Home at Rose Cottage (26 page)

“Sally Keller said he gets a twinkle in his eye when he sees me.”

“Oh, yeah,” Melanie agreed. “And then some.”

If both her sister and a woman as wise as Mrs. Keller could see it, maybe one of these days Maggie would be able to believe in it, too.

“Is it safe?” Rick asked, doing an overly dramatic survey of the kitchen before setting foot inside.

“That depends,” Maggie said. “Are you more scared of my sister or of me?”

He crossed the kitchen and dropped a kiss on her delectable mouth. “You don’t scare me,” he said.

“Really? What if I said I thought we ought to run off and get married?”

His heart plummeted till he got a good look at the spark of amusement in her eyes. “I’d say you’d lost your mind and work on getting your sisters to commit you.”

She poked him hard in the ribs with her elbow. “Nice.”

“Hey, it’s not something you joke around about,” he retorted. “Marriage is serious stuff.”

“And you don’t do serious, do you, Rick?”

Something in her tone suggested that the joking was over. “No,” he said quietly. “Not that kind of serious, anyway.”

“Because of your folks,” she suggested.

“No, because of me. I have a short attention span. You’ve seen the tabloids.”

“I’m beginning to think they’ve gotten it all wrong,” she told him.

“Wishful thinking,” he said dismissively.

“I don’t think so.”

“What brought this on, Maggie? What ideas was Melanie putting in your head this afternoon?”

“Don’t panic. She didn’t leave a list of places where we could go for a marriage license.”

“Thank goodness for that.” He tucked a hand under her chin and searched her face. She looked serene, which was a relief. He’d hate to think her sister had gotten her all stirred up about the future, when he was trying desperately to take one day at a time, waiting every second for the usual panic to set in. That it hadn’t so far was something of a miracle, but he knew from experience that could change in a heartbeat.

“I talked to your agent,” Maggie said, slipping away from him and giving him some much-needed space. “He thinks you’re crazy as a loon for agreeing to do this shoot, especially after you turned down Greece.”

Rick grinned. “Obviously he’s not aware of all the perks.”

“Well, I didn’t tell him about those, that’s for sure,”
she said. “He might get some crazy idea to work them into all your contracts.”

Rick laughed. “I doubt that will ever be an issue, darlin’. Frank is always lecturing me about taking my work home with me, so to speak. The tabloid stories make him cringe.”

“Good for Frank,” she said enthusiastically. “At any rate, everything’s cleared. When do you want to get started?”

“I called the Kellers this afternoon. They’re expecting us back in the morning. It’s baking day.”

“Which means?” Maggie asked.

“That Sally gets an early start. She wants us there by seven.”

“Seven o’clock? In the morning?” Maggie repeated. “That’s not vacation. That’s torture.”

Rick grinned. “We’re not on vacation anymore, sweetheart. This is work, remember?”

Maggie shook her head. “Actually it’s all getting a little muddy,” she told him.

Rick agreed. The lines between work and play had never been blurred before he got mixed up with Maggie. All the playing he’d done in the past had been after hours, and he’d managed to keep it cleanly compartmentalized, despite what his agent and the tabloids thought.

He tugged Maggie into his lap. He was beginning to like this murkier arrangement better. “So, what are we going to do tonight?” he asked. “Another hot Monopoly game? Scrabble? Cards?”

“I found this round puzzle in the attic. It’s a picture of nothing but marbles. There must be thousands of them. Want to tackle that?”

Rick studied her totally serious expression. “You really want to spend the evening doing a jigsaw puzzle?”

“Or you could seduce me,” she suggested casually. “Is that more appealing?”

“Much more appealing,” he confirmed, covering her mouth with his own.

When he finally released her, she stared up at him with dazed eyes. “Dinner?” she asked weakly. “Later.”

As it turned out, they didn’t make it back downstairs till breakfast.

“This has to stop,” Maggie said, her head down on the kitchen table while Rick made coffee.

“Lord, I hope not,” he commented.

“If it doesn’t, we’re either going to die of exhaustion or starvation.”

“No chance of either one,” he insisted. “Human survival instincts are very strong. That’s why we’re down here at dawn. Hunger pangs.”

“Speak for yourself. I’m down here for coffee. I want at least one brain cell alert when we go to see the Kellers this morning. Otherwise they’ll guess what we were doing all night.”

Rick chuckled. “I’m pretty sure they know. Matthew told me I had a live one.”

Maggie stared at him. “He what? You two talked about me?”

“Oh, as if you and Sally didn’t talk about me,” Rick chided. “I saw that look she gave me before we left.”

“Okay, okay, she thinks you have a fascinating twinkle in your eyes. She says it reminds her of Mr. Keller.”

Rick looked surprisingly pleased. “Really?”

“Sweet heaven, do you really have to have an eighty-year-old woman falling all over you, too?” she asked indignantly.

He leaned down and kissed her. “No, you’re all the woman I want,” he assured her.

She shoved him away. “Stop that. There’s no time.”

“Sure there is,” Rick insisted.

“You’re the one who scheduled this appointment for practically the middle of the night,” she reminded him. “Live with the consequences. I’m going to take a shower.”

“I’ll join you. It’ll save time.”

Maggie laughed. “Nice try, Flannery. Go back to your own shower. You have less than twenty minutes before we need to be out this door and on our way. I wouldn’t waste a second of it if I were you.”

“I don’t need to go to my place. I have everything I need in the car.”

“Oh?”

“Camera, film, a change of clothes.”

She should have been annoyed by his confidence that he’d still be here this morning, but at the moment, she was impressed by his foresight.

She grinned at him and reached for his hand. “Then why are we wasting time down here, when we could be upstairs in that shower?”

Fifteen minutes later, they were soaking wet and untangling themselves from the damp sheets. Maggie scrambled for her clothes, but Rick wasn’t moving.

“Hurry up, Flannery.”

“Can’t,” he said. “Why not?”

“My clean clothes are still in the car.” He gave her an innocent look. “I could go out like this and get them.”

“I don’t think so. I’ll get ’em for you as soon as I get buttoned up and run a comb through my hair.” She looked
over her shoulder and noted that he was sprawled against the pillows looking entirely too comfortable and way too sexy. There was nothing like staring at a naked man in her bed to ruin her concentration.

“Umm, Maggie, don’t you think you ought to get a move on?” he teased.

“What?” She blinked and shook her head. “Right. Your clothes.” She tore down the steps and ran to his car, only to run smack into Ashley.

“You!” she said, dismayed.

“Hello to you, too.”

Her gaze narrowed. “Did Melanie call you?”

Ashley looked perplexed. “No. Why? And why are you running around outside looking as if you’re barely out of the shower?”

“Because I am barely out of the shower.”

Her sister glanced pointedly at the sports car. “And Rick? Where is he?”

Maggie bit back a groan. There was no way around this one. “Upstairs,” she admitted.

“In the shower?”

She shook her head. “Not exactly.”

Ashley’s eyes widened. “In your bed?”

Maggie grimaced. “Pretty much. And we’re running very late. I need to get his clothes up to him.”

“Did you hide them in his car, so you could hold him hostage?”

“No, these are clean clothes. I really don’t have time to discuss this. Could you maybe go away and come back later? Pretend this never happened?”

Ashley’s grin spread. “I don’t think so,” she said, trailing Maggie inside. She poured herself a cup of coffee and
sat down. “Tell Rick I’m looking forward to seeing him again.”

“Yeah, sure,” Maggie said. She’d tell him exactly that and then pray that he didn’t dive straight out of the upstairs window.

R
ick took one look at Maggie’s flushed face and panic-stricken eyes and knew something was wrong. Had there been an intruder? Had she gone downstairs to find the place ransacked? What other possibilities were there? The phone hadn’t rung. Nor had he heard the doorbell. She’d been gone a lot longer than the few minutes he’d expected, and that stunned look on her face was not the cheery expression of the woman who’d left this room a short time ago.

“What took so long? Did something happen while you were downstairs?” he asked, already reaching for the clothes she was clutching to her chest.

“You could say that,” she muttered, giving the clothes up reluctantly. It was as if they were providing some sort of weird security, like a toddler’s well-worn blanket.

“Maggie, talk to me,” he urged.

She met his gaze with unmistakable reluctance. “We have company,” she said with obviously forced cheer.

“Oh?” he said, keeping his tone deliberately neutral. This was apparently not a good thing. In his mind, her parents would be the worst-case scenario, but she might have other ideas. “Who?”

“Ashley’s arrived.” Her tone was still way too bright, bordering on hysteria.

“Uh-oh.” He touched her cheek. “And she caught you getting my clothes out of my car. That must have gone over well. Are you okay?”

She jerked away from him. “Do I look okay? You said it yourself. Ashley is a dangerous woman when she has questions and, trust me, after finding me gathering your clothes from your car when it’s plain I just stepped out of a shower five minutes ago, she has lots and lots of questions.”

“Too bad we have no time to answer them,” he reminded her. “All those pesky questions will have to wait.”

“She’ll be here when we get back,” Maggie pointed out, looking resigned to the inevitable. “In fact, I wouldn’t be too sure we’ll get away from here without her being hot on our trail.”

“We’ll manage,” he said with feigned confidence. “And maybe by the time we see her again, we’ll have answers for her.” Now he was the one faking good cheer. “Stop worrying. You’re a grown woman. She’s your sister, not your mother.”

Maggie shuddered. “Yes, that would be worse. My mother would tell my father and then you’d be chopped into itty-bitty pieces all over the kitchen floor. It wouldn’t be pretty. But keep in mind, if Ashley’s not satisfied with our answers, all of that could still happen. She learned a lot about being protective from our father.”

Rick shuddered. “Let’s deal with one crisis at a time, shall we?”

“Right.” She visibly drew in a deep breath. “Okay, Flannery, do your charm thing and get us out of here.”

“Forget the charm. I say we just make a run for it,” he
said, but Maggie was clearly not amused. “Okay, okay.” He plastered a smile on his face and grabbed her hand. “Let’s do it.”

They strolled into the kitchen and found Ashley at the table sipping coffee. Compared to the polished, sophisticated woman he’d met a few weeks earlier, she looked like something the cat had dragged in. Some of that could be attributed to the long, all-night drive from Boston, but he was pretty sure there had to be more to it. He forgot all about the quick-exit strategy and gave her a worried look.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Both women seemed startled by the question. Maggie took a long, hard look at her sister.

“I’m fine,” Ashley said tersely.

“No, you’re not,” Maggie said at once, dropping down beside her. “Why didn’t I see it before? You look awful.”

“Thanks so much,” Ashley said. “And I imagine you didn’t notice before because you were too busy panicking that I was about to walk in and discover Rick in your bed.” She gave him a fierce look that was more in character. “What’s up with that, by the way?”

Maggie was on her feet at once. “Never mind. You’re obviously not that upset if you’re ready to interrogate Rick. We have an appointment. Help yourself to whatever you want to eat. Take a nap. Call Melanie. Whatever. We’ll see you later.”

“I won’t forget that I have questions,” Ashley called after them as they bolted from the kitchen.

“She won’t, either,” Maggie told him as they got into his car.

“It’s not a big deal,” Rick said, mostly to reassure Maggie.

“Tell me that tonight after she’s zeroed in on all your secrets and weak spots.”

He chuckled. “I have no secrets or weak spots.”

“Ha!”

“Okay, maybe a few, but I don’t have to answer anything I don’t want to. Let me handle your sister.”

“How?”

“By turning the tables on her. You saw for yourself that she’s all messed up about something. We’ll just concentrate on getting to the bottom of that. She’ll be eager enough to go off and hide in her room.”

Maggie actually laughed at that. “You don’t know Ashley, but it sure is going to be fun watching the two of you get acquainted.”

Something in her delighted tone suggested to Rick that he wasn’t going to have half as much fun as she was.

Maggie forgot all about her sister and the questions that would be waiting for her and Rick at home as she watched the way Rick interacted with Sally Keller.

It was amazing to watch him work with her. He had an endless amount of patience. He teased and flattered her and treated her as if she were delicate bone china, all the while snapping pictures that Maggie knew from experience would be incredible. He made it look so easy, even when he’d turned the woman’s kitchen into a stage of sorts.

“Just pretend I’m not here,” he told Sally.

She laughed at that. “How am I supposed to do that when you’ve got all these lights blinding me and you’re underfoot every time I turn around?” she retorted. “I expect I’ll trip over something before the morning’s over.”

Rick winked at her. “I’ll catch you,” he promised.

“Now that’s an incentive to risk a broken hip,” she replied, her eyes sparkling.

“Don’t be talking about breaking a hip,” Matthew grumbled from his place beside Maggie. “That’s the last thing you need.”

“Well, I won’t be doing it on purpose,” Sally told her husband. “Stop fussing. This is the most fun I’ve had in ages.”

Matthew gave Maggie a helpless look. “Don’t know why I encouraged her to do this. I had no idea she’d turn out to be such a ham.”

Maggie chuckled. “Are you sure you’re not jealous? Don’t worry. Your turn is coming.”

“I’m not getting my face in some northern magazine,” Matthew insisted. “Sally’s the photogenic one.”

“But you’re the one who puts the sparkle in her eyes,” Maggie told him. “How can we let Rick miss a shot like that?”

Matthew patted her hand. “You’re a good girl. Don’t pay any attention to all my grumbling. It’s good to have some commotion in this house again. When our kids were young, there was something going on every minute. Lately it’s gotten way too quiet around here.”

“Where are your children living now?” Maggie asked him.

“One boy’s down in Richmond. Another one’s in Charlottesville. Our daughter’s in Atlanta.”

“Do they get home often?”

“Not nearly often enough to make Sally happy. We’ve been talking about selling this place and moving to be closer to at least one of them, but neither of us can bear to let go. This is home, if you know what I mean.”

Maggie knew. It was the way she’d always felt about Boston, but lately the city didn’t seem to have the same
pull it had once had. She’d found an unexpected sense of contentment right here. Melanie had been surprised to discover the same thing.

Maybe it was because Rose Cottage was home in its own way. She and her sisters had spent many summers and holidays there with their grandmother. It had always seemed magical.

After their grandmother’s death, though, the place had been neglected. None of them had wanted to visit without Cornelia Lindsey there to welcome them. Maggie saw now what a shame that was, when all this time they could have been surrounded by her spirit. It was something they all felt, especially in the garden that Mike had re-created for them.

“You know that expression about home being where your heart is?” she asked Matthew. “It’s true. Wherever you and Sally wind up, you’ll make it into a home.”

Matthew gave her a surprised look. “That’s a real wise observation, young lady. Sounds like something Sally would say. She has a thousand of ’em for every occasion. They’re all little nuggets of truth, if you listen close enough.”

She gave Matthew’s strong, weathered hand a squeeze. She had a hunch he needed a distraction, and Rick probably would like them to get out from underfoot, though he hadn’t said a word about their presence.

“Would you mind showing me around a little?” she asked Matthew. “I didn’t get to see much when we were here yesterday.”

The old man beamed at her. “I’d be pleased to,” he said.

Rick glanced away from his camera as they passed. “Where are you two off to?”

“The nickel tour,” Matthew told him. “Don’t worry. I’m not out to steal your girl.”

Rick grinned. “As if you could, old man.”

“Now don’t be uttering dares,” Matthew scolded. “There’s some fire left in me yet.”

Maggie laughed. “Okay, you two. I’m the one who gets to choose. You keep bickering and you’ll both be out of the running.”

Sally laughed. “Good for you.”

Outside, Matthew walked her around to the front of the white clapboard house with its neat black trim. “If you take a good look at that part in the middle, it was built by my granddaddy around 1870, right after he got married. Not much more than a box, but it’s stood the test of time. My daddy’s the one who added on just after the turn of the century. Put that wing over there so the house would accommodate me and my brothers and sisters. There were eight of us in all. Only two of us left now. I was the youngest. My sister Jane is still living over in Reedville. She’s eighty-five and feisty as the dickens. She can’t get around the way she used to, but her mind’s sharp as a tack. We keep trying to get her to come live with us now that she’s a widow, but she likes her little home over there. Says she wants to die in her own bed.”

“I suppose a person can’t ask for a more peaceful passing than that,” Maggie said.

Matthew gave her an approving look. “True enough, but I’m beginning to think Sally and I have a few adventures left in us. We stayed put all these years. Between the kids and all the work there is to do around here, there was no time for anything else. I’d like to see some more of the world, maybe live where we can have some grandkids underfoot. This place is getting to be too much for us.”

“Have you thought of selling it?”

He nodded. “Sally’s the one who balks. She says I’ll regret it. She could be right. There’s nothing easy about turning your back on your own history.” His expression brightened. “But there’s a lot to be said for change, too. Keeps the blood flowing, don’t you think?”

Maggie thought of how her blood had been flowing—practically sizzling, in fact—since she’d come to Rose Cottage. “I think you’re a very smart man, Mr. Keller.”

“Call me Matthew. We don’t hold much with formality around here.”

“I’d be honored,” Maggie said.

Matthew linked her arm through his and led her around back. “Now you take a look out there,” he encouraged, gesturing with a sweep of his arm. “Apple trees as far as the eye can see. It’s a picture in the spring, I’ll tell you that. And the air is filled with the scent of all those blossoms. Sweetest smell in the world. I used to lie awake nights when I was a kid and listen to the crickets and the hum of the bees. That scent would drift in my bedroom window. Folks these days turn on an air conditioner and miss all that.” He shook his head sadly. “Seems like a damn shame to me.”

It did to Maggie, too, though she tended to be the queen of air-conditioning back home.

Matthew gave her shoulder a pat. “I’ve bored you long enough,” he said. “Let’s go see what those two are up to inside.” He glanced at his watch. “The first of the pies ought to be coming out of the oven about now. If I know that man of yours, he’ll be wanting to take a break so he can have the first slice.”

Maggie chuckled. She was pretty sure Matthew had it exactly right. “Then let’s go beat him to it.”

Maggie hadn’t said much since they’d left the orchard. In fact she hadn’t said much after she and Matthew had gone off on that mysterious tour of theirs. Rick studied her out of the corner of his eye. He thought she looked a little sad.

“Something wrong?” he asked eventually.

“Do you know they’re thinking of selling?” she asked him.

Rick wasn’t surprised. Matthew had said as much to him the day before. “It’s a lot for them to keep up with,” he told her.

“I know, but it seems so sad. They’ve spent their whole marriage there. Matthew grew up there.”

“Isn’t he the one who wants to move?” Rick asked. “He hinted at it yesterday.”

Maggie nodded. “I still think it’s sad that none of their kids have stuck around.”

“This area is beautiful, but it probably has limited opportunities for young people,” Rick said pragmatically.

“That orchard’s an opportunity,” Maggie retorted. “Sally and Matthew have made a livelihood from it. Even now, they’ve found a way to keep it going without having to do more work than they can handle.”

He gave her a curious look. “You almost sound as if it’s something you’d like to do.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said derisively. “What would I do with an orchard?”

“Good question.”

“It’s just sad, that’s all.” She forced an obviously feigned smile. It was no more believable than those she’d tried out earlier to convince him she was thrilled about her sister’s arrival. “Let’s not talk about that anymore. We have more pressing fish to fry.”

“Your sister and her questions,” Rick guessed.

“Exactly. Maybe we should consider staying out really, really late and avoiding the whole inquisition,” she suggested.

“Or you could sneak into my room at the B and B,” Rick said. “That could be fun.”

To his disappointment, Maggie shook her head. “Too obvious. She’ll think to look there.”

He laughed. “Where would you suggest we hide?”

“Richmond, maybe.” Her expression turned wistful. “Alaska.”