What's Cooking? (16 page)

Rick returned her heated gaze without so much as a flicker of an eyelash. "If she's having my baby, then it must be by artificial insemination," he declared calmly. He almost sounded believable.

"You expect us to buy that?" Ashley demanded, obviously unable to keep quiet despite Maggie's warning look.

"I don't expect you to do anything, except maybe to listen to both sides of the story rather than jumping to all sorts of wild conclusions," Rick said mildly. "Shouldn't an attorney, of all people, understand the concept of innocent until proven guilty?"

Before Ashley could respond, Maggie stepped in again. If she and Rick were ever to have a chance, she had to deal with this herself. Ashley would never be able to sit silently by while she tried, so she turned to her sister and said, "Ashley, I think you should go and pay Melanie a visit. I'm sure she's anxious to see you."

"But?"

"Go," Maggie repeated. "I can handle this."

"You can't simply believe whatever story he decides to tell you," Ashley warned. "I talked to this woman. She was very convincing."

"About the fact that she was pregnant or about the baby being mine?" Rick asked.

Maggie waited as anxiously for the response as Rick

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did. Maybe even more so. For an instant, her big sister looked thoroughly flustered. Maggie seized on that. "You didn't really ask, did you? You jumped to a conclusion." The same way she had, in fact. "Let me deal with this, Ashley."

Her sister nodded finally, then looked at Rick. "I'm very sorry if I got it all wrong, but if I find out later that I didn't, there will be hell to pay."

"Fair enough. You did get it wrong, but I can understand you wanting to look out for Maggie. Trust me when I tell you that there is nothing remotely like this that's going to come along to hurt her."

"I hope not," Ashley said, then left.

Maggie closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then faced Rick.

"You are telling me the truth, aren't you? Laurina's baby isn't yours?"

"There's not a chance of that," he insisted.

"But you were together," she stated flatly.

"We were seen together," he corrected. "Often, in fact. Laurina's been wildly in love with a man in Italy for a very long time. He's very publicity shy. He wouldn't commit to marriage to someone who's always being trailed by the paparazzi, so she used me to make him jealous. We purposely got our picture taken all over the place for a few weeks. The tactic worked. He realized a few unwanted snapshots weren't important enough to cost him the woman he loved. They were married, very quietly, two months ago. There wasn't a paparazzi in sight." He grinned. "And now she's pregnant. I'm thrilled for her, for both of them."

It all sounded so plausible, but could she believe

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him? Maggie wished she could be sure. She'd seen those pictures, too. They'd been very convincing.

Rick held out his cell phone. "Call her, if that's what it will take to convince you," he offered. "She won't mind. I had to do my share of fast-talking to get her off the hook with Antonio. He wanted to carve me up when Laurina insisted I come to the wedding."

"Did you go?"

"Yes."

And he'd survived this Antonio's scrutiny. That had to mean something. Maggie made a decision. If they were ever to have a real chance, ujust had to begin sometime. It might as well be now. "No. I don't need to call her. I trust you."

Rick regarded her with approval. "You can, you know. I won't ever lie to you and I won't sugarcoat the truth. Not every time I've been seen with a woman was as innocent as the times I was spotted with Laurina. We all have a romantic history of one sort or another, Maggie."

She thought of her own less-than-stellar past. Her relationships might not have been as well documented as some of Rick's, but that didn't mean they hadn't happened. He wasn't cross-examining her about those.

She recalled what he'd said earlier about living in the moment. It had always gotten her in trouble before, but there really wasn't any other way to live life. If she filled her head with regrets about the past or worries about the future, she would have nothing in the present.

"Let's go to Melanie's," she said, standing up and reaching for his hand.

Rick looked momentarily alarmed. "You want to face both of your sisters down?"

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She nodded. "We have nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of."

He laughed. "All right, Maggie!" he enthused.

She frowned at him. "Knock it off. This isn't going to be a picnic, Flannery. Ashley may have been thrown off stride by discovering she might be wrong about Lau-rina, but she's still not through with you."

"Duly noted."

"Why aren't you quaking in your boots?"

"Because I think you're tough enough to defend me."

Maggie regarded him with surprise and the slow dawning of pleasure. She was tough, she realized. And getting tougher by the minute. The past had done that for her. It gave her a whole new perspective on all that heartache. Maybe it hadn't been such a bad thing, after all, if it had made her ready for a man as complicated as Rick Flannery.

"You're still in one piece, I see," Mike commented when Rick joined him outside at the backyard grill on which several steaks were cooking.

"Fancy footwork and the truth," Rick commented dryly. "I imagine Ashley filled you in."

"Actually, she didn't. She muttered something about possibly having gone a little overboard. Closest I've ever heard the woman come to admitting she might be wrong."

Rick glanced into the house and saw Ashley sitting quietly, while Melanie and Maggie laughed as they worked to get dinner on the table.

"1 only met her once before she turned up here, so you know her better than I do," Rick said, watching her thoughtfully. "Does Ashley seem okay to you?"

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Mike stared in the direction of his sister-in-law. "She's quieter than usual. Why? You think she's here for some reason besides grilling you?"

Rick shrugged. "I would have bet on it this morning. Maggie picked up on it, too. 1 think she got temporarily sidetracked by a phone call of mine she intercepted, but look at her now. She's way too quiet in there with those two."

Mike studied her, then nodded. "You could be right, but thankfully, we can leave it to her sisters to wheedle the truth out of her eventually. We're just men. They don't expect us to be intuitive about this sort of stuff."

Rick laughed. "That is a blessing, isn't it?" Even so, he couldn't quite shake the sense that Maggie's sister was bottling up something serious enough to require the support of everyone around her.

"Daddy," six-year-old Jessie daid impatiently, arriving with her hands on her hips and a pouting expression, "are we ever going to eat?"

Mike scooped her up and tickled her until she giggled. "Ten more minutes, kiddo. Your aunt Ashley is the only one around here who likes her meat raw. The rest of us have to wait till it's cooked medium rare."

Rick wished he had his camera with him. The look of adoration in Mike's eyes as he gazed at his daughter was priceless. It was the epitome of what the love between a parent and a child ought to be. Too bad it was so rare in the world, he thought cynically.

He took another look at the happy scene inside and saw that her sisters had finally managed to draw Ashley into the conversation. Maybe close-knit families weren't

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as unusual as he'd imagined. Maybe it was simply his own dysfunctional family that had colored his view.

"Mike, you've been around all of the D'Angelos. What's that like?"

Mike regarded him curiously, but before he could reply, Jessie piped up, "They're the bestest family in the whole world. I'm glad they married us."

Mike chuckled. "There you have it, a thoroughly unbiased report. She's right, though. They're remarkable." He gave Jessie a squeeze. "I'm glad they married us, too, short stuff."

Something that might have been longing filled Rick's chest at the testimonials. For the first time in his life being part of a remarkable family was within his grasp, if only he had the courage to reach for it.

He could choose to do that, just as Maggie had chosen to trust him earlier. He could step out of his comfort zone and take a chance that something better was right around the corner. Or he could retreat and protect his heart the way he always did.

He bit back a sigh as an all-too-familiar panic crept through him. He didn't have to decide tonight or even tomorrow, but the day would come. Maggie would lose patience with having nothing more than today. She would want a future. She'd been surrounded by people who believed that love could endure. Right now, this second, Rick wanted to beheve that, too. Like capturing that image of the adoration in Mike's eyes as he gazed at his daughter, having such strong faith in love would be priceless.

Ashley was tipsy. Maggie kept staring at her strong, invincible sister, trying to make sense of it. Ashley was

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never out of control. In fact, she rarely had more than a glass of wine with dinner. Tonight she'd had two glasses, maybe three, which was apparently more than enough to loosen her tongue and make her giggle at the slightest provocation.

"You're riding home with us," Maggie told her, steering her toward Rick's car. There was no back seat to speak of, but she could manage in the cramped space for the few minutes it would take to get to Rose Cottage.

"I'm fine," Ashley said, balking.

"You haven't been fine since you got here," Maggie retorted. "And now you're drunk."

"Uh-oh," Rick muttered, apparently guessing that the accusation wouldn't sit well with the always-in-control Ashley.

Maggie scowled at him. "Well, she is."

"I am not," Ashley said haughtily. "I am totally sober." She proved it by tripping over nothing more than a loose piece of gravel and almost falling facedown on the ground.

"Yes, I can see how totally sober you are," Maggie commented.

Ashley tried to jerk away. She dangled her car keys under Maggie's nose, even as she sank into the passenger seat of Rick's car. "I have my car here."

Maggie snatched the keys and tossed them to Rick. "Will you drive her car home? I'll take yours, since I've gotten her this far."

He cast a worried look at them. "You sure? We could come back for her car in the morning."

"No, this is better," Maggie said. "And there's no need to panic. I promise not to wreck your precious car."

He grinned. "I wasn't worried for a minute."

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"Ha!"

Only after he'd gone did Maggie gingerly get behind the wheel of the sports car. She had a hunch if Rick knew she'd never driven a straight shift before, he'd be having heart failure about now. How hard could it be, though? She just had to back up a few feet, get onto the highway and drive a couple of miles. No big deal.

The grinding sound that immediately filled the air when she put her foot on the gas suggested she'd missed some important step.

Beside her Ashley groaned. "The clutch, Maggie," she muttered. "You have to use the clutch."

Now was a fine time for her sister to collect her thoughts. '"Where the hell is it?" Maggie asked.

Ashley cast a disbelieving look in her direction, then began to giggle. Maggie stared back at her, then began to laugh with her. They were howling and holding their sides when Melanie came out of the house.

"What on earth is going on?" Melanie asked, studying them worriedly. "Where's Rick? I can't believe he let you behind the wheel of his car."

"To be honest, neither can I," Maggie admitted. "He drove Ashley's car home."

"What the hell was he thinking?" Melanie asked.

"He doesn't know I've never driven a straight shift before," Maggie admitted meekly. "I thought it would be easy."

Melanie shook her head. "Sit tight. I'll get my car and drive you both home. I don't know what's going on around here tonight. I've got one sister who's smashed and one who's lost her mind"

When Melanie pulled alongside with her SUV a few

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minutes later, Maggie and Ashley climbed in, both of them duly chastened. Maggie hated to think what Rick was going to have to say when they arrived home without his car.

Fortunately, she noted when they turned into the driveway at Rose Cottage, he was inside. Unfortunately, he appeared in the doorway before Melanie could drive away.

"What the devil?" he said, sounding more than a little unnerved. "Where's my car?"

"Still at Melanie's," Maggie soothed. "It's fine."

"Then why didn't you drive it home?"

Ashley paused in her unsteady walk toward the house to announce, "Because Maggie couldn't find the clutch." She patted Rick's cheek. "And you thought I was the one who shouldn't be on the road."

She wobbled on past him and went inside. Rick stared at Maggie. "You can't drive a straight shift?"

"Apparently not."

He shook his head. "I don't believe it."

She gestured toward Melanie. "Want a ride over so you can get it? You know you won't sleep a wink till you see it's in one piece."

"True," he admitted, the glowered at her. "But I am coming straight back here. Don't you dare fall asleep on me."

Despite the annoyance in his voice, Maggie experienced a little shiver of anticipation. He wasn't really that mad at her, she reassured herself. Maybe they could salvage the rest of the night yet. And if he was a little irritated, that just made the prospect of make-up sex more appealing.

Then she thought of Ashley and pushed her own

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needs aside. "Rick, wait till morning to come back, okay? I want to get to the bottom of what's going on with my sister. She'll never open up if you're here."

He gave her a skeptical look. "And you think you can do that while she's half-drunk?"

"Actually it's probably the best time. Her defenses will be down."

He nodded. "Okay, then, I'll see you first thing in the morning. I'll bring very strong coffee and pastries."

She reached up and kissed his cheek. "Thank you for understanding."