Billionaire on Her Doorstep (17 page)

The minute Maggie came back inside, Ashleigh stood and said, “Right, well we’d better be off.”

Freya and Sandra stopped bickering and looked as surprised that their visit had been cut short as Maggie was. But they did as they were told. They stood, grabbed their gear in record time and headed to say their goodbyes.

Tom stood too. Though he wasn’t all that sure he wanted to get within hitting distance of Freya, who had been shooting daggers with her eyes all afternoon, so he hovered in the background.

But one by one they came to him.

Thanks for lunch. It was ace. Be good,’Sandra whispered, as she stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek.

“I heard you were the one who put the new roof on the Jamesons’ pergola after the storm tore it right off. Nice job,” Freya said, barely looking him in the eye.

Ashleigh sauntered over to him last of all. “I like you, Tom Campbell,” she said, and again it felt as if her pale eyes could see all the way into the back of his mind.

“I like you too, Ashleigh Caruthers,” he said.

“Mmm. Just make sure you don’t go doing anything to change my good opinion, you here.”

Tom offered a closed mouth smile as she walked away. Somehow all three of them had been trying to tell him something, but it was a darned pity it was in some sort of secret code that would take him days and a sex change operation to figure out.

Then, as if in a puff of smoke, the coven was gone. And Maggie was wandering back in, her steps a little woozy as though she was punch drunk.

With a faraway sort of smile on her face, she pulled her hair from its messy bun, but this time she scratched her skull for several seconds before simply letting it cascade down her back in a disheveled disarray.

Tom turned to watch her as she moved past him to the dining table and picked up a couple of dirty teacups. If he didn’t know that it was physically impossible, he could have sworn she was floating about two inches off the ground as she took them into the kitchen.

Tom, on the other hand, felt as if he had lead in his shoes.

“So that was Carl,’he said, following her and leaning in the kitchen doorway, the tension in his voice unmistakable.

She turned and some of the glow about her faded. But not all. “Mmm hmm,’she said. “That was Carl.”

“He’s a dashing sort of bloke,” Tom said.

Tve always thought so,” she said, her eyes narrowing a tiny little bit.

“So what did he have to say for himself?”

Maggie crossed her arms and stared at him, but her voice was still even. “What’s with the twenty questions?”

“A guy’s not allowed to make conversation?”

“Conversation? Sure. Interrogation? Not so much. Whatever it is you are trying to say, spit it out.”

If she wasn’t going to be angry at the guy for cheating on her and leaving her destitute, as Sandra had let slip, then he sure as heck would be angry for her. He looked down at the dirt beneath his fingernails, hoping to find more clarity there.

“I’m trying to figure out how you can swan in here all sweetness and light when the guy who broke your heart and took your home and crushed your hopes and your dreams just showed up on your doorstep after six months of no contact.”

“Would you prefer me to be in tears?”

“I’d prefer you to be pissed off!”

Her cheeks grew pink, her eyes blazed. And he knew that she was finally pissed off. At him.

“And what if I’d choose not to be pissed off? What are you going to do about it?’she asked.

She raised one fine eyebrow. That small move was so damned sexy it was all Tom could do to keep his mind on track. But he was picking a fight and now he was on a roll he intended to keep on picking.

He moved fully into the kitchen, needing to be nearer her. even if those fists were loo king ready to strike. He did his best to ignore her perfume, though with every inward breath he felt it winding itself more tightly around him.

“Maggie, he should know about the nice life you have made for yourself out here, and it should eat away at his insides every time he thinks about it. He should know about The B ig B lue and how it took for you to leave him to find it in yourself to paint such a thing. He should know how you were the one with the guts to start a new life without having to hurt the people closest to you along the way. I, for one, have never seen anything braver.”

There, that ought to do it. If she couldn’t figure out from that little speech that it was his job to stick up for her at all costs after that, then she’d never get it.

Maggie swallowed, her lean pale throat working hard, her grey eyes flicking back and forth between his as she let his words sink in.

“You think I was too quick to forgive him, don’t you?” she asked. “You think Carl should be made to pay for what he did? You think he should burn for it for all his remaining days?”

“You bet I do.”

“Because that’s how you think you ought to be punished for not being with Tess when she died?”

“Sorry, what?” Tom said, mentally backtracking.

Tom,” Maggie said, taking him by the hand and drawing him inches closer. “My coming from Melbourne is one thing - I mean, the house was mine and Melbourne’s an hour away by car, but you moved states, you moved from the fastest city in Australia to a place with all the excitement factor of a sloth on Valium. Do you think Tess would be all that happy about the fact that you are hiding down here?”

This conversation isn’t about me,” he said. He was meant to be grilling her. Not the other way around.

“Come on, Tom. Think about it. Think about what you do here. Think about what you’ve done for me .You couldn’t fix her. So that’s why you quit working in restorations to become a handyman. So that you could fix things for everyone else instead.”

He wondered for a moment if she’d been talking to Alex. “I did, I do, but that’s not why. I like working with my hands and - “

“Crap,” she said, letting go of his hand so quickly he almost stumbled.

“Excuse me?” Tom said, on a short bark of laughter.

She turned to the sink and began to rinse the coffee cups and tomato splattered dinner plates. That’sjust abigpile of crap.”

Tom leaned his hip against the bench to give himself purchase, and had a sudden wash of dejd v

“You can’t fix me and then move on, you know, like some guardian angel.”

“Like some what - ?”

But she cut him off again. She was on a roll.

“I don’t need a father figure, Tom. And I don’t need a guardian angel. I need friends, and I need relationships that run on an equal footing. I’m not prepared to give more than I receive any more or vice versa, for that matter.”

Tom was rendered speechless. The last thing he’d wanted to do was find himself in a position where he again wanted to do all he could to make another person’s life better. But that was where he was. Didn’t she know that was some big deal for him? Wanting to help, to soothe, to placate, to make better? And that it had taken a pretty big emotional leap for him to go there at all?

Obviously not. Or, if she did know, she was making it plain that it was the last thing she wanted of him.

Tom stood upright on somewhat numb feet. His blood didn’t quite know .where to rush in that moment, for his heart was pumping it way too fast.

“Right,” he said. “Okay. Now that we have that sorted, I’d better get back to work.”

“Mmm,” Maggie said. “I hear your boss is a slave-driver. Better hop to it.”

“Right. Shall do.’And Tom walked away, more confused and angry and frustrated than he’d ever been in his entire life.

That night, Tom sat at the bar of The Sorrento Sea Captain. He was already halfway through his third beer when Alex came bustling in, his hair a mess and a baby food stain on the front of his shirt.

“Okay, call off the cavalry. I’m here.” Alex pulled himself up on to a barstool and motioned to the barman for the same as Tom. “What’s the big emergency?”

“I need some advice.”

Alex blinked. “From me?”

“You’re the only guy I know in a relationship that has survived longer than a footy season. So I’m sorry, mate, but you’re it.”

“Right. Okay. Shoot.”

“It’s about Maggie.”

Tom…”

Tom held up a hand. “Just hear me out, okay. No judgment. Not yet.”

Alex rearranged his ample buttocks more comfortably on the small round seat. “I’m listening.”

This afternoon she accused me of changing the Barclay sisters’ smoke detector batteries as punishment for not being with Tess when she died.”

“And?”

“And?” Tom repeated, incredulous, turning on his chair to face his cousin down. “You mean you agree?”

“Well, yeah. It doesn’t take some sort of brain iac to figure that out. You and Tess were so tight. Best mates really. And no one took it harder when she died than you did. And then there’s the architect thing. You were one. A big one. One who has made a lot of money and garnered a lot of respect doing it. And now you’re driving a beaten up Ute, doing hard labour for a cheap buck that you don’t even need. It’s not such a stretch, Cuz.”

Tom sniffed in deep through his nose, then downed half a beer in one hit while he stared through the TV over the bar until his vision blurred.

“So is it what she said that has you all het up on this fine evening,’Alex asked, “or the fact that Miss Hoity-Toity’s the one who said it?”

“She’s not hoity-toity,” Tom muttered.

“So what is she, then?”

“What was she? Two weeks ago she had been no more to him than a spectre driving too fast down the main street in her big Jeep. Now she was… important. “When had this suddenly become… that?

“She’s no damsel in distress, that’s for sure.”

Alex laughed. “Well, what do you know?”

Tom put down his b ottle and ran his hands over his mouth, back and forth, as though it could help him think. “Believe it or not, fixing light bulbs has been enough for me these last years. That, fishing, sunshine, pasta and the occasional beer. You know as well as anybody that we have a good life here.”

“We do. But?”

“But since I met Maggie it’s like I can see all the things missing from that perfect picture, like I’ve just discovered a hole left by a pulled tooth. And my tongue can’t keep from playing with it.”

“Aside from the fact that she is a married woman - “

Tom glared at Alex, but he just glared right on back.

Taking that out of the picture, what do you want fro m her? Are you suggesting this is a woman to be played with? Or is she more than that?”

Tom’s eye twitched. “We kind of had a row today. I was daft, and she was harsh. And it wasn’t pretty. So isn’t it too late to worry about all that?”

“You tell me.”

Tom let out a long slow breath and thought hard about what he wanted.

He didn’t want a fling. What he felt for Maggie was beyond that. So far beyond he didn’t know what to do with it. Be cause, for the first time in years, he felt parts of himself opening up. Emotional places he had thought long ago shut down and out of business for good. And with that he felt exposed. And exposure had a propensity to hurt. As such, everything inside screamed at him to just walk away.

“You really want my advice, Cuz?’Alex asked.

“Yeah,’Tom drawled. “I really do.”

Alex laid a hand on his slumped shoulder. There’s no point in even going there until you’ve forgiven yourself for Tess. You miss her, still. Heck, I miss her. And that’s all right. That means that she’ll never be forgotten. Her bad taste in music. Those awful pictures of horses she drew and gave us all for Christmas. The fact that she would have eaten cornflakes for every meal if you’d let her. Keep that stuff close to your heart. But don’t let the other stuff eat at your heart, or there ” be nothing left when the day co mes that you need it.”

Tom looked at his cousin with new eyes. “I never pegged you for a romantic, my friend.”

Alex downed the dregs of his beer in one gulp, threw a ten dollar note on the bar and disengaged himself from his seat. “But, then again, what do I know? I’m just a small business owner from a small beach town who has six females in charge of the remote control. Any advice I give comes by way of Oprah and reruns of the Gilmore Girls.

Tom laughed as he was meant to do, but as he watched Alex head out the door, in an obvious hurry to get back to those six females, he felt a hot shaft of something akin to envy pierce his chest.

Tom spent the next day working like a man possessed, not even stopping for lunch.

Maggie sneaked a peep out the window every now and then to check on his progress, and to check on him. She thought he was running his hands through his hair quite a bit more than usual, and that he was sweating as though it was five .degrees hotter than it was, and she knew that after their argument the night before she was at least half to blame for his funk.

The brush was almost all gone. The view was as clear as it was ever going to get, and it was magnificent. The job was so close to done she could all but feel the sand beneath her feet. And it brought about equal amounts of excitement and gloom. For when the job was done, Tom would be her handyman no more.