Maggie's Mountain (17 page)

Powell nodded in agreement. “Wish we had more evidence to say one way or the other about that. But the fact is Ben told us the area looked to be set up for camping, and the point of ignition was a fire ring. We’re still considering it an accident. Anything else I should know about, Maggie?”

She skittered her gaze away and gnawed on her bottom lip again, all sure signs she was hiding something. Something she didn’t want to admit.

Hale crossed his arms over his chest and peered down at her. “What happened, Maggie Mae? And don’t try to deny it, because right now is
not
the time to hold things back.”

She swallowed, wet her lips, swallowed again. “The other day someone broke out all the windows on my car.”

Red covered his vision, nearly blinding him. He fisted his hands in an effort to keep from yelling the roof down. It wouldn’t help Maggie to hear him blistering the paint off the walls.

Sheriff Powell was scribbling in his notepad, but there were distinct worry lines carving themselves between his eyes. “Don’t recall you bringing your car in for repair. Peterson would have mentioned something like that.”

“I…I had it repaired at my house. A company came out and did it for me.”

Sudden realization had Hale’s blood burning . “You knew I’d go straight to the police if I found out. Damn it, Maggie, why didn’t you tell me?”

She jutted her chin out and tried to look tough, a hard proposition considering how pathetic she looked wrapped and balanced on the small hospital bed. “Because it was my problem, not yours.”

Jolene quickly stepped in before the argument escalated. “You need to calm down, Mags. This can’t be good for you, especially right now.”

“I want to go home,” Maggie said, sounding irritable.

“I need to get a statement about this morning from you first.”

“I already told you. I was heading outside, opened the door, and…and there it was.”

She shuddered and Hale lost the fight to stay away. His anger, born of pure fear, dissipated almost as quickly as it had gathered. He closed the gap between them and smoothed her hair with his hand. She didn’t look up at him but he could feel the subtle relaxing of her muscles.

The sheriff skimmed his notes as Jolene stared at them, her eyes shifting from one to the other. Hale continued to stroke her hair, not particularly caring what the other two thought. He was still shaking from ramped panic and he needed to touch her, to reassure himself she was okay.

“You didn’t hear anything last night? Nobody came by?” Powell asked.

Maggie shook her head. “I worked at home in the morning, went into town yesterday afternoon—”

“She had dinner with Ben and me,” Jo put in.

“I was back home around eight. I went to bed early, got up about six then found…I think it was around seven, seven-thirty.” She took another sip of water. “I don’t remember what time I called you.”

“Um.” Sheriff Powell wrote before he turned a fatherly smile on her. “You did the right thing, closing the door right away and contacting us.”

“I didn’t think…I couldn’t look…” She closed her eyes and Hale ran his hand down her arm in a soothing motion.

“That’s enough. She’s told you everything she knows.” Hale struggled not to simply pick her up and cradle her against him.

Sheriff Powell watched them for a moment, but didn’t comment. “You’ll need to come into the station and sign an official statement. That can wait until tomorrow, I suppose, considering.”

“I want to go home,” she repeated her request in a whisper, her voice so fragile Hale felt his heart constrict.

Jolene patted her uncovered hand. “As soon as the doctor says it’s okay, I’ll take you to my house.”

Her shoulders stiffened and a look of fierce determination kindled in her eyes. “I want to go
home
, to my house, to my mountain. No one’s going to run me off my property.”

“Be reasonable.” Her friend eased down to sit on the metal bed again. “This is the third, maybe even the fourth time someone’s vandalized your property.”

“I’ve lived through it before, I can do it again. When everything settles down they’ll stop. They’ll realize I’m not going anywhere and that my being in Exum isn’t going to change their lives or ruin their business.”

Hale’s hand came to rest on her shoulder as her words scrambled in his head. “You mean when I’ve been here a while, when my family’s money doesn’t dwindle, when the businesses don’t go bust because of some salacious scandal.”

She swallowed and nodded. Fury whipped through him, hot and long and sharp. His father had done a damn fine job of painting the Coopers as some sort of jinx, a presence that could cause irreparable damage if it wasn’t controlled in some way. No, fury didn’t even begin to cover the raging inferno he was feeling. But the real hell of it was he didn’t know who he was more enraged with: his father, himself, Maggie, the vandals…or the whole damn town. He was careful to tamp down the anger, aware that it would only serve to make everything just that much harder to deal with, both for him and for Maggie.

“I’m going home,” she insisted again.

“Mags, please—”

“Jolene, I’ve made up my mind.”

Sheriff Powell cleared his throat to gain their attention. “Maggie, I’m not sure if being up there on your own is such a good idea. Now I know you and your momma put up with a lot; I know you two stuck it out together. But the fact is there were two of you when all of that was going on. Now there’s just you, and that could be a dangerous situation.”

Her fists clenched in her lap and the blanket that had been around her shoulders began to droop. “I’m not going to run away. That place is all I have.”

Hale’s sharp exhale was filled with anxiety and surrender. “You damn stubborn—you won’t change your mind.”

Though it was a statement and not a question she replied. “No, I won’t.”

“Fine.” He leaned in so she could see the intention on his face. “I’m taking you.”

She gaped at him, her mouth falling open as the flush he was beginning to anticipate swept over her still pale cheeks. “You…you can’t…Jo said…”

“I can be just as stubborn as you, and twice as determined.”

Jolene quickly rolled her lips together in a vain attempt to hide her smile. “I don’t think you have a choice, Mags.”

Hale nodded in satisfaction at her friend’s comment. “Damn straight she doesn’t.”

Sheriff Powell tucked his small notebook away and stuck his pen in his top pocket. “Looks like that’s all figured out. I’ll just be heading on, but I expect to see you in the station tomorrow, Maggie.”

“Would you mind giving me a ride into town?” Jolene hopped up like a tight spring. “I have a full appointment book today, and it looks like Maggie is in…good hands.”

Maggie gave a quick shake of her head, her eyes going saucer wide. Jo smiled back and nodded. The silent communication was a strange female ritual he’d seen before, words exchanged for motions that spoke volumes. He knew the overlying reason was that Maggie didn’t want to be seen with him in town, but there was a world of subtexts there that he couldn’t quite decipher.

“Call me tonight. Hale, you’d better take good care of our girl or you’ll have me to answer to,” her friend said, then disappeared through the door with the Sheriff.

There was a long silence before her gaze finally shifted to his. The purple depths were tinged with uncertainty and fear, a combination that made him want to kiss her worries into oblivion. Not that she’d accept his comfort. He highly doubted his arms were the ones she wanted to be in. Jealousy ran like a slick snake along his spine and he hated himself for it.

“Hale, you can’t do this. It’s only going to make matters worse.” Her words were quiet as she pleaded with him.

He stared down at her and ran a hand through his hair. “Have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe, by seeing us together, whoever is doing this might realize that I don’t consider you an enemy? That you and I have buried the feud and moved on? That terrorizing you isn’t the sort of sick favor my family would ask for or appreciate?”

She shook her head. “What they’ll see is Rebecca Cooper’s daughter picking up where Rebecca left off.”

“Is this always going to stand between us, Maggie? Are you going to let my father haunt you from his grave? Because I sure as hell won’t let him spook me.” He gave her a moment to answer, knowing in his heart that it was more than their parents that created the gap between them. With an inward sigh he stood and aimed himself for the door. “I’ll go find the doctor. If he says you can be released, I’ll take you home. I hope you have a pull out couch.”

He swung into the hallway leaving her sitting on the bed sputtering in confusion.

Chapter Fourteen

Maggie stayed quiet as he drove her home. She thought she’d dealt with volatile moods before, but she’d never encountered anyone quite like Hale. Even from the passenger’s seat of his car she could feel the tightly controlled anger that hung in the air around him. She was the one who should be furious; she was the one whose privacy and emotions had been violated. There was no logical reason for his fury.

She cast a sideways glance in his direction and swallowed. His silence was making her as nervous as his obvious acrimony. If he would at least let loose with a few heated words it would relieve the tension. Instead he was a dormant volcano on the surface with lava roiling to life underneath.

He steered the vehicle carefully into her driveway, slowly breaking the car as if he were afraid any jarring would break her. She hurried to climb out of the car, hoping to make it inside before he insinuated himself into her home. He was quicker than she’d anticipated.

She only had a moment to wonder where he’d gotten her key—Jo had probably slipped it to him—before he was pushing the door open. When she hesitated he sent her a narrow eyed stare.

“I’m not going to bite,” he said, his voice tender but gravelly.

She braved his dubious composure by lifting an eyebrow. “Could have fooled me.”

He let go of a ragged breath and slammed a hand through his already messy hair. “Just get inside.”

Maggie took the stairs slowly, sidling past him through the doorway. She didn’t know what would happen if she accidentally touched him. An explosion of some sort, she was sure. Ironically, as much as she knew a good flare-up would ease the friction, she was loathe to be the catalyst. Sighing to herself, she stopped and stood between the kitchen and the living room, her back to the front door, listening as he twisted the locks tight. Bolted in with Hale Warrick. She couldn’t decide if it was a fantasy or nightmare.

“Go get a bath.” His command was as soft as it was short and to the point.

“I had a shower this morning.” Though she would’ve liked to have sounded stern, her voice came out reed thin.

“Maybe so, but you need a good long soak tonight.”

“I’m not in shock.”

“You’re exhausted and you smell like the hospital,” he explained with exaggerated calm.

She spun around to stare at him; though it didn’t sound as if he were spoiling for an argument, his statements had her hackles rising. “That’s too damn bad, Mr. Warrick. If you don’t like it, you should go home where you can’t smell it.”

He hissed in air and she waited for his cursing. Instead, he took a deep breath. “Maggie Mae, I’m short on temper right now. Can’t you just do one thing to ease my mind, or are you set on fighting with me?”

She could see his body vibrating, the muscles underneath his dark shirt taut, his hands opening and closing in white knuckled fists. The fact that he was asking her to do one small thing for him when he was so tangled up, and she was being petulant about it, was enough to make her feel small. The fact that her doing so would soothe some of the fear he obviously carried for her was enough to melt her heart.

She felt the world begin to slip to an odd angle, a strange tilt she’d never experienced before. Maybe she was still feeling the effects from her earlier fright. Maybe it was being back at the scene that was making her head buzz and her pulse pound. And maybe she would sketch plans for interstellar flight on a napkin this evening.

It was the idea that he cared for her that had everything out of balance. That Hale Warrick was standing here, in her home, worried and concerned, and that he wanted to take care of her. This was more than a few hours spent stringing barbed wire to secure the woods. He fully intended to entrench himself in her home until he was absolutely sure she was safe. That fact cast a surreal sheen of longing over the scene and made her struggle with a strange, deep-seated yearning.

She watched his face as it made a slow transformation from pent up frustration to hopeful curiosity. She licked her parched lips and saw a flare of heat shoot through his dark eyes. If he reached for her now she would go to him. She would open herself to him completely, without hesitation, laying her heart bare for him to see.

“Maggie?” Her name was a rough question.

“I’ll go take a bath.”

She turned and hurried up the stairs, castigating herself as a coward the entire way. She knew they would have to have a final confrontation. She would have to be strong, to send him away, to deny there was anything more than physical attraction. He had claimed there was more, yet somehow she doubted it was abiding love. As much as she wanted to deny it, that small torch she’d carried since childhood for Hale Warrick had grown to a full blaze. But she wasn’t a fool, either. He didn’t want the same things she did.

He’d been ready to set her up as his mistress, much as his father had been adamant about making her mother his. Hale had counted on desire to override her common sense; he hadn’t realized it wasn’t just common sense he was fighting with, but her values. She didn’t want to be a convenient woman he could ease his lust with, a woman he felt obliged to hide. If they were to become involved, she would want to be his partner in every way possible. She would want to walk down the main street of Exum holding his hand as his much adored other half.

But Maggie understood she wasn’t the type of woman he would eventually settle down with. He would marry someone who didn’t have the sort of history that their families had. Someone with an impeccable background and grooming, someone who could slip easily into the role of socialite wife, not someone who had dirt under her nails, didn’t bother with make-up most days, and found schmoozing at parties as boring as watching grass grow and twice as pretentious.