Fated Souls (13 page)

“Get in the car, asshole. We’re going home.” He smiled and kissed her quickly on the lips before circling the car and sliding into the passenger seat.

“Yours or mine?” he asked as she put the car into reverse.

“Ours. But we’ll need to detour by the cabin first, I’ve got stuff.”

The first week passed in a blur of laughter and lovemaking. Aidan had given her the spare keys to his truck and his house so she had free use of both; thankfully she got rid of the rental car and that expense. She had unlimited access to the stables, as well, but by the end of the second week, Maggie was restless. When she asked him what she was supposed to do all day long, he reminded her that she had told him once she’d been fiddling with writing a novel — now that she had time, he suggested she stop fiddling. Once she got down to writing, she found the freedom to do just that exhilarating. She sold a few freelance articles because it was important to her to have her own money and she still had a home back East that needed tending. She posted ads for a sub-let on an electronic bulletin board and was currently vetting potentials. She was also doing research on werewolf legends and the Ojibwa tribes.

She told Bobby, Jenna, and her other close friends that she was thinking of relocating here permanently, admitting only to Jenna that a man was involved. She told her friend as much as she could about Aidan. Jenna quickly deduced that Maggie was in love with him. “I’m so glad you found your happy, Sweetie.” Jenna had said. And for the most part, she was.

She knew Aidan was aware of her feelings for him; she’d confessed her love for him to Gealach the night she was attacked. He hadn’t mentioned it. In fact, Maggie had the distinct impression that Aidan was specifically avoiding discussing it. Maggie had meant it when she said she didn’t want or expect an automatic response. But she had also believed that he would welcome her feelings for him. And while she thought he may not have been ready to say the words, she hadn’t considered that he may not love her in return. His continued silence and the resulting uncertainty were gnawing at her but she was loath to bring it up. She had given him her heart; the next step needed to be his.

She knew Aidan cared for her. He didn’t want her joining Gealach in the forest at night. He was afraid for her safety, tormented by the possibility that those men could have, and would have, raped her. The story about the wolf attack — Mikey and Leeroy had conveniently left out their assaulting her — did make it into the local papers. For weeks there were more strangers in Trappers’ Cove, but after almost a month without any more sightings or attacks, nearly all the strangers had gone. Maggie wanted to go into the woods.

Aidan and she were having yet another argument about it when her cell phone rang. She checked the display. It was a Philadelphia number she didn’t recognize, and cutting Aidan off rudely, she answered the call. It could be a potential renter for her apartment. Seconds after answering, she wished she had let it go to voicemail.

“Maggie, thank God, do you have any idea how hard you’ve been to track down?”

“Noah?” She couldn’t grasp why he would be calling her. She didn’t know what Aidan saw in her expression or heard in her voice, but he relaxed his fighting stance and reached out a hand that she brushed away. “How did you get this number?”

“It was damn near impossible. No one would give it to me, not even your mother’s assistant. After repeated calls to the paper, I finally got some man named Richard that was willing to give it to me.”

Maggie pinched the bridge of her nose and silently prayed Ricky Rhoads’ dick would shrivel up and fall off. “A better question is why are you calling me?”

“Oh, well my father owns a small syndicate in the Salt Lake area and your name has been linked to a wolf attack out in Minnesota. Are you in Minnesota? You should have just taken the position my father offered you, then you wouldn’t have been forced to move so far away to pursue your career.”

“I’m in Minnesota because I want to be, Noah. And not for work reasons. You know why I wouldn’t take that job your father offered me. And we both know you’re not calling out of concern, so I’ll ask another way. What do you want?”

She turned her back to Aidan. For reasons she couldn’t explain to herself she didn’t want him watching her deal with this slice of her life she’d thought behind her. “I am concerned. I still care about you, Mags.”

“You’ve got five seconds to tell me why you called before I hang up this phone.”

“I wanted to hear what happened from your perspective. Actually I was thinking you could write a piece on it, and if the paper in Salt Lake runs with it, I could get it printed here as well. You know, human interest piece, the stuff you’re good at.”

“Goodbye, Noah.” Maggie disconnected the phone, powered it down, and tossed it on the coffee table. If anyone else called, especially Noah, they’d get voicemail. She didn’t want to be interrupted while dealing with the questions Aidan was sure to have.

“Who is Noah?” Aidan asked it quietly, but she could hear the note of hurt in his voice.

Maggie walked over to the window and leaned against the sill. She took a second to enjoy the warmth of the sun against her back before explaining. “Noah Hurley is a below average man, below average journalist, and sole heir to The Hurley Group. The Hurley Group pretty much has a strangle hold on journalism in the Delaware Valley. Anyway, Noah’s father wanted him to learn the business from the bottom up just like he had, and he insisted Noah earn his chops at a competitor’s paper. That’s where Noah and I met.”

“We were involved for nearly two years and we were both up for the same staff position. Scuttlebutt was that I was the prime contender for the position, but regardless we were both asked to draft an article on a local politician’s upcoming corruption trial. I finished mine, kissed him goodnight, and went to bed. I woke up alone the following morning. When I got to the office I discovered Noah had already been awarded the staff position, using my story. The only words he even bothered to change were the two following “written by.”

“I pitched a fit, was escorted from the building, and went straight to a lawyer, who assured me that I had a good case. When I returned to our apartment I found that Noah had already moved out everything of his and some things that were mine. All he’d left me was a message to meet his father for lunch the following day.”

“Why am I only hearing about this now?”

Maggie crossed to where Aidan sat and took his hand. “Baby, I haven’t thought about any of it, other than when
The Inquisitor
article came out, and, frankly, I am much more concerned with us than with ancient history.”

“Did you have lunch with his father?”

“Yeah, he offered me a staff position at one of his papers if I would just let it go. He then pointed out that my stepfather would be most unpleased when he and my mother were linked to the scandal I would invariably cause if I didn’t let it go. I turned down the dream job at his father’s paper and I told him I couldn’t care less what pissed off my stepfather.

“The next day I got a call from a friend at a paper I had freelanced for a few times. Word was going around the industry that I had plagiarized work from my former boyfriend and that I had been doing so for the better part of two years. Any paper or magazine owned by or affiliated with The Hurley Group blacklisted me. The rest of the industry just curled up in fear. I had friends at a lot of different publications, all of whom told me I was screwed; they couldn’t hire me and they couldn’t print me.”

“What did you do?” Aidan stroked his thumb across the top of her hand.

“I knew my stepfather wouldn’t help me, and I couldn’t afford to take on Noah’s family’s resources for what would surely be a lost cause. I didn’t want to move away and hope to find a city where the bad word of mouth hadn’t reached. I was kind of lost until Bobby offered me a job at
The Inquisitor
. The rest, as they say, is history.” She shrugged.

“Damn, Maggie.” Aidan tried to pull her into his arms but she stood and walked away from him, leaning her hip against the sill again. He went to her anyway, wrapping his arms around her from behind, resting his chin on her crown. “You may not want to be comforted, but it makes me feel better, so deal with it.”

“Asshole.”

“Rock star.” She smiled and leaned into the embrace. “Noah got engaged a month later. It was announced in the society page the same week they ran a story about how he’d been nominated for a journalistic award for my article. I took the award nomination harder than the engagement announcement.”

“Of course you did. Don’t blame you.” Aidan agreed. Maggie turned in his arms.

“I’m glad for all of it. Otherwise I’d have never come here. Never found you.” She slid her mouth over his and they eased into a kiss she thought was more love than lust; though regardless of the emotion behind the kiss, they usually ended up in the bedroom or any other available private place, tearing each other’s clothes off. “Aidan?”

“Maggie.”

Maggie smiled. She loved how he made her name sound like an endearment.

“Marry me?” She thought he’d smile, laugh, call her foolish and pull her into his arms where they’d trip into bed, or sink to the floor. She’d been teasing. But Aidan didn’t smile, or laugh. There would be no laughter or throaty moans. His draw dropped open and she watched, hurt and confused, as his shock quickly turned to anger.

“Why would you ask me that? I’m not even a man.” He spat the words at her.

“Yes, you are. You are a wonderful man; you’re my man. Neither of us wants to be without the other. Or don’t you feel the same?”

He held up his hand and closed his eyes briefly, as though warding her off. He opened his eyes and spoke quietly. “Don’t turn this around on me. Don’t make me the bad guy, Maggie. I didn’t do this; you did. You’re asking the impossible. You’re too smart not to know that.”

“Do you think it’s too fast? I don’t. I feel like I’ve known you all my life. And I don’t care what anyone else thinks. You made me yours the first day you kissed me, the afternoon you branded me in your bed, and you declared it to the whole town the day you beat up those redneck bastards. Christ, even Gealach marked me as his territory. But you’d deny me the honor of being your wife, wearing your ring, taking your name?” She put his hand on her heart and pretended her own wasn’t bleeding. His words had sliced her. “Don’t you think I want to see my ring on your finger?”

“Christ, Maggie, you humble me. But you know it’s not that easy.”

“Why isn’t it? Do you think I’ll ever be with anyone else? Could you bear to see me walk? Could you see me with another man?” Anger and something Maggie could only label violent jealousy warred over Aidan’s features. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Do you think I’m after your money?” Maggie asked.

“No. Jesus, Mags, you have to know better than that.” He seemed insulted she’d suggested it. “But what about babies, Maggie? I know you want to have babies. You’ve got so much love in you to share; I’ve no right to ask you to give up motherhood.”

“First let me point out that in order for me to have babies with another man, I’d have to be with another man, which we both know will never happen. And it’s a moot point anyway.” She paused before admitting what, in her heart, she already knew. “’Cause I think I’m already pregnant. And for the record, I was only playing around about getting married. But now, since I won’t ever know if it’s because of our child or because you really want me, I wouldn’t marry you if you asked.” She marched from the room, hollering back to where he still stood stunned and speechless. “And I
am
going out in the woods with Gealach tonight.”

• • •

Aidan heard the truck pull out, the tires spitting shells everywhere, and imagined he could hear the deafening music within the cab. He shook his head as he tried to wrap his mind around both the bombs Maggie had dropped: marriage and a baby. He couldn’t quite reason it out in his head, so instead he went into their office — he was already thinking of his possessions as theirs — and sitting at his desk, logged on to the internet to find out what he could about Noah Hurley. It wasn’t a difficult search. Aidan wasn’t surprised to discover he owned stock in The Hurley Group. He quickly sold it, not wanting any association, no matter how tenuous, between himself and the man that had stolen her career from her.

There was little available online about Noah’s connection to Maggie — Aidan imagined that was due to the father’s damage control, and it explained how his initial run on Maggie hadn’t spotted anything about the man. But from what he could ascertain on industry blogs, it was common knowledge that Maggie had written the award-winning article that launched Noah’s career. It also seemed public knowledge that the man was routinely unfaithful to his wife. Some further probing revealed that the paper currently under Noah’s control was floundering. “That explains why the prick reached out to Maggie,” Aidan mumbled to himself. “Asshole was hoping to strike gold again.”

Aidan saved what he’d found to his hard drive and, unable to think of anything else to occupy his mind, began watching the clock, awaiting Maggie’s return. She wanted to get married. He supposed it wouldn’t have been an unreasonable request had they been a normal couple, had he been a normal man. He just hadn’t considered marriage a possibility. He was a werewolf for crying out loud, how could he ask her to tie herself to him, to that, until death? And yet, the very idea of her spending her life, growing old with anyone else, made him unreasonably angry, violently so. He wanted to break this hypothetical man into pieces.

That didn’t matter, couldn’t matter. Because of the curse, he wouldn’t tie her down. Gealach may not be an issue for Maggie now but it would become one later. She was an open and honest woman, having to lie to everyone she loves and living in near isolation is going to take an eventual toll. He’d do whatever he could to keep Maggie safe, despite her own best efforts, but he wouldn’t make promises. And he wouldn’t accept hers. She would leave and when she did the less complicated it was between them, the better.
She’s angry now but she’ll thank me later.