Wife for Hire

  Maggie cocked an eyebrow. “Am I going to need another pudding to see me through this?”

  “Wouldn’t hurt.”

  She took the last two puddings out of the refrigerator and gave one to Hank.

  “It was a deciding factor in whether or not I should try pro hockey,” he said. “Actually I had my choice of hockey or the army.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  A splash of color appeared on his cheeks. He really wasn’t enjoying this, but he wanted to tell her before she heard it somewhere else. His whole childhood had been a struggle for in dependence. In fact, looking back, he thought his childhood had been a struggle for survival. There’d been no room in his father’s rigid lifestyle for a little boy with chocolate on his face. His father had no patience with a seven-year-old who couldn’t color inside the lines, or a fourteen-year-old who couldn’t tie a perfect Windsor knot, or a seventeen-year-old who was put into remedial reading because it was finally discovered he had dyslexia.

  Every time Hank failed by his father’s standards, the rules and restrictions grew tighter. And the more rules his father imposed, the more Hank had rebelled. If he wasn’t going to get approval, then he sure as hell was going to get attention.

  After a couple of years on his own knocking around the hockey circuit he’d grown up, thank heaven. Now he set his own moral standards and imposed his own rules of conduct. The only approval he needed was his own. Until Maggie. Falling in love, he discovered, brought with it a whole new set of needs and responsibilities.

  He looked at Maggie sitting across from him and took a deep breath. “One night, about a week before graduation, I persuaded Bucky’s daughter, Jenny, to meet me in the barn behind her house. We had a six-pack of beer. We were up in the loft and it was dark, so I lit the kerosene lantern. Bucky saw the light go on and thought he had a thief in his barn. I don’t know what he thought the thief was stealing, because the barn was empty except for about twelve years’ worth of pigeon droppings. Anyway, he got his old bear gun down from the mantel and blasted the hell out of his barn.”

  “Was anyone hurt?”

  Hank grinned. “No. But he hit the lantern and burned his barn down.”

  Maggie clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. “It must have been terrible,” she finally managed.

  He was relieved she could see the humor in it. It hadn’t been too funny at the time, and years later, when he’d returned to Skogen, people were still telling the story about the time Bucky Weaver burned his barn down. “It was a turning point in my life,” he told her. “I had to leave Skogen, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “But you came back.”

  He shrugged. “It’s home.”

  Maggie wasn’t sure she felt the same way about Riverside. She’d been born and raised there, and she felt a flurry of homesickness from time to time, but she wasn’t sure it was home.

  “Couldn’t home be somewhere else? Isn’t there any place else you’d like to live?”

  He stared at the four empty pudding dishes on the table. He hadn’t really given it much thought. At least not in a long time. Home had always been his granny’s house, even when he was a kid. This was where he’d laughed and played and felt safe. After his granny had died and he’d moved into her house, he’d realized it wasn’t the house that had made it a home. It had been his granny. Now Maggie made it a home. Home was with Maggie, and he supposed it could be anywhere in the world. He found it astonishing that he could feel that way about a woman he’d known less than a week.

  “I guess one place would be as good as another,” he told her, “but it’s hard to move a hundred and ten acres of apple trees. They don’t pack well.”

  It was dark in Maggie’s room. The window was open, but there was no breeze to stir the curtains, no moon to splash silvery light across her floor. She’d come awake fast with her heart pounding in her chest, her throat tight with fear. She was afraid to open her eyes. Afraid to move. Afraid the intruder would notice her altered breathing pattern. She tried to think, but her mind was a blind alley that had no outlet for her panic.

  Someone was in her room. She could feel it. She knew he was there. Clothing rustled. A board creaked in the floor. Her eyes flew open in time to see a shadow move toward the door. It was a man, and her first thought was of Hank. Let it be Hank, she prayed.

  The shadow hurried into the dark hall and Maggie heard Horatio growl. The sound came from deep in the dog’s throat, low and threatening. He was moving slowly and stealthily across the floor, stalking the man. Maggie felt as if the house were holding its breath, and then all hell broke loose as Horatio bolted out of the bedroom. The intruder thundered down the stairs; his only concern to escape from the dog. Maggie was out of bed. She ran into the hall and saw Hank disappear down the stairwell after Horatio. A bloodcurdling scream carried from the front lawn, and then there was the sound of a car door slamming and a car being gunned down the driveway.

  Maggie met Hank in the foyer. She reached out for him with a shaking hand, and found nothing but warm skin to hang on to. He’d only taken the time to pull on a pair of jeans. She flattened against him in her cotton nightshirt, and, to her own disgust, began to cry.

  “He was in my room! I woke up, and he was moving around in my room! I don’t know what he was doing, or how long he’d been in there—”

  She was babbling, but she couldn’t help it. It was the first time in her life she’d ever felt truly frightened. The first time she’d felt endangered and helpless.

  Now that it was over, she was shaking from the inside out. She clamped her teeth together to keep them from chattering and pressed her forehead against Hank’s chest. She was hysterical, she thought…and she hated it. She stiffened her spine, pulled away from him, and took several deep breaths.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m better now.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “You must think I’m an idiot, bursting into tears like some wimp.”

  Hank eased her back to him. “If I’d known you’d turn to me in terror like that, I’d have hired someone to break into your room last night.”

  He kissed her hair and smoothed his hands along the curve of her spine, feeling her warmth creep through the thin cotton. His arms wrapped around her, bringing her closer until she was snug against him. He’d given her a glib answer, but he didn’t feel so casual inside. He was furious that someone had violated his house, and he was horrified that the intruder had been in Maggie’s room.

  Maggie splayed her hand flat to his chest. “Your heart is racing.”

  “It’s your nightie.”

  She gave him a playful slap, but he held tight. “I’m not ready to let go yet,” he told her. “If you want to know the truth, I’m probably more scared than you are. The thought of some slime bug crawling around in your room has my stomach churning.”

  He buried his face in her hair and swore to himself that this wouldn’t happen again. As soon as the sun came up, he’d install locks on the doors, and from now on Horatio would sleep with Maggie.

  Elsie came grumbling into the foyer. She was wearing big blue fuzzy slippers and a long blue house coat, and her short, steel-gray hair was standing on end in crazy, electrified-looking tufts.

  “What the devil’s going on out here? Sounded like someone was dropping bowling balls down the stairs. Men screaming outside, dogs barking. I’m an old lady. I need my sleep.”

  “Someone broke into the house,” Maggie said. “He was sneaking around in my room, and then Horatio chased him down the stairs.”

  Elsie’s mouth dropped open. “If that don’t beat all.” Her eyes narrowed and her lips thinned in a tight smile. “Well, I’d like to see him try that again. I’ll be waiting for him from now on. I know how to protect myself, you know.”

  “Where’s Horatio?” Maggie asked. “Is he okay?”

  Hank looked out the open front door. “Last I saw him he was chasing the car down the driveway.”

  Hank
gave a sharp whistle through his teeth, and Horatio came loping onto the porch. He trotted inside and dropped a piece of denim at Hank’s feet.

  Elsie stooped to get the ragged material. “Hmmph,” she said, “it’s from the cuff. If I were a dog, I would have sunk my teeth in a mite higher.” She gave the scrap back to Horatio and patted him on the head. “Good dog. You aren’t exactly a killer, but you did good anyway.”

  She turned around in her big blue slippers and shuffled off to her room. “I’m going back to bed. Let me know if there’s any more excitement.”

  Hank closed the front door and scowled at the lock. It was old and he didn’t have a key. He was afraid if he ever did manage to get it locked, he might never be able to get it unlocked.

  “I’ll get this fixed as soon as the hardware store opens,” he told Maggie. “Do you have any idea what this guy was doing in your room?”

  She shook her head. “By the time I saw him, he was heading for the door.”

  Hank looked at the pendulum wall clock in the foyer. “It’s three-thirty. Why don’t you go to bed, and I’ll look around down here to see if anything’s been stolen.”

  “I’ll check the rooms upstairs.”

  Half an hour later they sat side by side on the edge of Maggie’s bed and concluded nothing had been taken. The only room to seem disrupted had been Maggie’s bedroom. The intruder had gone through her dresser drawers, and he hadn’t been too neat about it.

  “I can’t figure it,” Hank said. “You had almost fifty dollars in small bills laying on your dresser top. And he left it. He didn’t take your pearl earrings or watch. What the devil was he looking for?”

  A silly idea skittered through Maggie’s mind. Ridiculous, she thought. I’m getting paranoid. But when she looked at Hank, she knew he’d had the same thought. “You don’t suppose he was looking for this?” She opened her night drawer and pulled out Aunt Kitty’s diary.

  “Hard to believe. I’m sure everyone thinks it’s got a lot of hot stuff in it, but I can’t imagine someone breaking and entering just to get their hands on a dirty book.”

  Maggie gave him a look.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “So, it crossed my mind too, but you have to admit it doesn’t make any sense. This isn’t the Hope diamond we’re talking about here. This is an old lady’s diary. I know everyone in Skogen. I can’t come up with anyone who would want that diary enough to steal it.”

  “Everybody too honest?”

  “No. All the likely candidates are too lazy.”

  “Maybe it’s not someone in Skogen,” Maggie said. “Maybe word has spread throughout the state, throughout the country.”

  “Maybe someone followed you up here from New Jersey. This could be serious,” Hank said, flopping back onto the bed. “I’d better sleep here to night and make sure you’re safe.”

  “You never give up, do you?”

  “This is an emergency situation.”

  She looked at him sprawled across her bed and swallowed. He was magnificent. Smooth, tanned skin, a hard, flat stomach, and jeans that were zipped but not snapped.

  Good thing she wasn’t one of those women who lost control at the sight of perfect flesh and muscle, she thought. Actually she had to admit her control was slipping a little. There was a certain appeal to spending the rest of the night with him, and it had nothing to do with safety. It had to do with the lovely flush of desire his presence generated. The need to touch him was almost overwhelming. If she’d been more experienced, she might have given in to it. But as it was, she regarded it curiously and with a little awe.

  She’d never felt such a compelling, delicious ache to know a man. Never needed to be loved. She wondered if he had similar feelings, and then she realized with a shock that of course he did…he was the sex fiend of Skogen. He probably felt that way about every woman he met.

  Disappointment hit her like a hard slap in the face. She narrowed her eyes. “I’m giving you thirty seconds to get off my bed. I don’t sleep with indiscriminate womanizers.”

  She saw the expression of playful affection change to one of hurt and surprise, then anger. Direct hit, she thought grimly.

  Hank heaved himself to his feet. He thought she understood the man behind the reputation. Hank whistled for Horatio. The dog trotted into Maggie’s room and looked at his master expectantly. “Stay,” Hank told him, and without even so much as a backward glance at Maggie, he strode from the room and slammed the door behind him.

  He’d been honest with her. Hank fumed. What more did she want? He turned on his heel and went back to Maggie’s room, yanking the door open. “You have a lot of nerve calling me an indiscriminate womanizer. I’ve been beyond reproach since you’ve been here.”

  “I’ve been here for three days!” Maggie shouted. “You expect me to be impressed with three days of abstinence? And for all I know you’ve been sneaking out at night, burning down barns.”

  He felt the heat flooding into his face again. He stormed into his own room and slammed his door.

  Maggie sprang up from her bed. “And don’t come barging into my room without knocking!” she shouted. Then she slammed her door too.

  She threw herself into bed and pulled the quilt up to her chin. She grunted and rolled over, stuffing her face into the pillow. “Men!” she said. “Ugh!” She thrashed around for a few more minutes until her bedclothes were totally tangled. She got up, remade the bed, and calmly crawled back in. She was hot and exhausted and sorry. She shouldn’t have made that crack about the barn burning.

  “Damn stubborn temper,” she said. A tear rolled down her cheek. She wanted Hank to love her. Only her. She didn’t want to be just one more conquest, one more event. She wanted to be special, and she didn’t want to suffer the fate of his other girlfriends. She didn’t want to turn into a Hank Mallone groupie.

  Elsie slammed bowls of oatmeal onto the table. “Anyone who doesn’t eat this and like it gets liver for supper.”

  Hank rattled his paper, and Maggie tapped a spoon against her coffee mug.

  “And I don’t put up with spoon tapping neither,” Elsie said. “I feel darn cranky. I didn’t get any sleep last night. Bad enough we got some fool wandering around the upstairs, then the two of you decide to have a shouting match and door-slamming contest. I got more rest when I was living in the old people’s home. The most noise anybody made was when they dropped their bedpan. Except for the time Helen Grote set her walker down on the cat’s tail.”

  The memory brought a smile to her face. “That was something.”

  Hank folded his paper and placed it on the table beside his oatmeal. He glared briefly at Maggie and splashed milk onto his bowl.

  Maggie glared back. Fine. If he wanted to be childish and stay angry, so would she. No problem for her, she thought. She could stay angry forever. After all, she was the most stubborn female Riverside had ever spawned. She could show him a thing or two.

  The trouble was she didn’t want to stay angry. She wanted to cuddle up behind him while he was eating his oatmeal, wrap her arms around his neck, and kiss him on the top of his head. His hair was freshly washed and shiny and looked like it would be nice to kiss. His cheek looked like it would be nice to kiss too. And his mouth…Maggie sighed at the thought of kissing his mouth.

  The sigh prompted him to glance up from his oatmeal. He stared at her, but he didn’t say anything. He looked annoyed.

  “Well, excuse me,” she snapped. “Did my sigh disturb you?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. It would take a lot more than a sigh to get me to notice you.”

  Elsie made a disgusted sound and plunked a platter of French toast on the table. “What are you two so bent out of shape about? This is the most realistic fake marriage I’ve ever seen. If you get any more married, you’ll have to get a divorce.”

  The back door opened and Bubba ambled in. “I knew I smelled French toast.”

  Elsie stood with her hand on her hip. “How many loaves do you eat?”

&nb
sp; “One will be fine,” Bubba said. “Don’t go to any bother.”

  Elsie took more eggs out of the refrigerator. “Don’t you have a home?” she asked. “Why aren’t you married?”

  “I’m not the marrying type,” Bubba said. “Besides, it wouldn’t be right for me to tie myself down to one woman. It wouldn’t be fair to all those other females out there that crave my attention.”

  Maggie hid behind her half of the newspaper and made a gagging gesture.

  “It’s especially critical that I keep my bachelor status now that Hank’s no longer in circulation,” Bubba said. “Someone’s gotta take up the slack.” He shook his head. “All those heartbroken women…” He sighed and poured syrup on four slices of French toast. “I’m just about exhausted with it.”

  Hank grinned. “Bubba’s been going with the same girl since high school. If Bubba so much as looked at anyone else, she’d nail his shoes to the floor and turn him into a gelding with a bread knife.”

  “Oh man,” Bubba said, “you’re always ruining my image.”

  Maggie thought Bubba was the human counterpart to Brer Bear. And he was probably almost as smart as Brer Bear, she decided. She reprimanded herself for being snide, but she couldn’t help it. She was in a foul mood this morning.

  Bubba forked toast into his mouth. “This sure is good,” he said. “I might think about getting married if I could find a woman who could cook like this.” He gave Elsie a questioning look.

  “Forget it,” Elsie said. “I’m too old for you, and besides, if I wasn’t getting paid, I’d be eating TV dinners.”

  “Too bad,” Bubba said. “Peggy keeps wanting me to go on a diet. For breakfast she fixes me half a cup of those little high-fiber nugget things in some skim milk. It’s like scarfing down buckshot in water.”

  “Maybe you could stand to lose a few pounds,” Elsie offered, as she watched him wolf down the French toast.

  Bubba glanced at his stomach. “It’s cause I sit on a loader all day. I don’t get enough exercise.”

  “Bubba has a backhoe and a front-end loader,” Hank explained. “He does construction jobs. He’s working on the site for my bottling plant this week.”