“No. Leave the ladder alone,” he ordered. Running his hand over his face, he shot Maggie an apologetic glance. “I’ll be there in about an hour or so.” Thick terry cloth swirled around slender ankles when Maggie swept from the room with Fred hot on her heels. Tom pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, wishing he could block out the sound of his mother’s voice and ignore the guilt snaking through his gut. “Sorry, Ma. Be there as soon as I can,” he said then ended the call.
Tossing the sheet back, he scooped his pants and underwear from the floor and started to pull them on. Dread pooled in his belly. The abrupt end to their conversation would give Katie Sullivan plenty of ammo to unleash on him when he showed up.
He grabbed his shirt and gave it a sharp shake before shoving his arms into the sleeves. Guilt clogged his throat. His mother was old. And alone. And yes, a giant pain in his ass, but she was his mother. If he didn’t show up to do the job, she was just stubborn enough to try to wrestle the ladder from her tiny garage. Then she’d fall, break a hip, and he’d never hear the end of it. Tom had learned at a young age that accommodation was the best form of self-defense.
The weight of his guilt and disappointment bogged him down. Moving in slow motion, he picked up his shoes and socks, slung his suit jacket over his arm, and padded from the bedroom in search of Maggie.
He found her in the kitchen. Her fat cat wound his way between her ankles. Flame red hair tumbled down her back. Wavy curls tangled and tousled by his hands spilled onto celery-colored terrycloth. He held his breath, allowing himself the luxury of just a few extra moments. An odd, unidentifiable ache gnawed at him.
A soft click echoed in the empty apartment. A can of cat food clattered to the counter. Maggie held an unwieldy-looking can opener aloft and grinned down at the cat. “See? I’m getting faster with it,” she assured her feline friend.
Fred growled a meow and sat beside his food bowl, curling his tail around his haunches and staring up at her with barely contained exasperation.
Tom stifled a chuckle. Then he squelched a surge of lust when she bent to scrape the contents of the can into the dish. He cleared his throat. “Think that’ll hold him?”
She straightened, smoothing her palm over the front of her robe. “For a few minutes,” she replied, flashing a sheepish smile. Maggie turned to face him and the ache he’d felt a moment before morphed into a full-fledged pang of regret.
“I’m sorry.” He stepped into the room and tossed his jacket over the back of a kitchen chair. Dropping into the seat, he released a huff of breath and looked up at her. “I have to go.”
“I figured.”
He shook out one of his socks and bent at his waist. “My mother can be a little high maintenance.” He yanked the sock over his toes.
“I know. I’ve met her.”
Startled, he jerked his head up to find her watching him with a small smile. She
had
met his mother. This woman he’d violated in a half dozen ways in the past fourteen hours had met his mother at least a dozen times. Tom blinked when he realized she was the only woman he’d ever been with who had the dubious honor. He busied himself with the other sock. “That’s right.”
“She’s a piece of work,” she said with a laugh.
“Putting it mildly.”
“And you’re her fair-haired boy.”
Tom sneered as he pulled the second sock into place. He tugged at the hem of his pants and reached for a shoe. “Lucky me. Why couldn’t I have inherited the Sullivan hair?”
She smiled and leaned against the counter, crossing her arms over her chest. His brother’s hair had once been jet black, but not anymore. “At least you’re not turning prematurely gray, like Sean.”
He gave the laces a good yank and quickly tied a knot. “If Sean had to deal with her as much as I do, he’d be snow white by now.”
Snow White. A pang of regret zinged through him. He had to leave. He didn’t want to, but he had to. Tom looked up, searching her face for any hint of the same disappointment. All he could find was calm acceptance. That puzzled him even more. The only time he had ever discussed his relationship with his mother with a woman, it ended in a huge fight followed by a much quicker break-up than even he anticipated. Maggie didn’t look as though she was prepared to fight. As a matter of fact, she seemed oddly relieved.
That confused him even more. Wriggling his heel into the other shoe, he quickly knotted the laces and stood up, grabbing his coat from the back of the chair. “Can I have a rain check on the other ten hours?”
She smiled as he shrugged into his jacket. And blushed. Just seeing that petal pink made his pulse quicken. Now he knew that when Maggie McCann blushed, she flushed that pretty, pretty pink all over. It was a glorious sight, and he wanted to see it again so badly his mouth went dry. One hand slid to her throat. Her fingers closed around the lapels of her robe, holding it closed. She kept smiling, but she didn’t answer.
He patted his pockets, checking for his wallet and keys. A strange lump in his left pocket puzzled him. He reached in and extracted her key ring. “Oh.” He stared at them blankly for a second. Had it just been a couple of hours since he’d dashed out her door on a quest for breakfast? “
Here.
”
“Thank you.” She dropped the ring into the pocket of her robe and ushered him toward the door.
He stood his ground, watching as she twisted the locks and gave the stubborn door a full-body yank. “Maggie?”
“Hmm?”
“The other ten hours?”
She wouldn’t meet his gaze. Instead, she seemed to take sudden interest in the peeling paint along the door jamb. The rain check wasn’t going to be honored. “Okay, not ten hours. Dinner,” he negotiated.
“Thanks, but that’s okay.”
He crossed to the threshold, planting himself between Maggie and the strips of wood and paint she found so damn fascinating. “I want to see you again.”
“Oh, I’m sure we will. Patrick’s birthday is in a few months. The big one-six. I’m sure Tracy and Sean will have a party or something.”
He reached for her elbow. The muscles in her arm tensed, but she didn’t pull away. Nor did she meet his eyes. “I’m sure Sean could whip up a mean birthday cake in the next five months, but I was thinking sooner and I was thinking more along the lines of a date.”
Maggie wet her lips, lifting her head until their gazes met and held. A small smile curved her lips. “I had a great time, Tom. Thank you.”
Anger and confusion ruled his better judgment. “If you had such a great time, we should do it again,” he snapped.
“I think it’s better if we don’t.”
“Why?”
“Why ruin it?” She took a small step back. Her fingers tightened on the doorknob. He watched the blood flee from the death grip, leaving her knuckles a ghostly white. “Let’s just let this be a nice memory. The next time we run into each other, you can smile at me and I can smile at you, and no one else ever has to know we’ve seen each other naked.”
“What did I do wrong?”
Her eyes widened. “Nothing. You did everything right. It is what it is, Tom. Let’s not pretend it’ll ever be anything more, okay? That’ll just make one of us look like a fool.” She gave him a not-so-gentle shove and he stumbled into the hall. “The downstairs door will lock behind you. Just make sure you pull it closed.”
“Maggie!”
She shook her head and murmured a soft, “Goodbye, Tom,” before closing the door in his face.
His jaw hit the floor. She pushed him out the door. That never happened to him before. Women usually clung to his ankles as he tried to beat a path to the nearest exit. Okay. The ankle thing only happened once, and his niece was only four at the time, but still….
He raised his clenched fist and rapped on the door. “Maggie?”
No answer. No shuffling footsteps. No movement within at all. He knocked harder.
“Maggie!”
Fred answered his call with a curious meow. The healthy ego dozens of women had fed and nurtured over the course of his adult life quaked. His forehead puckered into a frown. He pulled his hand back and scrubbed his face. A grim smirk twisted his lips when he lowered his hand. His fingers curled. The blunt tips of his fingernails bit into the meat of his palm as he stared at the door.
“I’ll call you!”
Whether it was a promise or a threat, he wasn’t sure. How Maggie would take it, if she even heard him, was anyone’s guess. His phone vibrated. He fumbled in his jacket pocket trying to pull it free. His mother’s number scrolled across the display. Tom exhaled through his nose, punched the button to ignore the call, and then dropped it back into his pocket as he turned toward the stairs.
The front door slammed behind him and Tom dragged in a breath of crisp morning air. He pushed on the door to be certain the locks caught, then shivered when he realized he didn’t even have Maggie’s phone number.
The bright red awning above the door snapped in the autumn breeze. Glancing up, a slow smile crept across his face. He spotted a cab meandering down the street, cruising in his direction. Tom flung his arm up to hail the driver then hurried for the curb. As he slipped into the back seat, he spared the plate-glass windows another glance. Relief coursed through him and he left his head fall back against the stiff vinyl seat.
He knew how to find her. The Glass Slipper. Her business would be listed in the book, and the Yellow Pages beat the hell out of trying to beat her information out of Sean—or worse, beg it from Sheila.
Chapter Seven
Maggie spent the rest of Sunday doing all the things she should have done in the first place. Her apartment was now sparkling clean and clutter-free and both sets of sheets were tumbling in her dryer. As a matter of fact, her evening of indulgence unleashed a fresh burst of determination. Maggie McCann’s road to self-containment was paved with the very best of intentions. She was feeling pretty smug as the evening wound down. Her fridge and cabinets were bursting with food, there wasn’t a bottle of wine within a three-block radius, and the sweet scent of lilac wafted from the steaming bathtub.
Ignoring the book she’d carried into the bathroom with her, she opted to close her eyes and drift away on a cloud of bubbles. Her fingers fluttered through the water. They stirred tiny waves that lapped at her belly and breasts. She sighed, pretending the caress of bathwater was a suitable stand-in for the heat of Tom Sullivan’s talented tongue.
She pushed him out the door. Hours later, she was still stunned. That was a first. Hell, usually she was trying to lure men into her web. She could tell by the startled disbelief on Tom’s face that it was a first for him too. But it was pure self-defense. She had to do it. He stood there in his wrinkled suit, his hair mussed, a dark shadow of beard
stubbling
his jaw… Rude or not, she had to do something, anything, to keep from prolonging the moment.
Maggie forced herself to resist the temptation of his offer of dinner. She couldn’t take the sincerity shimmering in those vibrant blue eyes. Each minute they spent together stripped away another illusion, making him more human and more likeable. And when that stubborn cowlick on the crown of his head popped up, he was almost…lovable.
Her eyes snapped open and she fumbled for a
loofah
. Loving Tom Sullivan was not and never would be an option. She bit the inside of her cheek and started to scrub the last vestiges of him from her body. No, another ten hours in his company would have been too dangerous.
She almost made a mental note to send Mrs. Sullivan a little thank you gift. She discarded flowers or candy and considered sending his mother a gift certificate to the spa before she remembered that doing so would mean that Maggie would have to deal with Katie Sullivan and her running litany of complaints. It was a close call. Too damn close for comfort. After fifteen years of flitting around the edges of the Sullivan family, Maggie knew enough to steer clear of that. A smirk curled her lip. She chuckled when she envisioned Tom on a ladder patiently ignoring his mother’s harangue while he scraped leaves and twigs and gunk from her gutters.
Restless, she pulled herself up and climbed from the tub with a groan. Her stomach muscles griped. Of course, they were only one item on the laundry list of aches and pains. She was too long out of practice, and her poor body had been well and truly abused in the best possible way. Maggie wrapped a towel around her body, tucking the end between her breasts.
From his usual spot on the bathmat, Fred watched as she reached for the clip that held her hair and shook the heavy curls free. She snapped the clip to the edge of the shower curtain and turned to face the mirror. Fingertips grazed the pale pink patches of razor burn his whiskers left on her throat. She squinted at her reflection, noting every fine line and furrow on her freshly washed face. Those lines marked nearly four decades of living, but they didn’t seem to appear any deeper than they had the day before. It seemed impossible. Never had she felt more alive than she had last night.