by Mya Barrett
“Oh,” was all he could say. He’d been so sure she was trespassing, but he’d been the one in the wrong. The knowledge was humbling and maddening. “I didn’t know.”
She shrugged, avoiding his gaze. That move alone irritated him. He couldn’t understand why, since she hadn’t done anything more than be caught crying. He remembered the sound, saw the traces of the emotional storm on her face, and bit back the strange need to curse. He hated acting like a bastard, but that’s what he’d been on the verge of doing, and all because of what…family pride? Hadn’t he struggled most of his life not to act with the same type of angry suspicion his father had? And here he was, causing pain. He was man enough to admit that it wasn’t Maggie’s fault; she certainly hadn’t come onto him in any way. He felt a bit unbalanced as he watched her climb off the rock and begin to turn away.
“Are you okay?” He hadn’t meant to ask; the words just slipped out.
She waved her hand in the air but refused to look at him. “I’m fine.”
Annoyance sizzled to exasperation and he found himself closing the distance between them, his interest piqued. “Is that why you were out here sobbing like your heart was broken?”
She didn’t have to utter a gasp for him to feel her shock. “This is my land, Mr. Warrick. What I do on it is none of your business.”
“You’re a prickly one, aren’t you Maggie Mae?” When she would have rushed in the other direction, he reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Damn it, I’m trying to be neighborly here.”
She gave a bitter little laugh as she finally met his gaze. “Neighborly? Really? Is that why you’re keeping me here?”
Hale ground down the desire to demand answers. The patience he’d once been so proud of was quickly deserting him, leaving heat in its wake. He could feel her skin, soft under his calloused fingers, warm to his rough touch, with an erratic heartbeat reverberating just underneath the surface. Putting his hands on her had been a mistake.
“Just…I didn’t mean to scare you, okay?” He could hear the tension in his words and swallowed to ease it. “You’re right. This is your land. I should be the one to leave.”
Maggie narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “Yes, you should.” She waited a beat. “But you aren’t the first one to miss the markers, and you won’t be the last. If you had the need to walk here, then I won’t chase you off. I have to get back anyway.”
He squeezed her wrist, a silent, automatic protest, before deliberately letting her go. “I didn’t mean to intrude. You’re…all right?”
She appeared to take his temporary flag of truce as she shifted her weight to one foot. “It’s my husband’s birthday.”
The sucker punch to his solar plexus was painful. “Oh.”
She nodded in mute acknowledgement, hesitating for another moment. “You should be careful; there are still snakes out.”
“I remember the woods.” He gave her a small smile, and was strangely hurt when she didn’t return it. “You should be careful, too.”
“I’m wearing hiking boots and carrying a revolver.”
Why that should sound so sexy made no sense to him, but it did. His body tightened, on sudden and high alert as she moved away. She didn’t get far. One moment she was steady, the next she was twisting, pinwheeling her arms as she searched for balance. She began to fall, gravity pulling her down the slight hill toward him. Hale didn’t think.
He moved rapidly, bracing himself as he held out his arms to catch her. She fell backward, a soft, solid weight against his chest. The contact was a furious charge, jolting through his system with a violent shudder.
Everything seemed to stop. There were no sounds except her breathing, no scents except her warm flesh. He felt the pressure grow and expand from his chest all the way to his loins. Before he realized it, instinct took over, and he nuzzled her ear with a movement so subtle it couldn’t be anything but seductive. He tightened his grip on her waist, felt the heat of her skin through her jacket and shirt. He had never been so knotted up with the desire to touch a woman before. He didn’t like it, not a bit.
“Just being neighborly again, Maggie, I swear.” He ruined his words by inhaling her scent.
If he thought he’d experienced a woman’s frigidity before, he’d been wrong. She went utterly still, her body going cold against his. She straightened her spine with extreme care, not bothering to struggle against his embrace, instead stinging him with her quiet dignity. His words hadn’t been deliberate; he’d slipped into teasing persuasion without thinking, forgetting for the moment who and where they were. She’d been crying over her husband, and he’d been trying to feel her up. Regret was a bitter pill, but not as bitter as his anger of the whole twisted situation. He let go of her with slow, reluctant movements.
“Have a nice hike.” Her words dripped with ice, smacking his skin like hard sleet.
He shoved his hands back into his pockets, fisting them against the itching need Maggie had elicited. Neither said another word as she walked away from him with poised grace.
****
Maggie held her temper until she reached her back porch. She stomped across the wood, made her way to the side door, and ripped it open with a furious jerk. Slamming it closed behind her, she stood in the dining room for several seconds, taking deep, careful breaths to calm her nerves.
“How dare he! How dare he do something like that! Touch me like that!” Her words bled through gritted teeth. “Treat me as if I threw myself at him. Like I’m some sort of sex starved widow.”
With a loud growl, she stalked into the kitchen, opened a cabinet, slammed it shut without taking anything out. “Being neighborly? Practically crawling into my skin! Caught me crying and decided I was an easy mark. That…that…narcissistic, egotistical…ass!”
She trudged to the living room, sat on the soft couch, bounced back up. “Didn’t even have the grace to apologize. Of course not. Why would he?”
Maggie moved to the fireplace, stared blindly at the framed pictures, turned away again. “Hale Warrick, you are a pain in the butt. That’s what you are. A chauvinistic ladies’ man who couldn’t possibly understand the word no.”
Not that he wasn’t attractive. Not that she hadn’t fantasized about him. Not that he hadn’t been in her thoughts before.
She let out a vicious hiss and began to pace the polished wood floor. Was she really so angry with Hale, or was it herself? Today was Chris’s birthday; there was a bittersweet sorrow that had come with waking up and knowing. Brian, Chris’s fellow officer and best friend, had even called to check up on her. Was she all right? Would she like some company? Would she promise to remember to eat? The concern was understandable; Brian not only considered her a sister-in-law of sorts, but had also shared the ripping pain of losing Chris. He’d known she would be struggling today, and he’d been right. But it wasn’t just the struggle of missing Chris; she was also struggling with a thin layer of guilt she couldn’t quite wipe away. Guilt that taunted her because her thoughts hadn’t just been about her husband, but also about the man she’d seen in the grocery store. The man who still held tantalizing hints of the handsome, devil-may-care boy she'd watched from afar in their teenage years.
She’d gone to the woods to shed the feelings that had dogged her all morning. She missed Chris; her heart ached for her best friend, ached for a life unfulfilled. But it had also stirred the painful bruise that was her memory of Hale Warrick. It shamed her even as it fascinated her.
“And he has to show up, just…appear out of thin air. Tries to run me off my own land, for heaven’s sake.”
Maggie took another deep breath and felt the pressure inside her begin to ease. What was done was done. She couldn’t go back and change their run-in or their conversation even if she wanted to. Besides, she had nothing to apologize for. She hadn’t been the one who’d done something questionable.
But then, should she have expected any less from him? He saw her as the daughter of his family’s enemy. She might have hoped he’d b
e a little kinder, maybe a bit more like his younger brother. But hoping for something didn’t make it a reality, she knew that well enough.
“At least we’ve had our first face to face meeting.” Maggie finally stopped moving long enough to ease back onto the couch. “No blood was spilled, no real scene was made. I’m still in one piece.”
She gazed up at the photographs lining the mantel, pausing first at one of her mother, taken just a few months before her death, and then at her wedding picture. She felt a sad smile tilt her lips. They wouldn’t have wanted her to be so miserable, that she knew for a fact. Her mother had done everything she could to ensure Maggie’s future, had been thrilled when Chris had become her son-in-law, had often stared at Maggie and commented that contentment looked nice on her daughter. And before they’d married, Chris had brought up the dangers of his job, warning her about the very real possibility of being widowed. He had spoken once, and only once, about how he wanted her life to move on if she ever lost him.
But her life moving on couldn’t include Hale Warrick. She would never find the contentment her mother had so admired with a Warrick son. She might not be able to stop the attraction she felt for him, but she could stop herself from doing anything about it. She had to.
Chapter Four
Hale sat in the corner of Wilson’s Diner and nursed his morning cup of black coffee. He’d snuck out of his own house again just an hour before, feeling foolish as he did, but determined not to deal with his mother. He didn’t have the reserves to listen to her cool complaints or veiled demands today. He was afraid he’d raise his voice, and she’d had enough of that from his father. Besides, he was much too busy beating himself up over the way he’d treated Maggie Mae yesterday. It wasn’t easy for a man like him, a man who loved women, a man who enjoyed and appreciated the opposite sex, a man who had no problem controlling himself or the intimate situations he found himself in, to admit he’d been a complete ass to an emotionally overwrought female. But he had. And, oh, didn’t that burn his hide.
He’d gone over their accidental meeting in his head a few thousand times, replaying how he’d acted, cursing himself each time. He should have kept his distance, should have taken his hands off her the minute she was steady. There was no excuse to hold her so close, to make a play for her, to make such a smarmy comment about being neighborly. He liked to think he was mature enough, wise enough…hell, dignified enough to deal with the situation like an adult. Yes, that’s what he’d like to believe. His knee jerk reaction, however, had exposed the raw truth. Maggie had been the one to show icy dignity, while he’d been playing a horny Romeo. Damn it.
He didn’t like this feeling. Liked even less the fact that he only had himself to blame for his dark mood. He should be at home, finishing paperwork, making plans to speak with business owners, making decisions about property investments, going out to enjoy a long hike. Instead he was tucked into a booth brooding into his coffee.
The waitress came by, her name tag proclaiming she was Gina, her brown ponytail, too slender body, and practical nurse style shoes stating without words that she’d been doing this job for a good number of years. The fact that she was younger than him was a shock he barely absorbed. He was feeling too much like an old man this morning.
“Would you like another Danish, Mr. Warrick?” She smiled down at him, her hip cocked, coffee pitcher in her hand at the ready.
He tried to return her friendly smile, knew he was failing. “No, I’m fine, thanks. And you don’t have to call me Mister; it’s Hale. Just Hale.”
Her brown eyes focused intently, though her lips didn’t waver. “All right then…Hale. More coffee?”
He grunted in what he hoped was a congenial manner as he nodded his consent. Gina had just topped it off when the bell over the door jingled. And of course, with his luck running like it was, Maggie Mae Cooper—no, Brannon, he reminded himself, breezed inside. Though she was wearing the same red jacket and same style of comfortable jeans, she looked nothing like she had yesterday. Her gentle features were warm and composed, her eyes bright and clear, her posture straight and sure. If he hadn’t seen her weeping her heart out the day before he would have never known such violent emotions played just underneath the surface.
He was annoyed to find himself unconsciously slumping down in the booth. Hiding from the woman, or ashamed of himself? Probably both, he admitted with inward disgust as Gina hurried away from him and swung around behind the counter.
“Morning, Maggie. You bring some more preserves?”
The woman in question grinned back as she juggled the small box in her hands. “Lynn called and said you were running low. I have extra blackberry for you.”
Gina, apparently delighted, took the case as she nodded. “I swear, Lynn’s getting a complex about his gravy. Folks order plain biscuits just so they can eat these.”
Maggie gave a soft laugh, a sound that sent a warm shiver along Hale's nerve endings. “Well, you can tell Lynn that I’ll never forsake his gravy. It’s practically an institution.”
Hale narrowed his eyes while his mind tried to work out exactly what was going on. He watched Gina lift a small jar out of the box, nodding as she admired the checkered material that covered the top. Suspicion had him turning to stare down at his table; sure enough, there were two near empty jelly jars, one with the carefully scripted word “Apple” on the front, the other with “Blackberry Preserves” in the same print. The cheerful checkered patterns of the material on top matched the color of the jellies inside.
“Did you need to see Sharon or Lynn?” Gina was asking.
Maggie shook her head. “Everything’s taken care of.”
She scanned the diners seated at the counter and Hale found himself hunkering down again, trying to avoid her gaze. But she never glanced at his table in the far back. Instead, she was concentrating on the lone man seated with a defeated slump in his back, his elbows propped on the white Formica as he balanced a mug in his hands. He was sadly scrawny, his white hair thin, his skin pallid. It took Hale a moment to realize the man was Al Mackey, the elementary school’s ex-principle. If he remembered correctly, he’d quit the year after his wife and daughter had been killed in a car accident. There had been accusations of drinking on the job and a loose cannon temper, either of which would have been enough for the school board to fire him.
Without taking her eyes from the man, Maggie shifted her weight. “All that talk about gravy made me hungry, Gina. Think I could have the special?”
“Sure thing.”
As the waitress called out the order to the back, Maggie meandered over to Al. Without a word, she eased onto the padded stool beside him. Captivated, Hale watched as she gave his hand one gentle pat then settled in, silent. Gina didn’t bat an eye as she placed two cups in front of Maggie, one large, one small, then proceeded to fill the largest with orange juice. Apparently this was a normal phenomenon. A moment later Maggie filled the smaller cup from the larger and quietly pushed it toward Al. Without looking down, he put his coffee aside and took the orange juice.
While he drank, Maggie plucked the local paper from its perch between a tall sugar dispenser and an aluminum napkin container, opened it, and placed it between them. The two sat in companionable silence, reading the news until Gina brought out the food. Two plates, Hale noted, one loaded with food, the other empty. Maggie carefully scooped an egg, most of the hash browns, and a biscuit with plenty of gravy onto the extra plate. She laid it gently in front of the man and, as before, he took her offer without a single word.
Hale didn’t know what to make of the silent interaction. He stared, utterly transfixed, as the two ate and read the news. Maggie would always cast a quick glance at Al before turning the page, as if she could understand when he was ready for the next article. He wasn’t sure how slow they read; the Exum Sentinel wasn’t that thick. Obviously they were perusing everything, including the jobs and real estate section.
When their plates were clean, Maggie took a piece of
her plain toast, opened a jar of preserves—the same type of preserves, Hale noticed, that were sitting on his own table—and spread a generous amount on the crisp surface. She placed it on the edge of Al’s plate and he reached out, picked it up, and took a slow bite. Even though he didn’t make a sound, Hale could have sworn the man sighed in delight.
A few minutes later, Maggie stood, placed a kiss on the old man’s cheek, and went to pay her bill. Gina waved her away with a good natured smile, refusing her money, and Maggie, plainly used to the byplay, pressed a tip into Gina’s hand.
“See you again next week,” the waitress called out.
“Call if you run out of the pickles before I get back,” Maggie replied with a wave.
She breezed out of Wilson’s just as she’d breezed in, a package lighter and a stomach fuller. A moment later Al Mackey left, as well, with a small wave in the general direction of the kitchen. Hale fought back his curiosity, determined not to be sucked into the odd scene he’d just witnessed. But when Gina came back around to refill his cup he found he didn’t have to say a word.
“That’s probably the sweetest thing I see all week,” the brunette said before she sighed. “Poor Mr. Mackey, losing his family like that; no wonder he started drinking. Poor thing, wondering around town, trying to make do, sleeping in that little shack he calls a home. Wouldn’t anybody give him a decent job, but Maggie made sure she found plenty of things for him to do. Then her friend, Jolene, said she needed a handyman, then Mr. Adkins decided he needed some help at home, too….” She gave an eloquent shrug and shook her head. “Still won’t eat sometimes, but Maggie makes sure he has a decent breakfast every week; even takes out some of her canned food for him. Mr. Adkins gives him some, too, says it’s about to go out of date. Between you and me and the walls, it isn’t any such thing. Lynn and Sharon told us not to charge him when he comes in. Just keep his coffee cup full, and offer him a sandwich. But he’ll only eat a good meal with Maggie.”
