“He should have waited for Kitty,” Hank said. “He should have gone looking for her. I think this McGregor guy sounds like a jerk.”
Maggie smiled between snuffles. Hank was more of a fighter than Johnny McGregor. Hank wouldn’t have knuckled under to his parents. And Hank wouldn’t have stood still while his sweetheart’s father spirited her away.
“So, where did all this take place? Was this in Riverside?”
“No. Aunt Kitty and Johnny lived in Easton, Pennsylvania. Aunt Kitty stayed there so she could be near Johnny, and after some hard times she was befriended by a woman who ran a brothel. One thing led to another, and eventually Aunt Kitty took over as madam. She moved to Riverside when she was an old woman.”
“And you’ve got all this in your book, huh?”
“I will eventually.” She gave one last sad sigh and got off his lap. “Chapter two is an emotional chapter.”
“I can see that.” He half-filled a wineglass with the chilled Chablis and passed it to her.
Maggie took the wine and held it a moment before drinking. She watched while he poured some for himself, and smiled when he clinked glasses in a toast.
“To Aunt Kitty,” he said. He took a sip, set the glass on the desk, and reached for the fragile leather-bound book Maggie had left lying open. “Do you mind if I read this?”
“I don’t think Aunt Kitty would mind. It’s the first volume. She started keeping the diary when she was sixteen.”
He read the first page and drank a little more wine. Then he thumbed through the book, reading pages at random. “This is actually very interesting.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I’ve always thought girls’ diaries were sappy. I always figured it was something you filled with lies and exaggerations and then left laying around for your friends to read.”
“I think the middle diaries are the most interesting. They detail house hold accounts for the brothel. It’s a unique slant on history.”
Hank selected one of the middle diaries and began reading. His eyes opened wide, and his mouth creased into a broad grin. “Whoa! You were right. This is definitely more interesting. Aunt Kitty had a real flare for words.”
“What page are you on?”
“Page forty-two. She’s talking about Eugenia and the button salesman.”
“Give me that book!”
Hank edged away from her, holding the book too high for her to reach. “Each month Eugenia waited for the button salesman to come into town,” Hank read. “Eugenia would wear her sheer red dress and her fancy red-and-black garters…”
Maggie lunged for the book, and Hank pinned her against the wall. His eyes were dancing with mischief. “Do you have any garters, Maggie?”
“You’re squashing me!”
“Stop squirming. No, on second thought, I think I like the squirming.”
She instantly went still. “I’m going to scream for Elsie.”
“Coward.”
“You bet.”
Hank continued to read out loud. “And Eugenia would dot her very best, most expensive French perfume at every pulse point. On the column of her neck…” Hank dipped his head and leisurely, thoroughly kissed the pulse point in Maggie’s neck. “At her wrist…” Hank’s mouth moved over Maggie’s wrist with slow passion. “Along the heated crevice between her full breasts…”
The air felt trapped in Maggie’s lungs. Her chest burned with it. Her head hummed with Hank’s words, with the sound of his voice, soft and resonant. Desire was rising from somewhere deep inside her and radiating outward in waves that left her weak-kneed.
He’d opened the top buttons on her cotton shirt. It was an outrageous liberty, she thought, but she was powerless to stop him. She wanted to feel his mouth on her breast, and when his lips finally grazed along the soft flesh that swelled from the cup of her lacy bra, she shuddered.
“Should I continue?” he asked.
“Yes.” She could barely say it, barely hear her own words over the pounding of her heart.
“She perfumed the tips of her breasts…” he said, improvising wildly.
His large hand covered her, molding her to fit his palm. She was soft and full, and he thought he would burst with love. And if he didn’t burst from love, he certainly was ready to burst with passion.
He’d thought ahead, and he knew there was only one place left for Eugenia to put the damn perfume. If Maggie allowed him to put his hand there, it was all over.
Then he thought of Elsie, puttering around downstairs in the kitchen and wondered why he’d ever started this.
Maggie had also thought ahead. “Stop,” she whispered. “Stop now.”
He sagged against her. “You ever seen a grown man cry?”
Maggie giggled from nervousness. “It’s not that bad.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“We have to talk.”
“Uh-huh.”
She splayed both hands on his chest to put some room between them, but he wouldn’t move far.
“I’m going to be honest with you. I’m very attracted to you. It wouldn’t take much for me to fall in love and do something foolish, like go to bed with you.”
“Why would that be foolish?”
“I’m not like you. Falling in love would be serious for me. It would be painful. It would be disruptive.”
A crease formed between his eyebrows. “What makes you think it wouldn’t be for me?”
“I think your outlook on life is different from mine.”
He held her by the shoulders and gave her a small shake. “You don’t know anything about my outlook on life. You don’t know anything about me. You only know the stories. Give me a chance, Maggie. Look for yourself.”
“I don’t want to give you a chance. We have six more months of cohabitation. I don’t want to make that any more awkward than it already is. Even if you were the right person for me, this wouldn’t work out. Skogen is another Riverside. I’m the prime topic of conversation for the entire town. I’m crazy Maggie Toone all over again, and there probably isn’t a man, woman, or child within a fifty-mile radius who isn’t waiting to hear about my latest outrageous act.”
“You’re wrong. You’re not crazy Maggie Toone. You’re crazy Maggie Mallone.”
“I don’t want to fall in love with you.”
“Fine. Do what ever you can to try to prevent it, but I don’t think it will help.”
He released her and took a step back. “And what about me? It’s too late for me, Maggie. I’m already in love with you.”
Disbelief quickly replaced the initial surge of joy. “I suppose that’s your problem.”
“Wrong. It’s your problem, because I intend to do what ever is necessary to get you to love me.”
“Wasn’t it just last night you told me you weren’t going to put any moves on me?”
“I changed my mind.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“I don’t know. I started out wanting to comfort you when you were crying, and I ended up trying to seduce you. About halfway through, it became obvious that I wasn’t going to be able to hide my…feelings.”
Maggie smiled. “You have a point. Your feelings were pretty obvious.”
“And you’re wrong about Skogen. It’s a nice place to live. I think you need to get to know some of the people here. They aren’t so bad. They like to gossip, but there isn’t anything mean in it. It’s just recreation. We don’t have a movie theater or a shopping mall, so folks around here spend their time passing along false information.”
“I don’t know if I want to meet any more Skogenians.”
She knew she didn’t have a good attitude. After all, she had an obligation to fulfill as his wife.
“Okay, I take that back. I want to meet the locals. What did you have in mind? I hope it’s not another dinner party.”