Janet Evanovich - Full Scoop

"I was thinking maybe when this is over I could visit you and Mel once in a while. Maybe you guys could come to Virginia."

"The water is boiling," Maggie said, stepping away from him. She pulled fresh corn on the cob from the refrigerator and gently dropped it into the pot.

"What do you think?" he asked.

"That's a great thought, Zack, but you'll probably have an assignment waiting when you return to Virginia, and there's no telling where you'll be or how long you'll be away."

"Not until I'm on the mend," he said. "I could show you and Mel a great time in Virginia."

Maggie checked the casserole, found it bubbling and took it from the oven. She pulled the still warm rotisserie chicken from the carton. "It really does sound nice, Zack, but I have a practice to run, and Mel's in school all week, during which time she plans her weekend to the nth of a second. Plus, I'm on call every other weekend."

"Is that a maybe?"

Maggie looked at him. He was smiling, but she was not. She could feel the frown between her eyebrows. "I can't think about that right now. Good grief, I can't even think about five minutes from now." She searched his face. "You're accustomed to dealing with dangerous people, but Mel and I aren't. We're just average citizens, Zack."

"You and Mel are anything but average," he said with a chuckle. "The two of you are pretty special, Maggie."

She avoided looking at him because she knew she was wearing a wimpy expression. "Would you please tell Mel dinner is ready?" she said, trying to keep her voice light.

Mel dipped half a tablespoon of the casserole onto her plate and refused Maggie's offer of baked chicken or corn on the cob. Maggie gave Zack a look that told him to ignore it.

"Did you check to see if Butterbean was okay?" Mel asked Zack. "Or if she's even here?"

"She's sleeping like a baby," he said. "It'll probably take her a couple of days to catch up on her rest."

"I feel sorry for her," Mel went on, "that she can't be around Jamie's dog. Nobody cares or takes it seriously because they're animals. But dogs and goats have feelings too." She picked at her broccoli. "I don't blame them for running away."

Maggie saw that Mel was itching for a fight. She wanted to send her evil-witch-dictator mother on a first-class, all-expenses-paid guilt trip. Only Maggie wasn't buying. She had to stop getting wrapped up in Mel's stuff. Her thirteen-year-old hormone-induced dramas would drive Maggie nuts if she let it. She gave a mental sigh. If thirteen was going to be like this, fourteen and fifteen was going to be hell on wheels and kick Maggie's butt.

Maggie was going to protect her butt. She looked up and smiled at her daughter. "More broccoli casserole or are you full?"

* * * * *

Maggie lounged on the sofa reading her People magazine by candlelight while Zack napped in the big overstuffed chair nearby. The house was quiet.

Mel had been in bed for a couple of hours. Maggie had showered and put on her favorite Victoria's Secret signature pajamas, pink satin with black piping. Understated elegance, the caption had read. She decided that look was perfect for a single mother and doctor who hadn't had a man in her bed since long before the warranty on her mattress had expired.

Maggie closed her magazine, her weekly update of who was sleeping with whom in Hollywood. There was a whole lot more sex going on in Hollywood and New York than in Beaumont, South Carolina. Not many people in Beaumont had affairs. There was only one really seedy motel, and Abby Bradley passed it on her way to and from the ice-cream parlor each day so fooling around was risky.

Maggie sighed. She was restless and wide-eyed awake. Three-hour naps had a way of doing that to a person, she thought. She wanted to move around. She wanted to go outside and breathe in the night air and feel it on her skin. She wanted to walk barefoot through the cool grass and gaze at the stars. Even jogging sounded palatable at the moment.

She did not want to sit in a dark living room and think about the sad state her life was in.

She needed to throw off the crap that was dragging her down. She needed to be positive. She needed, um, cake! She tossed her magazine aside and started to get up.

"Maggie?"

She turned to Zack, still sprawled in the chair, head back, eyes closed. "I thought you were asleep," she said quietly.

"FBI guys don't sleep. We take short breathers."

"You slept last night," she said. "I heard you snoring."

"I don't snore."

"You snore."

"You're bored, aren't you?" He grinned.

"How can you tell?"

"You sigh a lot when you're bored."

"Really?" Maggie hadn't realized. Her mother sighed a lot. Mel sighed a lot. And all three of them muttered under their breath when they were annoyed, and they had this eye-rolling thing going on. Their gene pool had to be one weird swimming hole.

"You want to play strip poker by candlelight?"

She looked at him and tried not to sigh.

"You want to sit in my lap?"

"Excuse me?"

He gave her a sexy, lazy-as-a-river smile. "Stop playing hard to get," he said. "You wouldn't have worn those slutty pajamas if you didn't want me."

Maggie found comfort in his casual, laid-back demeanor. He didn't appear worried or afraid. He wore his confidence on his wide, squared shoulders and in his stance and how he held his head.

"Don't make me beg," he said. "All I have left is my pride."

Maggie suddenly realized that the one place she really wanted to be was in Zack Madden's lap. She rose and walked over to him. He held out his arms, and she sank against him. He felt warm and solid beneath her. Maggie swung her legs over the side of the chair and leaned against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and pressed his lips into her hair.

"You always smell good," he said. "How come you smell good when you're allergic to everything that smells good?"

"What you smell is chocolate oozing from my pores." Maggie tipped her face back to look at him. He took it as an invitation to kiss her. His lips barely grazed hers, light as dandelion fluff. It reached inside and touched her heart.

Zack leaned back, and they simply gazed into each other's faces in the semi-dark. Maggie saw the longing. She touched his cheek, explored his face with her fingertips. She leaned forward and touched his lips with hers. His mouth was warm and firm and responsive. Maggie got lost in it. Zack stroked her bare arm, and she wondered how he managed to make her skin feel so good.

Maggie was self-consciously aware of her breathing, ragged and unsteady. Then she realized Zack seemed to be having the same problem. She could feel his heart thumping in time with hers. They kissed and touched until Maggie felt achy all over but in a good way.

She wasn't sure how they made it upstairs, only that she had forgotten the fifth step creaked. In the quiet house it seemed to cut the air like a siren. They waited. As they headed upstairs once more, Maggie swore she would never again become annoyed with Mel for being a sound sleeper.

* * * * *

"Maggie!"

The roar of her name was so loud it yanked Maggie from her dream the next morning. Her feet hit the floor before her brain became fully awake, before Zack bellowed her name a second time. She skidded into the kitchen. Anger knotted his forehead. "What!" she cried.

"Did you touch this alarm system?"

"No!"

"Well, somebody did. The damn thing is disarmed. Mel, wake up," he shouted, already making his way down the hall. "Mel, get out here!"

Maggie winced. "Good grief! Would you stop yelling?"

Zack didn't wait for Mel to open her door. He knocked loudly. "I'm coming in," he warned. He opened the door and looked inside. "Where the hell is she?"

"What do you mean where is she?" Maggie said, pushing him aside and entering her daughter's bedroom. No sign of Mel, only a sheet of paper on the bed.