The Man for Maggie. Lee McKenzie
had his mother hounding him, now Leslie and Allison. Didn’t these women have anything better to do?
“Candice’s divorce was finalized last week and I know for a fact that she doesn’t have a date yet. You used to have a thing for Candice, as I recall.”
Give me a break! That had been in the ninth grade. One make-out session at Billy Jean What’s-her-name’s birthday party was hardly “a thing.”
Allison gave him a cool cat-that-stole-cream smile. “Candice said she’d go with you since you don’t have a date.”
How in hell did they know whether or not he had a date? “I hadn’t wanted to rush things but I’d planned to ask Maggie to go with me.”
Maggie’s beautiful brown eyes popped open wide. “Me?”
“Why not? It’ll give you a chance to…”
He stopped himself before he said, “wear those pearls.” Their earlier conversation about the pearls had been fun, even a little flirtatious, and Allison’s radar would detect that in a nanosecond. “It’ll give you a chance to meet some of Collingwood Station’s upper crust. Definitely a chance to improve your social standing.” As soon as he said that, he wished he hadn’t.
Allison gave him a steely glare.
“Thank you!” Maggie said. “I love weddings and I’d love to meet your family.” Her quick acceptance was a little surprising, especially after his unnecessary remark about her social standing, but at least he was off the hook with Candice.
“Then it’s settled.”
He could tell Allison wasn’t buying any of this and he felt as though he needed to do something to convince her that he’d really been planning to ask Maggie. So he moved closer to Maggie and casually draped an arm around her shoulders.
Big mistake.
It was one thing to go out of his way to provoke Allison but he didn’t need to get this close to Maggie to do it.
Who knew she’d be the perfect height? Just tall enough that when they danced together at Leslie’s wedding, her head would tuck nicely under his chin. She’d smell like strawberries and cream, and look up at him with those chocolatey eyes and when she spoke, that amazing voice would be for his ears only.
Definitely something to look forward to, but not a good idea to be thinking those things in front of Allison, who would be on the phone to his sister the minute she got home.
“I should go,” he said. “I just need to run upstairs to check the attic for insulation. Do you have a stepladder?”
“I haven’t seen one. I have a flashlight, if that’ll help.” She ducked out from under his arm and retrieved it from the cupboard under the sink.
“Thanks. I’ll be right back.” With any luck, Allison would be gone by then.
He took the stairs two at a time. The opening to the attic was in the hallway ceiling. He’d have to stand on something to reach it.
A kitchen chair?
No way was he going back downstairs. There had to be something upstairs.
Maggie’s bedroom was to the right. The bed was neatly made but otherwise the room looked as though it’d been hit by a cyclone. Two suitcases, a stack of hat boxes and a couple of cardboard cartons took up most of the floor space. The top of an old dressing table was cluttered with hats and hairbrushes and jewelry, including the string of pearls.
He resisted the temptation to investigate further, except to see that the only chair in the room was an old wicker rocker heaped with clothes.
The two other bedrooms appeared to function as storage space and an office, judging by the books and papers strewn everywhere. He moved into the room to retrieve her office chair and couldn’t resist taking a look at what she was working on. It stopped him dead in his tracks.
“I’ll be damned.” Then he grabbed the chair and headed out the door, grinning like a fool.
MAGGIE WOULD MUCH RATHER have gone upstairs with Nick than be in the kitchen, listening to Allison’s chatter about Leslie’s wedding and how it would be the event of the summer. She was relieved to finally hear Nick’s footsteps on the stairs. When he walked into the kitchen to return the flashlight and say goodbye, his eyes held an odd combination of amusement and uncertainty.
“Gotta run,” he said. “I’ll drop off the estimate as soon as it’s ready. Allison, it’s been a pleasure, as always.”
“You’re leaving?” Allison seemed to forget all about the wedding. “I’ll walk out with you. See you later, Maggie.”
Maggie wondered if “later” meant the next time Nick was here.
He tucked his clipboard under his arm and headed out the front door, with Allison close behind. Less than a minute later, she heard his truck pull away. Apparently he didn’t want to listen to Allison’s chatter any more than she did.
Maggie was just glad they were gone. A jumble of emotions had her all aflutter and she needed time to sort them out.
Nick had asked her to be his date to his sister’s wedding!
She knew better than to let the invitation send her spirits soaring, but she couldn’t keep the bounce out of her step as she gathered her folders and sketches and sprinted up the stairs.
She felt like a teenager again, daydreaming about being asked to the prom by the coolest guy in school. Or the hottest, depending a person’s perspective!
Yet, she needed to be realistic. Nick had invited her to the wedding so he could get out of taking someone named Candice and possibly to annoy Allison and his family. Not because he wanted to spend an evening with her. Besides, a man who was interested in a woman “that way” wouldn’t give her a fruit basket. His gift had been funny and sweet, but about as far from romantic as a gift could get. And right after he’d asked her to the wedding—and she’d said yes—he’d suddenly been in a big hurry to leave.
Best not delude herself about Nick’s intentions. Still, she’d learn a lot about him when she met his family. Nick Durrance deserved to be happy. Once he started working here, she’d have plenty of opportunities to help him find that happiness. She had a good feeling about that.
Until she reached the doorway of her office.
No!
She slammed the folders onto the bed.
No, no, no, no, no!
The yearbooks she’d been poring over last night were still lying on the floor. All of them open to the pages with Nick’s pictures.
Had he come in here when he’d come up to check the insulation in the attic? He’d given her that odd look when he’d come downstairs. She’d thought it had something to do with Allison’s endless talking, but what if…
Frantically she looked around for the access to the attic, relieved to see that it was in the hallway near the top of the stairs. He would have opened the hatch, looked inside and gone back downstairs. Nick didn’t seem the type to snoop, and he would have had no reason to go any farther.
She returned to the office, gathered up the books and slipped the first one into place on the bookshelf.
How had he reached the access to the attic?
She went back into the hallway and took another look. He was tall but he wasn’t that tall. He hadn’t had a stepladder with him, which meant he must have stood on a chair.
Her desk chair.
Which meant he would have had to step right over the yearbooks to get it.
Oh, Maggie. You are such an airhead.
Everything that everyone had ever said about her was true. She rushed into things without thinking them through and she was flighty and impulsive. Of