Читать книгу Lonergan's Secrets - Maureen Child - Страница 13

Over the next week Jeremiah sensed a change between Sam and Maggie. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he was pretty sure there was more going on between them than they were saying. Every time one of them came into the room, the other one started getting jumpy.

He was old.

Not stupid.

When his bedroom door opened, Jeremiah lay back against his pillows weakly, just in case. Sunlight lay across him in a slice of gold. He opened one eye, spotted his friend Bert and sat straight up. “About time you got here. Did you bring it?”

Bert winced and closed the bedroom door with a quiet snick. “For God’s sake, keep it down. Yes, I brought it—and it’s the last time,” he added as he stalked toward the bed.

Bert’s face was flushed, and guilt shone in his pale blue eyes so clearly it was easily readable even from behind the thick glasses he wore.

“Now, Bert,” Jeremiah said, swinging his legs off the bed, “no reason to start losing your nerve now.”

The other man set his black leather medical bag on the edge of the bed and gave the tarnished bronze clasp a quick twist. Then he delved one handed into the bag and pulled out a bottle of single-malt scotch. Scowling fiercely, he handed it over. “It isn’t about nerve, Jeremiah. It’s about what’s right. I don’t like lying to Sam.”

Frowning himself, Jeremiah studied the bottle of scotch. “Well, come to it, neither do I. But I had to get them all home somehow.”

“Yes, but he’s here now. Tell him the truth.”

“Not yet.” Jeremiah shook his head and fought his own feelings of guilt. He didn’t like worrying his grandsons, but once they were all here, back where they belonged, he’d tell them the truth together. Resolve strengthened, he nodded firmly and asked, “Say, Bert, when you were downstairs, did you happen to notice anything between Sam and Maggie?”

At the abrupt change of subject, Bert blinked, then thought about it for a long minute. “Nope. Can’t say that I did. Though Maggie wasn’t in the house. Sam let me in.” Giving his head a slow shake, he said, “Tried to talk to him about sticking around. Buying my practice.”

Jeremiah perked up at that. “What’d he say?”

“Same as always,” Bert said on a sigh and sat down on the edge of the mattress beside his friend. Tiny dust mites danced in the sunlight, tossed by the brush of wind slipping under the partially opened sash. “He’s not staying. Not interested in sticking around. Wants to practice medicine on his terms.”

“Disappointing,” Jeremiah said on a matching sigh as he twisted the cap on the scotch bottle, breaking the seal. He lifted the bottle, took a sip, then handed it off to Bert. “The boy’s a hardhead, no doubt about it.”

Bert snorted, took a quick pull on the scotch and said, “Wonder where he got that trait?”

Maggie walked along the line, pulling the wooden clothespins free and taking down the now-dry sheets and pillowcases. Carefully she folded each item as she went and set it in the basket at her feet. When she’d finished one item, she kicked the basket along and moved on to the next.

Sam stood on the back porch, one shoulder leaning against the newel post as he watched her.

With Bert upstairs keeping Jeremiah occupied, he’d followed his instincts—which had brought him here.

To Maggie.

He didn’t like admitting that, even to himself, but there it was. Without really wanting to or even trying, he’d found a connection with this woman. He was already used to seeing her every day. To hearing her sing to herself when she thought no one was around. To seeing the way she cared for his grandfather and this place.

God, he’d missed the ranch. When he was a kid, the summers he’d spent here had meant more to him than anything. This place, this ranch, had been more home to him than any of the military bases he’d grown up on. His parents had always been too wrapped up in each other to take much notice of him—so the summers with his grandparents and cousins had shone golden in his mind. He’d always known that this place was here for him. This town. This ranch.

His gaze shifted briefly away from Maggie to encompass the ranch yard. The barn/stable needed a good coat of paint, and there were a few weeds sprouting up at the edges of the building and along the fence line. In the old days, weeds had never had a chance. But times had changed.

Too much had changed.

At the thought, his gaze drifted back to Maggie. Completely oblivious to him, she kept moving along the line of clean clothes she’d pegged out to dry hours ago. She wore white shorts that hit her midthigh and a tiny yellow tank top. Her white sneakers were old and worn, and her shoulder-length dark hair was drawn back into a ponytail that swayed with her movements like a metronome.

When he found himself smiling at the picture she made, he worried.

“If you’re going to stand out here anyway,” she called out, never turning her head, “the least you could do is help fold.”

He straightened up and blew out a disgusted breath. So much for being the stealthy type. Taking the steps to the grass, he wandered over to her side. “How’d you know I was there?”

She swiveled her head to glance at him. “I could feel you watching me.”

He quirked one eyebrow at her.

She grinned briefly. “Okay, and I heard you come outside. The screen on the kitchen door still squeaks.” Shrugging, she added, “Then there was the sound of your boot heels on the porch—not to mention that tired-old-man sigh I heard just a minute or two ago.”

Her fingers never stopped. She plucked off clothespins, dropped them into a canvas sack hanging from the line and then folded the next item.

“You’re too observant for your own good,” he said, taking the edge of the sheet when she held it out to him.

“Oh, I am,” she agreed, folding one edge of the sheet over the other, then walking toward him to make the ends meet. “Just like I’ve observed that you’ve been avoiding me all week.”

Sunlight played on her hair, dazzling the streaks of blond intermingled with the darker strands. She squinted up at him, and he noticed for the first time that she had freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her nose. Not many. Just a few. Just enough to make a man want to count them with kisses.

Which was, he told himself, exactly why he’d been avoiding her all week.

Because that night with her was never far from his mind. Because with every breath he wanted her again. And again. And again.

Shaking his head, he blew out a breath. Damn it. Having her should have taken the edge off the hunger. Instead he now knew just what he could find in her arms and it was taking everything he had to keep from trying to have it again. “Like I said. Observant.”

Silently he took the gathered edges of the sheet, folded them neatly and dropped them onto the stack already in the basket. When he was finished, Maggie handed him a pillowcase and took one for herself.

“Hmm,” she quipped with a glance at him, “not even going to try to deny it?”

“Not much point in that, is there?”

“So want to tell me why you’ve been avoiding me?”

“Not particularly,” he admitted and took the pillowcase she handed him.

“Okay, then why don’t I tell you?”

“Maggie.” He dropped the pillowcase onto the stack of clean laundry.

“See,” she said, cutting him off neatly, “I think you don’t want to talk about that night because it meant something to you. And that bothers you.”

He stiffened, narrowed his gaze on her and watched as she quickly plucked two more clothespins off the line, gathering up a sheet as she went. “I already told you, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Yes,” she said, nodding, “we’ve already covered that.”

“So why don’t we just leave it alone?”

“Can’t,” she said, turning to face him.

“Why am I not surprised?”

She gave him a sad smile. “Is it really so hard for you to admit that what we had that night was special?”

“No.” He huffed out a breath. “It was. I can admit that. But I can’t give you anything else.”

“I didn’t ask for anything else,” she reminded him with a patient sigh.

“Yeah, but you will,” he said, meeting her dark gaze with his own. “It’s in your nature.”

She laughed and the music of it slammed into him, rocking him on his heels.

“My nature,” she repeated. “And you know this how?”

He waved one hand, encompassing the ranch yard, the house and her. “You’re a nester, Maggie. Look at you. I can see the curtains you hung in the guesthouse from here. You’ve burrowed your way into the very place that I’ve been steering clear of for fifteen years.”

“But you’re here now.”

“For the summer,” he clarified, in case she’d missed him saying it in the last week. “Then I’m gone again.”

“Just like that?” she asked. “You can leave again, even knowing how much your grandfather needs you? Loves you?”

Sam shifted uncomfortably. Guilt pinged around inside him like a marble in the bottom of an empty coffee can. “I can’t stay,” he said finally through gritted teeth.

She shook her head slowly and he followed the motion of her ponytail swinging from side to side behind her head. “Not can’t,” she said, “won’t.”

“Whichever.” He sounded as irritable as he felt, but apparently the tone of his voice had no effect on her. Because she only looked at him with that same sad smile, half disappointment, half regret.

“Fine. But even if you’re leaving at the end of summer, you’re here now,” she reminded him.

Yeah, he was. And he wanted her. Bad. For one brief instant his body tightened and his breath staggered in his lungs. Then he came back to his senses. “You’re not a ‘right now’ kind of woman, Maggie. And I can’t make you promises.”

“You keep forgetting that I didn’t ask for anything from you.” She stepped toward him, cupped his cheek in her palm and stared directly into his eyes. “What? Only men are allowed brief, red-hot affairs?”

He caught her hand in his, stilling the feel of her fingertips against his skin. “What about the other?”

“Hmm?”

“The chance of pregnancy?” Couldn’t believe he had to remind her about that.

Realization dawned on her features, but she said, “I don’t know yet. But since there’s nothing we can do about it at the moment, no point in worrying about that until we know for sure, is there?”

“Guess not.” Though he knew damn well a corner of his mind would be worrying about that small chance nonstop until he knew one way or the other.

“And we could be careful.”

Her voice brought him back from his thoughts, and as he looked down into her eyes, he felt his resolution to keep his distance fading into nothingness. If they were careful, if she didn’t expect more from him than he could give.

It would be crazy.

Stupid.

Great.

When he didn’t speak, she shrugged. “Either way,” she mused, still giving him that half smile, “still got to get the laundry in.”

With the abrupt shift in subject, Sam felt as if he’d just been shown a safe path through a minefield. As she walked along the line to take down the next sheet, he studied the sway of her hips, despite knowing that he’d be better off ignoring it. “Why don’t you just use the dryer on the service porch?”

“This way things smell better,” she said, lifting one shoulder in a half shrug as she reached up to the line. The hem of her tank top pulled up, displaying an inch or two of taut, tanned abdomen. Just enough to tempt him. “The wind and the sun… at night, you can sleep on sheets that make you dream of summer.”

That’d be good, he thought, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets. But then, anything would beat the kind of dreams he normally had.

“Besides,” she was saying as she tossed him one end of a pink-and-blue floral sheet, “when I was a little girl, I always wanted my own clothesline.”

He chuckled, surprising both of them. “That’s different.”

She glanced at him, then looked down at the sheet they were folding. “There was a house down the street from where I lived and this woman would be out there almost every day.” Her voice went soft and hazy and he knew she was looking at a memory. “She had this big golden dog who followed her all around the yard and she’d laugh at him while she hung out clothes to dry. Sometimes,” she added, smiling now, “her kids would go out there, too. And they’d all play peek-a-boo in the clean clothes and it all looked so… nice.”

“So your own mom wasn’t the clothesline type, huh?”

Maggie’s features stiffened and a shutter dropped over her eyes. “I don’t know what my mother preferred,” she said and heard the wistfulness in her voice. “I never knew her.”

She glanced at Sam and saw his wince. “Sorry.”

She shrugged again and reached to push up the strap of her tank top that had slid down her arm. “Not your fault. You didn’t know.”

“And your father?”

She forced a smile. “He’s a mystery, too. They died when I was a kid. I went into the system and stayed there until I was eighteen. That neighbor I told you about? She lived down the street from the group home.”

“You weren’t adopted?”

“Nope. Most people want babies. But don’t get that sympathy look on your face,” Maggie warned. She hadn’t needed anyone’s pity in a long time and she sure didn’t want it from Sam. “I did fine. There were a couple of foster parents along the way and the group home was a good one.” Wanting to throw up roadblocks on memory lane, she changed the subject fast. “Anyway, now that there’s a clothesline nearby, I get to indulge myself.”

Thankfully he didn’t ask anything else about her childhood. It hadn’t all been popcorn and cotton candy, but it hadn’t exactly been a miserable Dickensian childhood or anything, either. But that was the past and she had the present and future to think about.

“Indulge yourself even though this way it’s more work.”

“Sometimes more work makes things better.”

“Not your average attitude these days.”

She smiled at him. “Who wants to be average?”

“Good point.” He finished folding the sheet, glanced around the yard. “You know, there’s something still missing from your laundry recreation. Pop used to have a dog.”

“Bigfoot.” Maggie nodded sadly. “I know. He died last year.”

“Last year?” Sam whistled as he did the math. “He had to have been nearly twenty years old.”

“Almost,” Maggie agreed, “and pretty spry right up to the end. Jeremiah was brokenhearted when that dog died. He said it was his last link to you and your cousins.”

He slapped one hand to his chest and rubbed it hard, as if her words had hit him like a dart.

“You shouldn’t have stayed away so long,” she said.

His gaze slid to hers. “I couldn’t come back. Couldn’t be here… be surrounded with memories. Couldn’t do it.”

“But you’re doing it now.”

He snorted. “Just barely.”

“Maybe it’ll get easier the longer you’re here.”

“No, it won’t.”

“You could try. For his sake.” She nodded in the direction of the house.

“It’s only for his sake that I’m here at all.” He reached up, closed one hand around the nylon clothesline and hung on as if it were a life rope tossed into a stormy sea.

“It wasn’t your fault.” She said it without thinking, and the minute those words came blundering out of her mouth, Maggie knew they’d been a mistake.

His features froze over. His jaw clenched. She watched him grind his teeth together hard enough to turn them to powder. And his gaze—dark, filled with pain—stabbed hers. “You don’t know anything about it.”

“You could talk about it. Tell me.”

Another harsh, rasping laugh shot from his throat as he shook his head. “Talking about it doesn’t change anything. Talking about it doesn’t help. It just brings it all back.”

“Sam,” Maggie said softly, “you don’t have to bring it back. It’s with you all the time.”

“God, I know that.” He blew out a breath, seemed to steady himself, then started talking again, forcing a change of subject. “So how’d you come to be here on the Lonergan ranch, working for Jeremiah?”

Maggie nodded, silently agreeing to the shift in topic, and she was pretty sure she caught the flash of relief in his dark eyes. Then she took down the next sheet and handed one end to him. They had a rhythm now, working together as a team, and a part of her wished that that teamwork could spill over into other areas.

“My car broke down,” she said. “Right outside the front gates.” Pausing to remember, she added, “Broke down doesn’t really cover it. More like it fell apart.”

One corner of his mouth lifted and Maggie wondered what he looked like when he was really smiling. Or laughing.

“Anyway,” she said, getting her mind back on track, “Jeremiah invited me in, made me lunch, called a mechanic. And by the time Arthur’s Towing Service arrived to take my car away to heap heaven, your grandfather had offered me a job as his housekeeper.”

“That explains how you got here,” he agreed, folding the sheet and setting it down on top of the rest. “Now tell me why you’re still here.”

Nodding, Maggie straightened up and looked around beyond the ranch yard and the outbuildings. To the now golden-brown fields stretching out for miles all around them, the acres of blue sky overhead and finally to their closest neighbor, the Bateman ranch house that was no more than a faint smudge of red in the distance.

Finally she looked back at him. “Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked. “It’s beautiful here. I like the small town. I love your grandfather—and I owe him a lot. He gave me a place to belong.”

A simple word and yet it meant so much to Maggie. It probably meant more than Sam would ever be able to truly understand. No one who’d had a home and a family could ever really know how lonely it was to be without those things.

“And,” she said, “working for Jeremiah gives me plenty of time to take classes at the community college in Fresno.”

“What kind of classes?”

“Nursing. I… like taking care of people.”

“According to Jeremiah and Doc Evans, you’re good at it, too.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

The conversation was dwindling pretty fast. But maybe that was because they were through working. There was nothing else to focus on but themselves. Each other.

Afternoon sunlight streamed down from a brassy sky, and heat radiated up from the pebble-strewn dirt. A halfhearted puff of wind stirred things up a bit without cooling them off.

And seconds continued to tick past.

He looked down at her, a thoughtful expression on his face, and Maggie wondered just what he was thinking.

More than that, she wondered if he was ever going to kiss her again. Heartbeat suddenly thundering in her ears, she was painfully aware of every shallow breath panting in and out of her lungs. Her mouth was dry, her throat tight.

He continued to stare at her. His dark, shadow-filled eyes drew her in. She couldn’t have looked away even if the notion had occurred to her. There was something about this man that touched something in her no one else had ever come close to.

And, oh, God, she wanted his mouth on hers again.

As if he were reading her mind, his gaze dropped briefly, hungrily, to her mouth. Maggie’s stomach did a nose dive and heat pooled somewhere even farther south.

When he reached for her, she leaned in toward him, and her breath caught as his hands closed around her upper arms.

Lowering his head to hers, he whispered, “We’re going to make the same mistake again, aren’t we?”

She felt his breath on her face and nearly sighed. Then, looking deeply into his eyes, she said, “Every chance we get.”