Kasey Michaels: High Heels and Homicide

Maggie wanted to be angry, but she was too truthful to keep from smiling. «You got it, ace. And you'll be happy to know that grand gesture went over like a lead balloon. How dare I put their names on the covers of unforgiveable smut? To tell you the truth, I was kind of relieved when my historical-romance career went belly-up and I could pick another name.»

«One with lots of Os, because Os look good on a book cover. Yes, I remember. And you have my sympathy, Maggie, truly you do, but it's for only three days. Surely you can manage three days. And your parents will be just as happy to see our backs, I'm sure. As the esteemed Guido Cavalcanti wrote, and as you had me repeat in one of our books, 'A guest, like a fish, has an unpleasant odor after three days.' «

«Oh, good, now I'm a flounder. Thanks, Alex.» She pulled the SUV toward the curb in front of a large, three-storied, apricot-colored stucco beach house on the land side of the beach-front street. «Here we are. Home sweet home, at least for the last five years. Tate bought it for them.»

«How generous of him.»

«Oh, don't worry, the deed's in his name. But, yeah, it was a nice thing to do. I shouldn't always look for ulterior motives.» Maggie, with some reluctance, turned off the ignition. «One more time—you're friends of mine from England. You don't live in my same building, you never lived in my condo, and we are not romantically involved. Clear?»

«How will you explain the coincidence of our names?»

«I won't have to. Nobody in my family reads my books. Last time I sent Mom one, she sent it back, said the family is still waiting for me to write a real book.» She grinned at Saint Just. «So they won't know you from spit. How's that for a shot in your consequence, my lord?»

Maggie had been both right and wrong about her family. Maureen was most certainly a sycophant, embarrassingly eager to please, but Erin and her neurosurgeon husband had opted at the last minute for Thanksgiving in the Bahamas, a happy event that allowed Saint Just and Sterling to each have his own bedroom for the duration.

Tate, Saint Just had decided, was that most objectionable of creatures: stupefyingly boring. He spent most of his time with his cell-phone earpiece attached to his head and the rest of his time making snide remarks about effete, East Coast, left-wing liberals.

Which meant that Maggie spent a lot of her time on the front porch, with her father, as the woman seemed to have morphed into a timid mouse the moment they'd crossed the threshold Wednesday afternoon.

Saint Just, his hands thrust deep in his slacks pockets, walked the beach, his head down, reliving the high spots— actually the low points—of the past three days.

Maggie's opening comment, very badly timed, inquiring whether there was a wake going on in the house, led to Maureen dragging her from table to table, explaining that the multitude of flowers had all come from Tate: «He told Mom he has so much to be thankful for. Isn't that sweet? Look, this one's an actual magnolia tree. Isn't that something?»

Maggie's floral offering, ordered via the Internet, had been at last tracked down, located in the second-floor guest bathroom.

That had been the beginning, but there seemed still to be enough room left to go downhill from there. Saint Just shook his head, remembering…

They were giants, the Kellys were, or at least Tate and Maureen were. Upon meeting them, Saint Just had for a moment thought he might be able to comfort Maggie with the idea she may have been a changling. But that thought had evaporated when the patriarch of the clan, Evan Kelly, entered the room; not very tall, rather thin, and with a rather haunted look about him, he appeared much like a puppy grown used to daily beatings.

And then there was Mrs. Kelly, mother to these giants and to Maggie.

Saint Just heard her. One was always hearing Mrs. Kelly. One simply didn't see her, which had been made clear by the bellow from the first-floor master bedroom just as Maureen was reciting the affecting contents of Tate's card from the potted magnolia tree in the dining room.

«Margaret? Is that you, Margaret? About time you showed up! And look what you're responsible for this time. Come here, look! Last-minute guests. How could you just spring them on me like that? I told your father you always find a way to make a shambles of everything, and you've done it again. I had to put the extra leaf in the table, for your friends , and now my back's gone out, and I'm stuck in this bed like some invalid. Come in here! Be some use for a change. Help me to the bathroom.»

It had been amazing, and quite the eye-opener, to watch as both Maggie and her father reacted to the woman's voice. They seemed to shrink in place, the pair of them.

Maggie had headed down the hallway, and Saint Just had barely been able to hear her mumbled greeting. He did, however, have very little difficulty hearing Mrs. Kelly say, «My God, Margaret, you're fat . How could you let yourself go like that?»

Nearly every hour on the hour, sometimes again on the half hour, Alicia Kelly would bellow, and someone would pay the price. Maureen seemed to do so gladly, with a smile that possibly owed something to the vial of small pink pills she kept in her pocket, and Tate was somehow excused.

But Maggie and her father were very definitely the woman's main whipping boys.

And it explained so much. Why Maggie backed away from loud voices, angry confrontations, and people who presented themselves as so very sure of themselves. Why she was so sure she was always in the wrong. Why physically imposing or large people seemed to turn her in on herself, leach all the spirit out of her. Why she'd been visiting Doctor Bob once a week for nearly five years, with no end in sight.

Obviously, the famous Doctor Bob hadn't been able to rid Maggie of her childhood memories, or trauma, or whatever people like Doctor Bob called such things, leaving it up to Saint Just to put some starch into the poor girl's backbone.

He had no idea how to accomplish that feat, however.

«Alex! Wait up!»

Saint Just halted, turned to see Maggie running across the sand, her hair and skirt blowing in the wind, her sea-green cashmere sweater hugging her lithe curves, her feet bare on the cold sand. Yes, she had become slightly more rounded in the past six weeks, but he liked her with fewer sharp edges. Her dark copper, chin-length hair, with its exquisite highlights, begged to be touched.

And happiness, lately so lacking in her Irish green eyes, shone from her now.

He could pen an ode to her beauty. She was fresh and sparkling, totally unaffected, and unaware of her impact on the male of the species. Not that terribly small, but in this land of Kelly Giants, a veritable Pocket Venus.

«Maggie,» he said as she fell into step beside him. «Is your presence here in the way of a companionable stroll with a friend, or am I serving as a bolt-hole?»

«Both, I guess. Dad and I had another nice talk earlier— I actually feel like I'm starting to know him a little bit. He's afraid of Mom. He didn't say it, but he is. And yet, he loves her very much. Strange,» she said, pushing her hair out of her face as she smiled up at him. «Oh, and I just told Tate to shove it.»

«I beg your pardon?»

«I told him off, Alex,» she said, dancing ahead of him into the last little wavelet to roll up onto the beach. «Oh, cold! And I'm so hot .» A shoe in each hand, she spun around in a circle, her head back, spinning round and round, until she lost her balance, and Saint Just caught her.

«I'd say you were a tad in your altitudes, except that it hasn't quite gone noon and you rarely drink.»

«I'm drunk on life, Alex! I told him off !»