Shannon was one of the few things his older brother had done right-and divorcing Jay was one of the things Shannon had done right as well. She looked like an expensive socialite, from the crown of her red head to her designer socks-but she had heart. Staying with Jay any longer could well have killed it. And although she liked living high-which caretaking Tommy enabled her to do-she’d loved the boy from the start and vice versa. “He really wanted to see her,” Shannon said, referring to Carolina. “But I sure didn’t expect this.”
Neither did Maguire. Tommy hung back from people outside his household. Especially in the last few years he’d become aware that he didn’t talk “right,” so in public he tended to keep silent, not wanting others to realize he was different.
With Carolina, he turned into a babbling brook. When he was excited, his speech became more incoherent, but Carolina just slowed the pace of her own conversation, and seemed to understand his excited gibberish just fine.
Tommy had grown ten inches since the summer before, was taller than Carolina now, looked like a normal all-American kid of twelve. His blond hair was styled with cowlicks. He was all arms and legs, with huge blue eyes and a smile that’d win over anyone, anything, any time.
Maguire had known for a long time that he could kill anyone who hurt his vulnerable brother, but he’d never met anyone who related to him as naturally as Carolina.
Shannon said, “I can’t believe it. She’s just great with him.”
In spite of the chilly, rainy afternoon, Tommy wanted to run around outside-with Carolina and Woofer. Maguire thought the idea was insane, but he had business issues to discuss with Shannon, the more private the better.
They both stood at the window, watching Carolina and Tommy in the yard.
“Wow,” Shannon murmured again. “You know what? From what I’d heard about her, she’s exactly what I expected.”
“And what did you expect?”
“A sweetie. A do-gooder teacher. Someone softer than a pansy, real good with kids, nothing cynical or jaded about her.” Shannon pivoted on a high-heeled boot. “Which makes her the last woman in the universe I expected you to fall for.”
“That’s a pretty amazing conclusion to reach, considering you just met her two seconds ago.”
Shannon smelled the brownies, marched over to give them a peek, then reached for a hot pad and pulled the pan out to the stovetop. “There’s nothing wrong with falling, Maguire. It happens to the best of us. I guess I just expected you to fall for…I don’t know…a grad from a fancy East Coast school, maybe a pissy lawyer in stilettos, the kind of woman who’d been breaking glass ceilings from the get-go.”
He didn’t answer. As fond as he was of Shannon-and he was-he didn’t talk about his personal life, with her or anyone else. If and when he got around to marrying, he might have envisioned someone like she’d described. But that was a totally different issue than…falling.
“I’m not sure I really see a need for marriage.”
“You never saw a need for people putting themselves in a trap where they’re likely to strangle each other and cause lasting scars,” Shannon retorted.
“Yeah. Isn’t that what I just said?” Truthfully, he’d always wanted kids. He just never bought into the fairy tale. If children came into the picture, he expected to marry, expected to be a damn good partner, faithful, supportive, that whole experience. He just never wanted to put love in that frame. He’d grown up seeing exactly what “love” could do, how twisted a relationship could become because of money. It never even entered his mind as an option.
“Maguire.” Shannon stood inches from the brownies as if they’d cool faster if she hovered that close. “It’s in your face. The way you look at her. I’ve never seen you before-”
He cut her off. “We really don’t have time for chitchat. Carolina and Tommy’ll be back any minute. When you called, you said there was a financial crisis.”
She looked away. “I’m afraid you’ll yell at me.”
“Have I ever yelled at you? Even once?”
“No, but…”
“Just get it said. We’ll deal with it.” Maguire suspected he didn’t really need to hear the story. The refrain was always the same.
When their father died, Jay had gotten primary custody of Tommy for two reasons-one was that he was the eldest son, and second, because he’d asked his father for it. Jay had wanted the living allowance set up for Tommy in his own pocket… but Jay had never really wanted to give his brother time or attention.
Shannon was no relationship to any of them, but she’d loved Tommy from the day he was born, and Tommy revered her. So she’d taken on the maternal role, by her choice-by everyone’s choice. Maguire had guaranteed a generous allowance to maintain his brother’s housing and welfare in every way, knowing that Jay would run through Tommy’s money faster than a forest fire.
And that was exactly the problem. Jay was forever overspending his trust, and every time, he’d hit up Shannon. He always had the ace card, because he’d threaten to withdraw Tommy from her care if she didn’t fork over the money.
It was the same story this time. The whole thing made Maguire tired. Yeah, of course he immediately stepped in to solve the problem, but the situation underlined why he needed to stop thinking about Carolina in a personal way. Money didn’t change anything that mattered. Life was ugly-at least his life was. Money invariably provoked selfishness and greed-and gave power to those who shouldn’t have it. It wasn’t a life he’d want for Carolina.
It was a life he’d be embarrassed to share, particularly with someone as good as she was.
“Well,” Shannon suddenly murmured. “Will you look at what the cat dragged in.”
He’d already turned his head at the sounds of commotion in the doorway. Carolina, Tommy, and the dog poured through the door, laughing, spraying water like puppies, everybody muddy. “We had a tiny fall,” Carolina called out.
“Yeah. We slid down this long hill!” Tommy said exuberantly.
“Only there was this puddle-”
“Except the puddle turned out big as a lake!”
Carolina held up her hands. “Nobody worry! We’ll fix this! We’re headed straight for showers. Um, Maguire, where’s the washing machine?”
“For you or the dog?”
And yeah, he was laughing. But the sound of laughter in his heart was bittersweet. Mud or no mud, Carolina was pure clean from the inside and out, nothing ugly tainting her life-the way a whole lot of wrong things irrevocably colored his.
By evening, the unflappable Maguire seemed to be in a downright snarly mood. Carolina could see he’d had a great time with Tommy, and the boy loved every minute with his older brother. She liked Tommy’s caretaker, Shannon, even if she hadn’t quite grasped how an ex-wife of Tommy’s brother-someone who wasn’t remotely blood kin-had gotten the parenting job. It didn’t really matter. It was obvious the boy was thriving under Shannon’s care.
When Shannon and Tommy-and the behemoth dog-left after dinner, Maguire’s pretend-upbeat posture sagged. He disappeared in the library for a while. She had dinner with Henry, who groveled for more brownies, and urged her to have patience with Maguire.
There was nothing to have patience about. He was just…unhappy about something, unsettled. He spoke to her, spoke to Henry, had dinner, said the right things. It was in his eyes that something was wrong.
He’d closed up like a clam in a storm.
Both of them still had jet lag. When his eyes closed, watching the news, Carolina thought maybe exhaustion was the only thing going on, and heaven knew, she crashed soon after.
The morning brought sunshine-and an extraordinary surprise out the back door. When she looked out, she found Maguire and Henry both outside, even at this early hour, holding coffee and circling the surprise like lions guarding a hunt.
As fast as she could pile on clothes, she chased downstairs and outside, shrieking all the way, leaving the door open and not wasting time on a coat, no matter wha
t the temperature.
It was a joke. Her asking for a ride in a ’53 MG. Something on that silly list she’d made when she first came-it seemed like years ago-nothing that she remembered or ever expected to be taken seriously.
The baby was candy-apple-red, with fat fenders over her front wheels, a running board, a front hood that gleamed like a mirror. She’d only seen one once before. Didn’t know what a Mark IV was from a TD or any other label like that…she’d just sat in the one car that her grandfather had worked with, and fell in love.
Both men turned at the sound of her screams, and for the first time in a solid twenty-four, she caught Maguire’s real grin. He opened the bitsy door, motioned her inside into the old, black leather seat.
“Where did you guys find this?”
“Don’t ask. Just next time, ask for world peace, or something that’s easy to come by.”
Henry started tsk-tsking at her bare feet and lack of coat, being the fastidious old mother hen that he was, but the car was so one-of-a-kind adorable. Only after another few minutes oohing and aahing did she notice the duffel bag in back.
“We’re going to be gone for twenty-four hours. Not far. Not sure how far we can trust the car-but Henry’ll be here, home, ready to send out the Mounties if she’s not in the mood to run well.”
“You mean I can actually drive it?”
“I don’t know,” Maguire murmured. “Can you? I mean, I’ll be glad to take the wheel if you’re afraid of it-”
“But I can?”
Maguire spun a circle as if searching everywhere in sight. “Do you see anyone stopping her, Henry? Of course, maybe we should have crash helmets before letting her behind the wheel. And a quick course in what a clutch is for-”
“I grew up on jalopies, Maguire. I know what a clutch is. My grandpa used to restore old cars.”
“So that’s how you knew about this baby?”
“Yeah. He found and fixed up an old MG for a neighbor.” She could see both he and Harry were in lust. They should look at women the way they looked at the car. They stroked. Drooled. Looked with reverence. Praised every body part. Revered.
Which gave her plenty of time to yank on clothes and shoes and a jacket and run back outside. Maguire was already installed in the passenger seat.
“I thought maybe you’d let me drive,” he said.
“Maybe in the next life. This was my fantasy. Not yours.”
“But I didn’t know about this car until you brought it up.”
“Not my problem.” She sank into the old leather, savoring the adorable dash, the tiny wheel, the long sleek front.
“What happened to my frugal, unselfish, can’t-accept-anything-for-herself woman I met a week ago?”
“You ruined her, Maguire. Until you, I had no idea being corrupted could be so much fun. Snap on your seat belt. Oh. There are no seat belts. Then just hold on and pray, big boy, while we see what she can do.”
She hadn’t forgotten Maguire’s moodiness the day before. He hadn’t, of course, mentioned that anything was troubling him, because Maguire wouldn’t. Not to her. Not to anyone, as far as she could tell.
Carolina was increasingly aware that her place in Maguire’s life had been carefully, completely, sharply defined by him. Once she was “better,” as he called it, he had every intention of disappearing-back to his life, whatever he did, whoever he did it with. If she felt something more, it was her problem. She’d cracked his armor when they made love, but he hadn’t willingly opened his heart to her. Even an inch.
Possibly that was why she made the first turn on two wheels. She didn’t want to give Maguire a heart attack exactly. More like an attack of the heart.
Within two miles, she’d mastered the four gears and aimed for some nice, steep, curly mountain roads.
“Does the phrase ‘oh, my God’ make you think we should slow down a little?” he asked over the wind.
“Nope.”
“Hey. Where is my shy, softhearted school-teacher?”
“That was then. This is now.” She had to shout to be heard above the wind. “Maybe you don’t find out what a girl’s made of until she has the chance to get behind the wheel, Maguire.” She glanced at him, but only a millisecond of a glance. The steep road had no guardrails, every swinging turn and swerve creating blind spots. Like falling in love with him, she thought. There were unknown dangers behind every turn. Reckless dangers. Worrisome dangers. But damned if her heart wasn’t racing with the thrill of it.
“Carolina.” He was white-knuckled, holding the dash and door. Laughing. But definitely holding on. “Do you think there’s a prayer we could return the car in one piece?”
The car, yes, she thought.
But her heart had already been cracked, hard.
And if streaking mountain roads at breakneck speed was what it took to make him laugh, she wasn’t about to put her sensible shoes back on now.
Whatever time she had left with him, she was determined to give it everything she had.
Chapter Nine
It took enormous motivation to get her to park the car, but then, Maguire prided himself at being able to occasionally achieve the impossible.
She started yelling at the top of her lungs.
While she was occupied, Maguire crawled out of the old MG and kissed the cold, damp ground. He was that grateful to be alive. He wanted to give himself credit-Carolina most distinctly was not depressed or despondent, the way he’d first found her. The sound of her shrieks was damn well worth gold. And he was going to enjoy them. After kissing the ground. He hadn’t been sure she was even listening to his directions, much less following them. The last ten minutes he’d been praying with his eyes closed.
“Maguire! Quit that! You weren’t that terrorized by my driving!”
“Oh, yes, I was,” he said feelingly, in no hurry to get off his knees.
He hadn’t been afraid of anything since he could remember, but he was starting to be mighty afraid of Carolina. She was doing just what he wanted her to do-becoming strong, becoming happy, standing up for herself more and more. It was just…
She wasn’t predictable. At least she wasn’t predictable with him.
Her excited shrieks, though, were very, very Carolina. At least when Carolina was happy. So if other issues weren’t perfect, Maguire was determined to be careful. To do the right thing. To finish up the fixing and healing of Carolina-no matter what it took.
“Maguire! How did you find this? I can’t believe you found this! Oh, my heavens. I didn’t even know anything like this existed! It was just a crazy fantasy idea, for heaven’s sake!”
She charged over-he knew damn well to throw herself in his arms; she was that excited, that beside herself. So he swiftly got to his feet and pulled a duffel bag from the back of the car, staving off any contact between them. “You ready to climb up?” he asked her.
“Are you kidding?”
Some women fantasized about jewels and furs. She’d wanted to spend the night in a tree house. Finding the jewels would have been a whole lot easier, but Maguire had to admit, he’d outdone himself this time.
He’d seen pretty much everything, but this was as close to plain old simple fun. It was easy enough to find a tree house, just not an adult tree house, much less within reasonable driving distance. This one fit all the criteria.
He didn’t know trees, but figured the base was one of the giant pines or spruces, because the top almost reached the sky. Midway up-thirty ladder steps up-a guy named McConnell had built an octagon-shaped cabin around the trunk. All the walls were tinted glass.
At the top of the ladder-he followed Carolina’s butt-was a push-up door. Next to it was a pulley device intended to carry things up and down, such as the duffel Maguire had packed for the two of them, and the groceries Henry had boxed up.
The pulley was damn fun. While Carolina took off exploring, he brought the gear up and started stowing, feeling like a kid playing hooky. The only regular door in the place concealed a tiny
bathroom and shower-it had glass windows like the rest of the tree house, but heaven knew, no one could see them at that height.
The architect had been intent on building green. The main living area was heated with a solar-powered heater. The minikitchen used solar power, as well, to chill, heat and store. A cupboard opened to reveal a pull-out collapsible table. A double-size beanbag functioned as a giant chair, big enough for two. A single bed-Maguire kept his eyes off it, as did Carolina-was double-sleeping-bag size, nothing fancy.
A small generator provided the possibility of electricity, but it was hard to imagine a need for TV or fancy music. The entertainment was all free. The view from the trees was more than magnificent. Stinging-fresh air, crusty hilltops and valleys, endless birds and wildlife below. Chocolate earth. Sharp greens. Diamonds in the sneaky curl of a creek below.
“I love you, Maguire,” Carolina crowed.
His heart stopped for a second, but of course recovered. “Yeah, that’s what all the girls say.”
“You went above and beyond to find this place.”
“I like the hero status, but I have to admit…I’m crazy about the place myself. You hungry? We just have picnic-type food. A lot of it, but nothing fancy.”
They’d both skipped breakfast, though, and Carolina fell on the feast as ravenously as he did. She found a small rug to use as a tablecloth, right next to the windows so they could watch the wildlife while they lunched. The fare was simple, cinnamon bread for sandwiches, heaped with lettuce and cheese and shaved ham, almost too big to fit her mouth around. Pickles. Potato chips. Apple wedges. Plain old iced tea. Almond cookies.
No lobster here. No gilded spires or castle walls. He hoped she’d feel more down to earth in a more down-to-earth environment.
Maybe he’d been hoping it would work for him, too. For Pete’s sake, she was wearing thick socks and baggy jeans and had cookie crumbs on her sweatshirt. How come he couldn’t take his eyes off her? Her hair looked brushed by a cyclone, and she kept saying, “Look! Look!” when a woodpecker came to stare at them from the door sill…or when a squirrel checked them out from upside down on a tree limb.
The Billionaire’s Handler Page 10
