Taming Maggie

by Webb, Peggy

Was it only this morning that she had decided to forget him? Oh, Lord! She moved away from his hand and tried to find her place in the pageant script.

  Up front, her students were totally engrossed in the play, oblivious to the goings on in the back of the room between Mr. and Miz. Meweweaver, who were mostly hidden from view by the Christmas tree.

  “Maggie.” he chided her, “is that any way to talk to an enemy?” The sparkle in his eyes told her that he was enjoying every minute of the devilment he was causing. “After all, it is the Christmas season. What do you say we call a truce?”

  “The last time we called a truce, I ended up being the whipping boy at your hunters’ banquet. You’ve wasted your time if you came here just to call a truce with me.”

  “Well, actually,” he drawled, “I came here to bed you. But I don’t cotton to the idea of having such a large audience. Do you?” He grinned wickedly.

  “Barbarian!” she hissed. Where had she ever gotten the idea that he was lovable? He was the devil in disguise.

  The light of battle gleamed in his eyes. “We started something the other night that has to be finished.”

  “Never!” she whispered harshly. “Go away.”

  “You’ll change your mind, Maggie.” He had the audacity to chuckle.

  “Not till hell freezes over.”

  His arm shot out, pulling her tight against him. His kiss was brief but savage. “You’d be surprised how fast hell can freeze over in Tupelo.”

  Without another word he rounded the tree and walked out the door.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  With his parting words still ringing in her ears and her heart thudding against her ribs, Maggie tried to find her place in the pageant script. Little Melanie Roscoe was loudly announcing that she would “plunder those things in her heart.”

  Her eyes followed the words, but her mind flew restlessly back and forth between the present and the immediate past, between her classroom and Adam. Their meetings had taken on a pattern: casual greetings quickly advanced to unleashed passion, which signaled retreat and verbal scrimmaging. It all resembled some ancient ritual. Her fingers quivered on the lines of the script as she tried to concentrate on the play. Was it a mating ritual? Were she and Adam like the animals who bared their claws and spurned one another before they mated? Maggie’s cheeks grew hot at the idea. Her relationship with him had become far more complicated than simply that of hunter and preservationist.

  “Miz Meweweaver. We is finished. What do we do now?”

  Maggie snapped out of her deep thought. “Are,” she corrected automatically. Thankful for the cover of the Christmas tree, she pulled herself together before she walked to the front of her room. For the first time in her teaching career, she didn’t want to confront the lively, curious faces of her second-graders. She wanted to disappear into the woods with her trumpet and go into battle for her wild friends, free and unfettered by thoughts of Adam Trent. She wanted the two halves of herself to come together so that she was not a divided woman, torn between Adam and commitment to her cause. But most of all, she wanted Adam. She wanted him so fiercely that her teeth were clenched, making her jaw rigid as she faced her students.

  The rest of the day seemed to creep by, so that Maggie was worn to a frazzle when the dismissal bell finally rang. Her usual brisk stride slowed to a crawl as she left the school building and walked to her pickup truck. The sharp December wind stung her cheeks and made her eyes smart. She shivered and pulled her toboggan cap low over her eyes. The sky was murky and dismal. She glanced up at the gray cloud banks, stacked like dirty cotton and moving slowly across the face of the sun. All that dreariness suited her perfectly. Why should the sun shine when she felt so rotten?

  Her dogs greeted her with joyous barks and followed her into her warm den. Maggie struck a match to the logs she had placed in the fireplace. The wood hissed and sputtered as the fire caught. Kneeling before the flames, she extended her hands toward the fire. With her dogs lying contentedly on the braided hearth rug beside her and the fire creating a cheery glow in the room, some warmth gradually crept into Maggie’s soul. Being surrounded by familiar things always made her feel better.

  She sat back on her heels. Even if she and Adam were involved in some ancient love rite, she still had the prerogative of stopping it. The choice was hers. It would always be hers.

  The raucous ringing of both the phone and the doorbell interrupted Maggie’s solitude. Knowing that she couldn’t answer both at the same time, she raced to the phone, picked up the receiver, and yelled in the direction of the door. “Come in!”

  Jim Merriweather walked through the door, and Maggie waved him over to the sofa.

  “If that’s an invitation, I accept.” Amusement was evident in Adam Trent’s voice.

  Maggie looked at the phone as if she wanted to kill it. Adam was the last person in the world she wanted to talk to. “Not you,” she said sharply. “My brother just walked through the door. Hello, Adam.” She hoped her voice was sufficiently dripping with icicles to discourage him. “Please be brief.”

  “I called to invite you to go hunting with me.”

  “You must be out of your mind.”

  Jim Merriweather raised dark brows over green eyes that crinkled with mirth at the corners. Interlacing his long fingers behind his head, he winked at his sister. “Go get ‘em, Maggie.”

  “Don’t tell me you went to all that trouble to get a permit and don’t intend to use it.”

  Maggie grinned with delight. Her little scheme with the nursing-home residents had paid off. What was more, she could tell that Adam wasn’t too happy with the results. “You can mark that on the scoreboard. One for me, zero for you.”

  “Are we keeping score, Maggie?” His voice was scathing. “If I had known that, perhaps I could have put something on the scoreboard for last Friday night. One for me and one for you. A standoff.”

  For a moment, all the intensity of the emotions she had felt that night on the sofa swept over Maggie. A standoff. Had it been that, or just another phase of the mating rites? A knot of uncertainty formed in her stomach, and she had to clear her throat before she could speak. “There’s always a score in battle, Adam. A winner and a loser. I don’t intend to lose.”

  “Neither do I.” The way he said it made her shiver. Were they talking about the same battle?

  Jim was sitting forward on the sofa, his lively green eyes dancing with excitement as he cheered his sister on. He had been out of town, buying cattle for his farm, and had no idea what particular cause Maggie was fighting for now. But, knowing her, he was sure that she was up to her feisty little neck in trouble.

  Maggie threw a look at her brother, pleading for moral support. Jim winked at her and made the victory sign with his fingers.

  “Tell me, Adam, do I know any of the other recipients of the hunting permits? We are talking about antlerless deer season, aren’t we?”

  “You know damned well that’s what we’re talking about. How do these names grab you? Emma Vinson and Fannie Mae Clark.”

  Maggie was so pleased with the success of her venture that she laughed aloud. “That’s wonderful!”

  “I would say it’s just short of illegal, Maggie, stuffing boxes like that.” There was a slight pause. “That is what you did, isn’t it?”

  “I never reveal my battle tactics, even after the battle is won.”

  “So we’re back to that.” The sound that came over the phone was very much akin to an exasperated sigh. “Have you ever considered what it would be like between us if you lowered the banner and just let things take their natural course?”

  She had considered it until she was frazzled from the effort. But lengthy consideration did nothing to change the facts, and she knew it. They had basic philosophical differences that could not be resolved. There was no point in admitting that to Adam, though. He had never said a thing about love, had probably never spent a sleepless night wanting her. His only admitted interest was working to thwart her cause b
y taming her. And that included his latest avowed intention of bedding her.

  “I’ll never lower the banner, Adam.”

  “We’ll see about that, Maggie.”

  The dead receiver buzzed in her hand. He had hung up. She stood clutching the receiver until her knuckles were white. She felt as if she had been run through a meat grinder.

  Replacing the receiver, she turned to her brother and held out her arms. He bounded over and scooped her up for a bear hug.

  Her voice was muffled against his shoulder. “When did you get back?”

  “Late last night. It was a heck of a trip, with the cattle I bought bawling all the way home from Texas, and a blowout near Jackson that darned near caused me to wreck the truck.” He set her on her feet and pulled her down beside him on the sofa. “What was that all about?” He nodded in the direction of the phone.

  “You heard?”

  “How could I help it, Sis? I was sitting right here.”

  Maggie raked her hand through her long hair and leaned her head against the back of the sofa. Of course he had heard. That was how messed up her mind had been ever since she’d met Adam Trent.

  “You know about FOA. The man on the other end of the phone was a hunter.”

  “Come on, Maggie. This is your brother you’re talking to. From the way you were acting, I’d say the man on the other end of the phone is much more than just a hunter.” Jim lifted his tall frame from the sofa. “Got any coffee around here, Maggie?”

  “If I had known you were coming I would have bought some on the way home from school. Sorry about that. Just tea.” Jim was right about Adam’s being more than just a hunter. But then, he had always been able to read her like a book. Even when they were kids he’d been able to read her moods more quickly than Dad.

  Jim walked to the fireplace and leaned against the mantel. “When are you going to start keeping a man’s drink around here?” He always said that, and his lazy smile told her that, as usual, he was just teasing.

  Standing against the mantel, her brother looked relaxed and casual. Maggie began to hope that he had lost interest in her phone conversation.

  She should have known better. “You didn’t tell me about the man, Sis.” The look he gave her was a penetrating one.

  Maggie sighed. She had never lied to Jim, and didn’t plan to start now. “The man is Adam Trent, and he gets under my skin the way no man ever has. But he’s a hunter, and that spoils everything.”

  Jim let out a low whistle. “I’m sorry, Maggie. What rotten luck.”

  “Oh, Jim,” she said with a wail. “What am I going to do? I’ve fought this thing until I’m sick and tired of fighting. I just can’t reconcile myself to being halfway in love with a man who hunts.”

  “Halfway?”

  “I don’t know, Jim. I just don’t know.” She jumped up from the sofa and came to join him beside the fire. The conflict was evident in her turbulent green eyes. “What am I going to do?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t advise you about love, Sis. My track record in that department is not too good. Fell in love with Jenny Lou Davis when I was sixteen, and she turned out to be the town tart. It broke my heart so bad I just gave up.” He grinned sheepishly. Maybe a little foolishness would lighten Maggie’s mood, he thought.

  Maggie knew what he was doing. He had always been able to tease her out of the doldrums. But not this time. “A lot of help you are,” she scoffed.

  Jim turned serious. “I wish to heck I could help you. I’ve never seen you this worked up. Not even when Mac dumped you.”

  Maggie punched him lightly on the arm. “Thanks, I needed that. Don’t you know, you big oaf, a girl doesn’t like to be reminded that she was jilted?”

  Taking both her hands between his work roughened farmer’s hands, Jim looked into her eyes. “All I know, Sis, is that you have to be true to yourself. You’ve never quit paddling in midstream, and I can’t imagine you doing that now. Why, ever since we were kids and you used to come crying home to Dad, clutching a bird with a broken wing in your hands, you’ve fought and spit and scratched for the animals.” He squeezed her hands warmly between his.

  Maggie shut her eyes against the tears that were threatening to spill. How she loved her brother! She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. “What do you say the two of us run up to Bill’s Quick Stop and get a jar of instant coffee?”

  “Make that a can of the real stuff and you’re on.” Jim released her hands and grabbed his plaid wool coat. “I’m driving, Maggie,” he announced as they walked side by side out the door. “You drive like a bat out of hell.”

  Jim stayed for supper, and by the time he left, Maggie was feeling considerably better. Her brother’s unfailing good humor, as he sat in her den downing cups of real coffee and spinning anecdotes about his Texas cattle buying trip, put her problems with Adam in their proper perspective.

  o0o

  The bounce returned to Maggie’s step, and she was so caught up in the hectic pace of school as they prepared to recess for Christmas vacation that she was able to dismiss Adam from her mind. Except when she looked at the tree. At odd moments, she would catch herself staring at the lopsided angel perched among the cedar branches. And then she would close her eyes, trying without success to shut him out.

  The day school was dismissed for the holidays, Maggie stood in the middle of her empty classroom and wondered what she would do for the next two weeks. Time had never hung heavy on her hands before, but now she felt a driving need to be busy. To be so busy that she could blot out everything that had happened between her and Adam.

  Martha Jo was going to Aspen on a ski trip, her dad was taking a senior citizens’ Christmas cruise, and Jim was busy with his farm. She roamed restlessly through her house for two days, swiping at specks of dust hidden behind her porcelain animal collection and scrubbing her bathroom tiles until they gleamed. She rifled through a stack of books she had intended to read when she had time, but now that she had time, she found she had lost interest.

  She felt suspended on the edge of time, waiting for something to happen. Finally she could stand it no longer. She poured a week’s supply of dog food into the pet food dispenser, filled the pet’s water dispenser to the top, scattered plenty of shelled corn for her ducks, and bundled herself up in a pair of scruffy old army fatigues, a wool plaid shirt, and her puffy parka. Pulling her toboggan cap down low, she grabbed her trumpet case and headed for her pickup.

  The cold engine choked and died, sputtered and caught, and Maggie sat on the seat filled with exhilaration. She didn’t have any idea where she was going; she only knew that she was going somewhere and going to do something, even if it was the wrong thing. She patted the horn case beside her reassuringly and screeched out of her driveway.

  She clipped down McCullough Boulevard, past Bill’s Quick Stop, past the Belden Post Office, and past the new truck stop that sprawled across a barren hill. Chimes from the Belden Baptist Church tower rang out the glorious season as Maggie made a left turn onto Highway 78. She leaned over and flipped on the radio as she was passing Payne’s Fish and Steak House in Sherman, then drove onward, tapping time to the music on her steering wheel and humming.

  By the time she reached New Albany and had turned left onto Highway 30, Maggie knew that she was headed into Tallahatchie River bottom. She reached over and touched her trumpet case. “Like Jim said, I don’t quit paddling in the middle of the stream.” The sound of her own voice gave her a sense of purpose. She was headed into the woods to foil the hunters. And that was all. Certain dark haired, blue eyed bankers didn’t enter into this matter at all.

  That was what Maggie was still telling herself fifteen miles later, when the weatherman interrupted the music to warn travelers of an approaching snowstorm. “It looks like a big one,” he said excitedly. “If this thing develops, it could outdo the snow we had in ‘seventy-five.”

  Maggie smiled. Weathermen in the South were always getting worked up over snow. Nine times out of ten it ne
ver came, and when it did, the few pitiful snowflakes that barely wet the hoods of cars could hardly be called a snow. Big snows were as rare as hen’s teeth down South. That was why, when they did come, Southerners were always unprepared.

  The pine thickets of Holly Springs National Forest loomed ahead, and Maggie felt a sense of excitement as she neared the river. The gravel road was mushy from recent rains, and Maggie’s tires slipped to the left. Fighting with the wheel and muttering under her breath, she came around the bend to the river. Her brakes squealed in protest as she whirled off the road and stopped.

  When she stepped down from her truck, the cold wind hit her with a blast that made her teeth chatter. She had forgotten her gloves, so she jammed her hands into her pockets as she walked along the riverbank to see what was going on. There were no sounds—no popping of guns, no honking of ducks, nothing except the gentle sighing of pine boughs in the wind.

  She squatted on her heels and waited. Thirty minutes later, with her nose turned red and her feet nearly frozen, she walked back to her truck. Gratefully she climbed into the cab, turned the key, and put the pickup in reverse. Her tires spun with a sluggish, muddy sound.

  Maggie bailed out to see her rear tires sunk almost to the axle in mud. “Shoot.” She dragged some fallen branches under the tires and tried once more to back out. The same ominous whirring greeted her efforts.

  She jumped down and glared at the mess. “Of all the rotten luck.” She lifted her leg and kicked the tires in sheer frustration.

  “I don’t think that will do any good, Maggie.”

  She whirled around to see Adam standing at the edge of the forest, under a huge cottonwood tree, his gun unbreached and slung over his shoulder. She could have spit nails. “I don’t need any advice from you,” she snapped.

  He grinned. “You need more than advice. You need help.” He sauntered casually toward her, his buckskin coat unsnapped and swinging away from his trim-fitting jeans in a way that made Maggie’s mouth go dry. He noticed the direction her eyes were looking, and his grin got even bigger.