Maggy's Child (36 page)

It had been years since she’d even thought of having sex with a man, so birth control was something she hadn’t needed to worry about. Feverishly she counted back to the date of the end of her last period. Eight days ago. Did that mean she was safe? She didn’t know.

Nick was opening up a whole new world for her, she thought sourly. Unplanned pregnancy, birth control, sexually transmitted diseases—she hadn’t had to worry about them in a long, long time.

She and Nick were going to have a frank talk on the subject that very day.

In the meantime, it occurred to her that she was in bed alone. There was an indentation in the pillow beside hers that indicated where he had been, and the covers on his side of the bed were thrown back. But there was no sign of Nick himself.

It was full daylight, of course. A single beam of brilliant sunlight had managed to sneak through a crack where the drawn shade did not quite cover the window. Dust motes floated lazily in its brilliance.

From outside came the muted slam of a car door, and then, a few minutes later, the corresponding slam of the front door to the house. Masculine voices spoke briefly—she couldn’t understand the words, but there was no mistaking the gender—and then she heard footsteps coming up the stairs two at a time.

It was Nick, and he was whistling. Maggy absorbed those facts even as she scrambled beneath the covers, pulling them up to her armpits and tucking them around her so that only her shoulders were left bare. What had passed between them the previous night notwithstanding, she could not just be sitting here stark naked when he walked in.

Just as Maggy had expected, Nick didn’t even knock. The knob turned, the door opened, and there he stood. He was wearing a blue-plaid flannel shirt tucked into a skintight pair of jeans, cowboy boots, and a tooled-leather belt. His hair, clearly having emerged fairly recently from the vigorous ministrations of a brush, waved glossily back from his forehead, and he was freshly shaved.

“Sleepyhead,” he said, breaking off the cheerful tune he’d been tootling to grin at her.

“You didn’t use a rubber,” she said accusingly. Her ire was increased by the thought of what she must look like: her face needed washing, she lacked even the faintest trace of makeup, and her hair hung in a tangled mess around her shoulders and down her back. She caught a handful of hair that hung over her forehead, pulled it back from her face, and scowled at him.

Nick paused, looked hard at her as if to weigh the degree of her displeasure, and came on into the room, nudging the door shut behind him.

“I didn’t have one on me at the time,” he replied with unimpaired good humor, crossing to the bed to drop a kiss on her mutinous mouth and a small brown paper bag that she hadn’t even noticed he was carrying into her lap
at the same time. “Don’t worry,
querida
, you’re safe with me.”

Magdalena understood from that that he knew he was disease free. But disease was not her major concern at the moment. Knowing Nick as she did, she was sure that if he’d had the slightest doubt about his status he would never have touched her. Pregnancy was what she was worried about.

“I’m not on the pill.” At his apparent lack of concern, her scowl grew fiercer.

“Neither am I.”

Maggy almost gnashed her teeth. “Would you be serious?”

Nick crooked his thumbs around his belt loops and looked down at her reflectively. “I’d forgotten what a little shrew you used to be. Do I want to let myself in for a lifetime of being yelled at before I even get a cup of coffee inside me?” He appeared to ponder for an instant, and then that deep dimple appeared beside his mouth. “Well, you’re worth it. I guess.”

Maggy snatched the pillow from behind her back and threw it at him. He ducked, laughing, and opened the door, calling back over his shoulder as he headed down the hall: “Coffee’s on downstairs. Food’ll be ready in fifteen minutes. Try not to chew any furniture before then.”

Beast
. But Maggy had to smile even as she thought it.

The bag he had dropped on her lap contained a few vital cosmetics, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrush, and a comb and hairbrush. Maggy’s eyes lit up as she saw her booty. Nick had obviously gone to the drugstore for her, for which she was grateful. Armed with clean hair and a lipstick, she felt she could take on the world.

Clothes were a different story. She could wear the clothes she had arrived in, but they were crumpled and dirty and she preferred not to. Maggy pondered the problem for a moment, and then got out of bed, retrieving her
T-shirt from the floor and pulling it over her head so that she wouldn’t have to cavort around naked while she rounded up something to wear. Since this was Nick’s room, it stood to reason that his clothes would be in the closet. She would borrow something of his.

She found a sweatshirt and sweatpants, both in heavy black cotton, folded on the closet shelf. Carrying them and the bag Nick had given her to the bathroom with her, she showered, shampooed her hair, and then rubbed herself dry, wrapping a thick terry towel around her head turbanlike as a final measure. If either Nick or Link possessed anything as convenient as a hair dryer, she would be surprised. At any rate, there wasn’t one around that she could find.

Her underthings had been moved, and as she pulled them on, she blushed faintly at the idea of Nick—she hoped it had been Nick—handling them. Which was silly, of course. He had handled the body that they clothed, for goodness’ sake. Which was more intimate?

She stepped into the sweatpants, which were far too large. Fortunately the ankles were elastic, and the waist had a drawstring. She tied the string tightly about her own waist, and was left with a billowy pair of sweats that nevertheless fit well enough to be wearable. The shirt, too, was overlarge. The hem hung almost to mid-thigh, and the fit was definitely loose. The sleeves were a good eight inches too long. She hadn’t realized what a large man Nick was until she tried wearing his clothes. Probably because she compared him with Link, who was even larger.

Pushing up the sleeves almost to her elbows solved the problem of the sweatshirt. The outfit was big—fortunately oversize was in—but serviceable. With her own flats, she could be seen outside the house.

Maggy looked in the mirror, was pleased to note that the bruises on her face were fading, and applied lipstick and a light dusting of powder on her nose from the supplies
Nick had brought. He hadn’t thought to buy mascara—what man ever did?—but her lashes were naturally long and dark, and today her eyes were wide and sparkling without any need for enhancement. Her cheeks had a faint rosiness too—she supposed blusher was also outside his realm of experience, because he hadn’t brought her that either—and her skin had a creamy quality that it had lacked twenty-four hours before.

It occurred to her then that being madly in love was the best cosmetic of all. Maggy smiled at her reflection and unwound the towel from her hair.

Combing the thick mass out and crimping it with her fingers in crucial places to encourage the natural waves to form where she wanted them was all she could manage in the way of hairstyling without a blow dryer. Slipping her feet into her flats, she headed downstairs, drawn by the tantalizing smell of frying bacon.

Nick was at the stove, deftly cracking eggs into a skillet of sizzling grease. A plate loaded with bacon covered with a paper towel rested on the counter next to the stove. Link leaned against the counter a little farther along, munching a piece of bacon as he said something to his brother.

They glanced up as Maggy hesitated in the doorway.

“One egg or two?” Nick asked her, while Link eyed her up and down and grinned hugely.

“One,” Maggy answered, wary of Link’s grin.

“You’re looking a considerable bit better this morning, baby girl.” Link’s eyes twinkled knowingly at her as he stole another slice of bacon from the plate. Nick waved his fork at him in a silent warning to lay off the food.

“I feel better,” Maggy replied, refusing to rise to Link’s teasing.

“A good night’s sleep’ll do that for you,” Link said with a wise nod.

This was too much, even for Maggy’s good intentions.

“Oh, shut up, Link,” she said witheringly and opened the refrigerator to search for juice.

Link grinned but wisely shut up, busying himself with putting bread into the toaster as Maggy set the table and poured orange juice into three glasses. It was not until she was returning the carton to the refrigerator that she realized what song Link was humming so cheerfully under his breath: “Hello, Young Lovers, Wherever You Are.…”

“Does he have a girlfriend?” she asked Nick, with a jerk of her thumb toward his obnoxious brother. “Wait till you see what I’m going to do to embarrass him in front of her.”

“He’s got an army of them. I told you, he trolls for them in my Corvette.”

“Man, it’s not the Corvette, it’s
me
. I’m ir-re-sistible.” Link grinned. “Besides, what good’s a hot car like that if you never use it? Little brother here’s been moonin’ after you for so many years that he’s never really realized its full potential.”

“Shut up, Link.” This time it was Nick’s turn to direct a quelling frown at his brother. Link merely grinned in reply. Nick scooped the eggs out onto plates, while Link tossed them each a slice of toast. Maggy, just catching hers before it hit the floor, put it on her plate, carried her plate to the table, and sat down. The men followed suit.

They ate and talked about nothing, really. This trio had eaten meals together on many occasions in the old days, and they fell back into the groove without missing a beat. Maggy didn’t even feel particularly uncomfortable with the idea that Link knew precisely how she and Nick had passed the night. Link had always known how it was between her and Nick.

“Where are you going so fast?” Nick asked when Link stood up as soon as he had shoveled the last bite of his meal into his mouth. Maggy wasn’t more than half finished with hers, and Nick wasn’t much further along. Of
course, they’d been doing most of the talking, while Link had been steadily eating.

“Places to go, things to do. Know what I mean, little brother?” Link answered with a shrug.

“Yeah. Tell ’em I’ll be along later.” Nick glanced at Maggy. “A lot later.”

“Nah.” Link shook his head and grinned. “I’ll tell ’em you’re in bed with the flu. See ya.”

With a wave of his hand Link left the kitchen. Maggy heard him going up the stairs. Ten minutes later, as Nick was washing the few dishes and she was drying and putting them away, Link reappeared in the downstairs hall, gave a brief wave in her direction as he caught her eye, yelled, “Bye, flu!” and vanished from sight. Seconds later she heard the opening and closing of the front door. A few minutes after that came the roar of a powerful engine.

“Damn it, he’s taking my car again,” Nick groaned, pausing in the act of rinsing the final glass to glare futilely out the window toward the empty spot where the Corvette had been.

“Doesn’t he have a car?” Maggy couldn’t help grinning at this all-too-typical byplay between the brothers, but she was tiptoeing to put the plates back on the top shelf and fortunately Nick didn’t see.

“Six months ago he bought a brand new Range Rover. You know, four-wheel drive, the works. He took it everywhere, and I do mean everywhere, through woods, streams, up mountains, down valleys. Last month he got cocky and went up a slope that turned out to be just a little too steep. The thing flipped, and ended up sliding down on its top into a gully. Lucky for Link he was thrown out, or he probably wouldn’t be with us today. The blasted car’s been in the shop since then. He wanted them to total it so he could get a new one, but it’s not quite that bad, they said. They’re fixing it. He may be an old man before it gets finished, but they’re fixing it. In the
meantime, he bought that old truck to drive around. But what does he use? My car.”

“Oh.” Maggy couldn’t help it. She giggled, then clapped her hand over her mouth.

“Think it’s funny, do you?” Nick turned and handed her the glass he’d rinsed for drying.

“Only a little,” Maggy said meekly, unable to put into words how the interaction between the brothers warmed her. It was nice to be in the thick of a normal family again, one where family members bickered and teased and argued—and loved each other. That was what she wanted for herself, and David.

She dried the glass and put it away in the cabinet. When she turned back toward him, he thrust a small brown paper bag at her.

“What’s this?” Maggy accepted it rather gingerly. The top was rolled shut, and the bag was heavy for its size.

“Baby, my mission in life is to make
all
your dreams come true,” Nick said, taking her by the elbow and steering her toward the back door. “Come on.”

A
s soon as she saw the flock of chickens pecking in the dirt around the barn, Maggy started to laugh. Nick grinned at her, unlatched the metal farm gate that separated the barnyard from the ground surrounding the house, and ushered her through it. The clucking chickens continued on about their business, paying the newcomers no mind.