by Tamara Leigh
His mouth twitches into what might be a smile. “I’m stumped. You look like Maggie…” He leans toward me. “You smell like Maggie…”
That would be the rose perfume I claimed as my signature scent when I was fifteen.
“And you sound like Maggie—voicewise. But less and less you seem like the Maggie who held court at high school and snubbed those beneath her, including Piper. That’s why I asked her about you. She knew the Maggie you were and knows the Maggie you are.”
“And?”
“She set me straight.”
I hold my breath. Though Piper and I have made our peace and it feels as if we’ve moved toward friendship, I doubt it would have happened if my daughter hadn’t drawn us together. Devyn, the very glue of me.
“She told me you’re as far removed from the Maggie of thirteen years ago as peanut butter is from pâté and said I shouldn’t judge you based on your past. So either you’re paying her scads of money to improve your image, or you have a real friend in your cousin.”
Feeling a sting of tears, I look away. “I’m glad Piper feels that strongly about our relationship.”
After a long moment, Reece says, “I owe you an apology.”
“For?”
“Not giving you credit for the past thirteen years…believing you couldn’t have changed much from the Maggie I remember.”
The mean girl. The one who was free with her body. The one who, despite appreciating that Reece didn’t push her to climb in the backseat as her previous boyfriends did, set out to seduce him to stop the speculation about their relationship. The one who proved to her supposed friends that not only was Reece a heterosexual but she was as desirable as ever. The one who recently gave him reason to believe she is that same Maggie…
“Obviously you’ve forgotten about our run-in at the hotel.”
His chin comes around. “You could explain that.”
And would you like to explain why you brought that up? Hello!
Reece growls and stomps on the brake, causing me to strain against the seat belt, then bounce back as the car screeches to a halt.
He turns to me. “Dead end.”
I am? But—Beyond the windshield illuminated by the car’s headlights lies the once-prosperous farm where Bridget’s Great Crop Circle hoax played out years ago in her bid to protect her little woodland buddies. It’s a literal dead end Reece is referring to, not the figurative one I feared.
“I don’t know where you live, Maggie.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.” I peer over my shoulder at the houses on either side of the street that mark the outer reaches of my development. “We’ll have to backtrack.”
Reece shifts into reverse, but an instant later, he puts the car in park.
I throw him a frown. “What is it?”
“If we’re going to talk, this is as good a time and place as any.”
He thinks I want to talk?
“And it’s safer since we won’t likely end up in a ditch or in the next county.” He turns to me and props an arm on the back of his seat. “There’s more to this older, kinder Maggie than what I’m hearing and seeing. What am I missing?”
I know what I’m missing—my pajamas. “This is a bad idea, Reece. The residents are bound to get suspicious of a car parked at the end of their street and call the police.”
“You’re right.”
Pajamas, here I come.
He switches off the headlights, leaving only the dashboard lights to cut the darkness. “Better?”
Not at all, since it seems my pajamas are back in the drawer. Worse, as my past readily testifies, the dark, a guy, and a car, are a dangerous combination. Add to that feelings I’ve been fighting since Reece’s return, and I could be in big trouble. Lord, keep me out of the backseat. Let Reece be as unswerving as he was before I made him swerve.
I cross my arms over my chest. “There’s nothing for us to talk about. You have a job to do, and when you’re done, the only evidence you were here will be your name on a hunk of metal in our town square.”
And Devyn.
If he’s her father, and to prove he isn’t, I have Gary Winsome in my sights. I lift a hand, palm up. “Nothing to talk about.”
“There’s you.” His deeply soft voice affects my senses like a long velvet dress floating down over my head, rippling across my torso, and skimming my legs. “The girl who couldn’t wait to get out of what she called Nowhere, North Carolina, but never left.”
And doesn’t regret it, unlike this conversation.
“Piper didn’t offer details, and mostly what I get from your uncle is that he’s proud of how you’re single-handedly raising your daughter and supporting yourself. So, what am I missing, Maggie?” His hand covers mine.
I clench my tingling fingers. “Why does it matter?”
He draws nearer, and I feel a trace of his breath on my lips. “I keep asking myself the same thing.”
Danger. I pull my hand free and draw back until I come up against the door. “I’m just Maggie Pickwick, soon to be thirty-one years old, a mother, a friend, and an auctioneer. As for how I got from there to here, I grew up.” He doesn’t need to know how or how soon after he left Pickwick the transformation began. “Satisfied?”
“No.”
I feel the handle in my side. Unfortunately, since amalgamating with the car door didn’t work for Devyn, it probably won’t work for me.
“What about those tight places you said Skippy got you out of?”
This is not going well.
“Was Devyn one of them?”
Not well at all. “That was a long time ago.” Longer than I want him to know. “Now I can’t imagine life without her.”
Silence falls, and I assume Reece is mulling over what I said. And what I hope he doesn’t ask about—
“Is her father around?”
Is he around? It’s possible—Ah! Reece did not father her. It had to have been Gary. “No.”
He releases a breath, and I almost feel sorry for the number of teeth I’m making him pull. “Then you’re divorced.”
Probably what he sees as the best-case scenario, but I’m not going to lie, even if the truth sounds like backseat encouragement. “I’ve never been married, but I have learned my lesson.” So no hanky-panky for you, mister!
As he digests that, I search for a change of topic. “What about you? What have you been doing for the last thirteen years?”
He nods as if agreeing with the need to change direction. “Mostly traveling around the country pursuing my art.”
And avoiding alcohol, it would seem. “In high demand, I understand.”
“When the economy’s doing well.”
“Er, how are your parents?”
After a moment, he says, “Fine.”
“And your brother?”
After several moments, he says, “Let’s get you home,” and once more the headlights brighten the field.
What’s with that? Did Reece and his brother have a falling out? Pity. Despite the moodiness of his younger brother, they seemed fairly close.
Shortly, Reece pulls into my driveway. “Nice house.”
Determinedly setting aside what became of Reece and his brother, I try to see my home through his eyes. Yes, it is nice—a great starter home for a young couple, though it will suit Devyn and me until she goes off to college. Then I’ll probably look for something smaller. And if there’s still no one who wants to grow old with me, I might get a dog for company. Or I could borrow Errol, the Great Pyrenees my uncle’s lawyer, Artemis, happily loans out when his scattered wife isn’t looking. No, the beast piddles, as Piper learned when she first returned to Pickwick and Artemis insisted Errol patrol the mansion to keep my brother, Luc, and Bridget’s brother, Bart, from looting Uncle Obe’s possessions during his hospital stay.
As I reach for the door handle, I glance into Reece’s face to which the accent lighting on my house gives form. “Thank you for the ride.” I pull the handle, b
ut he reaches across me and once more covers my hand with his.
“Maggie.”
I look around.
He doesn’t speak immediately, and I sense he’s reconsidering his words, but finally he says, “When I accepted this commission, I thought I had outgrown my infatuation with you, but then I saw you and, more than anything, wanted to draw you again.”
More than anything? Then art still comes first for him? Much of the time we spent together as teenagers was devoted to his drawings of me. What happened to them? Did he burn them?
“Still, I thought I was safe, that you were just something pretty to look at.” His hand moves up my arm, and I’m grateful for the sleeve of my jacket that prevents him from feeling the bumps he’s raising across my skin.
“But you’re no longer the girl I decided wasn’t worth the effort to drag out of the Maggie who trampled Yule.” His hand pauses at my shoulder. “I’m glad you found your way out.”
He draws the chain around my neck through his fingers down to the cross, then his face comes nearer to mine. “Maggie,” he whispers, eyes bracketing me with such intensity, it’s as if I’m all there is.
I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t, but I close my eyes to receive his kiss. And there it is.
A strangled sound escapes me as feelings tempt my hands to take hold of his head and push through his careless black hair until all is lost.
Backseat!
It’s just a kiss. All hands accounted for.
Really? Last time I counted, you had two. Would you like to guess where one of them is?
It’s just hair. And he has such a nice head of it—thick…soft…one day this way, the next day that.
Not until my other hand gets in on the act, sliding around his neck to deepen the kiss, do I come to my senses. “Oh no.” I pull free and shake my head. “I am not crawling into the backseat with you. That is not who I am anymore.”
He slowly sits back. “That isn’t what I’m after.”
“What, then?”
“I was hoping I wouldn’t like it—that it would be just a kiss.”
Which would be best for both of us, since no good can come of this. I pull the handle, grab my purse, and drop my feet to the driveway. “Thank you for the ride home.” I slam the door and, trying not to get tangled in my long legs, hurry up the walkway to the front door.
“Maggie?” His voice is warm on the cold night air.
I stoop, rip the shell off the happy little turtle that lives beneath a shrub by my front door, and pull the spare house key from its hollow resin body.
“It wasn’t just a kiss.”
I drop the turtle’s shell in place. “Oh, yes it was,” I call over my shoulder. “Good night.”
I don’t care to know why my Internet search for Gary Winsome got sidetracked, because I’d probably lie—call it curiosity, a necessary evil, a missed keystroke, anything but something to do with a kiss that wasn’t just a kiss.
“Yes, it was,” I hiss as I stare at the photo of a man whose slight smile is emphasized by a toothpick tucked in one corner.
I move my pointer from the About the Artist tab to Sculptures and click, causing the grainy photo of Reece to disappear and a page of sculptures to open. They’re also grainy, from the gold-panning forty-niner to the mermaid peering over her shoulder to the biblical Joseph standing with feet apart as his coat of many colors (supposedly, since the statue is bronze) swirls around his calves. However, the lack of professional photographs doesn’t detract from the beauty of the sculptures, nor the incredible talent behind them. The Serendipity Web site may have more flash, but it doesn’t have much draw compared to what Reece offers. His work speaks for itself: when you’re good, you’re good.
“And you are good.” I touch the blurry image of the artist at work, dark hair sprawled across his brow, fingers caught in the act of forming the immense jaw of a horse.
I snatch my hand back. “Just a kiss, Maggie.”
I move the pointer to close the Web page so I can be on my merry way to Gary Winsome, but the tab Other Mediums makes me back up. I click and—voilà!—more grainy photos. These show Reece’s work in paint, watercolor, and charcoal, with several of his sketches corresponding to the sculptures. I scroll down. His work was amazing in high school, but this—
“Huh?” I scroll back up until a charcoal sketch of a young woman is centered on my screen. What am I doing there? No, that can’t be me. But it is, and I remember the day almost fourteen years ago…
“Don’t look here,” Reece says from where he sits cross-legged on a big rock by the lake. “Act natural, like you’re alone.”
“But, darlin’,” I put the pedal to the metal of my drawl, knowing it will make it harder for him to keep his distance. “I am not alone. I’m with you.” I peer up at him from beneath my long lashes and give my secret smile that few beauty contest judges can resist.
His charcoal pencil, which surely has teeth marks all over it, sticks in the air above his sketchpad.
My, how easily a Yankee boy falls for a Southern belle in full battle armor. “Are you gonna sit there lookin’”—I crook a finger—“or are you gonna get over here and keep me company?”
He starts to rise but shakes his head. “You’re alone, Maggie. Not a soul in sight.”
I roll my eyes. “All right, but hurry. I can’t lie here lookin’ natural all day long, especially with it hot as all get out.” I wiggle my rear in an attempt to find a softer place on the hard planks of the dock. Failing that, I ease one leg over the edge, dip a toe in the cool water, and wrinkle my nose in anticipation of Reece telling me to resume my pose.
“That’s it! Perfect. Don’t move.”
And I don’t until he awakens me an hour later.
“Reece Thorpe! I declare, if I’m all freckled and sunburned, you’re gonna get it.”
He helps me to my feet. “Sorry, I had to capture you like that.”
I slap at the seat of my short shorts to remove whatever debris I picked up from the dock.
“You looked so beautiful…”
Of course I did.
“…and innocent.”
Struck by a longing to be innocent—for him—and not be mired in memories of my not-so-innocent acts, I stop with the slapping. I wish…No, it can’t be undone, and Reece knows it from what my fellow high schoolers say about me. Does it bother him? If it did, surely he wouldn’t bother with me. But then, he doesn’t bother with me in the sexual sense.
I tip my head to the side. “Do you like me, or is it just that you like to draw me?”
He frowns. “Of course I like you.”
Moistening my lips with a slow sweep of my tongue, I step closer. “Prove it.”
His gaze lowers to my mouth, and his nostrils flare. We’ve been here before, proof he is interested in the opposite sex despite what some of my friends and ex-boyfriends suggest. Now if I can get him to the next step, we can put the whole matter to rest—not to mention the matter of whether or not I’m still the queen of allure.
I take the last step and lean against him. “I don’t have to be home for another hour.”
He swallows hard, as if he’s full up on drool, but he turns away.
“Reece!” I stomp the creaky boards.
He comes back around. “Stop tempting me, Maggie. It’s cruel.”
I stick my hands on my hips, framing them nicely if I may say so myself. “Cruel only if I don’t give you what you want.”
He briefly closes his eyes. “We don’t have to have sex to be together.”
“My other boyfriends did.”
“I’m not like them. I respect you even if you don’t respect yourself.”
I blink at the sudden tears that aren’t me at all. I should walk away and not look back. But that would be the end of us, and I really like Reece. My nose tingles, and I have to sniff to keep it from running. Then a tear spills, followed by words. “I don’t understand.” I hiccup-sob and drop my chin to hide my face. “Why do you like
me?”
He pulls my chin up. “I like you because despite that uppity nose of yours, it’s all a front. In here”—he taps beneath my collarbone—“there’s real beauty.”
Is there? I gulp down another sob. “How do you know that?”
“I’ve seen it.” He smiles. “Maybe only glimpses, and only when it’s just the two of us and you’re not putting on a show for your friends, but it’s there.”
“Glimpses!” I feel my own mouth tug. “What if that’s all it is—little bitty pieces?”
“Then I will be, as you say, sorely disappointed.”
I pull my chin from his grasp and swat his arm. “You’re incorrigible.”
He holds out a hand. “Come on, I’ll walk you home.”
As I reach for him, I catch sight of his sketchpad under his arm. “Let me see the picture.”
“Not yet. It’s one of my best, so I want to clean it up and fill in the background before I show it to you.”
“Oh, you artists.” I slide my hand into his, and he pulls me near and kisses me longer and more deeply than he’s ever done…
With a sharp breath, I pull back from the computer screen. That wasn’t just a kiss either. As for the charcoal drawing of a young woman sleeping on a dock, head turned to the side, curls falling over her face, foot trailing the water, it’s taken many years for Reece to show it to me, in a manner of speaking. I did look innocent. However, I was far from it, even though Reece captioned his drawing The Innocence of Beauty.
I touch my collarbone where he touched me that day, then work my fingers up to the little cross. While my outward beauty has developed thirteen years’ worth of frown and smile lines, greater beauty now exists inside me, the spoiled self-centeredness excavated by Skippy and filled by Jesus. And going by Reece’s behavior tonight, he’s starting to see that too. And willing to give me a chance to—
What? Test his DNA to prove the rumors were true? That not long after your breakup, you crawled into the backseat with a guy who refused to acknowledge the possibility he fathered your baby? Face it, there is no future for you and Reece. If Gary is Devyn’s father, it proves you lied to Reece about the rumors. If she’s Chase Elliot’s…well, that’s not much better since that little fling was close on the heels of Gary.
