless that was a sop to my sensibilities, but that’s even worse because it means you particularly didn’t want to marry me!’
‘Eat the carrot or put it down, Maggie,’ he suggested.
She stared at him, then threw it down on the plate because a moment or so ago she might have been shell-shocked and unable to get in touch with her emotions—that could have been true of her for the last two months, she realized—but she was no longer.
Jack McKinnon had hurt her almost unbearably, she now knew. Yes, a lot of it was her own fault, but that didn’t alter her vulnerability to this man, and to let him marry her only because of their baby—was that asking for more hurt than she could bear?
‘I got myself into this,’ she said. ‘I will handle it.’
This time it was a glint of anger that lit his eyes. ‘Don’t go all proud ‘‘Trent’’ on me, Maggie,’ he warned. ‘If you think that I, of all people, would allow you to wander off into the sunset with a child of mine, think again.’
Her eyes widened as she realized what he was saying, but there was more.
‘If you think I would allow a child of mine to be swallowed up in the midst of your family—that is also simply not on the cards.’
She swallowed a couple of times. ‘Look, I know that as an adoptee yourself you… you must feel pretty strongly about this, but I would never deny you access to your child—’
‘And do you think you’re strong enough to hold out against your father, Maggie, if he sees things differently? I don’t. So we’ll both be there for it, whether you like it or not.’
She stood up tensely. ‘It’s not a question of liking it or not! What I’m talking about is a shotgun marriage—’
‘That is another possibility.’ He lay back in his chair and steepled his fingers. ‘You could find your father does come after me with a shotgun.’
‘Nonsense!’
‘I’m speaking metaphorically, but marriage, even to me, may be his preferred option for his only daughter rather than single motherhood.’
It came to Maggie in a blinding flash that perhaps even her sanity and therefore the welfare of her baby could be at risk if she allowed herself to become a pawn between these two powerful, arrogant men. Yes, two—I was right about you in the first place, Jack McKinnon! she said to him in her mind.
She put her hand on her flat stomach, thought of the life within her, and breathed deeply. Then she picked up the cordless phone on the coffee-table, and she dialled the Kingaroy homestead number, where she knew her parents were still holidaying.
She suffered a moment of anguish while the phone rang at the thought of their, particularly her mother’s, new happiness, but how happy would either of them be if she ran away?
‘Dad?’ she said when her father answered. ‘It’s Maggie. Will you please just listen to me? I happened to meet and have an affair with a man you detest, Jack McKinnon. I know what all the bad blood is about, but I will never let Mum know. Unfortunately—’
She paused and listened for a while, then, ‘Dad, please, if you love me at all, just listen. I was the one who did the chasing, not Jack. Unfortunately, and this was also my own fault entirely, I’m pregnant. Jack has decided I should marry him although our affair was—completely over before I realized I was pregnant. But while I’m immensely concerned about this baby’s welfare, I don’t think a loveless marriage is the solution—’
Once again she broke off and listened, then, ‘No, Dad, I won’t be doing that either. I appreciate your concern but this is the point I need to make you both understand—neither of you can make me do anything. In fact, if you continue this feud and—’ she raised her eyes to Jack’s ‘—either of you make my life unbearable, I’ll go away where neither of you can find me.’
Her eyes didn’t leave Jack’s face while she listened again, then she looked away and said into the phone, ‘I’m sorry, Dad, I know this must have come as a shock. Please break it gently to Mum. I love you both, but I meant every word I said.’ She put the phone down.
Jack stirred at last. ‘Was that slamming the shed door well and truly, Maggie?’
She shrugged. ‘I’ve been living in a terrible vacuum since I found out. How to tell you? How to tell them? What to do? Until it suddenly came to me I’m no one’s hostage and what I’ll be doing is staying right here and continuing my job as long as I’m able,
and letting this baby grow in peace. Yes, I was angry,’ she conceded.
‘Who’s to say it would be a loveless marriage?’ he queried.
‘Jack—’ she rubbed her face wearily ‘—you have given me absolutely no indication to the contrary—’
‘Because I didn’t burst in on you and sweep you into my arms?’ he asked. ‘Your father isn’t the only one to get a shock today.’
She rubbed her knuckles on her chin. ‘I know. I’m sorry.’ She gestured helplessly.
‘As a matter of fact, the thought of my own child has had a rather startling effect on me.’
‘Me too,’ she conceded. ‘I mean, it could probably be quite an interesting child.’ A ghost of a smile touched her lips.
‘It would certainly give us a lot of common ground.’
His words hung in the air, but Maggie was too tired and emotionally wrung out to continue the contest. She simply stared at him with deeper shadows etched beneath her eyes and her face very pale.
He frowned, then he got up and came round to her. He took her hand and drew her to her feet.
‘You’re extraordinarily brave and feisty, Maggie, but you don’t have to bear this burden on your own. No,’ he said as her lips parted, ‘don’t say anything now. But I do have your welfare, just as much as the baby’s, very much at heart. Think that over, but, in the meantime, get a good night’s sleep.’
His lips twisted, then he went on, ‘It may have been equivalent to slamming the shed door, but you certainly cleared the air.’ He kissed her gently. ‘I’ll see myself out. By the way, don’t forget to eat. It’s important now.’
Maggie inhaled deeply as he walked away from her, and closed her eyes. The brush of his lips on hers had taken her right back to Cape Gloucester and the times she’d spent in his arms and his bed.
‘I really loved you, Jack McKinnon, but I don’t believe you will ever really love me because if it hadn’t been for—fate—you would never have come back to me,’ she whispered. ‘That is so sad.’
Despite the deep well of sadness she felt, after taking the phone off the hook, she went to bed and slept like a top, the first time for ages. This was just as well since her mother and father arrived on her doorstep early the next morning.
Over the next days Maggie continued resolutely along the course she’d set for herself.
She told Jack that she still couldn’t see her way clear to marrying him because—apart from anything else and there was plenty of that!—if he hadn’t seen himself as the right man for her before, a baby wasn’t going to change things.
He took it with surprising equanimity, although she intercepted one tiger-like little glance from him that seemed to say, We’ll see about that. But she didn’t see it again and she decided she’d imagined it.
She told her parents that they had to accept the fact that she’d come of age in her own way and she’d made her own mistakes. She told them that Jack would always be a part of her life now because of their child and would they please, please make the best of it.
It was her mother who surprised her. To her intense relief none of the new closeness between her parents seemed to have been lost beneath the weight of her news. But while her father’s face changed and hardened at every mention of Jack’s name, Belle, if she felt any animosity towards the man responsible for this contretemps, didn’t show it.
Then she took Maggie aside and said to her quietly, ‘I know all about it now.’
Maggie stared at her. ‘You mean… you mean…?’
‘Sylvia McKinnon?’ Belle nodded. ‘Your father, well, we’d been at odds for some time before it happened. I felt inadequate and angry because I knew how much he longed for a son, he felt guilty and defensive and it coloured our whole relationship. I knew he was restless and unhappy six years ago and that there was probably another woman in his life although I didn’t know—I didn’t want to know who it was.’
Belle paused and Maggie spoke. ‘You’re making it sound as if Dad—as if you were the one at fault; that’s crazy!’
‘Darling…’ Belle smiled a little painfully ‘… I know that, but sometimes these urges are so powerful in men you can’t fight them. The important thing is, your father finally fought it himself and he’s come back to me. In many ways we’re happier now than we’ve ever been.’
Maggie stared down at her hands a trifle forlornly.
‘There is still,’ Belle said, ‘the problem of Jack McKinnon.’
‘I know. Men don’t part with their grievances towards each other lightly.’
‘You’re not wrong!’ Belle looked humorous. ‘Tell me about him? By the way, I may not get your father to do this yet, but I intend to meet him.’
Maggie hesitated, then she told her mother everything. ‘Of course this is only between you, me and the gatepost,’ she finished.
‘Of course. So you fell in love but he didn’t?’
Maggie got up and wandered over to the window. They were in her bedroom on the second floor and she looked down over her colourful garden. ‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘That’s why I can’t accept second-best from him.’
A week later her mother did meet Jack and, although it had to be inherently awkward and there was a certain reserve that Maggie detected in Belle, it went well. Jack was quiet but courteous.
He was the first to leave and Maggie found her mother staring at her—well, staring right through her, actually.
‘What?’ she queried.
‘Nothing,’ her mother replied absently.
‘What did you think of him?’ The question came out before Maggie could guard against it and she bit her lip.
‘They could be two of a kind.’
Maggie’s eyes widened. ‘Jack and Dad? That’s exactly what I thought in the beginning!’
‘Yes, well…’ Belle seemed to come to a decision, and she imparted some surprising news to Maggie. Her father had bid successfully on three cattle stations and for the next few months they would be spending most of their time on them in Central Queensland.
‘That’s quite a coup,’ Maggie said dazedly.
Belle agreed. ‘Will you come with us? We’d love to have you.’
‘No. No… I’m fine here.’ But would she be, she wondered, without her mother’s moral support?
‘Of course I’ll come and see you frequently, darling,’ Belle assured her, ‘and I’ll only ever be a phone call and a short flight away.’
It wasn’t until months later that Maggie realized what a clever strategy of her mother’s this was…
Three months went by and at last Maggie started to show some signs of her pregnancy.
They went surprisingly swiftly, those months. She made all the difficult explanations—much less difficult than the ones to her parents and Jack, but not easy either. It was one thing to announce you were pregnant and to produce a partner even if he wasn’t a husband, quite another to have to explain you were doing it on your own.
Her boss was clearly concerned for her, but he did agree it made no difference to her work and she could continue for as long as she wanted to.
‘You have a real flair for it, Maggie,’ he said to her. ‘A born natural, you are.’ Then he frowned and seemed about to say more, but he obviously changed his mind.
Tim Mitchell was the hardest of all to tell. He was horrified, he was mystified and he offered to marry her himself there and then.
She thanked him with real gratitude, but declined. And she gradually withdrew herself from the crowd they both moved in.
‘You don’t have to do that, Maggie,’ Tim said reproachfully. ‘You need friends at least!’
‘Yes, but I’m a different person now. I guess I have different priorities. Tim…’ she hesitated but knew she had to do it ‘… I’m a lost cause, but there’s got to be the right girl for you out there and you should forget about me—like that, anyway.’ She stopped rather painfully as her words raised echoes in her mind she’d rather forget. But after that, she always found an excuse not to s
ee Tim.
The one person apart from her family she couldn’t seem to withdraw from was Jack.
He came to see her frequently in those months, although he never repeated his offer of marriage. It puzzled her that he should do this—at least as frequently as he did. It made it harder for her because of all the memories it brought back, but every time she thought of refusing to see him, she also thought of her promise never to separate him from his child.
She knew that she could never do that and, not only because he simply wouldn’t have it, but also because he’d let her glimpse the pain and trauma of being abandoned by your natural parents.
She told herself that it was going to be a fact of her life from now on, his platonic presence in it, and she might as well get used to it. And it was platonic. He didn’t try to touch her; he didn’t refer to Cape Gloucester.
It was as if the desire he’d once felt for her had been turned off at the main switch and that caused her a lot of soul-searching. Had it been such a lighthearted affair for him? Had he achieved his revenge with spectacular success? Was there another woman in his life now? Was he turned off by pregnancy?
Perhaps I should check that out with Aunt Elena, she thought once, with dry humour.
The same couldn’t be said for her. Yes, she’d suffered a couple of months of numbness after leaving him. In contrast now she was visited acutely at times by cameos from their past, like the one when they’d dragged an inflatable mattress out onto the veranda under a full, golden moon…
‘We could be anywhere,’ she said dreamily as they lay side by side on a cool linen sheet and the dusky pink pillows from his bed. ‘On a raft up the Nile.’
‘What made you think of that?’
‘Well, you can hear the water, it is a wooden floor. Gloucester Island could be a pyramid sailing past.’ She turned on her front and propped her chin on her hands so she could watch him. ‘Have you ever been up the Nile?’
The Millionaire's Virgin (Mills & Boon By Request) Page 28