Wife for Hire

  “No way,” Hank said. “You’re going to go get Fred and bring him over to my parents’ house.”

  “Oh, man, Fred’s not going to like that. Fred’s going to be hungover. He doesn’t have a woman to keep him in line,” Bubba explained to Maggie. “Fred’s not what you would call the catch of the town.”

  “You don’t know of anyone else that’s going to come looking for the diary, do you?” Hank asked.

  “Nope,” Bubba said. “I don’t think there’s anyone else left. Anyway, we searched real thorough, and we couldn’t find it. Some folks are saying the diary doesn’t exist. And most folks are afraid of your house keeper.”

  He opened the driver’s side door to his truck. “I’ll make sure Fred gets to your parents’ house, but then I’ve got to go. I have to set the timing on my truck this morning. It hasn’t been sounding right. Don’t forget we promised to help clean up the grange hall this afternoon. And then there’s the poker game to night at Vern’s house.”

  “You’re awfully busy with community activities,” Maggie said, sliding onto the bench seat of Hank’s pickup.

  Hank pulled her across his lap and kissed her. “Maybe I need to rearrange my social calendar now that I’m a family man.” His hand stole under the football jersey and gently cupped her breast. He kissed her again; deeper, more passionately than before. “This beats the heck out of baseball,” he murmured.

  Her fingers fumbled with the snap on his jeans. “How about fixing Bill Grisbe’s car?” She slid her hand along his flat belly until she found what she was looking for. “Does this beat fixing his Ford?”

  His answer was an intake of breath and a groan of plea sure.

  She wanted to tease him, wanted to take the role of the seducer, but as she curled her hand around him, she felt her body respond with the lovely heat and the delicious thrum of desire that his nearness always triggered. She forgot about wanting to tease, forgot they were on the front seat of a truck, forgot about everything but the man moving over her. He was knowledgeable now. He knew exactly where to touch, knew the rhythms of her passion, knew all her secrets, all her preferences. His fingers stroked her. His mouth devoured her. When she thought she was at her limit, he took her farther. Much farther.

  Afterward they held each other close, both in awe of the power of their love, both wondering how they could have done such a thing in broad daylight, in the driveway.

  Hank was the first to raise his head above window level. “No one watching,” he said, obviously relieved.

  Maggie felt like a silly teenager, except she’d never done this as a teenager.

  Hank sat up and adjusted his clothing. “Okay, I’m ready to go see my father now.”

  “Maybe we should take showers first. Maybe I should comb my hair.”

  He cranked the engine over and stepped on the accelerator. “No. I want to get to the bottom of this.”

  Fifteen minutes later his parents were surprised to see him. “I didn’t realize you got up this early,” his mother said.

  “Mom, I run a farm. I’m up at the crack of dawn every day.”

  “Yes, but you never got up this early when you lived at home. Have you had breakfast?”

  “Yup. I’ve already eaten.”

  Helen Mallone looked at Maggie’s hair. “A cup of coffee, perhaps?”

  Maggie remembered the coffee she’d left sitting on the kitchen counter. “Coffee would be great.”

  Harry Mallone was at the table, reading the paper. He looked over the top of his half glasses and raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t think you got up this early,” he said to Hank. “Is something wrong?”

  “Dad, I get up this early every day. I’m a farmer.”

  “Mmmm,” Harry said. “Fancy apples.”

  Hank sighed and slouched in the seat across from his father. “Actually, something is wrong. People have been breaking into my house.”

  “I heard about that,” his father said. “I don’t understand it. We’ve never had that kind of crime in Skogen.”

  Hank stared coolly at his father. “Rumor has it, you’re the reason people are breaking in. I heard you offered Fred McDonough a million dollars if he’d steal Maggie’s diary for you.”

  Harry’s first reaction was disbelief. His second was a smile that creased his face and produced a chuckle deep in his chest. “You aren’t serious.”

  “I am serious.”

  Harry looked at him. The smile faded. “You are serious.”

  “The way I hear it, everyone in town is working nights, trying to make that million dollars.”

  Helen gave Maggie a cup of coffee and took a seat at the table. “Harry, did you do that?”

  “Of course not,” Harry said. “Where would I get a million dollars?”

  “You’re the president of the bank,” Hank told him.

  Harry looked appalled. “They think I’d embezzle a million dollars?”

  Hank shook his head. “No. They think you’re rich.”

  Helen reached across and patted Maggie’s hand. “The people in this town are very nice,” she said, “but you couldn’t accuse them of being smart.”

  Fred McDonough knocked at the back door.

  Bubba had been right, Maggie thought. Fred McDonough was definitely hung over. His eyes were heavily bagged and only half-open. He had the beginnings of a beard and under the beard his face was ashen.

  Helen Mallone opened the door and gently curled McDonough’s hand around a mug of hot coffee.

  “I wish I were dead,” McDonough said.

  Helen clucked sympathetically. “You shouldn’t drink so much.”

  McDonough looked at her like she was from the moon.

  “We’re trying to straighten out this stealing business,” Hank said. “Did my father offer you a million dollars to steal Maggie’s diary?”

  McDonough took a gulp of scalding coffee and never blinked an eye. “Yep. He said he’d give a million dollars jest to get his hands on that diary. That was his exact words. I tried, too, but your damn dog liked to tear my pants’ leg off.”

  Harry Mallone smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Now I remember. That was a figure of speech, you idiot! I didn’t mean I wanted someone to steal the blasted thing, I meant I was wondering about its contents!”

  Maggie laid her hand flat on the table to steady herself, as relief washed over her in a dizzying wave. It had been a misunderstanding! She’d been sure someone had been after the diary to save face. She’d thought it might have been a misguided relative, hoping to protect Aunt Kitty. Or perhaps a former client worrying about his reputation. She’d even thought it might have been one of the local upstanding citizens, as preposterous as that might seem.

  She took a steadying breath and sipped her coffee before questioning Harry Mallone. “Why didn’t you ask to borrow it?”

  Harry shrugged. “It was one of those things you say in a conversation. I don’t really have the time or interest to read about the internal workings of a bordello.”

  Maggie felt herself stiffen at the insult. “Too bad,” she said. “It’s pretty interesting.”

  Harry gave her a severe look. “I bet.”

  “So, let me get this straight,” McDonough said. “You never meant for me to steal the diary?”

  Harry removed his glasses, folded them, and placed them in the case on the table. “That’s right.”

  McDonough stared off into space, clearly grappling with this new information.

  Helen Mallone looked at her husband, her lips pressed tight together. “Harry Mallone,” she said. “You’ve caused a lot of trouble. I don’t usually interfere with the relationship between you and your son, but this is too much. You owe him and Maggie an apology, at the very least.”

  “It was an honest communication problem,” Harry said.

  “No,” Helen told him. “There’s more involved than that. You haven’t had an open mind about him and his wife. Just look, he even gets up early now and eats breakfast.”

/>   Harry didn’t look especially impressed.

  “I think you should give him the loan,” Helen said.

  Color instantly rose to Harry’s cheeks.

  Helen sat with her hands folded together on the table, her eyes and mouth locked in unyielding determination. “I think it’s the least you could do to set things straight.”

  Harry drummed his fingers on the arms of his captain’s chair, assessing his wife’s anger. “He doesn’t have the appropriate collateral.”

  “Baloney,” Helen Mallone said, continuing to glare at her husband.

  Harry rolled his eyes heavenward and threw his hands into the air.

  By anyone’s standards his mother was a flexible person, Hank thought, but when she truly set her mind to something, she was a woman to be reckoned with. Hank knew the only time his father ever threw his hands into the air in a gesture of futility was when he was forced to capitulate to his wife’s obstinacy. Hank could count the times on one hand. The time his mother had insisted they drive to Ohio to spend Christmas with her sister. The time his mother decided to have the kitchen remodeled. The time Aunt Tootie had a hysterectomy and his mother had invited her and her dog, Snuffy, to recuperate in the guest room.

  Maggie was in the middle of packing when Hank returned home from cleaning the grange hall.

  “What’s this?” he asked. “Why are you putting your clothes in these boxes?”

  “I’m leaving. Your father agreed to give you the loan, so there’s no reason for me to stay.”

  His thick black eyebrows drew together. “What do you mean, there’s no reason for you to stay? I asked you to marry me.”

  “I don’t want to marry you.”

  “You don’t love me?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Maggie stuffed a stack of T-shirts into her suitcase. “I said I don’t want to marry you. I’ve spent too many years of my life in uncomfortable environments. I love my mother, but I can’t live with her. And I can’t live with you either.”

  “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with you. It’s everything around you that’s all wrong. Your father totally disapproves of me. Your best friend resents me. And your dog is mean to my cat.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No, that’s not all. I’m going nuts sitting in this room day in and day out staring at apple trees. I don’t think I’m cut out for farm life. If I don’t get to a shopping mall soon, I’m going to go into withdrawal. I want to talk to someone who doesn’t say ‘yup.’ I miss the air pollution. I have a craving to stand in line and curse out someone. I miss being on the road and having other drivers make rude gestures to me.”

  Hank put his hand to her forehead. “You running a fever?”

  “This town is filled with weirdos.”

  “Yeah, but most of them are pretty nice. You’d get used to Skogen if you just gave it a chance.”

  “Never!” Maggie said. “I will never get used to Skogen. I’m going back to Riverside, and I’m going to take a job at Greasy Jake’s, and I’m going to finish my book. And then I’m moving to Tibet.”

  “Tibet isn’t the paradise it used to be,” Hank said. “I hear Tibet has problems too.”

  Maggie stuffed another stack of clothes into her suitcase. “Uh! No one ever takes me seriously.”

  “That’s not true. I’ve always taken you seriously…until now. Now I’m not taking you seriously.”

  Hank picked the suitcase up and dumped Maggie’s clothes out onto the bed. “We made a deal. The deal was that you would be my wife for six months. I expect you to honor that.”

  Maggie felt tears burning behind her eyes and angrily blinked them away. Why was he making this so difficult? It wasn’t as if she really wanted to leave. She loved him. But some of the things she’d said were true. She thought she would be miserable in Skogen in the long term sense of things. And eventually Hank would be miserable too. And then they’d have a miserable marriage. And maybe by that time they’d have miserable children.

  No, she thought, she didn’t want to prolong the inevitable. She wanted to leave immediately and start to forget him. Didn’t he understand that every moment in his presence was an agony for her?

  “There’s no reason for me to stay. You’re just making things more difficult.”

  He set his chin at a stubborn angle. “We made a deal.”

  Her eyes were glittery with renewed obstinance.

  “Okay,” he said. “I live out in the barn for the next five months. Those are my terms.”

  She took on a defiant posture. “Fine. I’ll stay. But don’t expect me to like it. And don’t expect me to cave in again. I intend to devote my energies to finishing my book. I’ll perform what ever social duties you require, but don’t impose your personal needs on me. Is that clear?”

  “Perfectly.”

  Chapter 10

  Maggie hung up the phone and sat back in her chair, staring sightlessly out her study window. It was early afternoon but the sunlight was weak, the world gray and obscure behind a curtain of falling snow. The orchard had been reduced to white mounds where snow had drifted from the last storm. The trees endured the cold in silence, reduced to skeletons beyond the sound of the muted footfalls and slamming doors that signaled life in the farm house.

  It was the sort of snow people said would continue for a long time. Small, dry flakes that sifted straight down. Maggie knew a lot about snow now. Wet snow, dry snow, windblown snow, snow that was good for skiing, snow that was good for sledding, snow that was good for building snowmen. At happier times she would have been thrilled by it because she was usually a woman with an adventuresome spirit. But these weren’t happy times.

  Maggie was lonely in a house filled with people. She’d imposed it upon herself. She saw no other way. For five months she’d kept to her room, working day and night on Kitty’s book. Hank had respected her isolation; Elsie had groused about it.

  Now her tenure was coming to an end. Her six months would be complete in January. She’d accomplished her goal. She’d written the book. She’d even managed to sell it. Just minutes ago she’d spoken to her agent and learned she was a rich woman. Apparently she wasn’t the only one who found the information in Kitty’s diary to be interesting.

  But the victory was flat. She was miserable. Cutting Hank out of her life had only produced heartache so strong that at times it left her breathless. Thank goodness the book had demanded her attention throughout most of her waking hours. Now that it was finished she was bereft.

  She had to start a new project, she told herself, but nothing appealed to her. She looked down at herself and knew she’d lost weight.

  “Pathetic,” she said to Fluffy, curled in a ball on the corner of the desk.

  Elsie knocked on the door and walked in. “Pathetic,” she said. “Everyone’s downstairs trimming the tree, and you’re up here looking like death warmed over.”

  Maggie smiled. She could always count on Elsie to jolt her out of self-pity. Elsie was brutal but effective. And there’d been a lot of times in the past months when Elsie had kept her going with scoldings and hugs and hot soup.

  “To night’s the Christmas party,” Elsie said. “Does your dress need pressing?”

  Maggie shook her head. Her dress was fine. It was a little big on her, but the style allowed for that. She wasn’t sure she cared anyway.

  Laughter carried up the stairs with the smell of pine and spicy cider. Hank’s parents, his Aunt Tootie, Slick, Ox, Ed, Vern, Bubba, and their wives and girlfriends were downstairs, helping with the tree.

  If she were a good wife, she’d be down there too. She’d used the same tired excuse of working on her book to steal away to her room. No one knew the book was done, much less sold.

  Lord, what had become of her? She was a coward, she thought. She wasn’t able to face other people’s happiness. Especially now that it was the Christmas season. This was a time for family. A time for love—and Maggie was loveless. Tears trickled down
her throat. Hormones, she told herself, swallowing hard.

  Elsie shook her head and sighed. “You’re so hard on yourself,” she said. “Why don’t you let yourself have some fun?”

  Because if she gave in just a tiny bit, her resolve to leave would crumble like a house of cards, Maggie thought. Skogen wasn’t going to change. Hank’s father wasn’t going to change. Bubba wasn’t going to change. Just as her mother and Aunt Marvina weren’t going to change. And the most painful truth was that Maggie wasn’t going to change.

  She didn’t belong in Riverside and she didn’t belong in Skogen. If she wanted happiness, she was going to have to go searching for it. Surely there was a place where she would be accepted and feel comfortable. Surely there was a town out there that offered a compromise between dumpsters and apple trees.

  “I’ll have fun to night,” Maggie lied. “I’ll just work a little bit more, and then I’ll quit for the day.”

  “Everyone misses you,” Elsie insisted.

  They didn’t miss her. Maggie knew that for a fact. She could hear the laughter. She could hear the conversation that bubbled between old friends and family and never included her. For months now life had gone on in the farm house, and she hadn’t been a part of it. Hank had gone from the baseball team to the football team to the hockey team. The cider press had been delivered and was operating, and the pie factory was close to becoming a reality.

  “No one misses me,” Maggie said. “They’re having a perfectly wonderful time without me.”

  “Hank misses you,” Elsie said. “He looks almost as bad as you do. He laughs, but his eyes don’t mean it. You’d see it too if you weren’t so stuck on your own misery.”

  Maggie wondered if what Elsie said was true. She knew part of her wanted it to be so. She knew that there was a scrap of hope she hadn’t been able to completely smother. Her love for Hank smoldered deep inside her. She couldn’t extinguish it no matter how hard she tried. It burned constantly and painfully. Every day she faced the unpleasant realities of her predicament and exerted every ounce of discipline she possessed to do what she felt was best for herself and for Hank, but the dream remained.