Wife for Hire (7 page)

Hank looked out the open front door. “Last I saw him he was chasing the car down the driveway.”

Hank gave a sharp whistle through his teeth, and Horatio came loping onto the porch. He trotted inside and dropped a piece of denim at Hank's feet.

Elsie stooped to get the ragged material. “Hmmph,” she said, “it's from the cuff. If I were a dog, I would have sunk my teeth in a mite higher.” She gave the scrap back to Horatio and patted him on the head. “Good dog. You aren't exactly a killer, but you did good anyway.”

She turned around in her big blue slippers and shuffled off to her room. “I'm going back to bed. Let me know if there's any more excitement.”

Hank closed the front door and scowled at the lock. It was old and he didn't have a key. He was afraid if he ever did manage to get it locked, he might never be able to get it unlocked.

“I'll get this fixed as soon as the hardware store opens,” he told Maggie. “Do you have any idea what this guy was doing in your room?”

She shook her head. “By the time I saw him, he was heading for the door.”

Hank looked at the pendulum wall clock in the foyer. “It's three-thirty. Why don't you go to bed, and I'll look around down here to see if anything's been stolen.”

“I'll check the rooms upstairs.”

Half an hour later they sat side by side on the edge of Maggie's bed and concluded nothing had been taken. The only room to seem disrupted had been Maggie's bedroom. The intruder had gone through her dresser drawers, and he hadn't been too neat about it.

“I can't figure it,” Hank said. “You had almost fifty dollars in small bills laying on your dresser top. And he left it. He didn't take your pearl earrings or watch. What the devil was he looking for?”

A silly idea skittered through Maggie's mind. Ridiculous, she thought. I'm getting paranoid. But when she looked at Hank, she knew he'd had the same thought. “You don't suppose he was looking for this?” She opened her night drawer and pulled out Aunt Kitty's diary.

“Hard to believe. I'm sure everyone thinks it's got a lot of hot stuff in it, but I can't imagine someone breaking and entering just to get their hands on a dirty book.”

Maggie gave him a look.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “So, it crossed my mind too, but you have to admit it doesn't make any sense. This isn't the Hope diamond we're talking about here. This is an old lady's
diary. I know everyone in Skogen. I can't come up with anyone who would want that diary enough to steal it.”

“Everybody too honest?”

“No. All the likely candidates are too lazy.”

“Maybe it's not someone in Skogen,” Maggie said. “Maybe word has spread throughout the state, throughout the country.”

“Maybe someone followed you up here from New Jersey. This could be serious,” Hank said, flopping back onto the bed. “I'd better sleep here to night and make sure you're safe.”

“You never give up, do you?”

“This is an emergency situation.”

She looked at him sprawled across her bed and swallowed. He was magnificent. Smooth, tanned skin, a hard, flat stomach, and jeans that were zipped but not snapped.

Good thing she wasn't one of those women who lost control at the sight of perfect flesh and muscle, she thought. Actually she had to admit her control was slipping a little. There was a certain appeal to spending the rest of the night with him, and it had nothing to do with safety. It had to do with the lovely flush of desire his presence generated. The need to touch him was almost overwhelming. If she'd been more
experienced, she might have given in to it. But as it was, she regarded it curiously and with a little awe.

She'd never felt such a compelling, delicious ache to know a man. Never
needed
to be loved. She wondered if he had similar feelings, and then she realized with a shock that of course he did…he was the sex fiend of Skogen. He probably felt that way about every woman he met.

Disappointment hit her like a hard slap in the face. She narrowed her eyes. “I'm giving you thirty seconds to get off my bed. I don't sleep with indiscriminate womanizers.”

She saw the expression of playful affection change to one of hurt and surprise, then anger. Direct hit, she thought grimly.

Hank heaved himself to his feet. He thought she understood the man behind the reputation. Hank whistled for Horatio. The dog trotted into Maggie's room and looked at his master expectantly. “Stay,” Hank told him, and without even so much as a backward glance at Maggie, he strode from the room and slammed the door behind him.

He'd been honest with her. Hank fumed. What more did she want? He turned on his
heel and went back to Maggie's room, yanking the door open. “You have a lot of nerve calling me an indiscriminate womanizer. I've been beyond reproach since you've been here.”

“I've been here for three days!” Maggie shouted. “You expect me to be impressed with three days of abstinence? And for all I know you've been sneaking out at night, burning down barns.”

He felt the heat flooding into his face again. He stormed into his own room and slammed his door.

Maggie sprang up from her bed. “And don't come barging into my room without knocking!” she shouted. Then she slammed her door too.

She threw herself into bed and pulled the quilt up to her chin. She grunted and rolled over, stuffing her face into the pillow. “Men!” she said. “Ugh!” She thrashed around for a few more minutes until her bedclothes were totally tangled. She got up, remade the bed, and calmly crawled back in. She was hot and exhausted and sorry. She shouldn't have made that crack about the barn burning.

“Damn stubborn temper,” she said. A tear rolled down her cheek. She wanted Hank to
love her. Only her. She didn't want to be just one more conquest, one more event. She wanted to be special, and she didn't want to suffer the fate of his other girlfriends. She didn't want to turn into a Hank Mallone groupie.

 

Elsie slammed bowls of oatmeal onto the table. “Anyone who doesn't eat this and like it gets liver for supper.”

Hank rattled his paper, and Maggie tapped a spoon against her coffee mug.

“And I don't put up with spoon tapping neither,” Elsie said. “I feel darn cranky. I didn't get any sleep last night. Bad enough we got some fool wandering around the upstairs, then the two of you decide to have a shouting match and door-slamming contest. I got more rest when I was living in the old people's home. The most noise anybody made was when they dropped their bedpan. Except for the time Helen Grote set her walker down on the cat's tail.”

The memory brought a smile to her face. “That was something.”

Hank folded his paper and placed it on the table beside his oatmeal. He glared briefly at Maggie and splashed milk onto his bowl.

Maggie glared back. Fine. If he wanted to be childish and stay angry, so would she. No problem for her, she thought. She could stay angry forever. After all, she was the most stubborn female Riverside had ever spawned. She could show him a thing or two.

The trouble was she didn't want to stay angry. She wanted to cuddle up behind him while he was eating his oatmeal, wrap her arms around his neck, and kiss him on the top of his head. His hair was freshly washed and shiny and looked like it would be nice to kiss. His cheek looked like it would be nice to kiss too. And his mouth…Maggie sighed at the thought of kissing his mouth.

The sigh prompted him to glance up from his oatmeal. He stared at her, but he didn't say anything. He looked annoyed.

“Well, excuse me,” she snapped. “Did my sigh disturb you?”

“Don't flatter yourself. It would take a lot more than a sigh to get me to notice you.”

Elsie made a disgusted sound and plunked a platter of French toast on the table. “What are you two so bent out of shape about? This is the most realistic fake marriage I've ever seen. If
you get any more married, you'll have to get a divorce.”

The back door opened and Bubba ambled in. “I knew I smelled French toast.”

Elsie stood with her hand on her hip. “How many loaves do you eat?”

“One will be fine,” Bubba said. “Don't go to any bother.”

Elsie took more eggs out of the refrigerator. “Don't you have a home?” she asked. “Why aren't you married?”

“I'm not the marrying type,” Bubba said. “Besides, it wouldn't be right for me to tie myself down to one woman. It wouldn't be fair to all those other females out there that crave my attention.”

Maggie hid behind her half of the newspaper and made a gagging gesture.

“It's especially critical that I keep my bachelor status now that Hank's no longer in circulation,” Bubba said. “Someone's gotta take up the slack.” He shook his head. “All those heartbroken women…” He sighed and poured syrup on four slices of French toast. “I'm just about exhausted with it.”

Hank grinned. “Bubba's been going with the
same girl since high school. If Bubba so much as looked at anyone else, she'd nail his shoes to the floor and turn him into a gelding with a bread knife.”

“Oh man,” Bubba said, “you're always ruining my image.”

Maggie thought Bubba was the human counterpart to Brer Bear. And he was probably almost as smart as Brer Bear, she decided. She reprimanded herself for being snide, but she couldn't help it. She was in a foul mood this morning.

Bubba forked toast into his mouth. “This sure is good,” he said. “I might think about getting married if I could find a woman who could cook like this.” He gave Elsie a questioning look.

“Forget it,” Elsie said. “I'm too old for you, and besides, if I wasn't getting paid, I'd be eating TV dinners.”

“Too bad,” Bubba said. “Peggy keeps wanting me to go on a diet. For breakfast she fixes me half a cup of those little high-fiber nugget things in some skim milk. It's like scarfing down buckshot in water.”

“Maybe you could stand to lose a few pounds,” Elsie offered, as she watched him wolf down the French toast.

Bubba glanced at his stomach. “It's cause I sit on a loader all day. I don't get enough exercise.”

“Bubba has a backhoe and a front-end loader,” Hank explained. “He does construction jobs. He's working on the site for my bottling plant this week.”

Bubba took a sip of coffee. “So, how's the book going?” he said to Maggie. “I was talking to Elmo Feeley at the feed store, and he said the book is full of sex, and you've already been asked to make it into a movie.”

Maggie's fork slithered through her fingers and clattered onto her plate. Her mouth hung open, but she couldn't find her voice. Even if she'd had a voice, she wouldn't have known what to say.

Hank set his coffee cup down and looked from Maggie to Bubba. It was the first time he'd seen Maggie tongue-tied and he rather liked it. She'd been quick to believe the worst about him, he thought. Now he was interested to see how she handled a little false notoriety about herself.

“Yup,” Hank said, smiling at Bubba, “Cupcake here is going to be rich.” He leaned closer to Bubba and dropped his voice to a whisper.
“That's why I married her, you know. I needed money for the cider press and the bakery equipment.”

Maggie sucked in her breath and narrowed her eyes. He was doing it again!

“And is the book really full of sex?” Bubba asked.

“You wouldn't believe what's in that diary,” Hank said. “Maggie and I have been going through it, page by page, for the last three nights, and it's got stuff in there I've never even thought of. We've been trying it all out just to make sure a person can really do it. Maggie wouldn't put anything in her book that she hasn't personally experienced. You know, sort of like testing recipes before you write a cookbook.”

Bubba chuckled and punched Hank in the arm. “You dog, you.”

Elsie hit Hank on the head with her wooden spoon. “The Lord's gonna get you for that.” She bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud and quickly turned back to the stove.

Maggie's mouth was still open, and she'd taken hold of the table. Her knuckles were turning white and her eyes were small and glittery.

“Maybe you should go easy on the diary stuff for a while,” Bubba whispered to Hank. “She looks a little on edge, you know what I mean?”

“It's the way she gets,” Hank said. “Hungry. All you have to do is mention the diary, and she turns into an animal. She's just trying to control herself. That's why she's holding on to the table. She doesn't want to rip my clothes off at the breakfast table.”

“Wow,” Bubba said. “Are you doing okay? I mean, she isn't hurting you or anything, is she?”

Hank finished his coffee and winked at Bubba. “I can handle her.”

Bubba chuckled and punched him in the arm again.

Hank pushed away from the table. He kissed Maggie on the top of the head and gave her shoulders a squeeze. “I know you're feeling desperate, but I have to go to work now, pumpkin. Maybe you can find some techniques for when I come home at lunch.”

“I—you—” she said. She grabbed a jar of strawberry preserves and threw it at the door, but Hank and Bubba had already disappeared down the back stoop. The jar ripped through
the screen and smashed against a stack of empty wooden apple crates.

“Did you hear something crash?” Bubba said.

“Don't worry about it,” Hank told him. “Sometimes she gets violent when I leave her.”

“Crazy about you, huh?”

Maggie and Elsie stood staring at the hole in the screen door.

“You didn't miss him by much,” Elsie said. “It was the screen that slowed you down.”

“I didn't really want to hit him. I just wanted to throw something.”

Elsie nodded. “Good job.”

Maggie grinned. “He would have been disappointed if I hadn't thrown something. He likes to provoke me.”

“You mean you weren't really mad?”

“Of course I was mad. He makes me crazy.”

Elsie shook her head. “This is too complicated for me. I'm going to do the dishes.”

Maggie cleaned the back porch and went upstairs to work. It was going to be another perfect day, she thought. Blue sky and warm with just the tiniest of breezes. In the distance
she could hear an engine turn over and guessed it was Bubba on the loader.

She reread the handwritten notes she'd been compiling. The diary lay to her right. It was open to December 3, 1923. Aunt Kitty had talked of the weather, the tragedy of the Thorley baby's death from the croup, and Johnny McGregor, whom she declared to be the handsomest man she'd ever seen. The “diary” actually consisted of seven diaries, covering a span of thirty-two years. Among other things it was a chronicle of love for John McGregor.

Maggie had chosen to treat her book as historical fiction. It would enable her to give a true recording of history, according to Aunt Kitty's wishes, and still ensure her family a mea sure of privacy.

The thought that someone might have broken into Hank's house to steal the diary sent a chill through her. It would have to be someone sick, because Aunt Kitty wasn't a famous person. The diary wasn't worth much money. It probably wasn't worth
any
money. For that matter, Maggie suspected the book she was writing wouldn't be worth much money either. Her goal was simply to get Aunt Kitty's story in print. That in itself seemed a formidable task.

Twelve hours later Hank leaned against the kitchen counter, drinking milk and eating oatmeal cookies. “She's still up there.”

Elsie shook her head. “I tell you she's a woman possessed. Couldn't even coax her down with my meat loaf.”

“Maybe I should throw the circuit breaker.”

“Maybe you should take out more health insurance first.”

“Okay, so I won't throw the circuit breaker. I'll try charming her out of the room.” He went to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of Chablis. “A little wine wouldn't hurt either.”

The door to her study was closed. He knocked twice and received a muffled answer. He pushed the door open and found Maggie with her arms crossed on the desktop and her face buried in her arms. She was crying her eyes out, making loud sobbing noises. Her shoulders were shaking, and she had tissues clutched in her hands. He rushed to her and put his hand at the nape of her neck. “Maggie, what's wrong?”

She picked her head up and blinked at him. Her face was flushed and tears tracked down her cheeks. “It's so aw-w-wful,” she sobbed. Her breath caught in a series of hiccups.

Hank pulled her out of her chair, sat down, and took her onto his lap, cuddling her close. He stroked the hair back from her face and waited while she blew her nose. He thought his heart would break. He had no idea she'd been so miserable.

“Tell me about it, honey. What's so awful?”

“J-J-Johnny McGregor. She loved him terribly. It was b-b-beautiful. But he couldn't marry her.”

“She?”

“Aunt Kitty. He couldn't marry her. He had an invalid wife and a little girl.”

“Let me get this straight. You're crying your head off because Johnny McGregor couldn't marry Aunt Kitty?”

“It's all in chapter two. I just finished it. It's w-w-wonderful.” She wiped the tears from her eyes and took a big gulp of air.

“They were sweethearts, but their parents were against their marrying. Aunt Kitty's father sent her to Boston to live with relatives, and while she was there Aunt Kitty discovered she was pregnant. By then his parents thought she was a tramp. Johnny and Aunt Kitty wrote letters to each other, but neither of them ever received them. Aunt Kitty had her baby in
Boston, thinking Johnny had abandoned her. And after two years of not hearing anything from Aunt Kitty, Johnny married his third cousin Marjorie.”

Hank thought if he lived to be a hundred he'd never understand women.

“When Aunt Kitty's father died from a heart attack, she came back home for the funeral, and met Johnny on the street, downtown. It was just as if they'd never been separated. They still loved each other, but now Johnny was married, and his wife was frail, and he had an infant daughter.”

“He should have waited for Kitty,” Hank said. “He should have gone looking for her. I think this McGregor guy sounds like a jerk.”

Maggie smiled between snuffles. Hank was more of a fighter than Johnny McGregor. Hank wouldn't have knuckled under to his parents. And Hank wouldn't have stood still while his sweetheart's father spirited her away.

“So, where did all this take place? Was this in Riverside?”

“No. Aunt Kitty and Johnny lived in Easton, Pennsylvania. Aunt Kitty stayed there so she could be near Johnny, and after some hard times she was befriended by a woman who ran a
brothel. One thing led to another, and eventually Aunt Kitty took over as madam. She moved to Riverside when she was an old woman.”

“And you've got all this in your book, huh?”

“I will eventually.” She gave one last sad sigh and got off his lap. “Chapter two is an emotional chapter.”

“I can see that.” He half-filled a wineglass with the chilled Chablis and passed it to her.

Maggie took the wine and held it a moment before drinking. She watched while he poured some for himself, and smiled when he clinked glasses in a toast.

“To Aunt Kitty,” he said. He took a sip, set the glass on the desk, and reached for the fragile leather-bound book Maggie had left lying open. “Do you mind if I read this?”

“I don't think Aunt Kitty would mind. It's the first volume. She started keeping the diary when she was sixteen.”

He read the first page and drank a little more wine. Then he thumbed through the book, reading pages at random. “This is actually very interesting.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I've always thought girls' diaries were sappy. I always figured it was something you filled
with lies and exaggerations and then left laying around for your friends to read.”

“I think the middle diaries are the most interesting. They detail house hold accounts for the brothel. It's a unique slant on history.”

Hank selected one of the middle diaries and began reading. His eyes opened wide, and his mouth creased into a broad grin. “Whoa! You were right. This is definitely more interesting. Aunt Kitty had a real flare for words.”

“What page are you on?”

“Page forty-two. She's talking about Eugenia and the button salesman.”

“Give me that book!”

Hank edged away from her, holding the book too high for her to reach. “Each month Eugenia waited for the button salesman to come into town,” Hank read. “Eugenia would wear her sheer red dress and her fancy red-and-black garters…”

Maggie lunged for the book, and Hank pinned her against the wall. His eyes were dancing with mischief. “Do you have any garters, Maggie?”

“You're squashing me!”

“Stop squirming. No, on second thought, I think I like the squirming.”

She instantly went still. “I'm going to scream for Elsie.”

“Coward.”

“You bet.”

Hank continued to read out loud. “And Eugenia would dot her very best, most expensive French perfume at every pulse point. On the column of her neck…” Hank dipped his head and leisurely, thoroughly kissed the pulse point in Maggie's neck. “At her wrist…” Hank's mouth moved over Maggie's wrist with slow passion. “Along the heated crevice between her full breasts…”

The air felt trapped in Maggie's lungs. Her chest burned with it. Her head hummed with Hank's words, with the sound of his voice, soft and resonant. Desire was rising from somewhere deep inside her and radiating outward in waves that left her weak-kneed.

He'd opened the top buttons on her cotton shirt. It was an outrageous liberty, she thought, but she was powerless to stop him. She wanted to feel his mouth on her breast, and when his lips finally grazed along the soft flesh that swelled from the cup of her lacy bra, she shuddered.

“Should I continue?” he asked.

“Yes.” She could barely say it, barely hear her own words over the pounding of her heart.

“She perfumed the tips of her breasts…” he said, improvising wildly.

His large hand covered her, molding her to fit his palm. She was soft and full, and he thought he would burst with love. And if he didn't burst from love, he certainly was ready to burst with passion.

He'd thought ahead, and he knew there was only one place left for Eugenia to put the damn perfume. If Maggie allowed him to put his hand there, it was all over.

Then he thought of Elsie, puttering around downstairs in the kitchen and wondered why he'd ever started this.

Maggie had also thought ahead. “Stop,” she whispered. “Stop now.”

He sagged against her. “You ever seen a grown man cry?”

Maggie giggled from nervousness. “It's not that bad.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“We have to talk.”

“Uh-huh.”

She splayed both hands on his chest to put
some room between them, but he wouldn't move far.

“I'm going to be honest with you. I'm very attracted to you. It wouldn't take much for me to fall in love and do something foolish, like go to bed with you.”

“Why would that be foolish?”

“I'm not like you. Falling in love would be serious for me. It would be painful. It would be disruptive.”

A crease formed between his eyebrows. “What makes you think it wouldn't be for me?”

“I think your outlook on life is different from mine.”

He held her by the shoulders and gave her a small shake. “You don't know anything about my outlook on life. You don't know anything about me. You only know the stories. Give me a chance, Maggie. Look for yourself.”

“I don't want to give you a chance. We have six more months of cohabitation. I don't want to make that any more awkward than it already is. Even if you were the right person for me, this wouldn't work out. Skogen is another Riverside. I'm the prime topic of conversation for the entire town. I'm crazy Maggie Toone all over again, and there probably isn't a man,
woman, or child within a fifty-mile radius who isn't waiting to hear about my latest outrageous act.”

“You're wrong. You're not crazy Maggie Toone. You're crazy Maggie Mallone.”

“I don't want to fall in love with you.”

“Fine. Do what ever you can to try to prevent it, but I don't think it will help.”

He released her and took a step back. “And what about me? It's too late for me, Maggie. I'm already in love with you.”

Disbelief quickly replaced the initial surge of joy. “I suppose that's your problem.”

“Wrong. It's
your
problem, because I intend to do what ever is necessary to get you to love me.”

“Wasn't it just last night you told me you weren't going to put any moves on me?”

“I changed my mind.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“I don't know. I started out wanting to comfort you when you were crying, and I ended up trying to seduce you. About halfway through, it became obvious that I wasn't going to be able to hide my…feelings.”

Maggie smiled. “You have a point. Your feelings were pretty obvious.”

“And you're wrong about Skogen. It's a nice place to live. I think you need to get to know some of the people here. They aren't so bad. They like to gossip, but there isn't anything mean in it. It's just recreation. We don't have a movie theater or a shopping mall, so folks around here spend their time passing along false information.”

“I don't know if I want to meet any more Skogenians.”

She knew she didn't have a good attitude. After all, she had an obligation to fulfill as his wife.

“Okay, I take that back. I want to meet the locals. What did you have in mind? I hope it's not another dinner party.”

“There's a dance at the grange Friday night.” Did he just say that? He hated dances.

“A dance?” Her face brightened. “I love dances. What kind of a dance is it?”

Damned if he knew. He'd never been to one. “It's just your average dance, I guess. Elmo Feeley and Andy Snell and some others have a band.”

“A live band? And the dance floor, is it wood?”

“It might be.”

 

Hours later Maggie lay wide-eyed in bed, unable to sleep. She was in love, of course. And of course she'd never admit it to Hank because falling in love with Hank Mallone was a no-win situation.

Still, it was exciting. It was also terrifying. Not terrifying in a daredevil sort of way. That kind of danger had never bothered her. This was real terror. The kind she carried around in the pit of her stomach. The kind that gnawed at her during quiet moments when her mind was unoccupied. Hank Mallone was capable of breaking her heart, and that was much more dangerous than writing a dirty word on a grade school door.

There were slippered footsteps in the hall, and Maggie heard her doorknob turn very slowly, very carefully. There was no light in her room and no light in the hall. Nothing was visible in the dark when the door opened, but Maggie sensed it was Elsie. She was the only one who wore slippers.

“Don't move,” Elsie whispered. “And don't say anything. There's a man climbing a ladder up to your window.”

“What?”

“Shhhh! I said to keep quiet. I'm gonna fix this guy's wagon. When I get done with him, he isn't gonna be climbing ladders for a long time.”