“What the heck are you talking about Dominic MacKenna?” I yelled at him. He smiled, with dancing eyes and wider smile. My riled-up emotions had nowhere to go.
“Trust me, Peach.”
He let himself out the front door and left me standing there confused as ever. Cotton was coming over? Because I was pretend scared to be home alone? Say what?
Chapter Eighteen
Cotton
I was more than a glutton for punishment. I was a self-sabotaging masochist.
Years had gone by with Magnolia Porter steadily on my radar, yet I had successfully not fixated on her. Out of sight, out of mind. Marginally in sight, marginally in mind. Then I kissed her. Then I had fucking kissed her again. What the hell I had been thinking, I had yet to reckon. My brain had taken a back burner along with my impulse control. Whatever led to the kissing didn't so much matter as much as the kisses themselves. No matter what I did, I could not stop wishing for her lips on mine, her body in my hands. Her sweet attention given freely to me. I was driven to distraction.
Knowing she had gone on a date made it worse. So much worse. My mind couldn't shut down the images of her with another guy. I tried not to think about it, though it festered. Then on Wednesday grabbing coffee at Darlene's, I overheard Olivia Hamilton tell Haley Jenkins that she heard from Emily Tanner that Vincent Berry had taken Maggie Porter out. I wanted to stab myself in the eye listening to gossip between those catty girls. I couldn't stop myself from eavesdropping when they mentioned Maggie. Dropping the details I so badly wanted to know - that I needed to know despite all the work to convince myself otherwise. Apparently Vincent and Maggie had gone to Bella's on Friday, and Emily had waited on them. She was hung up on Dominic, and from what Olivia was saying to Haley, she was very much not over him. It was her opinion that Maggie was cheating on Dominic when she was out with Vincent. God, it was a mess.
Clutching my paper cup of hot black coffee, I tore myself away from the front counter and left the gossiping girls behind. Haley and I had dated the last two years of high school, and only broke up after I'd lost my shit and punched a wall with her in the room with me. That event was the reason I didn't get involved with women. It wasn't worth the risk. Especially with Maggie.
I kept myself busy editing a shoot for a foodie magazine. Unemotional work. Still, my unease festered and grew the more I thought about Maggie's name dragged through the mud. I knew she wasn't dating Dominic, but I also knew Dom wanted to cultivate that image. He was happy to let people think they were dating in order to give himself a reprieve from dating other girls.
Vincent Berry. God damn it. Meddling Alyssa had actually set them up. He was my age, and I'd known him in school. As much as I wished I could bad mouth him and have good reason to warn Maggie away from him, it wouldn't be true. Vin was a good guy. He took a lot of slack for the tattoos and hipster thing he had going on. But when it came down to it, he was loyal to his family, and he was a stand-up guy. I'd never had a problem with him before; until I pictured his slim hands on Maggie. My hatred for him bloomed fast in a flurry of jealousy.
The jam had been torturous. Dominic had paced around unable to settle down with the rest of us, and I knew he was waiting for Maggie. The more worked up he became, the more tormented I became. I watched him watching for her. I didn't relax until he pulled her into a fierce hug and I knew she was safe and sound.
Damn if she didn't look my way every few minutes the entirety of the jam. Two and half hours or so of intercepting her intense gaze, for it to skate immediately away, then drift back once again. I didn't have it in me to pretend I was immune to her attention. The muscles in my jaw were sore from the way I clenched my teeth together. I'd broken another string from playing too hard. My hands wanted to find release, and my banjo wasn't doing it for me.
Dominic had taken Maggie home, and it had taken a great deal of practiced restraint for me to let that happen. I knew she was unquestionably all right with him. It was a good thing he took her rather than her walking back alone. I should have been happy because I could trust that she was safe. Instead, all I could focus on was watching them walk away. Their backs to me, my brother placing a hand on her hip to guide her along, and her leaning into him slightly. She liked him and trusted him.
Him. Not me.
I went home alone, shut myself in my bedroom, and wished I could get that girl out of my damn head. I channel surfed and opened another beer and did not wallow in self-pity.
Boredom was to blame for my stupidity. A nineties sitcom was not enough to engage my errant mind, so I texted Dominic. As a general rule, I wasn't fond of texting. Hell, I wasn't fond of cell phones much less the expectation to read and respond to arbitrary messages. I scrolled through my inbox - of calls, emails, and texts - once a day maximum. If anyone required a response, I sent it out then and put the phone away to charge someplace out of earshot. I told myself I was texting Dom to ask him about the mix up regarding Maggie dating both him and Vincent. It was a lie I told to myself, which is the worst sort, and I knew it had considerably more to do with my not wanting her to date at all. Unless it was me. Which was not an option.
Me: Hey man. I heard some gossip today.
Me: About Maggie cheating on you.
Dom: Good lord. People have nothing better to do than make shit up.
Me: Come on. You know you've let people think you two are together.
Dom: Are you pissed that people think she's with me?
Me: I'm pissed that people think she's cheating on her boyfriend.
Dom: Damn. I'll clear it up - spread the word she isn't with me.
Dom: Is this about her rep? Or about her date?
Me: I'm pretending I don't know about that in order to not kill Vincent Berry.
Dom: Ah. So you know. Sorry, man.
Dom: For what it's worth, I still think she's into you.
Me: Not happening.
Me: Where the hell are you anyway?
Dom: Maggie's.
Me: Maggie's? What the fuck?
The phone screen blurred, and I blinked with no success at clearing the mist of jealous indignation that swelled and took over my senses.
Dom: Actually just heading over there.
My hand shook. My lack of control pissed me off more than anything else. It gave me a direction for my disproportional anger.
Heading to Maggie's? As in on his way to her house? It was almost midnight. I didn't care if he said it was a non-date, a fake date, that they were friends, whatever the hell. All I could think about was my brother at her house, alone with her, in the middle of the night. My brother that dated more girls in a year than most did in their lifetime, that slept with most of those girls and convinced them they didn't want anything serious from him. With Maggie. My Maggie.
Dom: Chill. I brought her home. But she called me back over.
Dom: She's home alone and got scared. She called me to come check things out.
Scared? I stood up and dug in my front pocket for my keys. Scared? She was scared? Of what? My heart jack hammered in my chest and shook me to my core. The idea of her in danger sent me to my truck before I could think through my actions.
Me: Don't. I'll go. I can be there in 10.
Dom: You're closer than me. You go. I'll let her know it won't be me.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
The adrenaline that pumped through my body kept me in motion. I drove toward Maggie's house, reckless in my need to get to her. I knew where it was, but I had never been. There had never been cause for me to visit her house.
Was there legitimate cause now?
The doubting voice in my head, the one that pounded harsh along with my heart, told me this was a bad idea. That Maggie didn't want to see me. That she called Dominic and was expecting her safe friend to show up in the middle of the night. Not the asshole that kissed with no warning then took off with no explanation.
Not me.
I was able to dismiss that voice because there was no way I was leaving her
to sit in an empty house feeling afraid. Not happening. I physically could not sit by and let Dom handle the situation. Whatever happened, it had to be me; I had to be there with her.
The front porch light spilled a puddle of yellow across the entry, and the windows along the front of the house glowed golden around lightweight curtains. A typical ranch style house in a row of cookie cutter houses. Completely suburban. Old enough to need new shutters, new enough to not be considered old. The gutters needed cleaning. I calmed my blazing mind by making a list of things I would do to help her mama take care of this house.
My fist pounded on her door twice. I was fully prepared to rip the door open to get inside to her, but I didn't want to scare her.
As the door drifted slowly open, Maggie's small form appeared in the space.
My eyes raked over what I could see of her as I stepped into the house. Her dark brown eyes, normally full of warmth, were wide and cautious. She chewed her lips, the bottom then the top then the bottom, raking the skin through her teeth and leaving her lips red and swollen. She was beautiful with her hair in curls around her face and down over her shoulders, in only a simple camisole and cotton sleep pants.
“Maggie. Are you okay? What happened?”
“I'm fine, Cotton.”
My breath caught, as it always did, when she said my name. It went back to some deeper carnal desire to hear her calling out my name as I wrecked her sweet body with pleasure. It drove into my heart, begging that she trust me and whisper my name as a promise. I still looked over her, determined not to miss some sign that she was in danger, while my heart continued to crash into my ribs.
“Dominic told me you were home alone and something scared you.”
“Yeah ...” She tucked her head down, her hair shielding part of her face, and let the word out with a sigh. “I heard a sound?”
Did she think she could hide away from me? I kept my hands strictly to myself, rather than adjusting her curtain of hair and revealing her face.
“Is that a question?” Clarification was the first step, and it was a slow tangled process that I didn't have the patience for.
“Yes?”
I stepped fully into the house, and closed the door behind me. I moved closer and closer to Magnolia Porter, a magnet drawn to its opposite. My fingers tucked under her chin, gently tipping her head back so that I could see her face. Porcelain skin sprinkled with a light dusting of freckles, long lashes fluttering over wide eyes, she was a gorgeous girl. True, she appeared startled, and she was covered with chill bumps. But not afraid so much as rattled or nervous. I left my hand to linger on the skin under her jaw, soaking up her warmth and trust.
“Tell me what happened, Maggie.” With effort I kept my voice pitched low and soft. As gentle as I could pull off while my heart began its deceleration. Finding her whole did its job in calming my system, while part of me stayed on guard, skeptical of what would come next.
“I don't want to lie to you.”
“Then don't.” Doubt and suspicion took the place of concern, a slithering of ice up and up until it wrapped around my throat. Why would she lie to me? The idea of her lying to me caused all sorts of bad feelings to spiral.
“Dominic wasn't telling the truth.” She said in a skittish whisper.
“Which part?” I ground my teeth together. My brother had lied to me? What game was he playing?
“Um,” She licked her lips and I watched the flick of her tongue. I salivated over her pink lips and only just managed not to kiss her again. She blinked at me but seemed resolved to get the story out. “Dominic was over here. We were hanging out.”
“So you weren't here alone?”
“My mama is out of town for the night.” She explained. Her small voice sounded a touch more southern when she said Mama. It was distractingly cute.
“But Dom was here with you?”
“Yes. We made tacos.” She looked around and I noticed two abandoned plates as well as an empty pitcher. “And margaritas.”
He was there with her. In the house alone with her. Drinking goddamn margaritas. Maggie rarely drank, as far as I knew. Was she tipsy or even drunk now? I finally moved my hand from beneath her chin because fisting my hands was delaying my expulsion of anger and my immediate desire to track down my baby brother. Now that I thought back on his texts - without panic skewing my reactions - they were off. His story had shifted.
“He just jumped up and left.” Maggie was clearly in the dark as to Dom's reasons for abandoning her, but she was intuitive enough to have figured it out by now.
“This was a set up.” I voiced my guess and watched to see her confirm.
She still looked up at me of her own accord. Memorizing her smile gave me a good outlet for my crazy wild emotions, I focused on how sweet and trusting this girl was, and how much I wanted to protect her. She nodded. Her cheeks went pink, which did frantic things to my insides.
“Before he left, he mentioned that it should be you taking me out.” She spoke so softly, I completely stilled to hear her. “Not practicing or pretending, but for real.”
I looked around the room and assessed places I could sit. Holy hell. I sank onto a chair that was bamboo and twisted wood with a bright pink cushion. It creaked as it supported my weight.
“He shouldn't have said that to you.” I wasn't angry. All that rage from a minute before drained out. It pooled at my feet and left me a mess. All that remained was hopelessness. An empty hollow place in my chest that expanded outward until it hurt to breathe.
“Because it isn't true?” She sounded sad.
Because her new obviously trusted friend Dom possibly lied to her? Because I was here instead of him and I was screwing it up? Because I implied that it should not in fact be me taking her out? I was determined to leave Berry out of the equation. If he came up I would surely lose it. I wanted to know what she was feeling and why, and I wanted to fix it, even though it wasn't my place. Or was it? I had shown up and inserted myself into the equation after all.
“Because it's not his place to say,” was the only answer I could offer.
Maggie walked, her bare feet padding softly on the generic blue gray carpet, to stand before me. Then she dropped down to kneel in front of me. She leaned forward, hands on her knees, sitting on her feet and peering up at me.
“Why are you here, Cotton?”
“I was worried about you.”
“Why? I mean, I know your terrible no good trickster brother lied.” An indulgent smile snuck its way into her words. “But besides that, why do you care so much?”
I sighed and looked past her. The house was ... different. The base layer was generic, like the carpet, with white paint on the walls and a typical floor plan. The furniture was all mismatched, in style, color, size, age. I wasn't sure how it all worked together. But it did, and well. Stella Porter clearly had an eye for lines, color, style, and art. Her collection of art was layer upon layer deep; more than I could take in at a glance. She should be an artist, or an interior decorator. Nursing didn't seem to suite her, outside of her well-known tendency to want to take care of people. The woman was at odds with herself at every turn.
How could I answer Maggie's question? Why did I drop everything and rush to her house? I had no logical explanation. I sifted through possible stories to tell her, so that I could excuse myself and be on with my night. Then I looked back into her face, waiting and a touch too eager, and I couldn't lie to her. That same crawling of icy alarm that strangled me when I thought of her lying to me, it came back in full force when I considered lying to her. I could not betray her trust in me.
“Maggie, I ...” I drew in a long breath, then let it out in a rush. It was hard to think straight with her perched there in front of me. Her smell in my nose, the heat from her skin close enough I could feel it, and her looking at me like she cared what my answer might be. It was intoxicating. “I used to watch out for you, trying to stop Luke from hurting you before he could, and I think it became habit.”
/> Her smile was slow and small. I saw nothing else. I locked my fingers onto my kneecaps to keep from grabbing her and pulling her into me.
“You came here tonight out of habit?” Her disbelief was colored with something else, and it looked an awful lot like pleasure.
“I came here tonight because I couldn't stand the idea of you being alone and afraid.”
“Oh.” Her amused smile slipped and her word was a sound on a breath. It was too much for me to drop on her. I was being unfair. I was a jerk no matter what I did. There was no chance of us coming away from this unscathed, because if I stayed I'd make inappropriate confessions and likely kiss her again. That might well be good for me, but it wasn't likely good for her. I wasn't good for her. It always came back to that. But if I left? That option wasn't without its consequences either.
“I should go.”
“Please don't.” She reached forward with her hands, placing them on top of mine on my knees, small fingers gripping larger ones. Her whole body pitched forward, toward me.
“He's right.” I watched her absorb my presence and my voice and my words. Maggie hung on each word and studied it, turning it over in her mind, testing it. I had to be careful with her. “And he's wrong. I want to be the one here with you, taking you out and making you smile and ...”
I looked to her lips.
As if she suspected the direction of my thoughts, color rose again in her cheeks. God, she was beautiful. So in tune with her feelings but hiding behind them. I wanted her more for it.
“But it shouldn't be me.” I had to make her understand once and for all. “It's better that it's ... someone else. Someone that won't hurt you.”
The Guilt of a Sparrow Page 16
