Driven To Distraction

by Judith Duncan

  Realizing she was doing a first-class job of depressing herself, Maggie released a sigh and unwound her legs. She would vacuum the downstairs and catch up on the laundry; then she was going to go outside and dig up the back flower bed like it had never been dug up before. Maybe some hard physical work would put things in perspective.

  Frank phoned just before lunch, needing some information. After spending fifteen minutes on the phone with him, she could not dredge up one more ounce of enthusiasm for any more work. Her house had never been so clean. Nor had she ever been such a coward. Her cleaning frenzy, she finally admitted, had nothing to do with cleanliness; it had everything to do with her new neighbor next door. Disgusted with herself and her adolescent behavior, she resolutely put on a pair of shorts that did nothing for her thighs, and headed outside. Enough was enough. This nonsense had to stop. And besides, she should have checked on that darned cat as soon as she got up.

  Captain Hook was not in his box; in fact, there wasn’t a trace of him anywhere. The food and water dishes were both empty, which salved her conscience a little. Still feeling guilty about the Captain, Maggie untangled the pitchfork from the jumble of garden tools in the corner and stomped outside. Surely she could dig up one lousy flower garden without making a big deal out of it.

  The garden was a big one, and by the time Maggie had finished digging it up, she had blisters on both hands and her shoulders, still sore from painting, felt as if they had spikes driven into them. Perspiration dampened her T-shirt and trickled down her temple, and she knew her face was red and sweaty from hard work. Feeling slightly weak in the knees, she washed her face and hands under the hose, relishing the coldness against her heated skin. She was going to need a twentyminute soak in the tub to get all the sweat and grime off.

  Attaching the sprinkler head to the hose, she set it in the center of the yard, then turned it on, making sure the fine spray hit the corners of the newly tilled garden. Wiping her hair off her face with her arm, she headed back to the house, experiencing some real satisfaction. All she had left to do in the yard was set out the bedding plants, and then she’d be finished with the most labor-intensive part of her spring work. The rest was just day-to-day upkeep, and that she enjoyed. Stopping on the deck, she hooked the heel of one battered shoe on the step and pulled it off, then did the same with the other. A bath. And then she’d make a batch of peanut-butter cookies for Kell. She looked up, pausing to survey her afternoon’s work, her gaze snagging on the sun deck of the trendy new infill directly across from her.

  La Goddess and Le God were out on Stevie’s deck tanning, their perfectly honed bodies gleaming with a fine film of oil, both of them lazy and catlike in the sun. Stevie, wearing a bright red bikini, was stretched out on her back on a padded tubular lounger, her blond hair wrapped in a towel, her arms extended above her head. Mitch was lying on his stomach in another lounger right beside her, his head turned toward his companion as he slowly stroked his hand up and down her body. When his fingers slipped under her bikini top, Stevie arched her back and stretched like a cat, pressing against his hand.

  A half-forgotten need coursed through Maggie and she whirled around and closed her eyes, pressing her forehead against the glass in the back door. An image of Tony Parnelli peeling off his T-shirt took shape in her mind, and her breath suddenly jammed in her chest. As if it were happening all over again, she remembered how it had felt when he’d gripped her wrist, trapping her hand against his rib cage when she had reacted to the claw marks on his chest. He had been so close. So close that she had felt the heat from his body. So close that she had seen the tiny flecks of gold in his eyes. So close.

  Her breasts suddenly tight and the lower part of her body heavy and throbbing, Maggie stifled a groan and pressed her head more firmly against the glass pane, trying to force some sense into it. She didn’t need this. And she damned well didn’t deserve it. She had kept anything the least bit erotic out of her life. She went to church once in a while. Her underwear was plain and practical. She hadn’t even looked at the firemen’s calendar that had all the mothers at the swim club running fevers. She’d been the model of discretion, damn it, and now this. She did not deserve this!

  Grinding her teeth, she straightened and yanked open the door. Damn Stevie and Mitch. Damn Tony Parnelli. Damn her own paranoia. It served her right for letting her imagination run wild and calling the cops.

  Slamming the door behind her, she turned and went downstairs to the game room. Yanking the cover off the competition-size pool table and tossing it on the floor, she banged the rack on the table and began jamming balls into it. She was going to deal with this insanity, one way or another.

  Removing the rack, she picked up the custom-made cue her father had given her for her sixteenth birthday and began roughly chalking the tip. Stuffing the chalk cube in her back pocket, she bent over, imagining her ex-husband’s face on each and every ball as she lined up for the break.

  The crack of the cue ball splintered the silence, and the colored balls exploded across the green baize surface. This was not going to be her usual game of strategy, form and finesse; this was going to be a billiards-style demolition derby. She hadn’t done a demolition run in a very, very long time.

  Maggie sat on the back deck, her arms locked around her upraised knees, her back braced against the aluminum siding. Hidden from view by the big honeysuckle bush at the west corner, she tried to concentrate on the vivid colors fading from the evening sky. Playing demolition derby hadn’t worked. A long hot soak in the tub hadn’t worked. Making peanut-butter cookies for Kell hadn’t worked. A terrible feeling of despair had swept over her halfway through the billiards thing, and she’d finally gone upstairs and had a damned good cry, which usually worked. Fifteen minutes of that kind of venting, and she could usually pick herself up and get on with it. But it wasn’t working this time. Not one damned bit. All she’d got out of it was a vicious headache, a plugged nose and puffy bags under her eyes.

  Wiping away another flood with a wadded-up tissue, she blew her nose and straightened her spine. Okay. This was it. She was being a big baby for letting this kind of self-pity take hold. She was going to stop it, and she was going to stop it right now. So what if there was no excitement in her humdrum existence. So what if she was feeling all alone. All right, so she had once thought maybe she’d get lucky and someone special would turn up in her life. That it hadn’t happened was not the end of world. Maybe she needed a hobby. Maybe she should take some course—like Spanish. She’d always wanted to learn Spanish. Maybe she should start doing things, like going to the museum, to art shows, to movies.

  The thought of trotting off by herself brought on another bout of tears, and she clamped her jaw against the brand-new ache in her throat, determined to put a stop to this foolishness. Kelly would probably be home from her baby-sitting job in a couple of hours, and Maggie was going to have herself back together by then or die trying.

  Tipping her head against the wall, she stared up at the sky, concentrating on the slashes of color on the undersides of the clouds. Maybe she was going about this all wrong. Maybe what she needed to get out from under the Class A downer was to face up to the feelings she’d stuffed away years before. Maybe she needed to lick her wounds, grieve a little for her lost youth and acknowledge the fact that life was not perfect. Maybe facing all those feelings would clear her system; it was damned obvious that trying to set them aside hadn’t worked.

  Maggie banged her head against the wall and took a deep, hopefully stabilizing breath. Okay. That’s what she would do. She’d join a self-help group. There had to be other forty-plus women who were in the same situation she was. Now there was something to really look forward to….

  Her eyes blurred again, and Maggie angrily ripped apart the tissue, looking for a dry spot, then wiped her eyes and blew her nose. Maybe she should go find her father’s bottle of Scotch, which was stuffed in the back of a cupboard somewhere, and just get drunk. That would really give Kelly a new le
vel of maturity to shoot for.

  “Hey, cat woman. How would you feel about sharing a pizza and some cold beer?”

  Shock snapped Maggie back to the real world, the rush making her stomach drop away to nothing. Tony Parnelli was standing on his side of the fence watching her, one elbow hooked over the wooden structure, a pizza box and a six-pack of beer resting on the cross beam. Horrified that he might have witnessed her pity party, Maggie found it was all she could do to drag up a weak smile.

  Hooking both elbows over the fence, he watched her through the gloom, then gave her a small, off-center grin. “Is that a yes or a no?”

  There was something about that smile that went straight to her heart, as if he expected her to brush him off. She’d always been a sucker for strays, and there was something about Tony Parnelli that was just a little too much like Captain Hook. Fighting the funny flutter in her chest and hoping he couldn’t see the shape her face was in, she put a little more energy into her smile. Determined to get this good-neighbor thing off on the right foot, she rested her elbow on her upraised knee, propping her head in her hand. “Do you even know the meaning of the word no?”

  His grin broadened, and before she could say anything he’d vaulted over the fence, sweeping up the pizza and beer as he landed on the other side. He walked toward her with that cocky swagger, grinning that grin that probably had landed him in all kinds of trouble. “Not nice, Burrows. You could hurt my feelings with comments like that. This is just a neighborly little fence crossing, that’s all.”

  Her head still propped in her hand, she watched him come up the deck steps, the fence-crossing comment lifting one corner of her mouth. “I think you and I need to have a talk about that fence, Parnelli,” she said, her tone pointed.

  He came over and sat down beside her, then stretched out his legs. Placing the beer on the decking beside him, he rested the pizza box on his lap. He shot her an amused glance, then opened the flap on the box, the hot, cheesy aroma making Maggie’s mouth water. He held the box toward her, giving her a bad-boy grin. There was an odd, provocative timbre in his voice when he spoke, almost as if he were offering a challenge. “You aren’t going to scold me, are you, Mag?”

  She held his gaze a moment, then took a piece of pizza, the funny flutter moving to her middle. Deciding she could easily get in over her head if she pursued the fence thing, she lifted the piece out, stretching the strings of cheese. Fighting a smile, she glanced at him. “You were never a good little altar boy, were you?”

  He chuckled and glanced at her, then helped himself to a slice. “You must play baseball, Burrows. You throw one hell of a curve ball.”

  Her mouth full, she restrained a grin. She was going to have to stay on her toes with this one. He threw a few curve balls himself.

  They ate in silence, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, and Maggie reevaluated the sky. She hadn’t noticed before what a truly beautiful sunset it was. Licking her fingers, she was about to wipe her hands on her jeans when Tony fished some paper napkins out of the back pocket of his jeans, handing her one. He gave her another wicked grin. “I always come prepared.”

  Maggie took the napkin from him, fighting another smile. She wasn’t going to touch that comment with a ten-foot pole. Wiping her fingers, she deliberately switched gears. “So tell me about your shop, Parnelli.”

  He set the pizza box on the deck and lifted up the six pack, then pulled one can free of the plastic rings, cracked the tab and handed it to her. He shrugged, opening a can for himself. “Not much to tell. My brother and I have been into cars since we were kids. I raced stock cars before I decided to get a real life and join the force.” He took a long swallow, then wedged the beer can between his thighs, leaning his head back against the side of the house. “I did it for the hell of it. Mario raced because it was inside him.” He shrugged again and looked down, running his thumb around the rim of the can. “He was good,” he said, his voice suddenly husky. “Damned good.”

  Watching his profile, Maggie spoke. “I told Kelly your brother used to race on the NASCAR circuit. She knew all about him. Said he was one of the top drivers.”

  Tony took another drink from the can, then wedged it back between his thighs. His face somber, he broke off the tab. “He was. But he was in a hell of a crash two years ago—a five-car pile-up. Another driver was killed, and it was touch and go with him for a while. He nearly lost one leg, and now he has to wear a brace on it, so that finished his career. But he’d socked away a stack of cash, so when I bailed out of the force, we started the business.” He lifted his head and looked at her, his expression unsmiling. “We’ve been pretty lucky—built a few winning engines for the track—so we decided to expand.”

  Sensing that he didn’t really want to talk about the business with his brother, Maggie gave him a rueful smile. “You had me putting bars on my windows and big locks on the doors.”

  He shot her a startled look. “What?”

  The rueful smile remained. “When I came home and saw four black Harleys parked in front of your shop, I was certain the Devil’s Angels had moved in next door. That’s why I called the cops that night—I saw you coast down the back alley with no lights on, and I was certain some hard-case biker was breaking in.”

  He stared at her for a second, then tipped his head back and started to laugh. She was on the verge of getting exasperated when he finally stopped, releasing the last of his amusement with a long sigh. He looked at her, his eyes still dancing. “You’re going to owe me for a long, long time, Burrows. I get permanently disfigured helping you rescue a renegade cat. I bring you pizza and cold beer. And now I find out you tried to have me thrown in the clink because you thought I was some bad-assed biker dude.”

  Experiencing a rush of heat to her scalp, Maggie tried to brazen it out. “You should have put up a sign.”

  Still watching her with a glint in his eyes, he shook his head. “You owe me, lady.”

  Pursing her mouth against the desire to smile, she narrowed her eyes at him. “You should have a sign, Parnelli.”

  His expression altering into a soft smile, he continued to study her. Finally he spoke, a husky quality in his voice. “It goes up on Saturday.”

  Unnerved by the steadiness of his gaze, by the sudden clamor in her chest, Maggie drew a deep, uneven breath and made herself respond, her tone deliberately chastising. “And ‘permanently disfigured’ is a bit extreme, don’t you think? Four little scratches aren’t going to qualify you for handicap parking.”

  Still smiling that funny, distracted smile, he continued to study her. “You don’t give an inch, do you?” he said softly, a hint of amusement in his tone.

  Feeling as if the air was suddenly too thin to breathe, she stuck a smile on her face. “Inches turn into miles, Pamelli. You’ve been around the track enough times to know that.”

  The twinkle reappeared in his eyes, and he grinned at her. “Obviously not often enough. You’re miles ahead of me.”

  Amused by his response, Maggie took a drink from the chilled can of beer. Tony drew up one leg and draped his arm across it, resting his head back against the wall. “So, Maggie Burrows. What’s the scoop on you?”

  Setting the can in her lap, she laced both hands around it. “Not much.”

  “You mentioned other kids that day in your living room. I take it Kelly is the youngest.”

  Crossing her ankles, Maggie stared out across the yard. “She has an older brother and sister. They’re both away at university.” She paused, then realized that was really misinformation. “Well, they’re on summer break right now. Haley has a summer job working on a cruise ship, and Shawn is planting trees in a reforestation project on Vancouver Island.”

  Maggie felt his gaze on her. “How old are they?”

  A nervous disturbance churned in Maggie’s stomach. “Shawn’s twenty-two and Haley’s twenty.” She paused, the butterflies in her middle getting bigger as she waited for him to make some comment about her having kids that old. She held her br
eath.

  As if the ages of the kids hadn’t even registered, he asked another question. “You raised them on your own?”

  Experiencing a flutter that was closely related to relief, she shrugged again. “Not really. My mother died right after Shawn was born, so my father was alone for quite a few years. After the divorce, he wanted me to move back home so he could help with the kids, so I did. The kids adored him, and I didn’t want to have to dump them off at baby-sitters. Actually, it worked out really well.”

  “Kelly told me he died a couple of years ago.”

  Maggie heaved a sigh and nodded. “Yes, he did. They were as thick as thieves, and she really misses him.”

  “Where do you work?”

  “At FL Accounting.”

  “You mean the one over in the Loop?”

  Maggie looked at him, the growing darkness almost obscuring his face. “Yes.”

  There was genuine surprise in his voice when he spoke. “Well, I’ll be damned. You work for Frank Lucciano?”

  “You know him?”

  Tony grinned and shook his head. “Know him? Hell, he and my father have been playing chess every Thursday night for the past twenty years.” He gave a little laugh. “We wanted to hire him when we started the business, but he said he never did business with friends.”

  Maggie’s smile was wry. “If you ever saw him throw one of his temper tantrums, you’d know why.”

  An evening breeze wafted across the sun deck, raising goose bumps on Maggie’s arms, and she shivered.

  Checking his watch, Tony turned his wrist to pick up the light from the street lamp in the alley. She heard him mutter an oath under his breath. “Hell, I didn’t realize it was so late.” With the ease of an athlete, he got to his feet, then reached down and caught her wrist, pulling her up beside him. He gave her a small smile. “You could have said something, you know.”

  Folding her arms and hunching her shoulders against the sudden coolness, she resisted the urge to step away from him. “I have been known to stay up past midnight,” she said, her tone dry.