Maggie Box Set

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  The door opens and slams against the interior wall. Andy and a swarthy, attractive man with a mischievous air and thin mustache follow it. Andy wrestles it closed behind them.

  “Can’t fix it, Sib?” The new man—a fireplug—rubs his hands together and hustles to the truck. “Howdy, ma’am. I’m Paco.” His accent reminds Maggie of Edward, her mom’s beau and Michele and Gene’s father. First generation out of Mexico.

  “Maggie. Thanks for your help.”

  He walks around Bess and whistles. “That’s a sweet ride, mamacita.”

  Hank’s eyebrows shoot toward his hairline.

  Paco doesn’t seem to notice. “And your driveshaft just fell off? Without any warning?”

  “Right into the road. One end of it, anyway. I was driving, hit a pothole, heard a thunk, and my Bess was out of business.”

  “Hmm. Well I ain’t never seen no bolts on a driveshaft loosen themselves. You had any work done on your truck recently?”

  “No. It’s been a while.”

  “Let me take a look.” He disappears under the truck.

  Hank moves to the edge of the pit, watching him. Maggie gives in to the magnetic pull and joins Hank. He sneaks a glance at her.

  Before she can bedazzle him with a sultry smile, the door opens and closes again. Maggie looks to see who has joined the party, and the familiar face of Gene Soboleski grins at her. A flicker of irritation pulses through her. Interrupted, when things with Hank were moving in the right direction. Argh.

  “Maggie May. In Wyoming. At Double S. Wow.” He’s a fast mover, and he hustles over and gathers her in a hug, crushing a Cheetos bag against her back. The two of them had really hit it off the previous spring in Texas. “How’s that sister of mine? And my father?”

  “Michele is writing like a mad thing on her new book and preparing for the premiere of her Maggie movie.”

  “I read my sister’s book.” He grins, wads up his Cheetos bag, and shoots it like a free throw into a tall black trash can. “I thought it was about the fall of the Herrington political dynasty.”

  “Hell-o. The title is The Love Child and Murder That Toppled the Herrington Dynasty. Me.” She taps her chest. “The love child.”

  He laughs. “And are her father and your mother still two lovebirds sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G?”

  “Waay too much.”

  Again, he laughs. “We’re going to be stepsiblings, aren’t we?”

  Maggie smiles back at him. “Magic Eight Ball says signs point to yes.”

  “Speaking of which, Hank pointed you out to me at the Ox last night. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to say hello. You looked . . . occupied . . . and we had to go. School nights for our dates.”

  Occupied. So that’s what the kids are calling it these days. Maggie doesn’t blush or look away. He’d hit the nail on the head about school nights, though. Two grown-ass men dating virtual children. “What’s your girlfriend’s name?”

  “June. But she won’t be my girlfriend. I’m not hankering for the job of instant dad to somebody else’s kid with a girl half my age.”

  She knew she liked Gene for a reason. “Probably smart.”

  Gene grins. “Andy says you’re stranded with us.”

  “For now.”

  He pats her shoulder. “Hey, I’m sorry about that big online article about you.”

  “What?”

  “The ‘How the Mighty Maggie Killian Has Fallen’ piece. Sheila showed it to us last night.”

  Maggie’s stomach drops. That doesn’t sound like the “Where are they now?” retrospective Sheila had described. “Did you read it?”

  “Um, yes?” He makes a teeth-bared wincing face.

  “That bad, huh? And that’s really the title?”

  “Yep. But anyone that knows you knows different.”

  Paco’s voice from below Bess interrupts them. “No can do, Sib.”

  Hank, who’s been pretending not to listen to Gene and Maggie, groans. “I thought you could fix anything?”

  “It didn’t just come loose, man. Take a look.”

  Hank takes the driveshaft that Paco is holding up from the pit.

  “See the end of it? It looks like it melted.”

  Hank frowns as he turns the heavy metal in his hands. “I thought something looked strange.” He sets it in the truck bed. “That’s why I sent for you.”

  Maggie feels a flicker of panic.

  “Right?” Paco says.

  Maggie paces the floor near the truck. “Use super glue. Duct tape. Whatever you have to.”

  Paco peers out from under her truck. “You’re kidding, right?” He looks at Hank. “She’s kidding?”

  Maggie pushes her hair back, still pacing. “Sort of.”

  Paco hoists himself out of the pit. “No can do. You need a new one.”

  “Can we get it in town?”

  Paco frowns, wiping his hands on a rag from the workbench. “Maybe. But these old trucks, lotta times you gotta hunt one down. Like from a used parts dealer.”

  Hank takes Maggie’s elbow. “Stop pacing. You’re wearing the floor out.”

  “Would you rather I punch something?”

  “As long as it’s not me.” He lets go of her. “How about we tow it to the Ford dealership. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

  She looks at her phone. It’s four thirty. “Shit. They’re about to close.”

  “We’ll call on the way. Then they can start on it first thing in the morning.”

  She sighs. “Okay. I guess that’s my only option. And you can drop me by my hotel.”

  “Nonsense. You don’t have a vehicle. We’ll bring you and your trailer back here. You’ll stay in the guest cabin.”

  Gene’s forehead wrinkles. He opens his mouth, then shuts it.

  Maggie’s heart feels like someone has lit a nice fire inside of it. Hank wants to drive her to town. And he wants her to stay here. She’s done more with less. “If you’re sure I’m no bother.”

  Their eyes lock. The fire inside her crackles.

  “I’m sure. Andy, can you take her to the guest cabin? I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes, Maggie.”

  Andy salutes.

  “Thank you.” Maggie follows Andy to the door, putting some sass in her back view.

  Just before the door closes behind her, she hears Gene say in a low voice, “What are you thinking, having her stay here? You’re playing with fire, Hank. And if Maggie doesn’t burn you again, Sheila will.”

  Nine

  Hours later, Hank and Maggie roll back onto Piney Bottoms. The storm had broken while they were in Sheridan. The temperature yo-yoed back into the high seventies, and the sun is bright, like Maggie’s mood. She’s with Hank. In Wyoming. He’s been chatty, even flirty. And Sheila isn’t around. Life. Is. Awesome.

  The only negative is that the dealership’s service department was, as expected, closed, and they hadn’t picked up when she called. Hank parked Bess in their lot. Maggie dropped her key in a night drop and left a detailed voicemail about the truck, the broken part, and the need for speed. Now all she can do is pray, and blow up their phone as soon as they open in the morning.

  Hank brakes in front of the one-bedroom cabin Andy had taken her to earlier. “Dinner is in fifteen minutes at the main house. We have a communal dining room and a cook, although Trudy is so good she’s more like a chef.” He grins. “Be late and you’ll incur the wrath of my mother.”

  Maggie’s heart goes into orbit. He’s asking her to dinner. With his mother. She feels hope. She loves it here. She never wants to leave.

  “See you then.”

  Hank clears his throat. “Um, no. I’ve gotta go. I’m late for a thing.”

  She freezes, hand on door handle. She sees several strands of fringe on the seat between them. “A thing?”

  Hank looks out the window.

  “A date?”

  “Sheila has a dinner with some of her fellow teachers.”

  Maggie stares at him, trying to mask the pain
stabbing her through the heart.

  “From the, ah, church.”

  She lets out a bark of laughter. “A group dinner date with Sunday school teachers?”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Are you shitting me? Hank Sibley’s big Friday night is partying with church ladies?”

  His brows furrow, but he dimples. “Listen, wiseass.”

  Maggie, for once, is immune to the dimples. Her voice turns edgy. “Better to be a wiseass than a dumbass.”

  “Now I’m a dumbass? Why?”

  “For giving up your fun. And dating a child, no less.” Maggie gets out with her guitar, bag, and suitcase. She slams the door, then walks around the truck toward the little cabin.

  Hank rolls down his window. “What the hell, Maggie?”

  She ignores him, keeps walking.

  His volume increases. “You left me. Twice. Fifteen years ago in Cheyenne. Six months ago in Texas.”

  Maggie wheels. “Left you? That’s rich. You never called.”

  Hank shakes his head. “Everything’s always someone else’s fault, isn’t it, Maggie? I told you why I didn’t call. You didn’t show up on my doorstep, either. And after Texas, you told me never to call you again.”

  Maggie drops her bags and stalks back to his window. “Just—”

  He barrels on. “I never got married, I have no children, and life was going to pass me by if I kept waiting on you. So I didn’t. Finally. And I’m seeing a good woman who happens to love working with kids. Forgive me if she’s not as much fun as you. She’s also not as dangerous. Because she cares about me and not just herself.” He snorts. “You’re the most self-centered person I’ve ever met.”

  Hank sprays mud in a hasty departure from Maggie.

  Some of it splatters on Maggie. She jumps back then slaps at it with more ire than intention. “Self-centered?” His words sting.

  Once, long ago, a friend had said to her, “It must get lonely, never thinking about anyone but yourself.” But she’s not selfish, is she? She’s always had that drive, that focus. It was key to her success as a musician, while it lasted. And after the music, she needed it to survive her addictions, to claw her way back from the humiliation of losing everything. No one helped her. She had to look out for number one. What did Hank know? It’s not like he stayed in touch, worried about her, knew anything about her.

  But as she grabs her bags and walks to the cabin, all the air rushes out of her in a whoosh. She doesn’t want to think about his reasons for not calling all those years ago. Because when she does, she has to face some ugly truths, like the ones he’d told her in Texas. About his career-ending head injury. His dad coming down with Lou Gehrig’s disease, then dying. His obligations to his family. Even about the crushing disappointment he felt returning to an empty hotel room and her note. The depression—her word, not his—he’d endured.

  And then there was her. Her pride keeping her from calling him. Her very public death spiral. Drugs, alcohol, sex, betrayal of the people around her.

  By the time he had it together, she was falling apart—and disappearing.

  She opens the electric tape gate around the grassy cabin yard gingerly. Andy had explained to her yesterday that it’s to keep loose livestock from eating the grass. He’d claimed it’s not turned on now, though. He’d grabbed it and slid tape back and forth through a slot in a fence post to prove it to her. She wants to believe him, but she doesn’t want it to zap her.

  Zap. A funny word to cross her mind. Zapped is exactly how she feels with her quick fall from emotional high to low. She just wants to crawl into bed and stay there until her truck is fixed and she can tuck tail and run back to Texas.

  When she gets to the front door of the cabin, she’s met by the black-and-white dog she saw earlier in the barn. It looks like half the herding dogs she’s seen in Wyoming, only with its legs sawed off at the knees. A border collie mix, but mixed with what?

  The dog stares at Maggie with naked hope in its eyes.

  “What are you looking at, fucker?”

  The dog wags its tail and licks its lips. The tail does double duty as a broom on the porch floor and a bass drum mallet to the cabin wall.

  Maggie pushes past the dog and into the unlocked cabin, then returns to the porch for her suitcase and guitar. In the few words he’d spoken earlier, Andy had explained that she could lock the cabin from the inside, but that the ranch doesn’t issue keys for locking up from the outside.

  “We don’t need them,” he’d said.

  Now, with the descent of the sun, the cabin is dark inside. Maggie flips on a light switch. Nothing happens. She keeps trying until she finds a working lamp in the kitchenette and one on the bedside table.

  She’s starving. She checks the mini-fridge. It contains nothing but water and a miniature tray of ice in a compartment that’s in desperate need of a defrost. The cabinets aren’t much better, although there are packets of instant coffee. Piss in a mug. She’ll pass on that.

  Dammit, she can’t let Hank Sibley drive her into an emotional free fall. She’s stronger than this. Dinner at the house is her only chance at some chow, and she’s going to get something to eat. A shower and outfit change will have to wait. In the low illumination, she opens the miniscule closet and drops her bag on the floor, then closes the accordion door to keep it from falling out. She props her guitar case sideways against the outside of the closet. Then she barges out of the cabin and toward sustenance.

  The dog looks up from digging a hole in the little grass yard.

  “You really are a fucker, aren’t you?”

  All she gets as an answer is more tail-wagging.

  No one answers her knock at the house.

  Maggie lets herself in. “Hello?”

  Silence is the only response.

  She’s early, so she takes a moment to look around the large front room. It’s filled with brown and black leather easy chairs and couches arranged around a gargantuan rock fireplace. A big-screen TV is mounted above the mantel. Old photographs of horses, cattle, and landscapes cover all the wall space not taken up by animal heads. Each mount has a plaque below it. The type of animal, gender, site of the kill, date, name of the hunter, and how it was killed. She notices several are Hank’s and is surprised to see “bow” as the weapon on a buck deer and an antelope.

  Three doorways and a staircase lead out of the room. A peek through them shows her two doors lead down hallways. When she opens the third, she’s met with the sound of voices and the smell of food. Inside is a long plank table for ten in a room paneled in whitewashed shiplap. Rusted relics hang on the walls, a testament to the ranch’s history. A PB branding iron. A wooden-handled scythe. Barbed wire. A big rectangular casement opens on an industrial-size kitchen with all modern appliances, except for a wood stove the size of a Chevy sedan. The shiplap carries over into the kitchen space, contrasting with dark green painted cabinets and thick wooden countertops.

  Conversation halts as Maggie enters. Men occupy the seats at the dining room table, save for a gray-haired woman, who has to be Mrs. Sibley. A slim, pale man with thinning hair sits beside her. He nods at Maggie. Gene is at the far head of the table. Paco and Andy sit across from each other.

  The silence is like a pair of hands around Maggie’s neck. She makes her way to an open seat beside Gene and looks back toward the door.

  Mrs. Sibley is tiny in her wheelchair. A full plate of food and a bowl of cobbler are in front of her, along with a tall glass of what looks like milk. She stares down a long nose at her with flinty dark eyes. Maggie curtsies, then regrets it, feeling like a suck-up.

  When Mrs. Sibley finally speaks, her voice is shrill, her eyes locked on Maggie. “No dogs in the house.”

  Maggie looks around and sees the black-and-white dog beside her feet. It must have snuck in when she opened the front door. “Fucker,” she mutters loud enough for only Gene to hear.

  He makes a strangled noise, and his eyes sparkle.

  “Sorry,
” she says. “I didn’t see her. I’ll take her out.”

  At the front door, the dog hunkers down and makes itself limp and heavy like a fifty-pound bag of flour, but Maggie muscles it out. She’s back to the dining table in less than a minute.

  “You’re late.” Mrs. Sibley sniffs.

  Food is already circulating. The men heap their plates. If Maggie wants to eat, she’ll have to claim her share fast, but she’s last in the food chain. She eyes the serving bowls and platters stalled at other plates.

  Gene leans toward her. “Her name is Louise.”

  “Hank’s mother?”

  “No. The dog. She’s a stray. Trudy—our cook—started feeding her. Now we can’t get rid of her.”

  “Great. But what is Hank’s mother’s name?” The basket of rolls finally gets to her. She takes two and stuffs the first in her mouth, without butter. She looks down. More fringe in her lap. She has to change clothes before the outfit she is in disintegrates completely.

  “Mrs. Sibley. Well, Evangeline. Vangie. But I don’t recommend you call her anything but Mrs. Sibley.”

  Mrs. Sibley shouts, “I can hear you.”

  Gene raises his voice, too. “Mrs. Sibley, this is Hank’s friend, Maggie Killian. Maggie, this is Mrs. Sibley. She’s the matriarch of this place.”

  “The Piney Bottoms Ranch has been in my husband’s family for three generations, I’ll thank you to know.”

  Gene whispers. “Aka Double S, since all we run here now is the stock contracting business. But technically, it’s Piney Bottoms. And we don’t use all of it. A shame.”

  For a deliciously inappropriate moment, Maggie wonders whose bottoms in the family are piney. She decides prickly pants Mrs. Sibley is the most likely inspiration for the ranch’s name.

  “What?” Mrs. Sibley shouts.

  “I said it’s a lovely ranch, and Little Piney Creek is where it gets its name,” Gene says.

  Or it could be named after the creek bottoms.

  A panicked look crosses the old woman’s face. “Where’s Mr. Sibley? He works so hard. He deserves his supper.”

  The man next to her pats her back. For the first time, Maggie notices he’s wearing blue medical scrubs. “Mrs. S, he’ll be fine. We’ll save a plate for him.”