by C. C. Koen
He wanted to laugh, he really did, but her honest reaction shouldn’t have surprised him. Used to getting his way, he hadn’t thought twice or considered she’d protest the offer. His mouth pulled into a frown as he considered his intimidating stance towering over her. He backed up a few steps, raising his hands. Unwilling to relent, he scrolled through his cell, pressed a few buttons, and when he got an answer, he kept his focus on her. “I need you to vouch for me.” His best friend’s laughter on the other end ticked him off, but he wouldn’t rest until he had his way. “Mention I’m a good guy.” Then he eased closer to Maggie, his hand extended, urging her to accept a concession he wasn’t used to making.
Her eyes flicked from him to the phone and back a few times. He wasn’t sure if the blank look on her face meant she believed him or she’d scream for help. Several tense seconds later, she plucked the cell from his hands, her fingertips clipped to the top and nowhere near close to touching him. “Hello.” Her quiet, reserved whisper revealed hesitancy, but her intense observation demonstrated she wouldn’t surrender easily. “Maggie Tyson.” After a brief pause she answered with a relieved and happy bounce in her voice, “Oh, Matt, hey.” She listened and nodded, her lips curled into a quirky smile and disappeared before he could appreciate it. “Yeah. Uh, huh. Will do, bye.”
After he tucked the phone in his suit pocket, his hand clenched it over and over, waiting for her to say something, anything. Tired of the long silence and her scrutinizing inspection of his eyes, nose, mouth, and grinding jaw, he rocked back and forth on his heels for the second time. “Well?”
Without any further hesitation, she stood and said, “Okay.”
After all that, he got a simple yes? When he made his next move, scooping Cece into his arms, Maggie didn’t resist. Groggy eyes fluttered open and a tiny smile graced Cece’s lips as she cuddled her forehead into the crook of his neck and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
Before Maggie could change her mind, he marched into the garage, pushing the up button at the elevator. Maggie came to his side, her eyes diverted to the tile floor.
“Where to?”
“Riverdale, Independence Street.”
“Is that in the Bronx?”
“No, a little south of Yonkers.”
They exited the elevator on the fourth floor. He shifted Cece in his arms and fumbled for the keys in his pocket. One click of the fob, and the lights and bleep of his Aston Martin greeted them. At the passenger side, Maggie placed a supportive hand on Cece’s back and the other gripped his shoulder. “I can put her in.”
“I got her.”
Maggie surveyed him like he spoke another language.
He jutted his chin to the car. “Open the door and I’ll set her in.”
Maggie blinked and grabbed the handle, giving him the space he needed to buckle Cece in the backseat. He took off his suit jacket, folded and pillowed it under her head. “Do you think she’ll be okay without a car seat?” The cozy bundle had her knees pulled up to her chest and a thumb in her mouth. Maggie’s light touch on his arm redirected him away from her daughter.
“I’ll sit with her.”
He dashed over to the driver’s side, started the car, and before he went anywhere, turned around to make sure they were both secure. Maggie placed a dainty kiss on Cece’s temple, skimmed a thumb over her plump cheek, and set Herbert on her chest. The mouse snuggled under her chin, curled onto its side and closed its eyes. The sight lodged a lump in his throat and formed a vise around his chest. Even with a mouse nestled in her red hair, Cece looked precious, natural, as if the occurrence were the most ordinary thing in the world.
“All set?” he asked, his voice soft, careful not to startle any of them.
Maggie glanced his way. “Do you need directions?” She removed her sweater and laid it over Cece’s shoulders.
“I’ll figure it out or the GPS will. Without traffic it shouldn’t take more than twenty-five minutes.”
Maggie averted her eyes, directing them out the window.
He took that as his cue, typed in the street and town, and drove the car north toward Riverdale.
“You take the bus often?” He glanced at her in the rearview mirror.
“My sister drives us in on her way to work, and Cece goes home with her. I take the bus after my night shift.”
“What time is she done?”
“Five thirty.”
“When does she start?”
“Nine.”
He contemplated that awhile, his curiosity increasing. “Why do you have Cece with you? What do you both do all that time?”
“She goes to preschool downstairs.”
When she didn’t give him a complete answer he repeated the question. She hadn’t bothered to look at him; instead her stare remained fixed out the window. Streetlights cast flickering shadows on her face, enhancing the mystery of his tight-lipped passenger.
“My sister had to go out of town.” Another long pause. “I take classes.”
What was with her? Usually women told him their life stories. Since he didn’t typically spend more than one night with them, he didn’t care about the details. But for some reason, he needed her to talk to him, tell him more. Whether it was the hint of secrecy that caught his interest, or the fact she didn’t wear a ring, he didn’t know. He couldn’t explain his odd fascination.
“Which school do you go to?” He tapped his thumb on the steering wheel to the beat of the soft rock playing through the speakers.
She exhaled in a long, drawn-out way. “Culinary Institute.”
He snapped his eyes back and forth from the road to the mirror, glancing at her several times and waiting for her to add a few more details. After an unnerving silence, he asked, “What’s your specialty?”
“Ethnic cuisine.”
His chuckle came out in a loud burst. She had to be the least talkative woman in the world.
“Is something funny about that?” Her clipped reply and flippant attitude challenged him and gave him a sick kind of satisfaction.
“No, not at all.” His grin came slowly at first, then pulled up to his cheeks the longer she chomped on her lips. “Come on, you gotta give me more than that.”
She smirked, but her eyes held steady on the passing scenery. “All kinds. I love studying different cultures, trying out recipes handed down through generations, learning about traditions, and experimenting with spices. All of it.”
“So a fusion kind of thing?”
She snorted and pinned him with the look mothers used to warn kids to stop saying the wrong thing. “A purist kinda thing.” Her statement came across demanding, similar to his in the boardroom during negotiations.
“Oh, that healthy, grassy, tasteless crap.”
Maggie crossed her arms, more than fired up, pinning her sizzling green daggers on him. Man, she had all the signals down. And why did that turn him on so much?
“No, what I meant was, pure home cooking from a variety of countries. The kind people loved when they were growing up. There aren’t restaurants that offer that. If you want ethnic you have to go to an Italian, Chinese, or Irish pub or whatever you’re interested in, and even then they only serve their specialty. Someday I’ll have a place where I can cook a variety of recipes from all over the world, not just one. There’s nothing like that in the city or surrounding area.”
She had a good point. He’d lived in Manhattan most of his adult life and worked in the heart of downtown for fifteen years. He’d never dined in a place like she described. Being a bachelor and working long hours, he didn’t have time to cook. He ate out or ordered in a lot. Except on Sundays when he went to his mom’s for dinner.
“When are you finished with school?”
“Not for a while yet. We’ve only been here a couple months.”
Ah, so that’s why he hadn’t seen her before.
“You’re not from around here then?”
“No,” she whispered so low, he barely heard it over the music.<
br />
Should he ask? Oh, what the hell. “Where you from?”
Maggie didn’t respond, and for some reason he didn’t repeat the question. Was it him or was she purposefully being evasive?
“Get off at the next exit. At the stop sign turn right. We’re a mile down on the left. Seven hundred four Independence.”
The rest of the trip was silent except for the annoying GPS automated voice.
“There, the yellow Cape Cod with the white fence.” Maggie’s pointy finger came into his view, inches from his nose. He pulled into the driveway. After he shifted the car into park, Maggie opened the door, scooped Cece into her arms, and jumped out before he could remove his seat belt and help her. Cece’s hands dangled and bounced from Maggie’s shoulders as she rushed down the sidewalk and toward the house.
He caught up with her, matching her stride. Every few steps, she would peek at him. “You have a key? I’ll open the door.” She shook the dangling ring looped around her finger and propped underneath Cece’s leg. He tried to take them from her, but she clamped down on the swinging bundle.
“I got it.” She catapulted up three steps onto a porch, thrust a key in the deadbolt, and eased the door open with a tap of her shoe. A lamp next to the entrance lit the living room, showcasing a well-loved home with toys on the floor, pictures on the wall, and comfy furniture. A stark contrast to the white, empty walls and stiff contemporary couches and chairs he had at his place.
He gripped the door to close it behind him. Maggie whirled around and grabbed the knob, jostling Cece, her other arm pinned beneath her daughter’s bum. “Good night, Mr. Stone.”
His chest melded to Cece’s back, and her front pressed to Maggie’s, connecting all of them in some way. Cece’s hand slid from her mother’s shoulder and rooted onto his forearm. Her half-lidded eyes looked up at him. “Thanks, Max.” Her mumbled words came through crystal clear even though she said them while yawning. Her eyelids closed right after, but her position on his arm remained fixed.
His chest tightened along with his hold on the door. His eyes followed suit and clamped shut. From the time he’d been a little boy, his dad, Maximilian Connor Stone, preferred Rick’s middle name, Max. No one else in the family called him that. Which made hearing it bittersweet. Thirteen years ago, a few months before his eighteenth birthday, his father had a massive heart attack. After hours in surgery and several days in ICU, he woke up long enough to tell him he loved him and made him promise to take his place in the family business. Not long after, he died.
Everything changed in that moment.
His hold loosened on the door, and he skimmed his finger down Cece’s button nose.
“You have children, Mr. Stone?”
He snapped his eyes up to Maggie. “No.” His response had been abrupt and gruff, a knee-jerk reaction. He couldn’t imagine being a father. Ever. Maggie peered into his eyes as if she could figure out all his secrets and get him to tell the truth, challenging him, like his answer might have been a lie.
“Good night.” He jogged down the steps and escaped to his car. With the door propped open, his sight gravitated to the jacket in the back seat. He collapsed behind the steering wheel, snatched the coat, and tossed it on the passenger side. An image of Cece and Herbert cuddled on it came to mind. The light from Maggie’s house disappeared and left him in the darkness. He examined the white picket fence, trim lawn, flower boxes propped along the porch rail, and a wooden swing hung from the ceiling and swaying in the gentle breeze. The living room was exposed through wide-open drapes in the bay window. A faint glow from an unknown source cast a half-moon shadow along the powder-blue walls. A picture-perfect sight found on most covers of home and garden magazines.
A buzzing in the center console pulled him away from his exploration. “Stone.” He didn’t bother to read the number. At one in the morning, he knew who’d be calling. “Is that so? Put on the sheer black negligee. I’ll be there in half an hour.”
He snapped the phone shut and gunned the five hundred horsepower sports car, aiming it downtown. His new acquaintances were shoved out of his mind and a night of carnal activities replaced them. Exactly what he needed to shrug off melancholy memories: his dad, mom, him, a perfect family. Until it wasn’t.
Focused and relentless he could relate to. Home and hearth—never.
MAGGIE FLIPPED THE PALACHINKIS ON the griddle and glanced over her shoulder. “What filling do you want?”
Her sister, Kat, asked for cottage cheese and sugar at the exact moment Cece yelled, “Jelly.” Kat got both out of the refrigerator along with the fresh fruit Maggie had washed and put in a bowl before cooking their favorite breakfast. A recipe their mother, Irena, passed down, and they’d grown up eating. A family tradition she planned on including in her own restaurant someday.
Everyone had been seated at the table, and Maggie leaned across to get a crepe to put on Cece’s plate, when a sugary sweet smell that had nothing to do with the food hit her. She glanced at Cece sitting next to her in a booster seat, chomping away at a mouthful of bubblegum. No matter how often she portioned out and restricted the treat, Cece always found a way to confiscate every stick in the pack and shove it in her little mouth. It didn’t help that Kat kept a secret stash, dishing it out to her daughter regardless of the number of times she told her sister not to. The two of them would make her gray before her next birthday. Both pushed the limits and broke her rules on a daily basis.
By the time Maggie got a napkin and put it up to Cece’s chin, the open-mouthed chewing had stopped. Cece sat up straight, her fingers clasped together in front of her, smiling wide and proud, as if she just saved her mama from the hazardous deed of discarding the sticky, messy clump.
Kat’s giggle had her shooting a perturbed glare across the table, warning her sister to quit reinforcing and encouraging Cece’s bad habits. Kat ignored her as usual, and focused on filling and rolling one crepe after another until she had four lined up along her plate, including three scoops of sliced strawberries and blueberries on top.
Ever since childhood, Kat could eat an enormous amount and not gain an ounce. No such luck for Maggie. After giving birth to Cece, her weight had been up and down, mostly up. It didn’t help that she hadn’t felt like exercising even though in high school she’d been on the volleyball team and remained active until pregnancy. Before she knew it, she’d gained fifty pounds. Instead of a size eight, she now wore a twelve, and at five foot six, her pear shape wasn’t all that complimentary. Her gaze switched from Kat to her pride and joy, the pint-sized version of the rebel Kat had been growing up.
“Mama, all gone.” Cece patted her stomach and an innocent good-angel smile appeared, displaying a gap from the missing top two front teeth.
“What did I tell you about eating gum?” she prompted while trading the napkin for a crepe filled with jelly and setting it on Cece’s plate.
Instead of answering and before Maggie could cut the roll into pieces, Cece scooped it off the dish and shoved the entire thing in her mouth. Knowing her daughter, she prepared for the possibility, making several of them a little over bite-sized. Cece had an appetite that rivaled Kat’s, and in no way did she take after Maggie, except in hair color and freckles. Cece’s push-the-limits attitude mirrored her aunt’s and unfortunately her father’s too.
Maggie met Jake in high school. He’d been in and out of juvenile detention several times as a teenager, and growing up in Brady’s Prairie, Texas with less than eight hundred people, many knew about his bad reputation. Even though they went to school together since kindergarten, she had nothing to do with him until her senior year, when she’d been assigned to tutor him as a condition of his probation.
It wasn’t love at first sight or anything like that. In fact, Jake barely spoke to her during their after-school sessions. He’d grunt and stare her down with his arms crossed, resisting any effort she made to help him pass his classes. His indifference and willful attitude didn’t change until her car broke down on her way
to volleyball practice. When her Honda lost power, she pulled to the side of the road. Her dad, police officer Sean O’Brian, always worried about his daughters’ welfare, and taught them the basics of car maintenance. He said his girls needed to be prepared and shouldn’t have to depend on a man for simple things like checking fluid levels and air pressure or changing a tire. Even so she figured pretty quickly the problem was more than the basics when she tried to turn the ignition over multiple times, and the power flickered and died. In case something had come loose, she popped the hood to check the cable connections. At that moment, a tow truck swerved in front of her and out hopped Jake from the driver’s side. He didn’t acknowledge her at all. Instead, he jumped behind the wheel, tried to start it, and then after a check under the hood, hooked it up to the tow truck. All the while she stood on the curb and watched his every move in complete astonishment. The next thing she knew, he opened the passenger door of his truck and returned to his seat. When she didn’t move, he honked the horn a few times, jolting her out of her trance.
After she got inside, the silence continued, and instead of taking her to the only garage in town, he swung by the school and dropped her off for practice. She got out and stood at the door. Jake had turned toward her and said, “It’ll be ready tomorrow.” She nodded, and after she closed the door, he took off. That was the totality of their interactions that day, and it also marked a time of change.
The next week during tutoring, Jake put forth a little more effort in completing the assignments. It wasn’t a remarkable difference but a slight one that improved after a while. Their conversations also got better, beginning with her asking about his job as a mechanic and engaging him in “shop talk.” If she learned a little about him, then it might help her reach him. She took her tutoring job seriously and hated seeing students struggle. Everyone had strengths, and it was a matter of finding out what they already knew, and using that knowledge to make connections to the content. The technique worked before, ever since she volunteered in the tutoring center in tenth grade.