“Do you mind if I keep the adjoining door open until Caleb gets here?” he asked, unaware that he’d unintentionally ignited a bit of heat within her. “I’d rather not break down all of these doors if something happens.”
Maggie laughed and tossed him the key card the sheriff had given her.
“I’d rather we not break anything else today if possible,” she said. “I still feel really bad about the Bronco. Even if we didn’t ask to be bulldozed by some deranged stranger.”
Matt caught the key and went to open both of the doors. It was like looking into a mirror, an identical room reflected back beyond it. He put her key on the dresser and paused in the doorway.
“Are you okay for now?”
His eyes went to the lone crutch beneath her arm. She waved him off.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” she assured him. “But, Matt, maybe after the deputy gets here you should think about taking a nice long shower.” She cracked a grin. “I also don’t want to explain to my son why the normally good-looking detective looks like he’s visited the inside of a blender and also smells like he’s switched his cologne for chlorine.”
Matt smirked.
“I’m going to take the compliment of ‘good-looking’ away from that and move on.”
A little bit of heat crawled up Maggie’s neck. She hadn’t realized she said he was good-looking.
Although, she wasn’t about to take it back, either.
* * *
THE SHOWER MIGHT have been difficult to navigate since almost every part of her body was hurting, but Maggie couldn’t deny that the hot water pelting her felt amazing. However, when it was time to dress herself she encountered more of a problem.
Pulling her hair up in a loose, wet bun, she shimmied into her bra, blouse and panties. Then, with a little more trepidation than she was used to feeling, she cracked the bathroom door open.
“Uh, Detective?”
She pressed her face against the inside of the door until she heard movement.
“Yeah? Is everything okay?”
Maggie felt the blush before the heat ever reached her skin.
“Yeah,” she called back, clearing her throat. “Are you alone by chance?”
There was a pause.
“I am.”
Maggie took a small breath.
“And we’re both adult enough to admit you’ve seen me in my underwear already, right? And we were both really professional about it?”
The pause was longer this time.
“Matt?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “What are you getting at?”
With her free hand Maggie finagled the crutch beneath her arm and opened the door all the way. She held her chin high as she walked out into the middle of the room, nothing but her blouse and a pair of black panties on.
“Now, before you think I just like showing you my unmentionables,” she said quickly, stopping at the foot of the closest bed, “I want to remind you that I’ve been in the ER twice in twenty-four hours and my body has finally decided to let me know how much it dislikes that. It stages its own little protest every time I try to put on my pants.”
Matt’s eyes stayed on hers as she spoke. Like she was the most interesting woman in the world and every syllable was as good as a tied football game in the fourth quarter. When, really, he just didn’t want to look down. Maggie didn’t know if she should be offended or not.
“The medicine they gave you isn’t helping?”
Maggie shrugged.
“Yes and no. I mean I’m not feeling like I’m going to be sick when I move but everything feels stiff and uncomfortable.” She gave him a look that she hoped expressed just how much she’d love for him to agree to help her put on skinny jeans.
He sighed.
“All right. Are they in the bathroom, then?”
Maggie nodded and laid her crutch on the bed. She remained standing until Matt was in front of her. He crouched down and Maggie felt a flame ignite just south of her waistline as he passed her panties. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one. A glance down showed the detective’s face was as red as a cherry. Which was a sight in itself. Even his ears were turning scarlet.
“Never thought I’d see Matt Walker blush,” Maggie couldn’t help but say. What was the point of being quiet if the situation would have still been just as strange as it was with no talking? “It’s like you’ve never been asked to help a girl get dressed before.”
The man was holding her jeans like a matador holding a red flag. That made her the bull in the scenario but it was the only image she could imagine, looking at the detective’s expression when he met her gaze.
Caution.
Suspicion.
Focus.
And a dash of cockiness.
“When it comes to women, I’ve only ever been asked to help take clothes off.”
Maggie’s blush seared across her skin. It didn’t help that the back of his hand skimmed the side of her leg as he tried to steady her. Good thing she’d been able to put on her shirt. The two of them might have been stained tomato red otherwise.
“Now, hold on to me,” Matt ordered. “Last thing we need is you falling over and earning us a one-way trip right back to the hospital. Three times in twenty-four hours might get you thrown in a padded room somewhere. Just so you don’t hurt yourself.”
Maggie laughed and followed Matt’s command with little to no grace. She held on to his shoulders as he navigated one pant leg halfway up and then moved to the other one to do the same. The pain wasn’t as bad as it had been thanks to the lingering medicine from the hospital but when she’d stepped out of the shower and tried to work the material around her bad leg, she’d been met with surprising resistance. It was like her entire leg had been frozen stiff, refusing to bend with her.
She hadn’t thought to involve the detective until three attempts ended with the rest of her body reminding her it had been beaten up, too. Now the dull throb that blanketed her was only being interrupted by the burn of her blush...and something else. It wasn’t a mystery what that other thing was, either. Every time Matt’s skin came in contact with hers, no matter how innocent, it was like he was lighting matches along her body. Trailing them from one spot to the other until it went out and he struck up another one. The detective was touching parts of her skin that hadn’t been touched by a man in a long time.
It completely distracted her to the point he had to repeat himself.
“Lift your other leg,” he said. “Unless you want to explain to Cody why you can’t do it yourself.”
Maggie cleared her throat. The longing for the man at her feet quieted as her thoughts moved to her son.
“While he’s mature for his age I would like to avoid that particular conversation,” she admitted. “He’s already been through enough in his young life. I’d like to keep him a kid as long as possible.”
She winced as she put weight on her bad ankle for a second. Matt looped the pant leg under her foot as fast and gently as he could. He pulled up until it slid to above her knee.
“You got it from here?”
Maggie nodded. She grabbed the waist of her jeans as he turned away to give her privacy to pull them the rest of the way up and button them. Not that it was needed. He’d already seen her.
“And who said chivalry is dead?” she joked, lowering herself onto the bed when she was done.
Matt snorted and walked over to the window. He moved the curtains back, letting light stream through. It lit up his hair.
Golden.
Beautiful.
Worthy of a pair of hands running through it.
The cut above her eyebrow stung.
Maggie sighed.
All jokes and sarcasm aside, she couldn’t ignore how horrible she felt. Which had to mean that her steadfast companion must have felt worse. He had,
after all, not slept in nearly two days as far as she knew.
It was a painful reminder that one man had put them through the ringer within the span of one morning. Suddenly, she didn’t feel so jovial.
“Did you know I was married before all of this happened? I mean before I told you I’d been divorced?” The question surprised her. Matt turned to listen. But to what? She wasn’t sure. In a flash she went from feeling lust and humor to something much more dangerous. Overwhelming vulnerability.
“No,” he answered stoically. “I didn’t.”
Maggie exhaled a long breath.
“I interviewed him when I first started working at the paper in Kipsy. It was some fluff piece about a diner being renovated after fifty years of serving the community. Chris was a lawyer, family law, but loved the diner so much that every Wednesday he’d go to work an hour early so he’d have a longer lunch break to fit the extra twenty-minute commute.” Maggie felt herself smile a little. She knew it was broken. All the happy memories of her ex were still there, in her heart, but just off enough that reliving them brought a twinge of pain. “He loved that place,” she continued. “And that’s where he told me he loved me. He asked me to marry him in the booth we sat in during that first interview. I know it sounds cheesy but at the time it was perfect. We were perfect.”
Maggie brought her hands up to help illustrate a point she’d already made to herself in the past several years. She laced her fingers together, pushing her palms flush.
“We fit together like this—so snug, so great—but as time went on, I realized that this—” she shook her clasped hands “—this isn’t perfect. Because, if you look down, you’ll see that one of the two hands is on top. One thumb over the other. Not equal. Not in sync. No matter how great it might look at first.”
Maggie let her hands fall to her lap.
“I didn’t realize that our marriage wasn’t the way it should have been until life really started happening. I may have been—and still am—difficult and aggressive and intrusive and a list of other adjectives that you’d use to define people who usually end up alone, but even I, with all my flaws, thought I deserved to try to be happy. And that desire ended up eating its way through my chest and then into other parts of my life until I had nothing left to distract me from it.” She gave him an apologetic look. “Becoming, for lack of a better word, obsessed with cases and stories that I had no business getting attached to, for instance.”
Matt kept quiet. Which was fine. For some reason Maggie realized she needed to get some things off her chest.
“Adopting Cody, I can see now, wasn’t about just saving him. It was about saving me, too.” Tears began to prick the insides of her eyes but Maggie didn’t stop. Not when she was so close to making her point. “See, I come from a small family. Two parents, an idiot brother who does idiot things and an aunt I saw once a year until she remarried and moved across the ocean. They loved me, my family, but in a detached way. Not the most involved bunch but they call on birthdays and holidays and even sometimes try to fit a visit into their schedule. It’s just who they are and have always been. It’s how I grew up. I can’t fault them because I had a good, healthy childhood. We loved each other but... Well, we weren’t a team like so many other families seem to be.” Maggie felt her lips pull up for a moment. “The first month Cody lived with Chris and me, he got sick. You know, I knew what you were supposed to do when your kid gets sick. Take them to the doctor, give them the medicine, watch over the kid until they’re better. But things in theory are always easier, aren’t they? At first I was doing fine, sticking by the book on how to help him. But one time when I touched his cheek to see how hot he was, he looked up at me with these round, innocent eyes, and I swear I felt that fever in my bones.”
Maggie knew why the vulnerability was there and why she had felt the need to tell the man a few feet from her everything. Why she wasn’t the same woman he’d met years ago. Why she’d really put the case away. Why she needed them to solve it now.
“It was in that moment that I knew I finally had a team.” She smiled and felt the tears slide down her face. She didn’t care. She wanted him to know the bottom line. “We can’t let anything happen to that boy, Matt. He’s my entire life and then some. We have to finish this thing. Whatever it is.”
The detective stayed right where he was but that didn’t lessen the severity of his response. Despite the distance between them she felt as if he was close enough to kiss.
“We might have been banged up today, Maggie, but I promise you, Cody will never be hurt.” His voice was steel. “And just because this case is difficult doesn’t mean it’s impossible. I believe in the sheriff, the department and even local PD.” A smile carved itself out of his frown. It was small but effective. “I even believe in us.”
Maggie didn’t bother wiping at her cheek. She felt a surge of relief wash over all the pain and doubt and worry. It might not last but she welcomed it.
And was thankful for the man who had given it to her.
She smiled.
“You better be careful, Detective. You keep talking like that and I’ll start to think you actually like me.”
Matt snorted.
“Well, we wouldn’t want that.”
Those blue-gray eyes found hers.
“No, we wouldn’t want that.”
Chapter Fourteen
Maggie might have started to cry when she opened up to him, but when Cody finally arrived she managed to hold it together remarkably well. However, she wasted no time in wrapping him in her arms as if he were a life preserver in choppy waters. Cody, more curious about their new surroundings, returned the hug. Then squirmed when Maggie had a hard time letting go.
“Mom,” he whined. “You’re crushing me!”
Maggie laughed but didn’t pull away until she gave one more squeeze. She looked up when she was done and met Matt’s gaze through the open adjoining room door.
“I finally had a team.”
Matt broke the stare and let Maggie’s words echo one last time through his head as he took his bag to the bathroom to shower and change. He tried to coax his mind into going blank so he could enjoy the quiet, especially after everything that had happened. Everything he thought he’d known. Everything he’d learned. But the thoughts came hard and fast.
Ken Morrison might have killed Erin because of their mystery man with a moral code that included not killing women.
But why? What was the point? And what did it have to do with the list of names Maggie had found?
Matt let the hot water run across his face and down his body.
Erin.
The ache of loss started to spread. His fists balled. He’d already done this. He’d already fallen apart, felt destroyed and lost. He’d already done the horrible dance of burying a loved one. A wife.
It was hard but he’d tried his best to move on. He’d grieved. He still did in his own way when he was reminded of the once-little things that seemed so big and empty now. Whether it was the side of the bed that remained cold, the fact that the shampoo and soap in the shower were only his, or the at times startling realization that he’d never again see her use the chipped New Orleans mug he’d bought her on their honeymoon, Matt had tried his best to heal the ache. Or at least embrace it until it eased.
Now, though, how could he do what he always had if Erin’s death had been intentional?
Matt opened his hands. Thinking of Maggie, he pressed them together without lacing his fingers.
Equal. In sync.
They’d both lost someone they had hoped would be a partner for life.
Matt sighed into the steam.
The weight of exhaustion was finally starting to crush him. He finished his shower, dressed and sat down for the first time in what felt like days. The door between their rooms remained open.
Matt fell asleep to the sounds of laught
er between mother and son.
* * *
IT WAS SOMEWHERE between dreams and reality that an answer found its way into Matt’s head. He opened his eyes, blinking the sleep away, and felt a wave of disorientation. A dim light was in the distance but everything in his immediate area was dark. For a moment he forgot where he was and a sense of panic seized him.
A noise followed by subtle movement at his side turned that panic into action. He reached out and caught someone’s wrist. They tried to resist and soon he felt the weight of a body on his.
“What the heck, Matt?”
The voice and body pressed on top of his belonged to Maggie. He took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heart, and reached out toward the lamp on the nightstand. He remembered now where he was. But couldn’t imagine why Maggie was on top of him.
The light wasn’t great but it showed him a red-faced woman struggling to roll off him. It was distracting to say the least. Here he was trying to concentrate on reorienting himself and instead all he could seem to focus on was the heat of Maggie’s body pressed against him. Her curves and softness. Moving against him.
As swiftly as she’d fallen over, Matt realized he needed to focus on anything other than the woman or else she would know exactly what he thought of her body. What his body thought of her body.
“Maggie,” he whispered through gritted teeth. “Just roll over.”
“You act like that’s easy with the list of injuries and pain meds,” she bit back, sounding as irritated as he did. Though he doubted she was fighting her body’s responses as hard as he was at the moment. “Walking like five steps over here was difficult enough.”
Matt grunted to no one in particular and decided to move the woman himself. He tried to sit up and roll her over on her back next to him. His body went from registering desire to handling a wallop of pain. He winced but followed through on his original plan until Maggie was lying in the bed next to him instead of on top of him.
For a moment they were quiet, both catching their breath and waiting for their various pains to ebb.
Forgotten Pieces Page 11
