by Webb, Peggy
After Mrs. Vandergelding and the girls had left the rink, Adam grabbed Maggie’s hand and propelled her toward the door. His face was grim.
“Can’t you take a joke? Mrs. Vander-what’s-her- name looked like a snob whose balloon needed puncturing.”
“And you take on all stuffed shirts and snobs, right, Maggie?” He unlaced his skates and jerked them off his feet.
“Well, you needn’t be so huffy about it!” She flung her skates on the counter and grabbed her coat.
The December wind blasted them as they left the rink. “Mrs. Vandergelding may be a pain in the—”
“Adam!”
“...but her husband is one of my most valued customers.” He turned the key in the ignition and the Mercedes came to life. He swung the car onto Highway 6 and headed into Tupelo.
Maggie groaned. She’d done it again. If she lived to be a hundred, would she ever learn to look before she leaped? “I’m sorry, Adam.”
“It’s okay.” Only the hum of the engine and the swish of tires against pavement interrupted the silence. Gradually the tension eased out of Adam’s face, and he looked over at Maggie in the darkness. “It really is okay. There have been plenty of times when I’ve wanted to puncture Mrs. Vandergelding’s balloon. And, Maggie”—he grinned—”you do it with such pizzazz.”
Maggie smiled back. “Adam, can we stop at Finney’s? I need to console myself with food.”
“A chicken salad sandwich would be nice,” he agreed.
“I was thinking more in terms of a banana split with double fudge and gobs of whipped cream with nuts and two cherries on top.”
“It figures.”
o0o
Maggie watched Adam as he made his way across the crowded room toward her. After that blooper she’d pulled at the skating rink last night, she still couldn’t believe she was actually here. But Adam was determined that she see hunting from the hunter’s point of view. Imagine. Maggie Merriweather at a duck hunters’ banquet! Not that it would change her mind, of course. No matter how much she admired Adam or how much her heart pounded at the sight of his handsome face—and, oh. Lord, he was devastating as he moved toward her—she would never understand the hunter’s point of view.
“Somebody said you are Maggie Merriweather.” A beefy jowled man thrust his red face toward Maggie and spoke belligerently. “Women ought to stay out of a man’s affairs.” He glared at her and then took another big gulp of bourbon. “My wife knows her place,” he said proudly.
“How often do you let her out of the cage?” Maggie spoke in such honeyed tones she could have sweetened every glass of tea at the banquet. What she really wanted to do was knock him back into the dark ages where he belonged.
The man’s red face got even redder. “Somebody ought to teach you a lesson,” he sputtered.
Suddenly Adam appeared behind the man. With a swiftness that made Maggie’s detractor spill his drink over his shirt, Adam gripped the man’s arm and pulled him away from her. His face was hard as a piece of flint. “George, I hope you have made my guest welcome.” He pronounced “my guest” as if it were a title given by a powerful monarch.
“You brought her?” George turned a disbelieving face toward Adam.
“Yes. Negotiation is better than confrontation. Don’t you agree?” Adam’s face dared George to take issue.
George looked from the stunning activist in the white wool dress to the banker with the barely controlled anger. “I need another drink,” he muttered as he slunk away.
“I apologize, Maggie,” Adam told her after the man left. “I had hoped that sort of behavior wouldn’t occur tonight. I want you to get a good impression of our group of duck hunters.”
Maggie took the drink he held out to her. “You have nothing to apologize for, Adam,” she said. Except for being so devastatingly wonderful, he made her cause dim around the edges. She took a deep breath to steady herself. It had been like that ever since Adam had picked her up at her cottage that evening. He made her feel as if she were on a runaway roller coaster, hurtling through space to an unknown destination.
Adam smiled. “You’re a trouper, Maggie.” He took her arm. “Let’s find our seats. I think they’re getting ready to serve the meal.”
They made slow progress across the crowded room to the banquet table.
Steaming platters of boiled shrimp shipped up from the Gulf vied for space on the groaning table with deep-fried crab claws, seafood gumbo, and a dish that looked suspiciously like frog legs.
“That’s not what I think it is”—Maggie nodded at the platters of fried frog legs—”is it, Adam?” She wrinkled her nose in distaste.
“Don’t tell me you are personal friends with frogs, too.” Adam looked at her and laughed.
“They look like they still ought to be on the creek bank belly-flopping, or whatever they do.”
“How do you feel about shrimp?”
“Somehow I could never get personally involved with anything as ugly as a shrimp.”
“Good. I’d hate for you to waste away to nothing just because I brought you to the WI banquet.”
“Did somebody say ‘waste away’? With all that food?” Maggie and Adam turned to see a handsome young couple standing behind them. “It’s been a long time, Trent.” The lanky, sandy-haired man stuck out his hand.
“Harold Ryan!” Adam took the man’s hand in a firm grip. “And Anna!” Turning to Maggie, he made the introductions.
Anna Ryan’s white teeth flashed in her pert, freckled face as she smiled at Maggie. “I’ve heard so much about you. I’ve always admired women who fight for what they believe in.”
“Considering the nature of my cause, I never expected to hear that here tonight.”
“I hope you’ll hear other things that will surprise you.” Anna smiled warmly. “We’re not such a bad lot.”
Maggie glanced at Adam’s handsome profile and back at the Ryans. They certainly weren’t, she thought. Not bad at all.
The four of them sat down at a table and were joined by Mr. and Mrs. Rayford Sanburn Smith III. While Mrs. Smith held the floor with a monologue about her latest redecorating, she studied Maggie through narrowed eyes. She had heard about the younger woman at the beauty shop.
“Tell me, dear,” she said when she had finished her recital. “Don’t you have anything better to do than run around the country protesting?”
Maggie looked her squarely in the eye. “No, Mrs. Smith. I’m a garden club reject. I have to fill my lonely hours with something.”
“Bravo, Maggie,” Adam whispered into her ear.
Anna Ryan tapped her fork against her water glass. “Hear, hear!” she said, and grinned at Maggie. Harold Ryan winked at her.
“Well, my Rayford wouldn’t allow me to make a fool of myself like that,” Mrs. Smith said with a sniff.
“It must be stultifying to require his permission for everything, Mrs. Smith.” Maggie dunked her shrimp into the tartar sauce and continued matter-of-factly. “You have my sympathy.” She felt only slightly wicked for having bared her claws.
Adam touched her arm in a brief gesture of reassurance and support. Maggie smiled at him. He had been right that day in his office. He was human. Knowing that deepened her dilemma. She was already teetering on the brink of a precipice where Adam was concerned. She didn’t need much encouragement to tip her over the edge.
Harold Ryan came to Maggie’s defense. “I admire a spunky woman. Maggie’s not a monster just because she disagrees with us.”
“Right,” Anna added.
Mrs. Smith’s face was a thundercloud, and as she opened her mouth to speak, Adam deftly stepped in and turned the conversation away from Maggie and her activities.
Maggie gazed at his strong profile, and a lump formed in her throat. Her mind only half followed the conversation that swirled around her. Tonight’s banquet was not, after all, a matter of principle. It was a matter of the heart. The seafood gumbo turned to sawdust in her mouth.
She glanc
ed sideways at Adam. His incredible smile was turned in Anna Ryan’s direction. The man had more than his share of charm. And he probably knew it. Were all his charm and compassion just a part of his scheme to get under her skin, to “tame” her? Maggie told herself stoutly that she hoped so. Life would be so much simpler if that were true. She stiffened her spine and mentally geared herself for battle, but the gumbo still tasted like sawdust, and somewhere deep inside her a small, glowing flame refused to be extinguished.
A balding man with a paunch stood behind the podium at the head table and rapped his gavel.
“The auction is about to begin,” Adam whispered as he leaned over to Maggie. He pulled his chair away from the table so that he could get a better view of the podium. The maneuver positioned his chair only inches from Maggie, so that his right thigh brushed intimately against her left leg.
Was the move calculated? Even if not, it was so dreadfully disconcerting that Maggie had a hard time following the speaker’s words.
“Before we begin the auction,” the man at the podium began, “I want to thank all of you for supporting Waterfowls, Incorporated. As you know, the money we raise provides breeding grounds for many species of ducks, breeds that were being killed at an alarming rate in the early nineteen hundreds, until we stepped in. As hunters, we can be proud of our conservation efforts. Our hunting controls the duck population so that it doesn’t grow too big for the breeding grounds to support it, and our money furnishes a place for them to breed safely. And now, without further ado, let’s see how much money we can raise this year.” He held up a large limited-edition print of a covey of quail. “What am I bid for this Jewel?”
Adam spoke quietly in Maggie’s ear. “Now do you believe me?”
“Who was killing all the ducks in the first place?” she hissed. She had not known that WI worked to save the duck population, but she still doubted that they did it out of any real concern for the well being of the ducks.
The auction moved quickly as people bid for the limited edition prints of pictures painted by some of America’s leading wildlife artists. Adam paid an outrageous sum for a beautiful print of bufflehead ducks on a lake covered in morning mists. He obviously didn’t have to pinch pennies the way schoolteachers did. She admired the print and was totally unconscious of how Adam watched her eyes sparkle as she heaped sincere praise on the picture and the artist.
After the auction was over, Adam took Maggie’s elbow and steered her through the crowd. He went the long way around the room to avoid further contact with Maggie’s detractors. Or was it so that he could prolong the time Maggie’s back was crushed against his chest as they were buffeted by the crowd? She wasn’t sure, but in either case it was disconcerting.
She held her breath as they stepped out into the cold December night. Now he would let go and she could breathe again. But it was not so. Adam moved his hand down to her waist as they walked toward his car. The dim lights of the parking lot cast an eerie glow on her white dress, and Adam’s hand looked darkly foreign as it rested there. Maggie wondered if he could hear her heart pounding, and then swiftly decided that of course he knew her heart was pounding, because he was so outrageously handsome that he was accustomed to having a whole gaggle of females with pounding hearts following him around dark parking lots. She heaved a ragged sigh and feared for her sanity.
As she climbed into the car, she wondered what the statistics were on gorgeous bankers driving slightly reckless second-grade teachers insane.
Maggie curled up as far away from Adam as possible on her side of the car. Not that it mattered. Two feet away didn’t make him look any less handsome or feel any less devastating. Thank goodness he liked to drive in silence. Coherent speech was beyond her at the moment. With a sense of shock, Maggie realized that having this man’s hand on her waist made her feel like a blushing teenager. The absurdity of it would have made her laugh if she hadn’t been so alarmed. And now what, Maggie Merriweather?
Sounds of Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas” filled the car as the Mercedes glided toward Belden. The disc jockeys in Tupelo were fond of playing records by their most famous native son, and at least three times a day during the Christmas season, Elvis could be heard crooning the song.
The gravel on Maggie’s driveway crunched under Adam’s tires, and silence filled the car after he cut the engine.
Maggie reached for her door handle and spoke over her shoulder. “Thanks for inviting me. Good night, Adam.”
“Not so fast.” His hand snaked out to catch her waist and drag her back across the seat.
She turned a startled face up to him and looked into his blazing blue eyes. “What are you doing?” she yelped. “We’re not kids on prom night.”
Adam threw back his head and roared with laughter. Maggie was thrown completely off balance by his odd behavior. And being off balance made her huffy. “I don’t see what’s so funny?”
“What did you think I was going to do, maul you in the car?” Adam was still chuckling. “You forgot your coat, Maggie,” he finally explained.
It was not news to Maggie. She was always forgetting something. “For that you had to drag me back caveman-style?”
“I’ve learned to act fast around you. You were going to bail out of my car and leave me shivering out here in the cold, dying for lack of a little hot tea, while you slammed the door in my face.” He put on such a mournful expression that Maggie laughed.
“Idiot,” she chided him. “Come on in.” She was still laughing as she opened her door. “What some men will do for a cup of tea.”
Adam tossed his overcoat onto Maggie’s sofa, and she noticed that he was carrying the print of the bufflehead ducks in his hands. Raising her eyebrows in puzzlement, she walked into her kitchen to put the water on to boil. She turned the heat under the copper teapot up to medium high and rejoined Adam.
He was standing in the middle of the den, holding the print in his hands and assessing the room. He turned when she walked in. “Do you have a hammer and nails?”
“What do you intend to do? Crucify me?” she skirted around Adam and sat on the sofa next to his coat. Her hand absently reached out to smooth a wrinkle from the sleeve. The fabric felt rough and tweedy and very masculine to her touch.
“I can assure you, ma’am, my intentions are entirely honorable.” He winked at her. “I think this print would be perfect over the mantel. What do you think?”
The impact of what he was saying hit her. Surely he did not intend to give her the print? Accepting such an expensive gift from Adam was out of the question. She pretended not to understand his meaning. “I’m not familiar with your house, so I have no idea whether the print would look good over your mantel.”
“Your mantel, Maggie,” he corrected her. “The print is my way of apologizing for the boorish conduct of a few people tonight. I did not intend the W1 banquet to be an inquisition for you.”
“I believe you, Adam.” And it was true; she did believe him. While she certainly didn’t approve of his hunting, she had spent enough time with him to know that he was not mean-spirited. “You’re not responsible for their conduct, but I still cannot accept your gift.”
“Why not? Surely you don’t still believe that when a lady accepts a gift from a gentleman she is beholden to him?” His mouth was turned up at the corners in amusement.
Maggie laughed in spite of herself. “Beholden? That’s quite an old fashioned word. I haven’t heard it since I was five.”
“An old-fashioned word to go with old fashioned notions. Where’s the hammer, Maggie?”
“You haven’t heard a word I said. I can’t possibly accept such an expensive gift.” Maybe accepting the gift wouldn’t make her “beholden” to Adam, but having it hanging on her wall would be a constant reminder of him. She didn’t need that.
“The proper response is ‘thank you.’ Where are your manners?” The words were spoken lightly, but there was steely determination in his voice. Adam walked to the mantel and held the pic
ture against the wallpaper. The warm, subtle tints of the print looked perfect with Maggie’s Williamsburg wallpaper.
“Adam,” Maggie protested.
“Maggie,” he said firmly. “The hammer.” His blue eyes won her over to his will.
Maggie rose from the sofa. “I really shouldn’t, but I do love the print, Adam. Thank you.”
He grinned triumphantly as she went to the kitchen to get the hammer and nails. Returning to the den, she walked over to the fireplace and climbed up on the hearth. “Where shall I put the nail? Hold the picture up here, Adam.”
Adam moved behind her and reached his arms around her on either side, holding the print in front of them both. Maggie was extremely conscious of his nearness and hoped that she wouldn’t pound the nail through her hand.
“I would offer to drive the nail, but then I would be up there and you would be down here,” Adam murmured behind her. He moved closer, so that his chest was pressed into her back and his arms were touching the length of hers. “I like it better this way.”
Maggie’s hands shook as she aimed the hammer. Picture-hanging had never been so disturbing. She rapped the nail lightly, and it sank into the wall. It was a good thing he couldn’t see her face. She was probably moony-eyed and frothing at the mouth. “I know where the picture goes now. You can move back.”
Adam didn’t move an inch. “And miss all the fun?”
Maggie tapped the hammer harder than she meant to, driving the nail completely into the wall. Muttering to herself, she used the claw end to pull the nail back out. With Adam standing back there making her hotter than fireworks on the Fourth of July, it was a wonder she hadn’t driven the nail clear to Tupelo. “There. That should do it.”
Without a word, Adam hung the picture. The silence in the room was palpable. Maggie held her breath, waiting for him to step back and view their handiwork. But he still stood behind her, holding his arms around her and leaning lightly against her back.
