Commitment (23 page)

Maggie blinked at him solemnly as he gathered her hair in one hand, smoothing it with the palm of the other. “Do you know how to do that?” she asked when he stretched the elastic between his fingers.

“I think I can figure it out.” He bound her hair in a low ponytail he imagined was a little sloppier than one she could do, but still neater than previous attempts made on his niece’s hair. “I might need the practice, right?” Sitting back on his heels, he offered her a lopsided smile.

“Right.”

She batted a few stray tendrils from her face, and he caught her hand. Pulling it to his lips, Tom brushed a kiss to her knuckles. “Don’t fix it yet, okay? Humor me.”

“Okay.”

Fred sauntered to the ottoman, inadvertently kicking one of the balls of chocolate-coated puffed grain. The skittering morsel captured his attention and he pounced. Maggie raised an eyebrow. “Problem with the Cocoa Puffs?”

“I’ll clean that up,” he promised, reluctantly releasing her hand.

She climbed from the couch, pressing the wrinkles from her pink scrubs with her palms. “I need to get back down there.”

He nodded. “I’ll lock the door behind me when I leave.”

“Okay. Uh…thanks.”

He smiled at the flustered flutter of her hand. Peering up at her, he tried to play it cool. Of course, there was only so much cool a mostly-naked guy sitting on a floral-print couch sporting a raging hard-on could manage. “See you tonight.”

A smile twitched her lips and she started toward the door. “Don’t forget to get dressed first. It’s chilly out there.”

The door slammed behind her and he released the breath he was holding, frowning down at the burgeoning bulge of his belly. “Yeah. Thanks for the tip.”

****

Pizza, a movie, a warm body in bed next to her, a bakery box filled with bear claws, and the Sunday paper. The whole thing would have been perfect, if only it were real. Maggie tried not to think too hard about it. She flitted about the apartment, stuffing scrubs into the washing machine, running a dusting cloth over tables, chairs, and shelves, and inventorying the depleted contents of her cabinets. All the while, she worked around the immobile lump of man parked on her couch with her cat in his lap.

She dragged a two-wheeled wire cart from the coat closet and propped it against the door. Her hands planted on her hips, she studied the pair with pursed lips. A slightly acidic comment burned on her tongue. She thought about the
Clomid
pill she gulped that morning and wondered if the mood swings could kick in after only two days. Probably not.

Maggie swallowed the comment, forcing it down and storing it for another day. She drew a deep breath through her nose then opened her mouth to speak. The rustle of the newspaper cut her off. Her jaw dropped when Tom folded the paper, rolled it into a tube, and swatted the coffee table with it. Fred leapt from his lap and shook out his fur, shooting their new companion a nasty glare as he stalked to the opposite side of the room.

The section plopped to the floor, unfurling at Tom’s bare feet. He leaned forward, covering his face with both hands and rubbing vigorously. As she approached, Maggie was momentarily distracted by the strip of gold-tinged skin visible between the bunched cotton of his thermal Henley and the gaping waistband of faded denim. His shoulders slumped in defeat. He rubbed his brow with his thumb and forefinger then clasped his hands, wringing his knuckles.

“Are you okay?”

He jumped, twisting in his seat to peer at her. “Huh? Oh. Yeah. I’m fine.” Rising from the couch, he shook out the legs of his jeans. “What’s up?”

Maggie forgot about her shopping list and the cart propped against the door. She blocked out the chug of the washing machine, the hum of the dryer, and the annoying prick-prick-prick of Fred’s claws piercing the trashed upholstery on her grandmother’s ottoman. All she could see was the tension rippling under the broad expanse of combed cotton. She pressed her hand to the center of his back and a shiver danced along his spine. “Sit down,” she ordered gently.

“I thought we were going to the store.”

“Sit down,” she repeated more forcefully. Tom dropped onto the cushions and she smiled, climbing over the arm to sit behind him on the back of the couch. She pressed her thumbs into the muscle at the back of his neck. His head fell forward. The cowlick swirling at his crown popped. She smoothed it with her cheek then kissed the top of his head. “What’s got you all wound up?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. Just stupid people shooting their mouths off.”

She leaned into him, working her way across his taut shoulders. “Isn’t that what stupid people do?”

“What makes people think they can dictate how other people should live?”

“Ah. Are you all worked up over the whole ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ thing?”

He chuckled and a little of the tension seeped from his shoulders. “Yeah. That ticks me off too.” She ran her thumbs up his neck and pushed them into the base of his skull. He groaned long and low and his body grew loose and lax. “One of my cases,” he mumbled.

Her eyebrows rose. “In the paper?”

Tom nodded. “It’s a damn mess.”

“Can you talk about it?”

“Not the details, but thanks to this moron most of it’s pretty public anyway,” he grumbled, nodding to the newspaper.

She frowned. “I hope the moron isn’t your client.”

“She’s not.”

Cupping his arms, she pulled him back, settling him between her legs before going to work on his shoulders again. “Give me the Reader’s Digest version.”

He blew out a breath and let his head fall into her lap, blinking up at her. “You don’t
wanna
hear about this.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “You think I’m too stupid or too delicate?” she asked, pushing her thumbs into the knot of stress.

He yelped and she smiled down at him. With a soft snort he shook his head. “Neither. It’s just… It’s a messy custody case.”

“Oh?”

“A couple who couldn’t have a baby. They were matched with a grad student who mastered everything but birth control. They paid the girl’s medical expenses, contributed money toward her living expenses, the wife took birthing classes with the girl, and stayed with her through labor and delivery. When the baby was three days old, the birth mother signed away her rights and the happy couple took their little girl home.”

Maggie hummed as she raked her nails through his thick hair. “So far, so good.”

He stared up at her. “Fast forward seven years. The couple has been having trouble for a couple of those years, they decide they can’t work it out and file for divorce,” he recited, his voice flat.

“Enter Tom Sullivan, Esquire.”

He sighed and closed his eyes. “Meanwhile, our intrepid grad student grows up to be a banking maven and marries her Prince Charming—not the father of her child—a different model,” he explained. “In keeping with the adoption agreement, my client encloses copies of her daughter’s second grade picture with a newsy letter keeping her birth mother up to date on all the happenings in their lives. Unfortunately, she decided to include the news about the separation.”

She gasped, grasping his shoulders in a vise-like grip. “I read about this! She’s fighting them for custody because they’re getting a divorce.”

“Not anymore, they’re not,” he mumbled.

“They aren’t?”

A bitter laugh escaped him. “The ironic thing? This was going to be one of the friendliest divorces I ever handled.” He pressed the heel of his hand to his temple. She batted his hand away and took over, gently massaging his skull. “They had it all worked out—shared custody, he got an apartment practically around the corner from them. They didn’t hate each other. They just didn’t want to live together anymore.”

“Then the birth mother decides to sue for custody,” she murmured.

“Yeah.”

“Are you really worried that she’ll win? I mean, if they’ve reconciled and the adoption was in order….”

He reached up. His fingers encircled her wrist pulling her hand down to his mouth. He pressed a soft kiss to the center of her palm. “There’s always a chance. You said it yourself; the courts tend to favor the mother. That’s just the way it is. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if they’ll favor the mother who gave birth, or the mother who raised that child from the time she was three days old.”

“That’s awful.”

“The awful part is she thinks she can play this out in the court of public opinion, spouting off about the sanctity of marriage and all that crap. She conveniently forgets she’s the one who got knocked up without benefit of clergy.”

Maggie snickered. “Benefit of clergy. You sound like my grandmother.”

“I just love the selective morality people whip out when it suits them,” he muttered.

Pressing the heels of her hands between his shoulder blades, Maggie worked the solid ridge of muscle bracketing his spine. “I don’t understand why she’s doing this. The birth mother, I mean… Can’t she have another baby?”

“I don’t think that’s an issue. I think she thinks my clients breached their agreement. Maybe she wants to prove a point. I don’t know what her motivation is. The whole thing is just wrong.”

“But they’re back together,” she objected.

He reached for her hand again. A wry smile twitched his lips. “I think she knows as well as I do that it won’t last.”

She jerked her hand from his. “How do you know? Maybe it will. Maybe this is what they needed to remind them what’s important.”

“It’s important to lock yourself into a marriage that isn’t working?”

“When you commit to raising a child, you do what you have to do to ensure your child’s happiness.”

“And you think a child can be happy living with parents who are miserable?”

“You said they weren’t miserable. You said it was amicable.”

“The divorce would have been amicable,” he corrected. “Who knows what the marriage is like.”

Maggie had to admit he was right. She knew better than anyone that no one knows what goes on behind closed doors. Dejected, she slid from the back cushion, landing with a bounce behind him. He grabbed her ankles and wrapped her legs around his middle, pressing his back to her chest and pinning her to the couch.

“It’s a mess.”

“Yeah.” She pressed her cheek to his shoulder. “So…you like Cocoa Puffs, huh?”

Tom chuckled, rubbing her denim-clad shins. “Who doesn’t?”

“Ready to go to the store?”

He nodded. “
Wanna
take a drive?”

“A drive?”

“We can get out of town for a little while and do our shopping in the suburbs….”

“Our shopping?”

“I eat too,” he pointed out.

“Do you have a car?”

He reared back. “Yeah, I have a car. Don’t you?”

“Where would I put it?” she asked, gesturing to the apartment.

“Uh, in a garage, like I do.”

She snorted. “Why would I pay hundreds of dollars a month to park a car I’d never use?”

Tom pried her legs from his waist and patted her knees as he stood. “So you can go for a drive on a nice fall day.” He offered her his hand. “Maybe we’ll get ice cream.”

She let him pull her from the couch. “
Oooh
. Ice cream?”

Fred meowed and leapt from the ottoman. “Oh no. You’re not hacking hairballs up in my car.” Tom hustled her toward the door. “Quick. Before he follows us….”

She chuckled at his antics. “Are you scared of my cat?”

“Yes. You are too.”

“You don’t have your shoes.”

“Crap!” He whirled and scanned.

“Bedroom. I tripped over them three times this morning.”

Tom nodded decisively. “Okay. I’ll get the shoes and you open a can of food to distract him.” He jogged the length of the short hall, skidding to a stop just before he smashed into the doorframe. “Spare no expense! I’ll spring for the replacement.”

Chapter Twelve

Maggie stared at the plastic shrouded clothing hanging in her coat closet. Lowering her lashes, she stashed the broom in the corner of the closet and sneaked a peek at the man parked on her sofa. The suit pants he wore were a dark gray herringbone. They matched the jacket slung over the back of her kitchen chair. The sleeves of his snowy-white shirt were rolled to the crooks of his elbows, exposing the dark, downy hair that covered his
perma
-tanned forearms. His chocolate-colored hair showed the furrows of frustration. The tie he’d liberated from her bedpost hung askew at his throat.