Hank stared coolly at his father. “Rumor has it, you’re the reason people are breaking in. I heard you offered Fred McDonough a million dollars if he’d steal Maggie’s diary for you.”
Harry’s first reaction was disbelief. His second was a smile that creased his face and produced a chuckle deep in his chest. “You aren’t serious.”
“I am serious.”
Harry looked at him. The smile faded. “You are serious.”
“The way I hear it, everyone in town is working nights, trying to make that million dollars.”
Helen gave Maggie a cup of coffee and took a seat at the table. “Harry, did you do that?”
“Of course not,” Harry said. “Where would I get a million dollars?”
“You’re the president of the bank,” Hank told him.
Harry looked appalled. “They think I’d embezzle a million dollars?”
Hank shook his head. “No. They think you’re rich.”
Helen reached across and patted Maggie’s hand. “The people in this town are very nice,” she said, “but you couldn’t accuse them of being smart.”
Fred McDonough knocked at the back door.
Bubba had been right, Maggie thought. Fred McDonough was definitely hung over. His eyes were heavily bagged and only half-open. He had the beginnings of a beard and under the beard his face was ashen.
Helen Mallone opened the door and gently curled McDonough’s hand around a mug of hot coffee.
“I wish I were dead,” McDonough said.
Helen clucked sympathetically. “You shouldn’t drink so much.”
McDonough looked at her like she was from the moon.
“We’re trying to straighten out this stealing business,” Hank said. “Did my father offer you a million dollars to steal Maggie’s diary?”
McDonough took a gulp of scalding coffee and never blinked an eye. “Yep. He said he’d give a million dollars jest to get his hands on that diary. That was his exact words. I tried, too, but your damn dog liked to tear my pants’ leg off.”
Harry Mallone smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Now I remember. That was a figure of speech, you idiot! I didn’t mean I wanted someone to steal the blasted thing, I meant I was wondering about its contents!”
Maggie laid her hand flat on the table to steady herself, as relief washed over her in a dizzying wave. It had been a misunderstanding! She’d been sure someone had been after the diary to save face. She’d thought it might have been a misguided relative, hoping to protect Aunt Kitty. Or perhaps a former client worrying about his reputation. She’d even thought it might have been one of the local upstanding citizens, as preposterous as that might seem.
She took a steadying breath and sipped her coffee before questioning Harry Mallone. “Why didn’t you ask to borrow it?”
Harry shrugged. “It was one of those things you say in a conversation. I don’t really have the time or interest to read about the internal workings of a bordello.”
Maggie felt herself stiffen at the insult. “Too bad,” she said. “It’s pretty interesting.”
Harry gave her a severe look. “I bet.”
“So, let me get this straight,” McDonough said. “You never meant for me to steal the diary?”
Harry removed his glasses, folded them, and placed them in the case on the table. “That’s right.”
McDonough stared off into space, clearly grappling with this new information.
Helen Mallone looked at her husband, her lips pressed tight together. “Harry Mallone,” she said. “You’ve caused a lot of trouble. I don’t usually interfere with the relationship between you and your son, but this is too much. You owe him and Maggie an apology, at the very least.”
“It was an honest communication problem,” Harry said.
“No,” Helen told him. “There’s more involved than that. You haven’t had an open mind about him and his wife. Just look, he even gets up early now and eats breakfast.”
Harry didn’t look especially impressed.
“I think you should give him the loan,” Helen said.
Color instantly rose to Harry’s cheeks.
Helen sat with her hands folded together on the table, her eyes and mouth locked in unyielding determination. “I think it’s the least you could do to set things straight.”
Harry drummed his fingers on the arms of his captain’s chair, assessing his wife’s anger. “He doesn’t have the appropriate collateral.”
“Baloney,” Helen Mallone said, continuing to glare at her husband.
Harry rolled his eyes heavenward and threw his hands into the air.
By anyone’s standards his mother was a flexible person, Hank thought, but when she truly set her mind to something, she was a woman to be reckoned with. Hank knew the only time his father ever threw his hands into the air in a gesture of futility was when he was forced to capitulate to his wife’s obstinacy. Hank could count the times on one hand. The time his mother had insisted they drive to Ohio to spend Christmas with her sister. The time his mother decided to have the kitchen remodeled. The time Aunt Tootie had a hysterectomy and his mother had invited her and her dog, Snuffy, to recuperate in the guest room.
Maggie was in the middle of packing when Hank returned home from cleaning the grange hall.
“What’s this?” he asked. “Why are you putting your clothes in these boxes?”
“I’m leaving. Your father agreed to give you the loan, so there’s no reason for me to stay.”
His thick black eyebrows drew together. “What do you mean, there’s no reason for you to stay? I asked you to marry me.”
“I don’t want to marry you.”
“You don’t love me?”
“I didn’t say that.” Maggie stuffed a stack of T-shirts into her suitcase. “I said I don’t want to marry you. I’ve spent too many years of my life in uncomfortable environments. I love my mother, but I can’t live with her. And I can’t live with you either.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing’s wrong with you. It’s everything around you that’s all wrong. Your father totally disapproves of me. Your best friend resents me. And your dog is mean to my cat.”
“Is that all?”
“No, that’s not all. I’m going nuts sitting in this room day in and day out staring at apple trees. I don’t think I’m cut out for farm life. If I don’t get to a shopping mall soon, I’m going to go into withdrawal. I want to talk to someone who doesn’t say ‘yup.’ I miss the air pollution. I have a craving to stand in line and curse out someone. I miss being on the road and having other drivers make rude gestures to me.”
Hank put his hand to her forehead. “You running a fever?”
“This town is filled with weirdos.”
“Yeah, but most of them are pretty nice. You’d get used to Skogen if you just gave it a chance.”
“Never!” Maggie said. “I will never get used to Skogen. I’m going back to Riverside, and I’m going to take a job at Greasy Jake’s, and I’m going to finish my book. And then I’m moving to Tibet.”
“Tibet isn’t the paradise it used to be,” Hank said. “I hear Tibet has problems too.”
Maggie stuffed another stack of clothes into her suitcase. “Uh! No one ever takes me seriously.”
“That’s not true. I’ve always taken you seriously…until now. Now I’m not taking you seriously.”
Hank picked the suitcase up and dumped Maggie’s clothes out onto the bed. “We made a deal. The deal was that you would be my wife for six months. I expect you to honor that.”
Maggie felt tears burning behind her eyes and angrily blinked them away. Why was he making this so difficult? It wasn’t as if she really wanted to leave. She loved him. But some of the things she’d said were true. She thought she would be miserable in Skogen in the long term sense of things. And eventually Hank would be miserable too. And then they’d have a miserable marriage. And maybe by that time they’d have miserable children.