The Women in Joe Sullivan's Life

by Marie Ferrarella

  For a moment, because she was retreating, it was safe to allow other feelings to surface. Her mouth curved. “Don’t tempt me.”

  He liked the sound of that. “Do I, McGuire? Do I tempt you?”

  When was she going to learn to keep her mouth shut? He seemed to drag things out of her that she had no intentions of allowing into the light of day. “It’s getting late.” Opening the door to her car, she slid behind the steering wheel and turned on the ignition.

  He leaned in. “Someday, you’re going to have to give me a straight answer.”

  “Maybe.” But not tonight.

  She pulled out of the driveway as quickly as possible. Her hands felt cold, clammy, as they clutched the steering wheel. He was getting too close to her, she thought, frustrated. She was beginning to care too much about him, about his nieces.

  Beginning?

  Maggie mocked herself as she felt tears starting to form in her eyes. She was way past the beginning and practically at the home stretch. And she knew what that meant.

  Setting herself up for the inevitable rejection. Getting hurt. She hadn’t allowed herself to care about anyone besides her brothers for years. The one time she had let her guard down and reached for a normal life, it had blown up in her face, reinforcing what she already knew to be true. That if she became involved with someone, she was going to pay the price.

  Talk about a slow learner. Even a gerbil could be trained eventually.

  What was she doing, all but living over at Sullivan’s house when she wasn’t working? Sharing dinners with him and his nieces, putting them in her commercials, spilling her innermost feelings and emotions to him when they were alone?

  She was setting herself up, that’s what.

  She should have her head examined.

  But it would be over soon enough, she thought, driving toward the main thoroughfare. After tomorrow, that would be it. There would be no more reasons for her to see him. No more commercials. No more article. No more excuses. Especially not to herself.

  All morning long, Maggie had felt antsy, like an islander waiting for a volcano to erupt at any moment. When Joe had said he would drop by with the article for her perusal, he’d neglected to specify a time. Maggie anticipated his appearance with every movement of the clock.

  Like a cat on a hot tin roof, she thought disparagingly.

  When Ada buzzed her, she physically jumped. “That’s it, McGuire,” she muttered. “Stay calm and collected under fire.”

  Blowing out a frustrated breath, irritated at her own reaction, she pressed the intercom line. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Sullivan here to see you.”

  Panic iced through her. Suddenly, she didn’t want to see him. Didn’t want to read the article and see herself through his eyes. Didn’t want it to end and knew it would once she read what he had to say.

  She dragged a hand through her hair. Why wasn’t life ever simple? “Send him in, Ada.”

  It was nice while it lasted, Joe.

  Her heart was racing as she waited for the door to open. Maggie couldn’t remember feeling this nervous even the very first time she had tried to convince Hathaway’s to carry her cookies for a month on a trial basis.

  Then she had been a woman driven, a woman with a mission. A dream. A woman with faith in her product, unwilling to accept defeat.

  Now she was just Maggie McGuire, the girl in the secondhand thrift-shop shoes. Afraid of what lay ahead.

  She looked almost white, Joe thought as he walked into her office. Was she that worried about the article? Or was there something else wrong? Something else he was going to have to pull out of her before she shared it with him?

  “Well, here it is.” He dropped the freshly printed pages on her desk.

  With fingers that felt oddly stiff, Maggie picked up the pages.

  Was it his imagination, or were her hands trembling ever so slightly? At times, despite what she had told him, Joe still had difficulty reconciling the dynamic businesswoman with the girl she had exposed to him.

  She was settling back in her chair, like a prisoner reading charges brought against her.

  “You’re going to read it now?”

  “Yes.” She glanced toward him. Her throat felt dry. “If I put it off, I might not get to it.”

  “That wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.” Uneasy anticipation hummed through his veins. He felt like a college freshman again, waiting for the campus newspaper’s editor’s opinion as he sat in his cubbyhole of an office. Joe gestured toward the sofa. “Okay, I’ll hang around in case you want me to strike anything.”

  She pressed her lips together. Yes, the whole article. “Fair enough.”

  Joe sat down. He could almost hear the air moving around the room as he watched her face while she read. Different emotions passed over her face like migrating storm fronts.

  She didn’t like it, he thought.

  Confirmation was not long in coming. Maggie dropped the pages on her desk. Some broke rank and spread out like the bracing legs of a spider falling to the ground. Maggie raised her eyes. They met across the length of the small room. “You put it in?”

  “It” could refer to a great many things. He rose, a soldier defending his boundaries, and crossed to her. Joe looked down over her shoulder, as if the offending item would leap out at him. Or at least glow in blazing red. “What?”

  “Everything.” She wasn’t sure what she had expected. But seeing her life on a black-and-white page had made it seems so stark. So ugly. “The poverty, the dysfunctional parents.” She rose, her emotions churning up to a fever pitch she wasn’t certain how to control or channel. “Damn it, you even stuck in the part about the thrift-shop clothes.”

  He wanted to take hold of her shoulders before she really worked herself up. Instead, he stuck his hands in his pockets, knowing that she would take any contact as some sort of compromise. “It’s the great American success story. People eat that up.”

  She wanted distance between them. Distance while she tried to work through this feeling of inadequacy. Somehow, she had thought that at the last moment, he would go back to the plain piece she had envisioned. The one that concentrated on her work, not her past.

  “The only thing I want people to eat up are my cookies, not my life.”

  She was overreacting. There was no reason for this degree of distress. There had been nothing but admiration for her in the article. Didn’t she see that?

  “What are you afraid of, Maggie? Proving you’re human like everyone else?”

  He was making fun of her. “I’ve done the human bit, thank you very much. All I want people to think of when they buy a bag of Magnificent Cookies is that it’s a hell of a cookie, not that the woman who built the company wore secondhand underwear until she was in high school.”

  Why was she so hung up on image? “You could have had brand-new underwear.” He gave up the struggle to keep his voice down. “Instead, you spent the money on your brothers, making things better for them. That’s pretty terrific.”

  He didn’t know what it was like to be ridiculed. People didn’t see the good; they zeroed in on the misery. “I don’t care what you think. I’m a private person.”

  It went beyond that and they both knew it. “There’s a difference between being private and being fanatical about keeping everything a secret.”

  So now he was accusing her of being a fanatic? Maggie drew herself up. “I think you’d better go.”

  He moved, but it was toward her, not the door. He bracketed her with his hands, as if that could somehow make her comprehend the words. “You think I can’t see through this? You’re doing this on purpose.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  His eyes pinned her in place far more securely than his hands did. Pinned her in place and made her squirm inwardly. “This isn’t about the article letting some woman in Ventura know that you grew up in a series of dilapidated trailers. This is about you and me.”

  She jerked away angrily. �
�I didn’t see that in the article.”

  “Then open your eyes.” He waved at the scattered pages on her desk. “That was written by a man who’s falling in love with you, and that scares you to death, doesn’t it? I don’t know why, but it does.”

  She refused to acknowledge his accusation with a defense. Maggie pressed her lips together stubbornly. “I can’t give my okay to this.”

  The hell with the article. “To the article or to us?” His voice was low, dangerous.

  Like a shell-shocked warrior who’d forgotten the reasons for the war, only that winning mattered, Maggie dug in. “Both. There is no us, Sullivan. I told you that from the very beginning.”

  He refused to believe she meant what she was saying. “You said a lot of things. It was up to me as a writer to sort it all out. What I saw was a woman who overcame a great many obstacles to hand her brothers a dream she had for all of them. A woman who said one thing and did another.”

  Maggie turned away from him, but he caught her by her wrist and forced her to turn around. “Who said she didn’t want to raise another family, then got herself involved in mine.”

  Fisting her hands, she yanked them away from his grasp. “I wasn’t involved with you any more than I am with anyone I come in contact with.” Frightened, her back to the wall, she heard words coming out of her mouth, hurtful words. “Than any of the people who work for me.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Kiss them until their socks burn off, too, do you?”

  Anger flashed in her eyes. “I’ve got a meeting to go to.”

  There would always be a meeting for her. Joe picked up the pages from her desk. There was no reasoning with Maggie now. Perhaps not ever. She had to work this through herself before he could make any headway with her. If he remained, things would be said that neither one of them would be able to take back. They needed a cooling-off period.

  He could wait her out. And when her demons threatened to overtake her, he’d be there to fight them off for her.

  But not just now. She had to take that first step toward him herself. Everything else would be meaningless unless that happened.

  “Go ahead, McGuire,” he said quietly. “Go to your meeting. I’ll still be around when you run out of meetings to flee to.”

  Why? Why was he doing this to her? Why was he trying to get her to dissolve her defenses? He’d only leave like everyone else. It was better to leave than be left. “I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.”

  “Well, you’re not me. And until you stop hiding, you won’t have any idea what goes into making up a guy like me.”

  She felt as if she were attempting to hang on to the side of a mountain with just her fingertips. “I am not hiding.” Her voice rose insistently.

  He was at the door, but turned and strode back to her. Pulling her to him, he kissed her quickly, soundly, then released her. A promise lingered in the air.

  He smiled at her, though it didn’t reach his eyes. There, only sadness dwelled.

  “Your opinion,” he said, leaving.

  He heard the thud against the door a moment after he closed it behind him. Judging from the sound, he guessed that it was the paperweight she kept on her desk.

  He rolled up the pages in his hand and saluted Ada as he walked by.

  Ada continued typing. She knew better than to walk in on Maggie now.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ethan walked into Maggie’s office, feeling a little like Daniel entering the lion’s den of his own free will. It helped to remind himself that Daniel had survived the venture.

  For the last two weeks, Maggie had been as restless as the liquid within a continuously churning blender. He’d never seen her so unsettled, so unfocused. It was as if something very important had been taken away from her, a corner of her foundation. She was listing and vainly attempting to compensate for it.

  And he knew what was the matter. Which was why he tossed the latest copy of County Magazine on her desk.

  Maggie started as the publication fell on top of the sales chart she was studying. She looked up at Ethan accusingly.

  He merely smiled. “Thought you might want to see the article Sullivan did on you.”

  She pushed it aside as if it were unwanted packing within a box. “I’m not interested.”

  Ethan sat down on the corner of her desk. He might be playing with fire, but he was unwilling to let the matter go. “Mag-pie, how long have we been together?”

  Her eyes narrowed as he knew they would. “That’s a stupid question, and you know how much I hate that nickname.”

  When she glanced down at the chart again, Ethan moved it aside. It earned him a glare. “Yes, I do. I did it to get your attention. You’ve been moving around like a woman in a daze for the last two weeks.”

  She didn’t like having her behavior questioned, even when it was out of sync. Maggie gestured toward the pile of folders on her desk. “I’ve been preoccupied.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  His attitude irritated her beyond words. Lately, her temper had no fuse. It just flared at will.

  “With work,” she said between clenched teeth.

  Ethan shook his head in solemn amazement. “Two lies in less than two minutes. Must be a record, considering you’ve never lied to me before.” A smile curved the corners of his mouth. “At least, not that I know of.”

  She knew where this was going. Ethan had an infuriatingly one-track mind, and he’d already shown his preference for Joe. She looked back at the paper on her desk, though there might have been a map of Tahiti in its place for all the sense it was making to her. Nothing seemed to make any sense anymore.

  “Wrong. I told you there was a Santa Claus.”

  For just a moment, he allowed himself to be diverted, remembering. Maggie had tried awfully hard to make life bearable for them back then.

  “We always knew it was you.” Their eyes met for a moment. His were kind, understanding. He’d come every step of the way with her and although her demons weren’t his, that was due mainly to her. She’d kept him and his brothers all safe, all secure. It was time she felt a piece of that warm security herself. “Why don’t you stop pretending that you don’t miss him?”

  Maggie debating denying Ethan’s assumption, but he was right. She’d never really lied to him. She couldn’t. “Is it that obvious?”

  Ethan laid a comforting hand over hers. “To anyone with eyes.”

  She sighed as she leaned back in her chair. “I can’t get involved with Sullivan.”

  Ethan couldn’t understand why she was resisting. He knew Sullivan cared about Maggie. And she obviously cared about the man and the little girls that were in the equation. The entire situation had “Maggie” written all over it. “Not that I don’t believe you already aren’t, but why?”

  It was far too difficult to put into simple words. She shrugged and gestured vaguely around. “Because there’s too much work to do.”

  As far as excuses went, on a scale of one to ten, that didn’t even make the scale. “You could always juggle better than anyone I knew. Not the reason.” He crossed his arms before his chest. “Next?”

  Maggie pushed herself away from her desk and rose. She began to pace around restlessly, the way she’d been doing in her soul these last few weeks. “I don’t want to take on another family. I raised you and Adam and Richie—”

  Ethan turned his head to keep her within range. He hated seeing her like this. “And we’re grateful for that, but I’d like to think we weren’t so awful as to permanently sour you on the experience. Besides, I saw you with those girls. You melted around them like a pat of butter on a hot pancake.”

  She laughed softly as she looked out the window. Was it her imagination, or was the sky less blue lately? “Colorful.”

  Ethan shook his head. “Truthful. Reason dismissed. Next?”

  She blew out a breath, sinking her fisted hands deep into the pockets of her skirt. “There is no ‘next.’”

  “I think there is.” Ethan c
rossed to her and studied his sister’s face for a moment before he spoke. “You’re afraid, aren’t you.”

  He knew her better than anyone. There was no point in lying. “Maybe.”

  There was no maybe about it. They didn’t talk about the subject, didn’t touch on it at all, but he knew what haunted her.

  “Of being abandoned.” Maggie looked at him sharply. “Hey, I shared the same nightmares. But they’ll never go away until you have someone who’ll turn on the light for you and make the shadows disappear. Trust me, I know.”

  He was right; she knew he was. And yet, she felt that reaching to take what Joe had offered was risking so much. That next step for her was so huge. “And you think Sullivan is that someone.”

  He did, but he refrained from saying so just yet. “What I think doesn’t count, Mag. What you think does.” He looked deep into her eyes. “And I think you think the answer is yes—you’re just afraid to go for it.” He loved her a great deal, and he refused to let her give up this one chance at real happiness because of the scars from an ugly past.

  His sister, actually afraid. “I never thought I’d see the day.” Ethan ran his hands along her arms, bolstering her, affection in every syllable. “Mag, just because we were dealt a bum hand as far as parents went, doesn’t mean everyone else is going to desert us the first opportunity they have.”

  He searched her face, trying to see if the words were penetrating. “For my money, Sullivan stuck around when someone else would have left.” He tugged at a lock of her hair, the way he used to when they were children. “You’re not always the easiest person to get along with.”

  She couldn’t argue with that. But there was a very glaring fact Ethan was missing. “He’s gone now.”

  “Because you made him go.” He gestured toward the magazine on her desk. “Read the article, Mag.” He’d read it, and seen a great deal between the lines. He hoped she was smart enough to see the same thing. “And then call him.”

  “I already read it, when he brought the draft to me,” she said stubbornly.

  Ethan tapped the magazine. “Then read it again. With an open mind.”