Commitment (25 page)

Quick as a cat, he snatched the cans from her hand, tossed them into the cart, and pulled her into the cradle of his body. “No?” Warm, moist breath tickled her ear and she melted just the teensiest bit. Possessive hands cupped the curve of her stomach. He nuzzled the tender spot below her lobe, his lips whispering across her skin. “These last few weeks haven’t done any good at all?”

“Well, maybe some,” she conceded. “We’ll see sometime next week.”

He held her a little tighter, the hard muscle of his thighs pressing into the curve of her bottom. “Who knows, maybe I still haven’t peaked. My best work may be yet to come.”

The husky timbre of his voice made her quiver. The veiled promise in his words turned her knees to jelly. She swallowed hard. “Oh yeah? I was hoping you hit it when I was ovulating.” A shiver raced down her spine when he drew her ear lobe into his hot mouth and sucked gently. She squirmed in response. Her eyelids grew too heavy to hold open one second longer. As they slid shut she whispered, “You should have told me you weren’t feeling up to the task.”

“Keep rubbing your ass against me and I’ll show you how up to it I am,” he growled.

Her eyes popped open. Row upon row of florescent bulbs bathed the store in light. The spotless tile floor gleamed in the glare. Perforated metal shelving lined the aisle, but somehow she had no doubt in her mind Tom Sullivan had the will to find a way. Laughing, she tipped her head back to say as much just when a musically lilting voice called out.

“Tommy? Tom Sullivan, is that you?”

Maggie broke from his embrace when his head whipped around. She reached for a shelf to catch her balance but nearly lost her footing when she spotted an elderly woman perched on the seat of a motorized shopping cart sizing them up.

“Tommy! It
is
you.” Her blue eyes lit with delight as parchment cheeks folded into well-worn grooves.

“Oh.” His dark lashes fluttered. A puzzled frown creased his brow. “Mrs. Murphy? What are you doing here?”

The old woman’s gnarled hands fluttered when he bent to kiss her wrinkled cheek. “I live here now,” she said, patting his shoulder. “
Mairead
insisted that I come to live with them after I broke my blasted hip, and, well…here I am.”

“You look wonderful, Mrs. Murphy,” he said, darting a glance in Maggie’s direction.

The old woman’s tinkling laugh gave over to a throaty voice tinged with a hint of a brogue. “I look like death warmed over in the Radar Range, you devil, but it’s wonderful to see you.”

Maggie was feigning interest in the vast array of treats available to suburban felines when a tall, slender woman clad in designer jeans and a cashmere sweater rounded the corner brandishing a cellophane-wrapped roast. “Ma, the brisket doesn’t look good. How about a nice
ro
… Oh. Hello?”

Tom turned toward the woman, his eyes widening slightly as he took a hasty step into the no-man’s land between the scooter and the basket he marked with the jumbo box of Cocoa Puffs just minutes before. “Uh, hello, Mari,” he said, nodding a greeting.

The younger woman responded as any sane woman would when encountering Tom Sullivan dressed in his Sunday uniform of faded Levi’s and snug sweater. Her smile brightened as feminine appreciation flared in her eyes. “Tom Sullivan?”

The overwhelming urge to claim her territory spurred Maggie into action. She snatched a pouch from the shelf. “Here they are!” Hurrying to his side, she held the package out for his inspection and beamed a triumphant smile. “See? I told you these came in a tuna flavor.” Ignoring the perplexed glance he shot in her direction, she turned her attention to the elder woman. “He said they stopped making them. Hello, I’m Maggie McCann.”

The moment she said her name, Tom seemed to snap out of his stupor. “Oh. Yeah, sorry. Mrs. Murphy,
Mairead
, this is my…friend, Maggie.” He fixed her with a pointed stare as he explained, “The Murphy’s lived two doors down from us in Evergreen Park when Sean and I were growing up.”

“Oh!” Her smile faltered for just a moment. “But now you’re in Northbrook, of all places. Small world,” she babbled.

The younger woman turned her preternaturally white smile on her, and Maggie fought the urge to flinch under the glare. “We’re in Highland Park, actually, but mother prefers to shop at this store for some reason.”

“Usually they have a better selection of meat.” The old woman scowled at the roast her daughter deposited in the basket attached to the scooter. “Still, a person can’t find a decent corned beef north of Ogden Avenue unless it’s two weeks ‘til St. Paddy’s Day.”

Mairead
tossed her mane of streaked blonde hair when she laughed. “Oh, mother, I’ll be sure to order a nice cut from the meat market next week, I promise.”

The old woman sniffed her disdain. “The meat market.” She fixed Tom with a piercing blue gaze. “Highway robbery, what they charge for brisket. How’s your mother?”

His head bobbed. “Fine, fine. She’s doing fine. I’m, uh…I just saw her yesterday.”

“Will she be going to Father Corbin’s golden jubilee at Saint Rita’s next Saturday?”

Tom’s broad shoulders hunched as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and continued to nod. “Um…yes, yes. I told her I’d take her so she could visit a little before four o’clock mass.”

Mrs. Murphy beamed up at him. “You’re a good boy, Tom.” She slid a sly glance in her daughter’s direction. “We’re going to try to make it if Mari can fit it into her schedule.”

The woman in question rolled her eyes. “I said I’d take you if Trevor’s game ended in time.” She turned to Maggie. “My oldest started basketball this week and my youngest is in Tae Kwon Do, so weekends are crazier than usual,” she explained with a wan smile.

Spotting an opportunity to save him from his obvious discomfort, Maggie nudged Tom with her elbow. “Speaking of schedules….”

Tom shook himself from his slouch. “Right.” Favoring the women with a polite smile, he nodded to their abandoned shopping basket. “We need to get this done so we can get back to the city.” He pressed his fingertips to the small of her back, propelling her toward the front of the store. “It was nice to see you.”

“Nice to see you too, Tom,” Mari replied, flashing her blinding smile again.

“Tell your mother I said hello,” Mrs. Murphy called after them.

His knuckles glowed against his skin when he gripped the handle. “I will. Take care,” he called as he kicked it into gear.

Maggie smirked when the basket cornered on two wheels, then trotted to catch up. “Hang on there, Mario Andretti.”

“Great. Just fucking great,” he muttered under his breath.

“Whoa.” She slowed, taken aback by his vehemence. “Is this a problem?”

He barreled into a checkout lane and relinquished his grip on the cart, plowing his hand through his hair as he cast a glance over his shoulder. “Problem? That was Mary Patricia Murphy. The woman has the biggest mouth in St. Rita’s parish, maybe the whole dioceses. My mother is going to know about this within twenty-four hours.”

“Know that an old lady saw you in a grocery store?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Know that I was grocery shopping with a woman.”

“Is that a big deal?” One eyebrow dipped, but the other remained in an imperious arch. She rolled her eyes as he started slamming cans and boxes onto the conveyor. “Okay, so you can just tell them that your
friend
, Maggie, needed a ride to the grocery store.”

“A ride to a store an hour away from my condo? I’m not that good a
friend
,
Mags
.”

“All right. Fine.” She planted her hands on her hips. “Well, she knows you date women, right? I mean, you haven’t told her you’re saving yourself for marriage or anything….”

“She’ll tell my mom, my mom will tell Uncle George, and George will blab to Sean.” He placed a loaf of bread onto the belt then tapped a finger to his cheek. “Hmm, who do you think Sean will tell?” He pointed that finger at her. “You’re the one who doesn’t want to tell anyone.”

Maggie tipped her chin up and crossed her arms over her chest. “Please. Sean and Tracy barely speak to each other,” she scoffed.

Tom snatched a box of Tic
Tacs
from the checkout stand and tossed them in with their purchases. “Thank God for the Sullivan family remake of
The War of the Roses
.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. When it came away, a wry smirk twitched his lips and he shook his head. “What are the odds, huh? Running into a nice Southside Irish lady like Mrs. Murphy in
friggin
’ Lake County.”

Slipping her hand in his, she gave his fingers a gentle squeeze. “No place is safe.”

He snorted. “We were probably better off in the city.”

She smiled and squeezed his fingers again. “We’ll go west. Far west. Like Rockford.”

Turning toward her, he pressed his lips to her forehead in a tender apology. “Right. Or there’s always Iowa.”

****

Tom trudged into his apartment and tossed his keys into the dish on the hall table. He winced when a shard of china chinked from the edge of the bowl and kicked the door shut behind him. Slippery dry-cleaning bags tried to slither from his grasp. Dropping his briefcase, he scowled at the armload of suits and stomped toward his bedroom. Hauling his cleaning home wasn’t part of his plan.

No, he planned to hang the freshly laundered suits and shirts draped over his arm in Maggie’s closet, just as he had for the past three weeks. Sulking, he shuffled into his walk-in closet and started hooking the wire hangers over the bar.

“See you Sunday,” he muttered when a French blue shirt tried to make a break for it. “What if I don’t want to see you Sunday? What if I want to see you Friday?”

His grumblings had no effect on his wardrobe. He let the weight of his overcoat pull his suit jacket from his shoulders. They fell to the floor in a twisted heap, fine cashmere slithering against silk linings. He toed off his shoes and shuffled toward the bathroom. Yanking open the shower door, he gave the nozzle a sharp twist. Droplets of water gathered in the fine hair on his arm and soaked into the rolled cuffs of his shirt. He stripped the rumpled cotton from his back, crumpled it into a ball, and heaved the shirt from the room.

Tom eyed the rough beige towel hanging from the rod and took a deep sniff. His scowl deepened when he got a snoot full of mountain fresh scent. The vanity sparkled devoid of cologne bottles, gobs of shaving cream, or speckles of whiskers. His weekly cleaning lady had obviously made the easiest money of her life over the past month. With a smirk, he stripped off the rest of his clothes and kicked them into a pile.

A hiss seeped from his clenched teeth as he stepped into the stinging spray. He closed his eyes and tried to pretend he was in Maggie’s pink-tiled bathroom surrounded by pink-smelling Maggie things. His hiss morphed into a sigh. The soap clutched in his hand didn’t smell like lemongrass. The shave cream she swiped from the spa for him actually did warm when it touched his skin. The spray from his oversized showerhead was too strong. Maggie’s vanity was littered with his whiskers, and he knew how to rock a lavender bath towel. He didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be there. With Maggie and her crazy cat.

Reaching for his trusty bar of Irish Spring, Tom quickly lathered away the stench of his usual Friday night poker game with his brother, uncle, and the old man’s cronies. The games were instituted just after the New Year began—a valiant effort on George’s part to keep his middle-aged nephews out of trouble. For his part, Tom was relieved when his uncle hatched the plan. There was little he found more disturbing than discovering that his baby brother, a man born to be more monogamous than a damn swan, was drowning his sorrows in the local watering holes and possibly the local blonds. The stunning realization that he actually looked forward to the easy camaraderie of the older men was only overshadowed by the pleasure he took in showing up at Maggie’s place after the games.

He tipped his face up to the spray and tried not to think of the sexy way Maggie sniffed him when he walked through her door the past few Friday nights. He failed. She seemed to actually like the noxious cloud that followed him home after a night with the Oak Park Mafia. For some ungodly reason, the lingering scent of scotch and cigar smoke seemed to turn her on. Who was he to fight it? Why would he even want to?

Tom braced his hand on the cool tile wall and let his head fall forward. His muscles tightened. That all-too-familiar knot of hunger coiled low in his gut. He stared dispassionately at his dick, a mocking smile twisting his lips. “Not tonight, big guy,” he muttered as he snatched the shampoo from the ledge. “She said she’d see us
Sunday
.”