The Women in Joe Sullivan's Life

by Marie Ferrarella

  This was turning out all right, after all. Maggie laughed, pleased and hugged Sandy to her. “Yes, you were.”

  There were things she had to do that numbered in the double digits. How she wound up accompanying Joe and the girls home was still something she was rather uncertain of. One moment she was saying goodbye to them at the studio door, the next moment, she was walking out to the parking lot with them, each hand enveloped in a death grip by the two older girls. Joe had been no help at all.

  “There’s a penalty for kidnapping in this state,” Maggie had warned as she allowed herself to be pulled into the car.

  “But they’re so young and innocent,” Joe protested, closing the car door.

  She buckled up. “I was talking about you—not so young or innocent.”

  He raised his hands to absolve himself of any guilt. “They’re doing this strictly on their own. Females have a habit of not listening to lowly males, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  He smirked all the way to the house.

  She let it happen, she realized, because she had gotten caught up in the girls’ euphoria even when she knew she shouldn’t be.

  “Mrs. Phelps,” Joe called as he opened the front door. “Break out a case of ginger ale. We have celebrities in our midst.”

  Mrs. Phelps was long on whimsy and humor. She appeared in the living room with a tray of glasses and a bottle of the girls’ favorite soda. Joe poured it as if it were champagne.

  “We just made a commercial, Mrs. Phelps,” Christine told the woman.

  “Ms. McGuire just used the girls for her cookie commercial,” Joe explained as he handed out the glasses.

  “How nice.” The woman smiled at Maggie. Maggie could see why the girls took to the woman. She had a warmth that was evident at first sight.

  Jennifer drained her glass quickly, her attention riveted to Maggie. “Can we make another ‘mercial?”

  Maggie took a sip from hers. “Well, perhaps. If this one tests well and has a good reception, we might want to film one or two more.”

  Sandy’s eyes widened at Maggie’s speculation and a smile began to spread. “Really?”

  She didn’t want to raise their hopes unfairly, but she certainly didn’t want to rain on what was very obviously a very sunny parade. “There might be a good chance of that happening, yes.”

  Christine snuggled over beside Maggie on the sofa. “And this time—”

  Sandy surprised them all by cutting in. “Don’t start nagging her. Maggie makes all the decisions. Don’t you, Maggie?”

  Maggie could only grin. “Yes, I do.” And some of them, she added silently, apparently successfully.

  Joe refilled her glass. What he wanted to be doing was pouring champagne into her glass, somewhere intimate and romantic. But for now, ginger ale in a house full of women, miniature and otherwise, would have to do. “Congratulations, doctor. It seems that the operation was a success.”

  Maggie raised her eyes to his. She wasn’t quite sure what he was driving at. “Excuse me?”

  Maybe he could arrange a little time alone with her. He looked toward the girls’ nanny. “Mrs. Phelps, would you mind taking the girls into the family room for a while?”

  Like a border collie rounding up its charges, Mrs. Phelps began to usher the girls from the room. “Of course not, sir. Girls?”

  Sandy, Christine and Jennifer looked disappointed, but for once, none of the girls vocalized a protest as they left Maggie and Joe alone.

  Joe turned toward Maggie and sat down beside her. “I mean that you thought doing the commercial would help Sandy feel better about herself and you were right.” He raised his near-empty glass to her in a toast, then set it down on the table. “And I’m grateful.”

  She held the chunky glass between her palms, looking into it. “Grateful enough to forget about asking me any more questions?”

  Maggie knew his answer before he gave it.

  He laughed softly. “Grateful, not irresponsible.” She quirked a brow. “I have a job to do, remember? And we have a bargain.”

  Maggie sighed. “Yes, we do.” She braced herself. She still didn’t want to go through with this, but she had given her word. Corny as it might seem to some, her word was something she cherished. At times, it had been the only thing she owned.

  There were lines of tension across her forehead. He hated the fact that they were there because of him—more specifically, because she didn’t trust him. It bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

  “This isn’t an execution, Maggie. Just an interview to fill in a few gaps, to confirm a few observations. I’ve pieced a lot of things together about you myself.” She looked at him in surprise, but said nothing. “For instance, I know that your family background isn’t that all-American apple-pie picture you’ve attempted to project.”

  She wanted to tell him that he was hallucinating, but she knew it was useless. One look at his face told her that. Besides, she’d never been very good at lying. “You were listening this afternoon, weren’t you. When I was talking to Sandy?”

  Unable just to hang back and wait, he’d gone out looking for her and his niece. When he heard Maggie talking, he hadn’t wanted to interrupt.

  “Yes.”

  She felt betrayed, angry. Embarrassed at letting her feelings show. “That wasn’t meant for you to hear.” She rose, pacing, moving away from him.

  There wasn’t any place for her to go. It was like the old days, when she’d felt confined, not by the tiny trailer they lived in, but by her very life.

  She swung around, her eyes accusing. “I’ve never told anyone else about that.”

  He crossed to her and took her hand. “Tell me.”

  She yanked her hand away. “Why? So you can print it in your magazine and sell a few more copies?” She didn’t want to be someone’s entertainment over coffee. She’d had enough ridicule at her expense in her earlier years to last a lifetime. It had branded her and made her leery of sharing anything private, including herself.

  He thought she knew him better than that. Maybe he was going too fast for both of them. “No, so you can be rid of this dark secret you think you’re carrying around.”

  She didn’t like his attitude or his inference. “I don’t think—”

  He bracketed her shoulders and held firm when she tried to pull away. She was so proud, so damn stubborn. “Do you think that you’re the first person to ever be poor? Or to struggle to get where she is? There’s no shame in that, Maggie.”

  He could talk. He with his comfortable, loving family, with his supportive parents. He had no idea what it was like to feel orphaned years before the fact. Or to have parents other kids laughed about.

  Anger rose in her eyes. “What would you know about it?”

  He hadn’t meant to raise his voice. Maggie seemed to be able to stir a passion within him that no one else had ever managed to do. He blew out a breath and then smiled. Apologetically, he hoped.

  “Not enough, apparently. Tell me about it, Maggie.” He took her hand and coaxed her back to the sofa. “Tell me what makes you wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night.”

  “Magazine writers who won’t give up.” She frowned, but she let herself be led to the sofa. When she sat down again, she found that she just couldn’t force herself to relax. “All right, all right, I gave you my word, so here is the story you want so desperately. My father was a born defeatist. He had job after nondescript job and couldn’t hang on to one of them.”

  She knotted her hands in her lap and stared at them. She couldn’t face looking at Joe.

  “I don’t think he ever really tried. Whenever he lost one, it was always someone else’s fault, never his. He never blamed himself.” Her mouth curved, but there was no humor in the expression. “My mother took care of that for him.” She sighed, saying aloud what had plagued her mind for years. “I have no idea why these two people married. Maybe they loved each other once, but I never saw any evidence of it. I never saw them kiss, never h
eard a good word pass between them.”

  Maggie took a deep breath as she looked off. “My mother turned to despair, and a bottle, very early in the marriage. Neither one of them should have had children, let alone four.” She tried to keep the emotion from her voice, from her soul, but she was past that. “I spent my childhood moving from one trailer park to another. I don’t think I owned anything that was new until I was eighteen. It was always someone else’s castoffs.”

  She had to bite her lips to keep the tears from coming, the tears that always seemed to come whenever she thought of the past.

  “I swore to myself that given half a chance, I would never be like either one of them. And that my brothers wouldn’t have to suffer because of our parents’ lack of ‘parental concern.’” She felt the pain even through her own sarcasm.

  He wanted to comfort her, to hold her, but he knew she wouldn’t allow it. “So you became mother and father to them.”

  She didn’t want to sound sanctimonious. “I suppose so.”

  Sympathy for the girl she had been, the girl who had had her childhood ripped away from her, won out over diplomatic restraint. He slipped his hand over hers. “I don’t imagine it was easy.”

  She laughed softly to herself, looking up toward the ceiling, hoping the tears would remain held in place.

  “No, it wasn’t. But I managed.” Her voice lowered and she was no longer talking to him. She was remembering. “Sometimes, I held on so tight, I thought my fingers would break off.” She looked at him, for a moment wanting him to understand her the way she had been. The way she was now. “When you hold on that tightly, sometimes it’s hard to let go.”

  He knew she was talking about her brothers. And the company.

  “But you have to,” he pointed out quietly. “Otherwise, you can crush the very thing that you’ve cared for so intently.”

  He was right, but she didn’t want to admit it. “Maybe.”

  He knew this was hard for her, but it shouldn’t have been. She’d made it more difficult for herself than was necessary. “Why wouldn’t you tell me any of this earlier?”

  He had to ask? Restless, Maggie rose to her feet. “What? That my father was shiftless and my mother was an alcoholic who drank herself to death?” Couldn’t he see how she dreaded having that in her past? How it tainted everything? People liked fairy tales; they didn’t like reality when it was unhappy. “Would you buy a cookie from a woman with a background like that?”

  “Yes.” He crossed to her and turned her around to face him. “Because she rose above it.”

  That was what Ethan had said to her. But she wasn’t convinced. “My background isn’t something I’m proud of, Sullivan. Above all, I don’t tell people about it because I don’t want to see pity in their eyes, the way I see in yours right now.”

  She struggled to pull away, but he wasn’t about to let her. Not yet. “And here I thought you were intuitive.”

  She didn’t know what he was talking about. “What?”

  He held her closer. “That’s not pity, McGuire, that’s admiration.” He could smell her shampoo, the soap she used, all around him. It was more intoxicating than any Parisian perfume. As was she. “Mixed with a healthy dose of desire.”

  She wouldn’t let herself believe him. Life had taught her to believe in very little outside herself. “There isn’t anything more to tell you, Sullivan. You don’t have to come on to me.” In her mind, she would always be that emotionally abandoned little girl in secondhand clothing. Someone no one wanted. Why would a man as good-looking as Joe want to be with her if it weren’t for the article?

  He shook his head. It would be funny if it wasn’t so frustrating. “You don’t get it yet, do you? McGuire, I don’t have to do anything. Do you think I’ve been hanging around you just for a story?”

  She stared at him, very aware that their bodies were too close for comfort. And that she didn’t want to break away even when she knew she should. “Haven’t you?”

  Rather than answer, he kissed her throat softly and heard her sigh. “Give me a little credit. I’m not a novice. There are ways to get information other than directly from your very tempting lips.”

  She was having trouble thinking. He was unraveling her as if she were a skein of wool batted around by a kitten. “It would be hearsay,” she said with effort, “and I already told you, I’ve never shared this with anyone.”

  “Doesn’t mean that one of your brothers hasn’t.” He stopped to look at her. “The skeletons you think you’re hiding in your closet might have been out, dancing on the lawn all this time.” His eyes held hers. “I didn’t need you to make a full confession.”

  It didn’t make any sense to her. “Then why have you been turning up in my classes?”

  “I prefer getting my story firsthand, but that’s not the real reason.” He pressed a kiss to the pulse in her throat and felt it jump. She tasted of all things dark and exciting. “I wanted to be around you.”

  “Why?” The word was breathy. Maggie felt as if she were sinking, as if her knees were buckling, even though she remained where she was.

  “Maggie, if you haven’t figured that one out yet, you’re not the brilliant woman I’ve been making notes about for the last few weeks.” He took her face between his hands. “Here, tell you what. I’ll give you another hint.”

  Joe lowered his mouth to hers and made the symphony she had heard the last time return, bass drum, cymbals and all.

  Chapter Ten

  Joe felt his blood racing like a car revving up for the Indianapolis 500 the moment his lips touched hers.

  This was the woman who mattered.

  The thought throbbed in his mind through the hot haziness surrounding him. What had begun as a physical attraction had quickly escalated into something far greater, far deeper. She was the type of woman he admired. Independent, kind, giving and terrific with the girls. And inside, though she tried to mask it, he knew there was someone who needed a hand to hold. He wanted it to be his.

  Desires overtook him and made demands, demands that he couldn’t ignore indefinitely. Demands he could just barely keep in check even now.

  Reluctantly, Joe stopped kissing Maggie. If he didn’t, there would be hell to pay. Feeling like an aroused adolescent, newly thrown into the tumultuous world of emotions, Joe took a moment to catch his breath.

  “You know,” he murmured, his forehead touching hers, “Mrs. Phelps can be persuaded to stay the night.” His mouth curved. “Can you?”

  Maggie waited before answering. She felt as if she’d just ended a twelve mile jog. Damn the man. Every time he kissed her, it was as if all the life forces were being sucked away from her. As if she had no will of her own. Kissing him was exhilarating and wonderful and frightening as all hell. She had vowed, ever since she was a child, to be in control of her own destiny, to never fall under anyone else’s domination. And here she was, with a man who turned that resolve into wet papier-mâché.

  She looked up at him, her insides still the consistency of warmed butter. He was asking her to sleep with him.

  Maggie banked down the response that instantly leapt to her lips. She couldn’t. Much as her body begged her to, she couldn’t. There were just too many complications.

  And she was afraid.

  Hiding her feelings, Maggie attempted to sound indignant and succeeded only marginally. “Here?”

  Did she think he was that careless? He was fully aware of the responsibilities on his shoulders. Just because she was standing there, arousing him the way no other woman ever had just by breathing, didn’t mean that he would just throw caution to the wind.

  “Actually, I was thinking of your place. I wouldn’t want the girls wandering in on us and they do have a habit of bounding in unexpectedly.” Especially on the mornings he wanted to sleep in. “They think that my bed doubles as a trampoline.”

  She drew a deep breath. Her lungs felt constricted, as if she would never get enough air back into them. Even her skin tingled. What
was he doing to her?

  It took everything she had to form the single word. “No.”

  He smiled at her, threading his fingers through her hair and combing it back. He saw the hesitation in her eyes. Mingled with desire. What was stopping her? “Maggie, you don’t mean that.”

  Her mouth felt dry and she was struggling to keep her senses about her. They kept scattering, like tiny silver balls engaged in play in a pinball machine.

  “Maybe not, but I’m saying it.”

  He stared at her, then laughed. “Well, you’ve lost me again.”

  If only it were that easy. She placed her hands on his chest and wedged some space between them. It did no good. He would have had to have been in a different room not to affect her. A different room in a different city.

  “Sullivan, I lied. There was something else to add to that interview—”

  Nothing she could possibly tell him would make a difference in the way he felt about her. He was in for the long haul. Smiling, he wondered what she would say if he told her that she was hopelessly adorable when she was serious.

  “You’re really a man?” he guessed. His eyes swept over her slowly, touching her intimately. Maggie took a step back as if she had felt him. “Medical science has made great strides.” He hooked his finger in her belt, drawing her to him. “Good thing I’m so open-minded.”

  Maggie batted his hands away, frustrated. Fighting him and her own desires. “This isn’t funny, Sullivan.”

  He raised his hands in surrender and then folded them in front of his chest. “Okay, I’m listening. I’m frustrated, but I’m listening.”

  He was frustrated? The man didn’t know the half of it, Maggie thought. Still, that didn’t change her bottom line. One she had adhered to for a long time. “I don’t want to get involved.”

  He didn’t believe her, but he played along. “In general or with me?”

  “In general.” She threw up her hands, exasperated. “And with you.”

  She might actually believe what she was saying, but he knew better. He had kissed her. He had tasted her desire. It was every bit as real as his.