Dear Maggie

by Brenda Novak

  “I was thinking of something like Truth or Dare,” he said with a chuckle. “Doesn’t require any props and it can be very interesting, depending on who you’re playing with.”

  Maggie rolled her eyes. “I’d be crazy to play that with you.”

  “Why? Got a few skeletons in your closet?”

  “No, I just don’t feel like doing anything stupid. Eating coffee grounds or something.”

  He scowled. “Eating coffee grounds is something a twelve-year-old would think of. I can tell you haven’t played this game for a while.”

  “And you have?”

  “No, but I can think of more exciting things to have you do than eat coffee grounds.”

  Maggie felt an unexpected tingle go up her spine at the thought of what some of those things might be. “I think that might be the problem,” she admitted.

  “I’m hurt you don’t trust me.”

  “Why should I trust you? I barely know you.”

  He pushed away from the partition to steal a chair from the cubicle next to Maggie’s so he could sit down. “That’s the beauty of this game. It’ll help us get to know each other. Come on, I’ll let you go first.”

  Maggie regarded his six-foot-plus length folded in the chair beside her, long legs stretched out in front of him. Where was he going with this?

  Wherever it was, she wasn’t sleepy anymore. She had to give him points for effectiveness.

  “Okay,” she said, unable to resist the opportunity to have him at her mercy, “truth or dare?”

  He pursed his lips and held her gaze. “Truth.”

  “Why did you ask me out a couple of weeks ago?”

  “Isn’t that obvious?”

  “No. There are a lot of women in this office. Why me?”

  “Because you’re beautiful and driven and a little shy. I like the combination.”

  Maggie tried that on for size. It was a far cry from some of the things she’d been called in high school. Even though twelve years had passed since those days, she sometimes found it hard to rid her head of the echo. “Wow,” she said. “Okay. Maybe this game is going to be fun.”

  He laughed. “Except that now it’s my turn. Truth or dare?”

  Maggie tucked her hair behind her ears, stalling. Truth was always safer, wasn’t it? “Truth.”

  “Why did you turn me down?”

  “Um, you’re not my type.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “You said yourself you barely know me. How do you know what type I am?”

  “From hard experience.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing. Anyway, I have a son.”

  “And you have a wall of pictures to prove it. Your point is?”

  “I’m not interested in the type of relationships you are.”

  He stiffened in surprise. “What kind of relationships am I interested in?”

  “Never mind.”

  “No, I’d like to hear your take on this.”

  “I’m just saying you’re probably used to certain…activities with the women you date, and…and I’m really not that type, and…um…never mind. Your turn’s over. Truth or dare?”

  “I’m not sure I want to let that go, but I’m not sure I want you to elaborate, either, so…truth.”

  “How many women have you had sex with?”

  “What?”

  “I think the answer to this question will explain what I mean about your type of relationships.”

  “Can I change to dare?”

  She smiled smugly. “Nope.”

  “Well, I’m not as reckless as I used to be, and I don’t think the distant past should count against me.”

  “Just answer the question. This was your idea, remember?”

  “Come on. Let’s limit it to the recent past. I’m not the same now as I was say, ten years ago.”

  “Okay. How many in the past three years?”

  “One.”

  “Liar.”

  “It’s the truth!”

  “Maybe in the past three months,” she grumbled.

  “Uh, uh, uh, that’s not nice,” he said, wagging his finger at her. “And it’s my turn, thank heaven. Truth or dare?”

  “Truth.”

  “Again? What a chicken.”

  Maggie folded her arms across her chest. “You’ve chosen truth every time yourself.”

  “Okay, fine. Answer this: if you did agree to go out with me, where would you want to go?”

  “You’re setting me up, aren’t you?”

  He brought a hand to his chest. “Me? Of course not. I can respect no. I’m just saying, ‘what if?’”

  “Do I have to be practical?”

  “No. That’s the beauty of this game. The only rule is that you tell the truth.”

  “Okay. Hawaii would be nice.”

  “Let’s see, it takes five hours to get there and five hours to get back, so if we’re going to see much of the islands, you’re definitely talking about spending at least a week together, right?”

  Maggie gulped, envisioning a long romantic getaway with the dangerous Nick Sorenson. “I was only teasing. I’d like to go water skiing at Lake Folsom—an all-day event. I haven’t been on a pair of skis since college. But you probably don’t own a boat.”

  “I could always rent one.”

  Maggie shook her head. She wasn’t going to fall for it. Nick might have charisma, in spades, but he had no f.p.—father potential—and f.p. was the only thing that mattered anymore.

  “Truth or dare,” she said.

  “After that last question, I think I’ll choose dare. I’d rather eat coffee grounds than list all my past exploits.”

  Maggie tapped her lip. “Let me think.” There were a lot of things she’d like to see Nick do—at this hour, having him take off his shirt sounded pretty appealing—but the fact that she’d even think of it told her she was getting punchy. “I dare you to sing me a song,” she said at last.

  He made a face. “Without music?”

  “There’s a radio here.”

  “What song?”

  She smiled. “I’ll let you choose.”

  He fiddled with the tuner and finally settled on a song by Savage Garden called “Truly Madly Deeply.” His voice wasn’t half-bad, but it was the way he looked at her as he sang, and the meaning behind the lyrics, that made an impact.

  “Actually, I think that backfired,” she admitted when he finished.

  He raised his brows. “You liked it that much?”

  “I liked it a little,” she said grudgingly.

  “Well, since I was such a good sport about embarrassing myself, maybe you’ll trust me enough to choose dare this time.”

  “I won’t sing,” she said.

  “I won’t pick that.”

  Maggie hesitated a moment. “You promise you’ll be kind?”

  “We’re friends now, aren’t we?”

  “That’s a loaded question.”

  “Come on.”

  “Okay, dare.” Maggie squeezed her eyes shut, knowing she wasn’t going to like what was coming.

  “I dare you to dance with me.”

  “Here?” she asked, staring around them. “We can’t dance in the office. There’s a security guard downstairs monitoring the closed-circuit televisions. He’d laugh his rear end off.”

  “I doubt old Ed’s awake enough to even notice. We’re the only ones here.”

  “There’s at least half a dozen others—”

  “—buried in the offices lining the perimeter. They won’t see us.”

  “They could poke their heads out at any time.”

  “I don’t think you’re worried about that. I think you’re scared of me. You have a problem with fear, you know that?”

  Maggie did know that, but she wasn’t about to admit it to Nick. “I work nights. I’m not afraid of anything.”

  “Then dance with me.” He scanned radio stations until he found one playing a slow ballad and turned to her expectantly.
<
br />   What would Darla say about this? Maggie wondered. For someone who’d decided to keep her distance from Nick Sorenson, she was getting awfully close.

  “A slow dance?” she asked.

  “Would you rather it be fast?”

  Maggie considered her lack of experience in that area and shook her head. “No.”

  “Okay, then come on.”

  Standing, she took a deep breath. The police scanners and their accompanying static left a lot to be desired as far as atmosphere, but something told her she was going to like being in Nick’s arms, regardless of what was happening around them.

  Maybe she’d be less affected if she kept a foot or so of space between them, she thought, but Nick quickly dispensed with that possibility when his hands slipped around her waist and he pulled her close. Maggie caught her breath and tried not to notice the solid chest pressed against her, the thigh muscles flexing against her legs as they moved slowly to the music.

  “Relax,” he murmured, and the moment she did, he settled her even more closely. “See, this isn’t so bad, is it?”

  Maggie could only shake her head. Her heart was beating too hard to let her speak. The smell of clean cotton and warm male made her want to bury her nose in Nick’s neck. Her fingers itched to find their way into his hair. How had he done this to her in the process of one night?

  “I don’t do casual sex,” she suddenly announced.

  He stopped abruptly, then said, “Good. Neither do I.”

  Maggie didn’t know where to go with that. She’d expected him to tease her about her prudish stance, or to play the innocent and pretend he didn’t know why she’d bring that up at this particular moment, but his answer seemed as honest and straightforward as her declaration had been. So she relaxed and simply let herself enjoy the dance.

  As the song ended, he drew back to look into her face. “Truth or dare?” he asked.

  His gaze slipped down to her lips before returning to her eyes, and Maggie knew better than to choose dare. She wasn’t sure she wanted to choose truth, either. “I don’t think it’s your turn.”

  “Truth or dare?” he repeated.

  Could she help it if her own eyes kept straying to his mouth? It was only inches away. If she tilted her head just right, he might bring his lips to hers and give her a sample of that raw masculinity Darla was always talking about. Maybe she could finally bury the pain of those years of rejection and take a page out of her best friend’s book, act bold and confident with men…

  “Truth,” she whispered, hanging on to her last shred of self-control.

  “What would you say if I asked you out again?”

  “Yes” hovered on the tip of her tongue. It was what she wanted to say. But then she remembered Zach and the f.p. factor. No matter what Nick said, he wasn’t the marrying type. She could feel it. “No,” she said. “I’m sort of involved with someone else.”

  He immediately released her and stepped back. “You are?”

  She nodded, feeling the loss of his body’s warmth in the air-conditioned room.

  “With who?” he asked.

  Maggie knew she was stretching here. But she needed some excuse. She couldn’t get involved with a guaranteed heartbreaker. “His name is John.”

  “John?” He blinked at her as though she’d suddenly grown two heads. “John who?”

  “You don’t know him,” she said. “I met him on the Internet.”

  GREAT! NOW HE WAS competing against himself.

  Nick sat at his desk, pretending to go over some paperwork, although in reality he was doing nothing more than wondering how he’d managed to strike out with Maggie again. The night had been going so well. Only minutes earlier, they’d been talking, laughing, dancing. He’d held her in his arms and felt the softness of her body molding perfectly to his. He’d easily recognized the signals she was sending—they told him he wasn’t alone in his attraction to her. Yet, when he’d gone for the close, she’d shot him down. Because of “John.”

  And he couldn’t even ask what “John” had that he didn’t!

  He heard Maggie on the phone in her small cubicle and realized she was checking in with the various police dispatchers. Just in case she missed something on the scanners, she made a series of calls every few hours.

  He glanced at his watch. Five o’clock. In another half hour or so, she’d gather her stuff and leave, and he’d have to rely on the Internet to keep tabs on her.

  Unless he created an opportunity for some “hands-on” protection.

  Shoving away from his desk, Nick took the escalator to the lobby, where Ed, the security guard, was sitting, half-asleep, at his perch. “Heading out for the night Mr. Sorenson?” he called, rousing himself enough to wave.

  “Just getting something from my truck,” Nick responded.

  Outside it was still dark. The streets were deserted. Maggie’s silver Toyota Camry sat in the lot alone beneath a yellow pool of fluorescent light not far from Nick’s truck. But even if the lot had been full, he’d have recognized it instantly. She’d insisted they take her car to the drive-by shooting; he’d been with her when she parked.

  He crossed the lot to his truck, just in case Ed had come to the glass doors to gaze after him. Then he curved around, keeping to the shadows until he was beside Maggie’s car.

  OH, NO! NOT TODAY. Not when she’d been up for twenty-one hours. Disheartened, Maggie stared at her lopsided car as she hurried across the lot, wondering at the extent of the damage. Located on the fringes of downtown, the Trib’s offices weren’t far from some of the rougher neighborhoods in the Sacramento metropolitan area, but Maggie had never had a problem. Until now. Had her stereo been taken? Had they broken the steering column in an attempt to steal the car itself?

  She peered around, wondering if perhaps she’d caught the perpetrator in the act, but she couldn’t see any movement. And she didn’t hear anything besides the occasional rumble of a passing car and the hum of the floodlights overhead. Still, she remembered Darla’s many warnings about walking to her car alone at night—remembered the body found in the Dumpster—and would have been frightened except she was too tired for fear. All she wanted to do was go home and sleep. Was that too much to ask?

  Evidently it was.

  The doors to her car were locked, the windows unbroken. Everything looked fine inside. The only problem seemed to be that two of her tires were flat, but that was enough to mean she wouldn’t be using it this morning.

  She sighed and gazed around the parking lot. Too exhausted to last, she’d cut out a half hour early, so no one from the next shift had arrived yet. But Nick was still in the office. His black four-by-four was angled carelessly in a space not far away—and she couldn’t help noticing there wasn’t a thing wrong with any of his tires.

  Of course it would have to be her car, she thought, retracing her steps to the building.

  “I thought you were on your way home,” Ed said, when he saw her.

  She passed through the metal detector and started up the escalator that ran between the first and second floors. “Someone vandalized my car. You didn’t see anyone suspicious hanging around tonight, did you?”

  The grooves in Ed’s lined face deepened. “Nope. You might ask Nick, though. He went out to his truck about a half hour ago.”

  Maybe that was why his truck hadn’t been touched. Maybe he’d scared away whoever it was. “Thanks,” Maggie said, and hopped off the escalator to find Nick at his desk going through some photos.

  “Back already?” he asked when he heard her approach.

  She frowned. “Someone let the air out of my tires. Can you believe it?”

  “No, jeez, that’s terrible. Did you happen to see if my truck’s okay?”

  “It’s fine. Ed said you went out a while ago. I was hoping maybe you saw something.”

  “Not a thing. But then I wasn’t really paying much attention.”

  “When I said goodbye a few minutes ago, you said you were planning to head home soon. I
s that still the case?”

  “Yeah.” He slid the pictures back into a manila envelope and placed them in a drawer he locked. “Want a ride?”

  “I’d really appreciate it,” she said. “I don’t live far from here.”

  A smile curved his lips. “No problem, but it’s going to cost you.”

  Maggie raised one brow. “I’m not playing any more Truth or Dare.”

  “This is more like ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine.’”

  Anything that physical had its pitfalls. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, now leery.

  “I drive you home and you make me breakfast. I’ll even come back later and get your car fixed up.” He winked. “Now that’s not a bad offer, eh?”

  Nick seemed to be the perfect antidote for fatigue. Just the thought of taking him home gave Maggie an energy spike. “I guess I can live with that,” she said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  MAGGIE’S HOUSE WAS A CLASSIC—sort of a run-down classic, but a classic all the same. Constructed completely of wood, with the kind of enduring craftsmanship that marked home-building at the turn of the century, it had a narrow yard with a small detached garage, five steps leading to a wide front porch, and tall heavy-paned windows. Some of the neighboring homes had been remodeled and turned into offices for attorneys, engineers or the like. Others had been divided into apartments. Maggie’s had probably escaped such a fate because it was a single story—not large enough for the apartment plan and not elaborate enough for someone with a lot of money to come in and restore, at least not with the idea of realizing a quick profit.

  But Nick could see why Maggie liked it. A person could do a lot with this house.

  He parked on the street and got out of his truck. Maggie came around the other side. The sun was just starting to gild the horizon with white-gold. Nothing moved, except for a few birds twittering in the trees overhead.

  “What time does Zach wake up?” he asked as they passed through a short wire gate and made their way to Maggie’s front door.

  “He seems to have an internal clock that knows the moment I get home. I’m sure we’ll be hearing from him soon.”