Elizabeth Harbison - A Groom for Maggie

“Good. Then I’ll have my lawyer draw up a contract and bring it to you for a signature.”

“A contract?” She looked astonished. “Don’t you trust me?”

Trust. That wasn’t a word he wanted to discuss with a woman. “It’s just good business,” he hedged. “It helps everyone remember their objectives.”

She nodded stiffly. “Very well. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to see to Kate.”

“Right.” He watched her turn to go, then had another thought. “Maggie?”

She turned around. “Yes?”

Their eyes locked for just a moment. “Since you’re going up to Kate,” Alex said slowly, “maybe you ought to tell her about our plans now.”

A moment passed. “You want me to tell her?”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Is that a problem?”

“You want me to tell her alone?”

He shrugged. “That’s what I hired you for.”

“You can’t mean that.”

Lord, he’d set her off again. He didn’t have time to wade through her inventory of synonyms for I-don’tapprove-of-what-you’re-doing. “Let’s cut to the chase, here. Do you have a problem with telling her?”

Maggie crossed her arms in front of her and regarded him with a look of incredulity that made him extremely uncomfortable. “Surely you intend to tell her this news.”

So that was it. “You’re the one who is with her all the time.”

“You’re her father!” Maggie returned, seeming exasperated for having to point out something so obvious.

“I know that,” he answered, impatient over having to acknowledge something so obvious. He picked up a pen and tipped it back and forth between his fingers. “Am I to gather that you think I should speak with Kate myself?”

She bit down on her lower lip and nodded, with exaggerated patience.

“Okay, I’ll do it later.”

She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again.

“You had something else to say?” Alex asked.

“On second thought, maybe we should do it together.”

He dropped the pen on the desk and it clattered onto the floor. The woman was amazing. “Maggie, have you always been this impossible or do I bring it out in you?”

She looked at him steadily, her green eyes dark and sharp. “Oh, I’ve always been this way,” she said, completely earnest. “It’s just me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“See you upstairs,” she said with a smile. She’d caught him, gained the upper hand, if only for a moment. What was worse, she knew it. He could tell.

“Wait.” He had to say something, anything, to regain control of this relationship.

Maggie looked at him expectantly.

“Please tell Kate I’d like to speak to her at—” he glanced at his watch “—three o’clock.” He eyed Maggie coolly. “I’ll expect you to be there as well.”

She nodded then turned and left, closing the heavy oak door behind her with a solid thud.

A tremor ran through his chest and he took a deep breath. He stared after her for a long time. Damn her attractiveness, he thought. She was integral to the next few years running smoothly. Yet attraction to her would cause too many problems.

He picked up a pencil and drew circles on the pad in front of him.

Physical attraction was one complication he was going to have to ignore. There were far more pressing complications that took precedence. Marlene Shaw, for example. His former mother-in-law was trying to take custody of Kate away from him. Knowing what he did of his exwife, Sandra’s, upbringing, and how she had turned out to be of less-than-sterling character, Alex was willing to protect Kate from that fate with whatever it took. Marlene was an ambitious, demanding woman who, like her daughter, wanted what she wanted at all costs. Unfortunately she had lived with Kate during the two years after the divorce. Now with Alex as a hardworking bachelor she had some leverage in the court’s eye.

Maggie could change all of that. With a wife at his side, a wife who was devoted to Kate, he would no longer have to worry about Marlene Shaw. She would have no more ammunition. And Kate would have the best of care.

Meanwhile, he also wouldn’t have to worry about other women pursuing him anymore, he thought without conceit. The undesirables would leave him alone if he was married. The others…well, there weren’t any others, so he didn’t have to worry about that, either.

There were a lot of practical advantages to his being married.

That was what he had to focus on, not his body’s attraction to Maggie.

The circles he drew became tighter and darker.

Maggie Weller—soon to be Harrison—was, as Alex’s late mother would have termed her, “a pistol.” She certainly outspunked any woman Alex had ever known. But the funny thing was, he liked that. He admired her for it.

And she was so highly principled. If Sandra had been half as principled as Maggie, half as honest, then maybe their marriage wouldn’t have been such a disaster.

Thank God Maggie wasn’t like Sandra.

Now if she could pass on any of that confidence, integrity, even self-righteousness, to Kate he would be grateful. He didn’t want Kate to suffer because of insecurities and he never wanted her to fear her father’s temper, the way he had. After all, Kate had to live with Alex, and Alex was his father’s son. If it was true that the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree, she might as well learn early not to need him, lest he should let her down.

He stopped scribbling on the paper.

And so he would have to remember not to need her, too, not to get too attached. For her sake;

The pencil snapped in his hand.

Half an hour later, Alex decided to phone his former mother-in-law and get it over with. He flipped through the Rolodex file on his desk until he came to the name he sought: Marlene Shaw. With one final deep breath for strength, he picked up the phone and dialed.

They made it through the pleasantries quickly, then Alex got directly to the point. “I’m getting married in a couple of weeks.”

There was a thick pause. “Is that right?” Marlene asked icily. “To whom?”

Alex could tell from the stiffness of her voice that she was already trying to determine whether this was going to help or hinder her custody case. “To Margaret Weller.”

“Margaret Weller,” the older woman repeated, “Margaret We—” There was an audible gasp. “Surely you’re not talking about the nanny!”

“The same.”

“That’s impossible.”

“I don’t think so.”

“She’s a servant!”

“That’s not exactly the way I think of things, Marlene. Kate couldn’t ask for a better stepmother.”

“But Kate…why, she needs family. There’s no substitute for blood, Alex. No one could be better for her than her own flesh and blood. Some outsider can’t give her that.”

He let a moment of silence linger after her outburst, then said mildly, “She has that. I’m her father, you remember.”

The derisive snort on the line was answer enough.

“And now she’s going to have a stepmother who loves her, too.” He waited a beat. “So I trust I won’t be hearing from you again about custody.”

“You do, do you? Well, think again. We don’t even know where that woman’s from, what her background is. She could be a criminal for all we know about her—”

Alex shifted his grip on the receiver. “My people screened her before I hired her. So drop it, Marlene. You know you don’t have a case, and I’d really rather not have to describe your schemes to my fiancée.”

“Isn’t that why you’re marrying her?” Marlene shot back. “To keep me from my grandchild?”

“Of course not,” he snapped, unable to quell a small tremor of guilt. “I’m marrying her because I want Kate to have a good family, a rational environment.”