Slow Heat (22 page)

“Look through the peephole before you open the door,” she told her.

“Yes, Mom,” Deidre said. She made a face, then looked in the mirror as she checked her face and hair.

Annalisa started laughing. “Stop it, D. I swear Maggie is growling.”

Deidre pulled off her best innocent look then walked to the motel room door, putting an extra sway in her hips. When she got to the door she peeked through the peephole. She pressed her face to the door for a moment before turning around slowly. It dawned on Maggie that Deidre wouldn’t know what Micah looked like.

“He is really tall,” Maggie began.

Deidre turned around. “And exceptionally good looking. I don’t know, Mags. I might have to steal this one away from you.” She opened the door and stepped back.

Maggie stared wide-eyed at her father. She hated herself for thinking there wasn’t anywhere to run, especially when just a minute before she was so happy to be part of her dysfunctional family. But when John O’Malley entered and Deidre closed the door behind him she mouthed, “He came alone.”

Maggie barely had the opportunity to acknowledge the much-appreciated message. Her father wasn’t looking at her. Maggie shifted her attention as well when Deidre covered her mouth with her hand and suddenly looked teary-eyed.

“Daddy?” Annalisa whispered and stepped out from between the two beds.

“My baby Annalisa.” Her father’s words broke on a sob as he held out his arms.

Annalisa rushed into them, and was the first to start crying. “Oh Daddy. I’ve missed you so much!”

“Same here, sweetheart.”

Maggie stood back, deciding for once it didn’t bother her that Aiden had again played the informant to their parents. If he had told Mom, then it was her own stubborn Italian pride preventing her from seeing Annalisa. Maggie was glad Irish pride seemed a bit more sensible at the moment.

Her father held Annalisa tightly. Both of their faces were buried in each other as they continued whispering words of regret for being away from each other so long. When her father finally put his youngest child at arm’s length and managed something close to his usual stern but loving look, Maggie and her sisters grew quiet. She wasn’t the only one who prayed John O’Malley would make a stand against their mother. He seldom did it. But when he did, it was usually over something serious, and then Lucy O’Malley never opposed him. At least she hadn’t to date.

“My three daughters, hiding in a motel room just so they can spend time together.” He let a few expletives fly but continued holding Annalisa and rubbing her bare arms with his bony hands. “This is not how the O’Malley family will be!”

Maggie wanted to jump in the air and cheer.
Yay, Dad!

“Does Mom know I’m here?” Annalisa sounded more timid than she had in years.

Her father nodded. “She saw you on the front porch talking to your sister.”

Annalisa shook her head. “I meant here in this motel room. Maggie got it for me. I’m not going back to the house, Dad. Not if she is just going to kick me out again.”

John O’Malley scraped his teeth over his bottom lip and appeared to be choosing his words carefully. He took a moment too long and Annalisa began crying.

“Oh baby,” Deidre consoled and rushed to her little sister. She pulled her from her father and held her in her arms. “Dad, it’s been a great day here with the three of us. But I put my foot down on Mom messing with Annalisa’s head again.”

“Same here,” Maggie said, and moved in to wrap her arms around both her sisters. “If Mom is going to be like this, it’s her actions that are breaking the family up, not anyone else’s.”

“Your mother is an old woman,” he began, holding his arms out. It looked as if he’d do anything to have Annalisa back in them again.

“No,” Deidre said firmly. “She might be old, but she’s not dead. If she won’t open her arms and her heart to Annalisa and accept her for how she is, then you can let her know I’ll come back by once Annalisa leaves town.”

“That goes for me, too,” Maggie said. “I’m staying here with Annalisa. If she isn’t welcome home then I don’t want to be there, either.”

Her father didn’t react or say anything, but simply stared at his three daughters. Finally he sighed. “The three of you look just like her. All of you are so incredibly beautiful. You talk just like her. You act just like her. The three of you most definitely have her stubborn bullheaded pride,” he finished and raised his eyes to heaven as he mouthed a silent prayer that sounded more like a complaint.

“I miss her.” Annalisa spoke so softly she was hard to hear.

All of them did, though.

“That does it,” their father said and walked to the motel room door.

Maggie wondered if he was leaving and at the same time wondered how he’d gotten there. She started after him but he reached the door first, opened it, then Maggie understood. It was immediately crowded in the room when Aiden entered.

“I wanted to come in alone first,” their father announced. “And now I’ve made my decision.” He suddenly looked a lot older when he tried stepping around his children to reach Annalisa.

Deidre hopped onto the bed and Maggie did the same, clearing the limited amount of floor space so their father could move easier. Annalisa looked frightened but held her ground. Maggie held her breath. She knew her father wouldn’t say anything to hurt his youngest child and remembered the fights after their mom had sent Annalisa packing. She still worried that if Annalisa thought she were tearing the family apart, she’d leave and never come back before openly causing them any more pain.

“The O’Malley family stays together,” he said firmly. “None of us is perfect.” Their father reached Annalisa and she buried her head against his chest and wrapped her arms around his waist. He turned his head so he could see his other children. “We’re all going home together. This reunion belongs there, not in some motel room.”

“Hear, hear!” Aiden cheered. “Shall we hit the bar first, Dad?”

“Most definitely.”

“I would love to buy you a drink, Dad,” Annalisa said.

“I would love you to buy me a drink, Dad,” Deidre said.

Then all of them were talking at once, deciding where to go and who would ride with whom. Maggie barely heard her phone when it rang. She did manage to slip around everyone to the bathroom and close the door behind her before answering.

“Hello,” she said, and her insides were immediately filled with a different type of excitement.

“Enjoying time with your family still?” Micah asked.

Maggie wanted to tell him everything that had just happened. He might not understand, or care. “Yeah. It’s been a pretty good day. My youngest sister has been away for quite a while and we’re all glad she’s back,” she said and decided that would work instead of giving details into their messed-up family. Being an only child, he probably had a quiet and perfect family. Hers was as far from both as it got. “Everyone has just decided to go have a drink. I don’t know where yet.”

“I’m about fifteen minutes from your motel. Call me back when you know and I’ll start that way.” He hung up without elaborating.

Would he go with them? Already Maggie knew her sisters wouldn’t mind Micah being with them. Her father and Aiden would be a different story. And with Annalisa here, but still on shaky ground, Maggie knew it would be best if Micah didn’t go. She wanted to spend time with him, too, though. If he had any news for her about who was really behind the money going in and out of Club Paradise other than her uncle, she wanted to hear that as well.

All eyes were on her when she walked out of the bathroom.

“Who is this young man who steals you from the family during such a special moment?” her father demanded.

Maggie would have flipped her oldest brother off for such a pompous look if her father wouldn’t have seen it, too. “It was Micah, Dad,” she explained. “He’s a bounty hunter. I’m sure Aiden has given you all the details.”

“Humph.” Her father started toward the door with Annalisa’s arm wrapped around his. “Your brother is driving me to the pub. Annalisa is going with us. I assume you two can make it without getting lost.”

“Dad,” Deidre complained as if she resented being sectioned off with Maggie and considered the bad child, too.

Her father turned his back on Maggie and pointed a finger at Deidre. “You make sure she shows up and doesn’t go in the wrong direction.”

The wrong direction? Is that what her father thought she was doing? Maggie didn’t have time to dwell on her family’s opinion of her. As much as that mattered, proving her innocence mattered, too. She sighed, feeling torn in two at the moment. Nothing was more important than her family. Without them, her innocence meant nothing. Somehow she’d clear herself from this mess around Club Paradise and be 100 percent part of her family.

Behind their father’s back, Deidre grinned a toothy grin at Maggie and mouthed, “Details.” At the same time, Aiden walked alongside Dad and glared at Maggie as if she’d have to answer to him later.

*   *   *

Maggie stopped by the front desk after walking everyone to her brother’s car. She sent Deidre on around to the back of the motel where her car was parked but had promised Annalisa she’d make sure Julie would be able to get into the room later if she showed up before Annalisa did.

Annalisa was content to go home and stand up to Mom with everyone backing her. But she appreciated a place to escape afterward. Maggie was almost jealous after Annalisa had whispered in her ear, pleading with her to tend to this one detail. All her life Maggie had relied on her family for support in any matter. It hadn’t been until the past few years that she’d grown distant, her own person as an adult. Instead of relying on her parents for support, her parents now relied on her.

But when all the shit hit the fan, it hadn’t crossed her mind to run to her family for help. The moment she’d been released from questioning, Maggie had hired Micah. Annalisa faced a different type of problem—and just like Maggie’s, it was one that shouldn’t exist in the first place. She had someone to run to and, from her urgent whispers, couldn’t wait to see Julie later.

Maggie had put Micah in the position of protector. She was running to him with all her problems. But would he ever be there by choice? Maggie hated these thoughts. They tumbled over one another in her brain. If only this were a math problem, then it would be simple to see from the beginning to end. Micah wasn’t X and she wasn’t Y. Furthermore, Micah probably wouldn’t fit anywhere in the equation at all. She’d known from the beginning that he didn’t meet any boyfriend criteria and probably never would.

After leaving instructions with the clerk at the desk, Maggie hurried down the first-floor hallway toward the exit to the back parking lot. Deidre was sitting in Maggie’s passenger seat staring at her fingernails when Maggie pushed out of the motel’s back door. Deidre glanced up and smiled, then straightened and apparently she reached for the radio. At the same time an old car desperately in need of a new muffler entered the parking lot. Deidre probably turned up the radio to drown out the sound of the old car.

Maggie glanced down at her phone, curious how much time had passed since she’d hung up with Micah. Even if they had to sit and wait, Maggie doubted Deidre would complain about the chance to meet Micah. If Maggie could have avoided her sister meeting Micah, she would have. Her father was insistent on Deidre riding with Maggie, though—and suddenly it all made sense. Her dad suspected Micah would be coming by and he didn’t want Maggie to be alone with him. She was instantly pissed and amused at the same time. It would serve her father, and Deidre, right if Maggie started making out with Micah right in front of her.

No matter how far back she went in her memories, Maggie couldn’t think of a time when she’d met one of Deidre’s boyfriends and her sister hadn’t been completely relaxed with the introduction. That was probably her sister’s secret. She never came across as caring that much for any of the guys she dated.

On the other hand, whenever Maggie had dated a guy and he finally met her older sister, she’d repeatedly lived with the humiliation of her boyfriend making a fool out of himself in front of Deidre. He would stammer, act like an idiot, and turn into this buffoon that Maggie didn’t recognize. After Deidre would glide out of the room, seemingly oblivious as to how she’d turned Maggie’s boyfriend into an imbecile, Maggie would then be forced to listen as the imbecile asked too many questions about Deidre and repeated more than once how hot she was.

Maggie couldn’t see Micah acting like a fool no matter the situation. He definitely didn’t come across as the type of man who would go out of his way to try to impress anyone. And at the same time, she reminded herself, he wasn’t her boyfriend. She most definitely had first dibs, though. And second dibs, and third dibs. So what if he wasn’t boyfriend material? He was the best sex she ever had and something about him seriously intrigued her. Wait a minute, make that everything about him seriously intrigued her.

“Maggie!” Deidre screamed as if she were hurt.

Maggie jerked her head up as the old car that had just rumbled into the parking lot came at her at full speed. For the first time in her life, she truly understood the meaning of the expression
deer caught in the headlights.
She stared at the car as it came straight at her and she either forgot how to move or was simply too stupefied to put her body into action.

Her survival skills were getting a good workout lately. As much as she didn’t want to be accused of a crime she didn’t commit, or to be followed around by the police, or to have someone she knew have his home trashed and bugs planted because of her, she had been forced to endure all of the above. Now she needed to move! Maggie most definitely did not want to die.

But when she darted as fast as she could to the other side of the parking lot, the mufflerless car veered and came closer. She stopped running, the end of the motel building behind her and hedges lining the edge of the lot running alongside her. If she had superpowers maybe she could simply jump straight up in the air and the car would hit the building.