Maggie's Man (21 page)

"I'm going to get into the car now,"
he said quietly. His gaze rested on her thin silk blouse, which was plastered
against her arms and chest. "You do what you think is best."

He bent over and climbed awkwardly into the
tiny car. She remained frozen with the rain battering against her. She licked
her lips.

Strip it all off and straddle his lap with a
sexy, husky smile, the way great-great-great-grandmother would've done.

He's an escaped murderer. He might seem very
intelligent and even-tempered for a man who allegedly committed a crime of
passion, I might even harbor the secret belief that he's innocent, but he's
still an escaped murderer and I can't seduce a murderer. How would I explain it
to my grandmother?

No, you know there's more to it than that.
You've spent nearly twenty hours with this man. If he's a murderer, then your
grandmother runs the gestapo. There is more to this than meets the eye, more to
him. Besides, look at that chest!

Exactly. He's a Rodin sculpture and I'm a stick
figure drawing. He'll take one look at me, pat me on the shoulder and start out
with, "I always wanted a little sister…"

Stop it, Maggie. You know that's not true.
You know he's attracted to you. His kiss was not a brotherly kiss, his gaze was
not a brotherly gaze. He wants you, too. Why can't you accept that? What are
you so afraid of?

I'm not strong enough, she thought abruptly,
desperately. I want him, but I want all of him and he'll never be mine. I want
to hold him and keep him. I want to wake up in his arms every morning. I want
to see his face smiling and strong every night. But he won't stay. They never
stay. Nobody ever stays and I can't bear the parting yet again. I can't stand
the emptiness.

She was clutching her locket. She didn't know
why, but she clutched her father's locket, containing the picture of some
beautiful woman Maggie had never met. The locket was the last thing he'd given
her.
Keep it for me, Maggie. But don't tell anyone about it. It's our
secret, my secret with my little girl,
he'd said.

You have to try this
, the voice insisted.
You can be strong enough, you know
you can be strong enough. Do you really want to be safe, sweet Maggie, forever?
Think of your great-great-great-grandmother. Think of the legend of the
Hathaway Reds.

But I'm not like them. And abruptly, horribly,
she knew it was true. She couldn't just seduce a man. She couldn't just crawl
on his lap and say, Take me, I'm yours. Catch me on fire, Big Buddy. She wasn't
that … adventurous. The other Hathaway Reds had been bold rebels, living
outside the constraints of society. Herself … she could not even stand to cheat
at solitaire.

Well, then, Maggie, it's a good thing he's
not a deck of cards.

"Maggie," she heard him call softly.
She blinked rapidly, then looked up. Cain had rolled down the window.
"Sweetheart, you're getting soaked. Come inside the car, Maggie.
Please."

"Okay," she whispered. Her feet moved
forward. Her hand clutched her locket. Her eyes remained locked on his face.

And God, was he beautiful
to her.

Chapter 9

«
^
»

"
I
'm … I'm ready." At the
last minute, she realized she should have stated those words defiantly. Maybe
with a come-hither toss of the hair. Instead, she sounded like a woman on the
verge of strangling to death.

Cain nodded. As she watched, he seemed to take
a deep breath. Moving very carefully, he opened the door and stepped outside.

He stood very close and felt very warm. She had
an eyeful of pectoral and was wishing it could be a handful, but her fingers
were fisted tightly at her sides, her knuckles clenched in sheer terror.

She could do this. She could do this. Taking a
breath as deep and careful as Cain's had been, she ducked and climbed into the
car. The front consisted of two bucket seats, separated by a gearshift. She
dripped mud and water ail over the vinyl, then slipped and nearly gutted
herself on the stick shift as her hands went flailing one way, and her legs the
other.

Instantly, Cain's hand was on her calf, his
long, strong fingers curling around her stockinged leg. She quietly stopped
breathing, moving, thinking.

Was now the time to passionately exclaim,
"Take me, I'm yours!"?

"Let me help you," Cain said quietly,
his voice not as steady as it had once been.

She nodded, eyes wide and teeth digging into
her lower lip as he slowly pushed her leg up onto the seat. He had such strong
hands. Warm and rough. She let her eyelids fall shut, dewed lashes brushing her
moist cheek, and concentrated on the sensation of his hand. That ridged callus,
that vibrant heat, that slight friction of his palm cradling her calf—all that
was being touched by a man.

She was beginning to understand the glazed look
in her friends' eyes.

"Okay, now just lift your legs over the
gearshift."

She nodded and managed the movement. Slowly,
she righted herself, getting her feet on the floor where they belonged, her
butt in the seat where it belonged, her hands on her lap where they belonged.
Only her head remained out of her control, lost somewhere in the clouds, where
she was now the great Margaret Hathaway, ready to perform the
lambada
in
just a black lace shawl.

Cain resettled in his seat, closing the door.
Small movements momentarily bridged their discomfort. His fingers turning the
ignition on. Her fingers turning up the heat. His fingers adjusting the vents
so that most of the warm air blew on her. Her fingers adjusting them back so he
got equal share. His fingers playing with the radio dial until one lone AM
country station provided a raspy, crooning cowboy singing about looking for
love in all the wrong places.

The heat filled the tiny car and steamed the windows.
The rain hammered against the roof and windows, still in full fury and
competing ruthlessly with the radio. It sounded as if they lived in the middle
of a cellophane wrapper being madly crinkled.

There was nothing more to do. Just sit here.
Wait for the glow of headlights. Pray they didn't belong to a cop. Wait for the
rain to end.

Maggie's fingers began to fidget on her lap.
She took a deep breath, then another. Even with the heat pouring out of the air
vents, she was chilly, water was still pouring from her hair down her shoulders
and back in tiny, maddening rivers.

"My shirt is wet, but you could see if it
makes a difference on your hair," Cain said at last.

"All right."

He handed her his crumpled shirt, then his
hands returned quickly and quietly to his side of the car. She risked a glance
at him. His gaze was still focused on the windshield, which had steamed over
completely.

Her lips curved down a little. Finally, she
leaned her head forward, spread out his shirt and used it as best she could to
blot at her dripping hair. She accomplished nothing.

"If you…" His voice trailed off. She
heard the sound of another deep breath. Then his hands were abruptly curling
around her scalp. "May I?"

Maggie could only nod.

Oh those fingers, those glorious fingers. They
wove into her hair, finding her sensitive, chilled scalp, making small,
miraculous circles that brought the blood rushing to her head, her nerve
endings tingling to defiant life. He didn't hesitate, he didn't go slow. He
conquered her hair and she surrendered every strand to him, her eyes drifting
shut, her neck arching to meet the soothing heat of broad palms cupping her
head.

With relentless precision, he drove the water
forward, pushing it along until his hands were tangled in the long, stringy
ropes of rain-laden hair, pressing and massaging, working the moisture to the
very ends. And then his hands began to wring, wrench, wring, and the water fled
from her hair in a torrent, defeated and vanquished.

At last Maggie lifted her head and looked at
Cain. His hands were still there, fingers woven into her long red hair.

"Thank you," she whispered, her blue
eyes wide, her cheeks damp.

"I'm sorry I don't have a comb," he
said hoarsely.

"Yes."

His hands slowly slid away. She wanted to tell
him not to, but her throat was too tight to get out the words. Her Adam's apple
bobbed, then bobbed again.

Belatedly, she turned her gaze to the
dashboard, her fingers knitting together on her lap. She leaned against the
seat, but the sensation of vinyl against her soaked blouse was unpleasant. More
heat piped out the vents but it was feeble now. The car appeared on the edge of
death, gasping and wheezing.

Finally, Cain reached out and shut off the
ignition. "There's not much gas," he said. "We'll have to ration
it."

She nodded. "Do you … do you think it will
be long before someone arrives?"

"I don't know. It's a hell of a night to
be on the road."

"Yes." Her gaze returned to the
near-empty gas gauge. "Even if it stops raining, we can't go very
far," she said softly.

"No. We can't."

"It's my fault."

"You think too much of yourself,
Maggie." He glanced at her. "I accepted your proposition, I turned
back and stopped this truck on my own volition. The choice, the risk, was mine
as well. So don't accept responsibility for my actions. That belongs to
me."

"Oh." She brought up her chin, and
for a moment her eyes gleamed defiantly. "Then why did you escape from
jail? That's escaping the consequences of your actions, isn't it?"

His lips twisted. "No, only the
consequences for my alleged actions."

"What? Did—"

"Maggie, you ask too many questions."

Her gaze fell down to her lap at the softly
spoken rebuke. He turned away from her, the small gesture putting even more distance
between them. She shifted restlessly and uncomfortably in her bucket seat.
There didn't seem to be anything more to say. There didn't seem to be anything
more to do.

The heat escaped from the car too quickly. Soon
she was shivering again. Goose bumps raced up her arms, prickling tiny hairs.
She wrapped her arms around her middle and rubbed briskly. It didn't help much.

"You would warm up faster without the
blouse on," Cain commented at last. His voice was level, but barely so.

"Yes … yes you're right."

Her fingers came up slowly to the first button.
She struggled with a tiny pearl. Maybe because her fingers were cold and thick.
Maybe because the silk ruffles that rimmed the neckline were plastered over the
button. Maybe because she was scared out of her mind.

Either way, she couldn't quite claim that she
nonchalantly shrugged off her blouse and casually flung it aside with a last,
dramatic toss of her head. More like she wrestled with it. It clung to her skin
and to her fingers and so she struggled and wriggled and writhed and contorted
as if she were fighting a coiled serpent. At last, with a hissing sigh and
victorious grimace, she ripped the clammy cloth from her torso, and promptly
got it tangled around her wrists.

Cain wasn't watching. His gaze was steadfastly
focused on the windshield as if it magically sported a mini TV and some
important ball game were on. She would have been injured by his lack of
attention, but her inept, uncoordinated efforts only made her relieved. Surely
when the great Margaret Hathaway had strolled into a hacienda wearing only a
black lace shawl and her flaming red hair, she'd done the deed with a bit more
aplomb than her great-great-great-granddaughter.

Finally, Maggie wadded up her muddy blouse in
her hand and sat tiny and hunch-shouldered. She wore a bra, of course, some
sheer pink concoction that her mother had given her and Maggie wore only
because it didn't show beneath the thin silk blouse. Looking down now, she
realized just how sheer it was. And her chest indicated just how cold she was,
too. Oh Lord.

She glanced up and found Cain's gaze upon her.
Her pink lips slightly parted and her breath caught in her throat.

His green eyes were steady, dark like a forest green.
He didn't blush, he didn't fidget. He didn't pretend he didn't see the hunger
in her gaze and she could see in his eyes that he wouldn't pretend not to feel
it. It was there between them, electric and rolling, a vibrant emotion barely
restrained and just waiting to break free.

He didn't make any moves, he didn't attempt to
free the beast. He sat there, as calm as ever. She understood then. He felt the
attraction, he did not deny the attraction. But he would not act on it. Maybe
he felt that would be improper, maybe he felt that would be taking advantage of
"sweet little Maggie."

She would just have to show him otherwise.

She stole another surreptitious glance at his
muscular torso and gnawed on her lower lip. How exactly did you go about
cracking that man's control? Her skills were definitely lacking in the area of
seduction.