Slow Heat (37 page)

Maggie shook her head. “You had to do it,” she whispered. “I know you feel terrible about it.”

He sliced his hand through the air between them when she took a step in his direction. “Maggie, no, I don’t.”

“You don’t feel terrible?”

“I did what seemed the logical next move at that moment. We’d gained all the information we needed to confirm that killing them would end your problems.”

She stared at him. Why did it startle her when he said he had killed for her? Images of those men lying on the floor, of all the blood, and before that hiding in the closet, hearing those repeated gunshots. Five shots. No, four shots. Four shots then another shot. Micah had held her in his arms as he’d fired that last shot.

“He knew who you were,” Maggie muttered.

Micah tilted his head. “Is it getting less blurry?”

“Thinking about it makes me sick. I don’t see any reason to dwell on it. It was terrible. Maybe we will both go to hell for that night. But damn it, Micah, they were really evil men and they would have killed us. It was self-defense.”

“So if someone is really bad and doing harm to others, you’re okay with someone killing them?”

“You mean the death penalty?”

Micah shook his head. “Sweetheart, I mean someone aiming a gun and firing, ending someone’s life because the community would be better off with them dead.”

“Why are you asking me this?” she asked. She couldn’t breathe. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her. And this conversation didn’t make sense at all.

A loud pounding on the front door damn near made Maggie’s heart explode in her chest. She might have yelped. She wasn’t sure. Micah had her so worked up that a pin dropping on the floor might have made her jump. Someone knocking loudly on the door behind her was enough to give her a heart attack.

“Stand over here,” Micah said in a hushed tone. He did that movement thing again. It was as if he glided across the floor instead of taking steps the way a normal person would.

“Stay back,” he instructed, and held his arm out, gesturing with his hand for her to move down the hallway. He lowered his head and looked through the peephole. “Damn it. Not right now,” he snarled under his breath.

“What? Who is it?” Maggie whispered.

When Micah turned around his expression was harder than she’d ever seen it before. He looked at her without commenting but instead seemed to be deciding something.

“What?” she pressed.

She swore he cleared the distance between them again without taking more than one step. “I want you to know something and believe it in your heart no matter what you hear from here on out.”

“Okay…,” she said slowly. He was acting so strange she didn’t know what to think, other than something really awful was about to happen. Before she could demand to know who was at the door, or that Micah explain his bizarre behavior, whoever it was at the door pounded even louder.

Maggie jumped and Micah grabbed her arms. He bent over so their faces were close to each other. “I have never, in my entire life, loved another person the way I love you right now, Maggie O’Malley.”

He straightened, leaving her stunned, and walked over to the front door.

Maggie watched the muscles move under his skin as he unlocked the dead bolts, then the lock in the doorknob. He took a step backward and opened the door. She noted instantly that he didn’t open it far enough to look outside and demand what someone wanted but enough to allow whoever was on the other side to enter his home.

His words he’d just said to her floated around in her head as two men sauntered into Micah’s house as if they lived there, too.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” the first one said the moment he spotted her standing at the end of the hallway.

“This explains a lot,” the other grumbled, appearing to finish the first man’s thought.

Maggie should have run down the hallway to Micah’s bedroom before he’d opened the door. These two men were large, broad-shouldered, and tall, well built for their age, which she would guess was somewhere in their fifties. They also looked very much the same, like they might be twins. It wasn’t often she saw adult twins together. Her mind was whirling from what Micah had just said to her. She gaped at the men, at Micah, and her heart beat too fast to catch her breath.

They stalked into the house, both of them moving as far as the entrance of the kitchen. Each one of them glanced around the corner. She saw their eyes shift to the wineglasses on the counter. They sniffed the air and picked up on her cooking manicotti. Then they circled around, taking her in with a quick appraisal. Their gruff comments at her being there left her unnerved. Suddenly she felt grossly underdressed.

She tugged at her robe, closing it around her tighter then pulling on the silk belt at her waist.

“Don’t tell me this is why you’re ignoring us,” the man closest to Micah said, facing him but pointing at Maggie as he spoke.

“Who are these men?” Maggie asked, inching closer to Micah. Both of them made her terribly nervous.

“Yes, please tell us,” the man farther from Micah stated.

“Who is this woman?” the man closest to Micah grunted.

Micah closed and locked the door, turning his back on all three of them for a moment longer than Maggie thought necessary. Was he fighting for control, or trying to figure out what to say? Her head was spinning. Micah just told her he loved her. Then he opened the door to these two men, whom he obviously knew well, and was taking his sweet time clearing the growing tension in the air.

“I’m Maggie O’Malley,” she announced, turning away from Micah and extending her hand to the man closest to her. He was about as tall as Micah. “And you are?”

Was that amusement in the man’s eyes? “Mulligan,” he told her. “Joe Mulligan.” He had a firm handshake, but his hand was cold and leathery feeling.

The second he let go of her hand, Maggie stuck it out to the other man. “I’m Maggie,” she offered.

“Jacob Mulligan,” the man said and shook her hand. It was weird how his hand felt just the same as Joe Mulligan’s did. They were definitely twins.

“Mulligan,” she whispered, and was suddenly swarmed with memories from the night at Club Paradise. Stadler had said “Mulligan” right before he died. Maggie looked over at Micah. Was the look he gave her begging for forgiveness?

Micah reached her side and slipped his arm around her, facing the two older men. “I’m not sure Maggie has made enough dinner for all four of us,” he said, although he didn’t sound too upset about the fact. “I won’t ask how you figured out where I’m staying, but you could have called.”

“By the looks of things I doubt you would have answered.” Jacob glanced down at the coffee table pushed to the side of the room at an angle, then stepped around it and sat on the couch. He stretched his long, thick legs out in front of him and draped one arm along the back of the couch. “So what have you told her, son?”

“Son?” Maggie asked.

“My only offspring,” Jacob told her. “This here is his uncle Joe.”

Stadler called him Mulligan.

“Do you have your mother’s name?” Maggie asked, twisting in Micah’s embrace to see his face. If she thought she saw an apology in his expression before, it was now void of all emotions. Micah’s face was a blank mask.

And he waited a moment too long to answer.

His father started laughing. “That’s a good sign. Maybe we barged in here a bit prematurely. We can leave you two alone.” He started to stand. “Micah, be ready to leave in the morning.”

“Leave? Wait a minute. Where are you going?”

“My last name isn’t Jones,” Micah told her.

“Don’t,” his uncle Joe barked.

“Maggie, I’m Micah Mulligan.”

“You’re making a mistake, Micah,” his father warned him.

“Why is he making a mistake?” Maggie snapped at Jacob. “Is it wrong for him to tell the woman he loves what his real last name is?” she demanded, her voice rising. “Or are you saying that because he lied to her about his name that he might have lied to her about loving her?”

For the first time since the two men entered Micah’s home, neither one of them said anything. Maggie glared at the man by the couch, then sent an equally hateful stare to the other man standing closer to the kitchen. For the first time she noticed how Micah looked a bit like both of them.

“Maggie,” Micah said, but he didn’t sound the least bit apologetic. Instead he spoke her name as if it were a warning.

She marched away from him and into the kitchen. Grabbing her glass and the bottle of wine, she walked around the corner and looked at the three men.

“Would anyone else like a glass of wine?”

“They aren’t staying,” Micah told her.

“What? Why not?” she asked Micah, her overly sweet tone causing him to narrow his gaze on her suspiciously. “Where I come from we care about family. We don’t send them packing when they show up at the door.”

“Good.” Jacob slapped his hands against his legs, then stood up. “Then it’s settled. We’re in the city at a hotel. We’ll leave you two alone so you can explain why you’re leaving with your family.” His father looked fiercer than Micah ever had when he focused on his son. “And Micah, don’t say anything that will jeopardize her life.”

“Jeopardize my…” Her words trailed off.

Micah did that moving thing again where he was next to her before she’d seen him take a step. He lifted the wine bottle and glass out of her hand.

“That wasn’t necessary, Dad,” he growled, moving behind her and putting the glass and bottle back on the counter, then coming up behind her. He slipped his arms around her waist and held her tightly against him. “I have no problem getting ahold of you in the morning. But I don’t know if I’m going anywhere yet or not.”

“I knew it,” his uncle said under his breath.

“You don’t know anything,” Micah growled at him.

Maggie thought his uncle almost looked hurt when he shot Micah a pensive look. Micah’s father looked pissed.

“That’s right, damn it. You don’t know shit.” Jacob walked up to the two of them but stared over Maggie’s head at Micah. “You know this isn’t a choice, son,” he said softly.

“There are always choices, Dad.”

The anger and aggression faded from his father’s face. “Not this time, Micah. Not with us. You can’t change who you are. I think you’ve already learned that.”

Micah tightened his hold on Maggie. “You think you know what you’re talking about.”

“I do know what I’m talking about,” Jacob roared. “Do you seriously think your little stunt the other night didn’t raise all kinds of questions? I know you acted instinctively. I know it never crossed your mind to do anything other than what you did. Now you need to understand the reason behind that is because of who you are. And you will always be who you are.”

Maggie tried understanding what Micah’s father had just said to him. Whatever the meaning behind his cryptic words, Micah didn’t like them. He clung to her hard enough that her hand was over his, gently caressing the side of his hand before she’d realized her actions.

“Has your life really been that bad?” his uncle Joe asked.

His uncle looked at Micah with more fondness in his eyes. Maggie could imagine the two men raising the one son. The father would have been strict, determined to raise his son properly. The uncle, on the other hand, freed of that burden of responsibility, would have played with him more, joked with him, and possibly been the one Micah would have opened up to more.

“Of course not,” Micah answered immediately. “But this isn’t about how good or bad the past has been. This is about where I go from here. Why do I have to continue?”

Continue what? Maggie desperately wanted to know. She wasn’t part of this conversation. And as easily as the two tall men looked over her head at Micah, she wouldn’t be surprised if they forgot she was standing there, too.

“You’ve already answered that question for yourself.” His father bit out the words. His hair, just like his twin’s, was trimmed short and close to his head. Streaks of gray covered most of the black, but when they were younger both of them probably had the thick dark hair Micah had now. Micah definitely got his hardened, dominating, and harsh glares from his dad.

“What happens the next time you’re cornered in a perilous situation?” Uncle Joe asked.

“I’ll tell you what will happen,” Jacob barked, his words as biting as Joe’s had been coaxing. “You’re going to do exactly what you did the other night. One shot straight through the heart. It’s programmed in you, son.”

“You can’t change who you are,” his uncle finished.

“Nor should you want to,” his dad added.

“Enjoy the rest of your evening.” Uncle Joe walked toward Jacob and slapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll be out of your hair now.”

“If she loves you the way you’ve told her that you love her, she’ll be a good girl after you’re gone.” As threatening as Jacob’s words sounded, this time his expression wasn’t menacing. He turned and followed his twin to the door.

Micah didn’t budge a muscle. He remained where he was, holding Maggie tight with her back pressed against his front.

“You know the only way you can truly break the Mulligan curse,” Uncle Joe said at the door.

“Don’t push the boy,” Jacob snapped at Joe. “Let’s go.” He reached for the locks and began unlocking them.

“How’s that?” Micah asked right before his father opened his front door.

“Be the first Mulligan to leave without getting her pregnant.” His uncle looked at Maggie for the first time, nodding chivalrously. “You’ve got good taste in ladies, Micah. Maggie, it was a pleasure meeting you.”

Maggie couldn’t think of what to say in return. She got the uncanny sensation that Micah’s uncle was putting her face to memory more than he was being polite by making eye contact and telling her good-bye.

The moment the door closed she spun out of Micah’s arms. She’d half expected his cold persona to be hard in place and felt an ounce of her anger dissipate when he looked defeated, almost broken.

“Am I locking the doors, or are you marching out of here, too?”

“Don’t you think for a moment, Mr. Micah Mulligan, that you’re getting out of this without a good fight on your hands,” she warned him.