Trusting Him (9 page)

For some crazy reason she trusted him. He had promised he wouldn't let her get hurt and she knew he meant it.

As they rode through the gates of the community, motioned forward by a guard, the tension inside her doubled. She had never been here, never walked inside these homes with their lavish brick-and-stone facades, and professionally developed landscaping.

She had a push mower and a Weed Eater. Dandelions grew along the petunias in the flower beds outside the home she shared with her grandmother. And she was wearing flip-flops. She couldn't forget that.

They stopped. Michael looked over his shoulder and smiled. "Here we are."

"Yes, here we are." He got off the bike and reached for her hand. She had to let him help her. If she didn't, she'd fall. Her legs were cramped and had turned to rubber, all in one. It didn't seem possible.

"Stop wringing your hands."

"I'm not wringing my hands." She reached up to undo the buckle on the chin strap of the helmet. Her fingers trembled.

Michael reached up and undid it for her, his fingers brushing across her throat. She closed her eyes, trying to forget that his face was less than a foot from hers. She couldn't ignore the Oriental spice scent of his cologne and the sweet scent of bubblegum.

"We're going to have fun."

She opened her eyes. "Is that a promise or wishful thinking?" Humor, always a good thing to fall back on, didn't help this time. It came out flat, not at all funny.

"Probably wishful thinking." He took hold of her hand and together they walked toward the home that looked like an English manor house plopped down in the middle of the Ozarks.

"Do we have to go in?"

"Well, since that's my dad on the front porch, waving, I would say we don't have a choice."

"I'm going to be sick."

"You'll be fine."

"Remember that I did this for you, okay? If you doubt my sincerity when I say that I'm behind you, and I want you to make it, remember this."

"I'll remember."

A few minutes later they were walking through the front door. Michael's grip on her hand tightened. If they held a contest between them to guess who was the most nervous, she figured it would have been a tie.

And neither of them seemed to fit this place. Michael, dressed in dark slacks and a dark sweater seemed to fit, but he didn't really. Instead he seemed as uncomfortable and out of place as she was in her casual clothing and flip-flops. They were both misfits. For some reason that made her feel better.

"Michael, you made it." The woman with the hazel-green eyes had to be his mother. She hugged him tight, took a step back and then her gaze fell on Maggie. "And you brought a friend."

Maggie swallowed against the lump that lodged in her throat and held out a hand. "I'm Maggie Simmons."

"Nice to meet you, dear, I'm Shelly Carson." Mrs. Carson cast a disparaging look on her son. "Take your guest to the bar, Michael."

"Mom, no bar." His smile tightened. "We'll find a soda in the kitchen."

"They have sodas at the bar, and bottled water," Shelly Carson continued.

Maggie contained herself, but disbelief trembled inside her. An open bar for a son who was honest about his problems. And Maggie had her own problems with drinking. It had controlled her life for several years after her mother's death. It had been a coping mechanism that had almost destroyed her.

"Mom, we'll go to the kitchen." Michael's hand was back on hers. He led her through the crowd, exchanging pleasantries with people who smiled politely and didn't seem to notice that Maggie didn't belong.

They walked down the tall, arching hallway to a kitchen that Maggie could have fit half her grandmother's house into. "Mom doesn't get it. She tries, but this is her life, and she can't comprehend that it isn't mine."

"I understand." She didn't know what she meant by the words. She understood his addiction. She understood the problem with his mother. And now she understood why he needed a friend.

He glanced sideways. "Yes, I think you do."

He opened the double doors of the restaurant-size refrigerator. "Diet? Water? What do you prefer?"

"Water, please." She took the bottle he offered. "Michael, I don't drink, either. I understand more than you think."

He closed the doors and turned, his eyes widening. "Maggie has secrets?"

"Not really, just past struggles and a story of my own."

"And you're not ready to share."

"No, I'm not."

"Let me show you around. This place is so big we can get lost and not see life for hours. Maybe they'll all be gone by the time we get back."

The house took some navigating. Maggie could see how a person could get lost. They ended up in a television room, a plasma screen hanging on the wall and a circular sectional in the center of the room.

"We could watch a movie?"

"No, thank you." Maggie walked around the room, stopping when she came to a family photo album on a table. "Did you grow up in this house?"

"My parents have lived here since my senior year of high school. I spent that year in Massachusetts. My mom insisted that I attend the school my dad attended." He stopped next to her. "Family memories."

"Didn't you have a happy childhood?"

He shrugged and picked up the photo album. She followed him to the leather sectional. "I guess. We had a lot of fun together. We traveled. We spent weekends at the lake house. But there was a lot of pressure."

"Pressure?"

"You don't get to be a Carson without pressure. There's a certain amount of achievement expected. Top grades, top schools and all the right friends. I managed most of that, but I didn't always make the right friends."

He opened the album. Maggie looked at pictures of a toddler with large eyes and long lashes, dressed in cowboy boots and a hat, with tiny Wranglers and a Western shirt. A two-year-old Michael, before life had added shadows to his expression and age had added the angular dimensions to the structure of his face.

"Wasn't I cute?"

Yes, he was cute. She turned the page and saw more pictures of a charmed life and a boy who always looked like he belonged. She wondered how that would feel.

Toward the end of the book it all changed. The pictures became less frequent and the appearance of the young man in them altered. He grew thinner, his face took on a gray tinge, and his eyes no longer sparkled. Maggie glanced at him, the way he looked now, and saw that the light was back in his eyes. She tried to imagine him as the person in those pictures, the one who looked like a lost soul.

"Well, I think this trip down memory lane has gone far enough." He pulled out an old photo of himself and a group of friends and stuck it in his pocket before closing the photo album. "That was disastrous."

"Not really. I think it shows someone who made mistakes, but who has recaptured his life."

He set the book down on the table in front of them. "Sweet Maggie, you're very sweet."

His eyes sparked, a dangerous fire that made her wonder if that other person was completely gone. She didn't really want to know. "We should get back to the party. Your mother will be hurt."

"You're right. She's been hurt enough."

He took her hand and led her back through the maze of rooms and hallways to the main living area. The crowds had grown. Michael tensed at her side.

"Something wrong?"

"No, nothing."

She thought that something was definitely wrong. His gaze had transfixed on another man, a guy a little older than them, and a thin brunette at his side. The man, in his sport jacket and dress slacks, seemed to fit. The woman didn't.

"Friend of yours?"

"Old friend. I really didn't think they'd be here."

Maggie glanced around them, taking in the assortment of people. Her calm dissolved when she saw a face from her past. A man she had known in college. That had been several years ago, and she prayed he wouldn't remember. She didn't need that, not tonight.

Michael's dad joined them at the edge of the room. Maggie liked George Carson. There was an openness about him, and his smile seemed to be the real thing. Another man, a little older than Michael, crossed the room. He had the same hazel eyes, but his were more amber than green.

"Maggie, you've met my dad. This is my brother Noah."

"Nice to meet you, Noah." She needed to escape, to give them time alone. "I think I'll get a soda, if the three of you don't mind."

Michael nodded toward the bar that had been set up in the tiled family room. "Tell him what you want."

Maggie managed to get her drink and was circulating through the crowd, making her way back to Michael, when someone grabbed her arm.

"How did you manage to get an invitation to a party like this, Maggie Simmons?"

"Blake." She pulled loose from his hand, fighting the small wave of panic that ensued from that trapped feeling. "I'm a guest of Michael's."

"Figures, he always did have a thing for slumming."

Maggie opened her mouth to comment but words wouldn't come. And then Blake was yanked backward. His eyes widened in surprise as he fell back against the wall. Michael stood in front of him, his body tensed.

"Michael." She stepped forward, touching his back, feeling the tightening of the muscles. "He isn't worth it."

Michael raised his hands and stepped away. "You're right, he isn't. But you are."

His gaze followed the retreating Blake, who had hurried away from them. Maggie took a shaky breath as she watched the other man walk out the front door. She turned her attention back to Michael.

"I'm not worth you getting into trouble."

"You are." He turned, Blake forgotten. Michael cupped her cheeks in his hands and leaned forward. "You are worth something."

He stepped closer and for a moment, just briefly, Maggie forgot where they were. She forgot her fear, just for a moment, but long enough to notice its absence. How had that happened?

She didn't have to think because Michael was leaning closer, his gaze connecting with hers. His hands, warm and strong, still cupped her cheeks and his fingers slid into her hair. He whispered something about her being sweet and then his lips touched hers. The kiss was brief, sweetly chaste, but Maggie's heart melted at the touch.

"We should go." Michael pulled away from her. "I think we've made a great floor show, but I've had all the fun I can handle for one night."

"I'm sorry. If I hadn't been here…"

"I would have been miserable." He took her by the hand and led her from the room. They made brief apologies to his parents. He told them he would be by in a few days for a real visit, and then he led her outside into the falling dusk of early evening.

In the quiet, gated community of River Oaks, life seemed idyllic and strangely at odds with the tumultuous emotions that Maggie hadn't expected. Nothing seemed real in that place with lush, emerald-green lawns, pristine flower beds and tinkling fountains.

"Maggie, here." Michael handed her the helmet as she stood in awe, listening to the songbirds and drifting on the scent of wisteria.

"I'm sorry, thank you." She slid the helmet over her head. This time her fingers managed the buckle. Michael was on the bike and the engine purred quietly. She climbed on behind him.

They rode back to the church as twilight turned to night. The sky changed from pink and lavender to midnight blue as the sun set behind a thin curtain of clouds. Unwillingly, Maggie's mind took her back to another drive in the dark and to a time when she had felt unloved and unwanted.

She shook herself free from the memory. This wasn't a dark road outside of town. Michael wasn't Greg. She was older and wiser. She knew who she was and what she wanted out of life. She wasn't trying to find someone to love her.

"We didn't eat. Are you hungry?" His voice reached her over the low hum of the motorcycle as they cruised into the parking lot.

Maggie leaned forward, so that he could hear. "I'm not hungry, and stop beating yourself up."

"I didn't really plan to beat myself up. But I would have enjoyed teaching Blake a lesson. What he said was inexcusable."

He stopped the bike next to her car. Neither of them made a move to get off.

"I have cookies in the church. Do you want some?" She knew that Faith would have accused her of trying to fix him with milk and cookies.

"You wouldn't have liked me a few years ago." His jaw clenched. He had pulled off his helmet and he brushed his fingers through his flattened hair, bringing the wavy curls at his collar back to life. "I'm not sure that I even liked myself."

"You probably weren't that bad."

"I was." He shook his head, snorting softly before continuing. "Maggie, you're incredibly naive."

"I'm not. I've lived through more than you think."

"But you managed to maintain your innocence."

She shook her head as she slid off the bike. "Explain it to me, Michael. Tell me just how bad you were."

She pulled off the helmet and he took it from her.

"No, I don't think so. You don't need to hear what I've done or where I've been. Just remember, I'm not the kid who went to prep school. I've seen a lot and I've been through a lot. I've done things that I'm not proud of."

"I believe you." But she no longer wanted to take the conversation further. She didn't need a show-and-tell, comparing their lives and sad stories. That would bring them too far into each other's lives.

Maybe it was too late, though.

"I think I've misjudged you." Michael's eyes sought hers, seeking answers. "What have you been through, Maggie Simmons?"

"The usual teenage rebellion." She wouldn't tell him more.

"I don't think so."

"Let's agree not to talk about the past. You have your secrets, and I have things I'd rather not delve into. As far as the east is from the west, that's where I want to leave my mistakes. They're in the past, where they belong."

"I guess you're right." He put the kickstand in place and got off the bike. "Why don't you call me when you get home? So I know that you made it."

She nodded. "I can do that."

"Okay."

He should go now, she thought. He should turn around and leave. Instead he reached for her hands. "Do you know how good it feels to touch another person? I didn't realize that until back at the party."