Maggy's Child (37 page)

“You always wanted to feed chickens, so
voilà
, I give you chickens. And, in the bag, chicken feed.” Nick made a sweeping gesture at the oblivious flock.

“Whose
are
they?” Still laughing, Maggy made no move to open the bag in her hand. Built of ancient, weathered gray boards, the barn obviously belonged to the farmhouse. Nick had said he and Link had rented a farm, but surely it didn’t come complete with livestock? With the best will in the world, she couldn’t picture either brother as a farmer. Neither of them had ever had much exposure to animals, except for the few stray cats and dogs that had shown up from time to time around Parkway Place, and Horatio. And Horatio certainly hadn’t done much to endear his feathered brethren to Nick.

“They belong to the farmer who rented us this place. He asked if he could keep them here, and we didn’t mind. He’s got some cows out there in the pasture, too. He sends somebody over to take care of them twice a day. His house is right over that hill.”

Nick nodded in the direction of the horizon. As they were in farm country, there were not a lot of trees in sight. A few oaks and maples grew around the house, and a few more were scattered here and there across what was essentially flat pasture land. The fields were a bright, new green with only the occasional tan patch where last winter’s grass still held sway. In the process of following Nick’s nod, her gaze swept the fields, noting a dozen or so fat black cows chomping contentedly on fresh shoots of grass not far from the barn. Then her gaze passed beyond them, up the gentle incline he referred to as a hill, to where the brightly budding land met the soft blue of the sky. Glancing around, she realized that the farm he had rented was in the center of a bowl of green earth rimmed on all sides by nothing but sky. Except for the house and barn, not another building was in sight.

It made for a delicious feeling of aloneness.

“So go for it,” Nick said, nodding at the chickens. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the gate, prepared to watch.

“Well, I will.” Glancing rather uncertainly at the scattered chickens, Maggy unrolled the top of the paper bag.

“Here, chicken. Here, chicken,” she called softly, approaching a fat red hen with a handful of corn. It squawked and ran when she got too close. Maggy, not knowing what else to do, tossed the handful of corn after it. The hen squawked louder as the kernels rained down on her. Then it stopped abruptly and started pecking at the corn that had landed in the dried mud ruts of the farmyard.

“See?” Maggy said proudly to Nick, turning to display her prowess.

He clapped, grinning. Then he pointed behind her. “I think it wants more.”

Maggy glanced around to find that the hen was indeed pecking its way toward her—and all its friends were, too. There must have been twenty in all, red ones and white
ones and black-and-white-speckled ones and one big black one with a fleshy red comb on its head that Maggy suspected was the rooster. She threw a handful of corn in their midst. With gleeful cackles they descended on the bounty, gobbling it up, and, when it was gone, looking to her for more. Maggy hastily took a step backward as a few of them showed an alarming tendency to peck too close to her feet, and threw another handful of corn.

In this fashion she was backed all the way up against the wall of the barn.

“Help,” she called faintly to Nick as she felt the wood at her back. There was only a little corn left, not even enough for a decent handful, and the greedy birds were already gobbling what she had just thrown down and looking to her for more. It occurred to Maggy to wonder what they would do if she didn’t have more to give, and that was when she launched her appeal to Nick.

He had moved with her, keeping well clear of the flock of hungry birds, watching her exploits with a wide grin splitting his face.

“What do you want me to do?” He made no move to come to her rescue, just stood there with his arms crossed over his chest and that idiotic grin on his face.

“Call them off.” A hint of panic infused her voice as she tossed out the very last of the corn.

“Baby, the only chickens I know anything about come in a cardboard bucket with a picture of the colonel on the front. How do you expect me to call them off? If I were you, I’d run.”

Maggy cast him a fulminating look, and then, as the greediest and biggest of the chickens came pecking around her feet, decided that his advice wasn’t half bad. Casting the paper bag away—she kind of hoped the chickens might take the flying brown object for a particularly large and luscious kernel of corn—she darted away from the barn wall.

The chickens flew into the air in a squawking, flapping mass of feathered hysteria.

Maggy screamed, threw an arm over her head, and sprinted toward the open barn door. Besieged by flapping fowl, Nick yelped and followed her. He was only half a step behind her as she made it to what she assumed was safety. But two particularly malevolent chickens flapped through the barn door behind them.

It was dark in the barn compared to the glorious brightness of the day outside. Maggy’s eyes took a few seconds to adjust, but when they did they immediately focused on the ladder. She reached it in half a second, scrambling up it with the agility of a frightened monkey. Nick was right behind her. As they made it to the safety of the loft, the pursuing chickens landed with indignant squawks on the rungs they had just vacated.

“We’re trapped,” Maggy said. She was on her hands and knees, peering over the edge.

“Looks that way.” Nick was right beside her. They exchanged glances, and he suddenly grinned at her. “Still want to wake up every morning and feed the chickens?”

“So I’m a city girl. Sue me.” Maggy sank back on her heels.

“I’d rather screw you.” An exaggerated leer accompanied that very bad attempt at a joke.

“Ha, ha.” Maggy glanced around the loft. It was large, covering two thirds of the floor space of the barn. Horizontal beams for the drying of tobacco extended across the remaining open space from the floor of the loft to the opposite wall. Several dozen golden-brown bundles of tobacco hung from the beams nearly to the packed-earth floor. In the loft itself the smell of hay was everywhere, earthy and dusty yet pleasant at the same time. Hay in old-fashioned rectangular bales was stacked to the rafters in a step-back fashion beginning about ten feet from where Nick and Maggy sat and continuing on to the rear wall. Loose piles of hay covered most of the wooden
floor. Roughhewn beams rose vertically from the floor every ten or so feet to support the peaked metal roof, and narrow bands of sunlight slanted down from roof to floor through numerous hairline cracks where the sheets of metal joined. A veritable city of cobwebs formed a lacy canopy across the corners and just below the peak of the roof. At the opposite end of the loft from the stacked hay was the hay door, complete with pulley. It was open, and light poured in through it in a flood that illuminated what appeared to be a crude but workable artist’s retreat. Eyes widening in growing surprise, Maggy identified an easel, a stool, and a small table that seemed, from that distance, to hold supplies.

“Who paints?” Maggy’s shocked gaze swung back to Nick. She knew it even before he answered.

“I do,” he said, a shade defensively.

“
You
do?” If he’d told her he was a Martian he couldn’t have stunned her more. Oh, ever since she had first met him he had always done quick sketches—doodles, she’d considered them—on whatever paper he’d been able to find when the mood struck, but she’d never thought of Nick as a potential artist. He was too blatantly male, and too
street
. “Since when?”

Nick shrugged. “A few years ago. A girl I was seeing made a living doing illustrations for greeting cards. She was always taking art classes. To please her, I went to one. And I got hooked. I don’t have a lot of time for it, but I like it. Hey, it keeps me out of trouble.” He grinned, but she could tell he was still faintly uncomfortable in case she should think his hobby was less than masculine.

“Are you doing something now? Could I see?”

He nodded, but he needn’t have. Maggy was already on her feet and moving toward the easel without waiting for his permission.

His medium was oils, Maggy discovered as she approached. The smell of linseed oil and turpentine was strong as she drew close to the easel, revealing his preference
even before she glanced at the table and saw the small metal tubes containing the paints.

“You’re very good.” A half-finished canvas of the farmhouse nestled amid the surrounding fields rested on the easel. A quick glance out the hay door told Maggy that Nick had painted the view from that vantage point.

“Thank you.” He was standing behind her, watching her as she stared at his painting. Maggy threw a quick, nervous smile over her shoulder at him.

“David paints,” she said abruptly. As soon as the words left her mouth she wished she hadn’t said them. But it was too late. They hung in the air between them, twisting slowly toward earth like dust motes in a ray of sunshine.

“So you said once before.” He frowned at her, and Maggy felt her heart sink. She wasn’t ready, not yet, not yet …

“Does he use oils?”

“Watercolors,” Maggy replied in a voice that to her own ears sounded strained.

“Has he had lessons?”

“Lots,” Maggy said, nodding. “Lots and lots of lessons. We knew as young as kindergarten age that he had an exceptional talent.”

“That’s great. At least he and I will have something to talk about now, besides you.” Nick slid an arm around Maggy’s waist from behind. “Want to see something?”

Maggy nodded, afraid to trust her voice.

Nick reached around her and flicked a tarpaulin off a large flat object that leaned against the wall. Maggy was left staring at a full-length portrait of herself. It was a three-quarter-profile study in which she leaned one pale shoulder against what appeared to be a solid brick wall. Dusky shadows seemed to be closing in around her, and her mouth was unsmiling, the expression in her eyes grave. She was very young, about sixteen, and she was wearing the white tulle-skirted dress she had worn to her junior prom, with a single silver rose in her hair.

“I did it from memory, about six years ago,” he said softly, both hands linking around her waist. “That’s how I always think of you.”

Maggy stood stock-still for a moment longer, her hands moving of their own volition to rest over his, unable to speak, unable to do anything but stare at the portrait.

Then she turned in Nick’s hold, wrapping her arms around his neck.

“I love you,” she whispered fiercely and went up on tiptoe to kiss his mouth. He forestalled her, his hands flattening on either side of her face and holding it still for his inspection. For a long moment his eyes traveled over her, feature by feature, as if he would commit her face to memory for all time. Finally he met her gaze, and the expression in his eyes stopped her breath.

“You are so goddamn beautiful,” he said softly. Then his arms locked around her waist and back, holding her as if he never meant to let her go, and he kissed her, his lips and tongue alternately caressing and plundering her mouth. Maggy met his ravening hunger with her own desperate need, her arms wound about his neck, her head thrown back against his shoulder. Her knees were suddenly so weak that she was afraid they would no longer support her if he should let her go. Not that there was any danger of that. She could feel his passion building, could feel his hunger for her in the heat and hardness of his body against hers, in the greedy demands of his mouth. She answered that demand with abandon.

At last his mouth left hers to glide hotly across her cheek to her ear. Maggy gasped as he nipped the soft lobe.

“Witch,” he murmured huskily, his breath warm against the shell-like structure. “What kind of spell have you cast over me, to keep me wanting you like this over all these years?”

“The same spell you cast on me,” Maggy whispered,
pressing her lips to the rough warmth of the underside of his jaw. “I think it’s called love.”

She leaned against him, letting him totally support her weight. One large hand cradled the back of her head as he tilted her so that his mouth could have easy access to the softness of her throat. Maggy closed her eyes as a stray sunbeam glinted in the silvery spiderwebs high overhead, barely conscious of anything but the feel of Nick’s hands and mouth and body on her flesh.

His mouth was tracing its way down her neck, nibbling and sucking and licking at the soft column. Finally he reached the warm hollow; his mouth rested there for a moment as if he would count her frenzied pulse. She could feel the hardness of his jaw, the rasp of his unshaven chin, the moist heat of his open mouth as he nuzzled at her throat. Then one hand cupped her breast.

The nipple hardened instantly, butting into his palm through the layers of her sweatshirt and bra. Maggy felt the hardening as an exquisite little pleasure-pain that made her catch her breath. Nick took that importunate bud between his thumb and forefinger, gently pinching it. To Maggy’s surprise, the pleasure was so intense that her knees buckled.

Nick went down with her, down onto the hard, hay-strewn floor, half beside her, half on top of her. He kissed her, his hand sliding over the front of her sweatshirt to the hem, then retracing its route against her soft skin. When he discovered her bra, his fingers lightly traced the delicate lace pattern across both breasts before sliding beneath her to fumble at her back. After a few minutes, he lifted his mouth from hers. Maggy’s eyes fluttered open to discover the reason for the interruption and found that he was looking down at her with a rueful half smile.

“How the devil does this thing come off?” he asked, giving the elasticized back of her bra a tug.

Maggy sat up, caught the bottom of her sweatshirt, and pulled it over her head. Then with fingers that were not
quite steady she gripped the tiny plastic buckle between her breasts and pressed the release catch.

“Like this,” she whispered as the fastening separated. Lifting the cups away from her breasts, she shrugged out of the straps and dropped the bra to one side.