Maggie's Man (19 page)

"And those commercials to support a child
overseas, paying for their food and shots and ABCs—you adopted one of those
children, didn't you?"

"Well, two."

"And when you pass homeless people you buy
them meals?"

"Everyone has hard luck sometimes."

"Of course." He knew he shouldn't do
this. He knew turning around was the height of stupidity and he was not a man
who could afford to be stupid. But she sat so regally at the edge of the bench
seat, looking earnest and sincere and so well intentioned, he couldn't find the
word
no.
Was it that she reminded him of his mother, and the natural
grace and beauty she'd had? Or was it that she reminded him how it felt to be a
man and not prisoner number 542769?

"You've given me your word," he
reminded her quietly.

She nodded just as soberly. "My
word."

"All right, Maggie. I accept your
proposition."

He slowed the truck down and turned.

The couple appeared again as they drove up,
looking soaked to the bone and unbearably happy that help had finally arrived.
Cain pulled the truck alongside after instructing Maggie to lock her door. He
was very conscious of the gun tucked against his skin as Maggie unrolled her
window.

"What's wrong?" she shouted above the
rain.

"Car's stuck," the young man shouted
back. He didn't look a day over eighteen and the freckles stood out prominently
on his cheeks. Maggie looked instantly at Cain.

"All right, all right," he
surrendered, not even needing her to ask. "We've taken it this far."

He pulled the truck up ahead of the car,
leaving it parked on the road since the sides did look thick and muddy.
"Stay here," he said. "This should only take a minute."

"I can help, too," she replied and
jumped out into the rain-soaked night as he was opening his mouth to protest.
Cooperation? This was cooperation?

He shook his head and advanced, the rain
slaking across his face and instantly molding his clothes to his body. He kept
his arm crooked protectively over the spot where he'd tucked the gun.

"Thank God you stopped," the young
man gushed instantly. "Me and my wife have been stuck here for two hours
now. Damn, is it wet and cold. I was beginnin' to think that was just it—we're
never gonna get out."

Cain eyed the car. Its wheels were deeply mired
in the mud. Luckily, it was small and didn't look like it weighed much.
"I'll get around back," he suggested. "You lift from the
front."

The boy nodded, and Cain got to it. He didn't
want to linger any more than he had to, especially with Maggie standing there
getting soaked to the bone as she patted the young wife's hand and assured her
everything was going to be all right.

Cain had just bent his knees to grasp the
bumper of the old automobile when he realized the young man hadn't followed
him. He looked up, already scowling through the sheets of rain.

And faster than he could blink, the young man
reached beneath his sweatshirt, ripped out a gun and leveled it against
Maggie's head. She froze instantly, her eyes turning into huge blue saucers.

"I'll take the keys to the truck,"
the young man announced. His body rocked side to side, his Adam's apple bobbed.
His young face was a case study for desperation. Even then, Cain had to blink
several times to register what was happening. Just how many gun-toting felons
were running around this state anyway?

"The keys!" the young man barked, and
pressed the gun against Maggie's forehead. She whimpered helplessly, her blue
eyes rolling to Cain, begging for his assistance.

He still had his gun. He wasn't as brilliant a shot
as Ham, but he'd trained with a firearm every day of his youth. He could take
out the kid, though the boy might pull the trigger reflexively, hitting Maggie.

A man had to be prepared. A man had to be ready
to make sacrifices.
War has casualties,
his father barked.
A man
accepts those casualties! No pain, no remorse, no regret. You kill or be
killed! That is the world today, my sons, that is how we live.

His gaze returned to Maggie's pale, rain-soaked
face. Her red hair was plastered against her cheeks, already looking like
blood. Her blue eyes beseeched him.

Slowly, he lifted his hands in the air.
"All right," he said quietly, keeping his voice calm because the kid
and his wife looked close to panic. "Take the truck. We won't try to stop
you. Just lower the gun."

"The keys," the kid insisted.

"I don't have the keys," Cain
confessed steadily. "I hotwired the vehicle."

The kid stared at him incredulously. "You
stole that truck?"

"Yes."

"You stole that truck and then came back
in this kinda weather to help two strangers?"

"Yes."

The kid looked over at his female accomplice, a
thin slip of a woman, and then started laughing. "Jesus, sir," the
kid exclaimed. "You're stupider than anyone I ever met."

"That could be," Cain agreed dryly.
Maggie, still wary of the gun, flushed, her eyes squeezing shut. "Take the
truck," Cain repeated. "I won't try to stop you. Just lower your
gun."

The kid looked at him one last time, then
looked at Maggie, then at his wife. He shrugged and abruptly tucked the gun
back into his jeans. Cain's hand twitched spasmodically, but he kept it fisted
at his side. If he pulled out his gun now, Maggie might get caught in the cross
fire.

A man accepts casualties.
Not this man, Dad. I don't play that game. I will not live
my life like that.

And I will find a way to triumph anyway.

Two minutes later, their big, blue, beautiful
stolen truck with his supplies and her purse went tearing off into the night.

Cain strode forward and caught Maggie just as her
knees gave out and she sank toward the rich red mud.

"Oops," she whispered, her soaked
lashes fluttering against her rain-soaked cheeks.

"Oops," he
agreed and cradled her wet, boneless body in his arms.

Chapter 8

«
^
»

"
A
ll
right. Give it some gas."

Inside the relative warmth and shelter of the
car, Maggie obediently pressed on the pedal. Behind her, Cain pushed against
the tiny vehicle, his face contorted with fierce effort. The tires spun in the
rich red mud. Cain pushed harder, his broad shoulder pressed against the muddy
bumper, and Maggie could feel the vehicle rock and buck as if even it felt
tired, wet, filthy and ready to get on with it.

But the greedy mud didn't release its grasping,
sucking grip.

"Stop," Cain called out at last, his
voice frustrated. Maggie's foot obediently slipped away. She studied him in the
rearview mirror as she sat quietly, waiting for the next command. He was soaked
to the bone now, his clothes molded to his solid frame and liberally streaked
with mud. Rain dripped steadily off the black rim of his baseball cap,
hammering against his cold white cheeks and running down his strong, corded
neck. He didn't seem to notice the discomfort or chill. He simply stood there,
his green eyes narrowed as he contemplated his options.

He looked strong and enduring against the dark
night sky, calm and steady. The Rock of Gibraltar, Maggie thought. He spoke
like that, too. He looked her in the eye and, even under the worst
circumstances, maintained a low, rumbling baritone that soothed.

It was her fault they were in this mess, so to
speak. But he hadn't yelled at her—as her mother would have. He hadn't turned
away from her stonily—as her father would have. He didn't try to protect her
from the consequences or tell her it wasn't really her fault—as Lydia, C.J.,
and Brandon would have.

He had simply looked at her levelly and said,
"I guess we have a new vehicle now. Let's get it on the road."

Now, he crossed his arms over his chest, still
analyzing the car speculatively, as if it were some riddle that would be easily
solved if he could just deduce the key. Then abruptly, he scowled and raised
his foot to kick the car, in the universal gesture of "logic be damned,
let's kill the beast." Safely ensconced in the front seat, Maggie placed a
hand over her mouth to hide her smile.

Finally, she popped open the door. He looked up
immediately.

"I'll help push," she said, planting
her first foot outside the car. The wind had picked up, and it slapped the rain
against her bare calf like an angry, hissing woman.

"You don't have to do that," he said
immediately. "Honestly, Maggie, I don't think it will make a
difference."

"I'm stronger than I look," she said
haughtily, bringing up her chin as she got out of the car anyway. The rain hit
her hard, instantly molding her silk blouse against her arms and torso and
chilling her to the bone. Despite her best intentions, she shivered, then
crossed her arms across her chest for warmth.

Though he didn't say anything further, Cain
still looked skeptical, which aggravated her bruised pride. "I will have
you know," she said as she took her first step into the squishy, sucking
mud with her sandaled foot, "that I could build hay forts with the best of
them, tossing and stacking straw bales into rebel hideaways just as well as
C.J. and Brandon. They, of course, thought I should play Princess Leia to their
Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. Princess Leia be damned. I always opted to be
Chewbacca." Her foot disappeared completely into the mud, and with it, her
favorite sling-back pumps. She stared down at the red ooze in shock while the
rain raked over her back.

"Hay forts? What's a tiny rich girl doing
building hay forts and playing 'Star Wars'?"

"Having fun," she said impatiently and
experimented with raising her foot. The mud clung tight, pulling her foot down
deeper like a gaping, gulping mouth. With a slight shiver, she pulled earnestly
and was finally rewarded by the mud giving up with a popping, squishy gasp. Her
foot came flying back to her, just in time for a next step. She proceeded with
pigheaded determination and shivering fear. "We—C.J., Brandon and
myself," she supplied, continuing to talk so she wouldn't have to think of
the mud, or the rain, or the chill, "spent our summers on my grandmother's
dairy farm in Tillamook. Have you ever been to Tillamook?"

Cain shook his head. "I've just eaten the
cheese. It's very good cheese."

"The cheese, certainly. But Cain, you
haven't lived until you've eaten the fudge. Oh my, that fudge…" She sighed
wistfully, already tasting the white fudge with caramel strips melting creamy
and rich on her tongue. She forced herself back to attention.

Cain still stood patiently behind the right rear
wheel of the car, waiting for her to get around the vehicle. Once she'd made
her intention clear, he hadn't tried to stop her but simply accepted her
decision. She liked that about him. She liked that about him immensely. He
respected her decisions, and for the first time in her life that made her feel
strong.

"Well," she forced herself to
continue briskly as she braved another cautious step and promptly watched her
second Italian leather shoe sink into the red ooze, "you should go to
Tillamook. It's nestled between the mountains and the coast like this tiny
green emerald, shrouded in mist and filled with rolling green hills dotted with
black-and-white heifers. You can hear the cows chewing their cud in rhythm with
the crashing waves. My grandmother came to Tillamook in 1928, the year the
Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawed war, Mickey Mouse was born and President Coolidge
refused to aid our farmers mired in the agricultural depression. Her parents
had set out from New Mexico to Oregon. My grandmother's youngest sister,
Vivian, died during the first week from a scorpion sting. Her oldest brother,
Joseph, died in Utah from an overdose of penicillin, given to him by an
ignorant doctor. But they finally made it to Oregon and to Tillamook."
Maggie arrived to the corner of the vehicle and stopped walking long enough to
look at Cain proudly as she finished the story she'd been told more times than
she could count. "My grandmother said she took one look at the tall,
mist-shrouded mountains and lush, fertile fields, and knew she'd found home.
And I will tell you there is no place on earth as beautiful as Tillamook, and
you've never smelled sweetness until you stand in the middle of an alfalfa
field in August as they bale the grass, and you've never seen stars until you sit
on a patio and look up at the Tillamook night. Those were the best summers of
my life. The … the best…"

Her voice trailed off with a longing she hadn't
realized she'd felt. The summers of her youth, running around with Brandon and
C J. in a place where no one yelled or threw things and where she knew Brandon
and C.J. would always help her. They had been magic moments. And then they'd
grown up and gone their separate ways, and for the first time she was thinking
how long it had been since the three of them were together. How long it had
been since she'd felt happy and carefree and loved.