Maureen Child - Lonergan's Secrets

“Fine. But even if you’re leaving at the end of summer, you’re here now,” she reminded him.

Yeah, he was. And he wanted her. Bad. For one brief instant his body tightened and his breath staggered in his lungs. Then he came back to his senses. “You’re not a ‘right now’ kind of woman, Maggie. And I can’t make you promises.”

“You keep forgetting that I didn’t ask for anything from you.” She stepped toward him, cupped his cheek in her palm and stared directly into his eyes. “What? Only men are allowed brief, red-hot affairs?”

He caught her hand in his, stilling the feel of her fingertips against his skin. “What about the other?”

“Hmm?”

“The chance of pregnancy?” Couldn’t believe he had to remind her about that.

Realization dawned on her features, but she said, “I don’t know yet. But since there’s nothing we can do about it at the moment, no point in worrying about that until we know for sure, is there?”

“Guess not.” Though he knew damn well a corner of his mind would be worrying about that small chance nonstop until he knew one way or the other.

“And we could be careful.”

Her voice brought him back from his thoughts, and as he looked down into her eyes, he felt his resolution to keep his distance fading into nothingness. If they were careful, if she didn’t expect more from him than he could give.

It would be crazy.

Stupid.

Great.

When he didn’t speak, she shrugged. “Either way,” she mused, still giving him that half smile, “still got to get the laundry in.”

With the abrupt shift in subject, Sam felt as if he’d just been shown a safe path through a minefield. As she walked along the line to take down the next sheet, he studied the sway of her hips, despite knowing that he’d be better off ignoring it. “Why don’t you just use the dryer on the service porch?”

“This way things smell better,” she said, lifting one shoulder in a half shrug as she reached up to the line. The hem of her tank top pulled up, displaying an inch or two of taut, tanned abdomen. Just enough to tempt him. “The wind and the sun… at night, you can sleep on sheets that make you dream of summer.”

That’d be good, he thought, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets. But then, anything would beat the kind of dreams he normally had.

“Besides,” she was saying as she tossed him one end of a pink-and-blue floral sheet, “when I was a little girl, I always wanted my own clothesline.”

He chuckled, surprising both of them. “That’s different.”

She glanced at him, then looked down at the sheet they were folding. “There was a house down the street from where I lived and this woman would be out there almost every day.” Her voice went soft and hazy and he knew she was looking at a memory. “She had this big golden dog who followed her all around the yard and she’d laugh at him while she hung out clothes to dry. Sometimes,” she added, smiling now, “her kids would go out there, too. And they’d all play peek-a-boo in the clean clothes and it all looked so… nice.”

“So your own mom wasn’t the clothesline type, huh?”

Maggie’s features stiffened and a shutter dropped over her eyes. “I don’t know what my mother preferred,” she said and heard the wistfulness in her voice. “I never knew her.”

She glanced at Sam and saw his wince. “Sorry.”

She shrugged again and reached to push up the strap of her tank top that had slid down her arm. “Not your fault. You didn’t know.”

“And your father?”

She forced a smile. “He’s a mystery, too. They died when I was a kid. I went into the system and stayed there until I was eighteen. That neighbor I told you about? She lived down the street from the group home.”

“You weren’t adopted?”

“Nope. Most people want babies. But don’t get that sympathy look on your face,” Maggie warned. She hadn’t needed anyone’s pity in a long time and she sure didn’t want it from Sam. “I did fine. There were a couple of foster parents along the way and the group home was a good one.” Wanting to throw up roadblocks on memory lane, she changed the subject fast. “Anyway, now that there’s a clothesline nearby, I get to indulge myself.”

Thankfully he didn’t ask anything else about her childhood. It hadn’t all been popcorn and cotton candy, but it hadn’t exactly been a miserable Dickensian childhood or anything, either. But that was the past and she had the present and future to think about.

“Indulge yourself even though this way it’s more work.”

“Sometimes more work makes things better.”

“Not your average attitude these days.”

She smiled at him. “Who wants to be average?”

“Good point.” He finished folding the sheet, glanced around the yard. “You know, there’s something still missing from your laundry recreation. Pop used to have a dog.”

“Bigfoot.” Maggie nodded sadly. “I know. He died last year.”

“Last year?” Sam whistled as he did the math. “He had to have been nearly twenty years old.”

“Almost,” Maggie agreed, “and pretty spry right up to the end. Jeremiah was brokenhearted when that dog died. He said it was his last link to you and your cousins.”

He slapped one hand to his chest and rubbed it hard, as if her words had hit him like a dart.

“You shouldn’t have stayed away so long,” she said.

His gaze slid to hers. “I couldn’t come back. Couldn’t be here… be surrounded with memories. Couldn’t do it.”

“But you’re doing it now.”

He snorted. “Just barely.”

“Maybe it’ll get easier the longer you’re here.”

“No, it won’t.”

“You could try. For his sake.” She nodded in the direction of the house.

“It’s only for his sake that I’m here at all.” He reached up, closed one hand around the nylon clothesline and hung on as if it were a life rope tossed into a stormy sea.

“It wasn’t your fault.” She said it without thinking, and the minute those words came blundering out of her mouth, Maggie knew they’d been a mistake.

His features froze over. His jaw clenched. She watched him grind his teeth together hard enough to turn them to powder. And his gaze—dark, filled with pain—stabbed hers. “You don’t know anything about it.”

“You could talk about it. Tell me.”

Another harsh, rasping laugh shot from his throat as he shook his head. “Talking about it doesn’t change anything. Talking about it doesn’t help. It just brings it all back.”

“Sam,” Maggie said softly, “you don’t have to bring it back. It’s with you all the time.”

“God, I know that.” He blew out a breath, seemed to steady himself, then started talking again, forcing a change of subject. “So how’d you come to be here on the Lonergan ranch, working for Jeremiah?”

Maggie nodded, silently agreeing to the shift in topic, and she was pretty sure she caught the flash of relief in his dark eyes. Then she took down the next sheet and handed one end to him. They had a rhythm now, working together as a team, and a part of her wished that that teamwork could spill over into other areas.

“My car broke down,” she said. “Right outside the front gates.” Pausing to remember, she added, “Broke down doesn’t really cover it. More like it fell apart.”

One corner of his mouth lifted and Maggie wondered what he looked like when he was really smiling. Or laughing.

“Anyway,” she said, getting her mind back on track, “Jeremiah invited me in, made me lunch, called a mechanic. And by the time Arthur’s Towing Service arrived to take my car away to heap heaven, your grandfather had offered me a job as his housekeeper.”