Getting Lucky (The Portland Pioneers Book 2) (28 page)

“I’ve never been good at it,” Maggie confessed. “She makes me feel ten years old and horribly awkward. Every single time.”

“You know what?” Noah said, and she turned back again, to look at him. “I think she’s just as scared of you as you are of her. I’ve never seen her put on such an act. That was like the performance of a lifetime out there. She should win an Oscar for that.”

Maggie just rolled her eyes. “You’re crazy. That was just Tabby being Tabby.”

“If you say so. Now get in the shower before you use up all the hot water.”

Maggie did, and she heard the door shut behind him as she shed the t-shirt and her panties and climbed into the shower. It was definitely surprising, but the pit in her stomach wasn’t nearly as deep as it had been. Noah had made her smile, he’d made her nearly laugh, but maybe more importantly, he’d actually made her think. Maggie didn’t think it could possibly be true, what he’d said, but she wanted to believe it could be a little
bit true.

“I wasn’t expecting you for a few hours,” Cal said, glancing up in surprise as Noah walked up the front drive. Cal was sitting on the front stoop, papers spread around him, tablet balanced on one jean-covered knee. “I was sure Maggie would keep you pretty busy.”

A week ago, he wouldn’t have thought Cal capable of teasing him about having sex with Maggie. He would have just glared at him out of the corner of his eye and threatened to punch him in the face, but everything was different now, Noah thought wryly—and in so many ways.

Noah just shrugged. He wasn’t sure what to tell Cal. He wasn’t even sure what to tell himself. The whole morning had taken on a rather surreal quality, starting with when he’d woken up to find Tabitha in Maggie’s house.

That this particular event wasn’t even the weirdest part of the morning really said it all, Noah thought. Maggie’s behavior had been odd in the extreme; she’d turned from a sweet, quietly confident woman who owned her own business and could even take
him
down a notch or two when it was warranted (and Noah wasn’t even going to get started on those glares she gave Cal sometimes), to an insecure, hesitant girl who wouldn’t stick up for herself and deferred to Tabitha like they were still kids.

The real kicker, practically in the balls, Noah thought with a grimace, was when she’d totally withdrawn from him and had insisted he move out, insisting she wasn’t comfortable being in the same bed as him when her sister was there.

He’d really thought they’d moved past her hangup about his past relationship with Tabitha. He’d thought he’d convinced her that whatever he’d felt for Tabby was monumentally dwarfed by what he’d come to feel for Maggie. It didn’t matter that his relationship with Tabitha had lasted months, and that he’d only known Maggie a handful of weeks; he only knew he was in love with her.

He loved her, but he was still annoyed with her, mostly because he was fairly certain she loved him too. Maggie had the worst poker face in the history of the world, and every single thing she felt was right there for him to read, in the curve of her cheekbones and her lips and the fondness shining out of her beautiful eyes.

“Not going to talk to me?” Cal asked, with a questioning raise of an eyebrow. “Is everything okay?”

Noah plopped down on the step next to Cal. “Tabitha is here.”

Apparently Cal had been taking a drink from his water bottle, and he started choking and coughing, his entire demeanor tense and shocked. “What?” he managed to croak out. “She’s
here
?”

Noah shrugged again. He could really give a flying fuck if Tabby was here; in fact, since coming here, she’d managed to ruin just about everything good he had going for him. He was tempted to march back to the house, and tell her to turn around, go back to San Francisco, and to never bother them again.

“I’m confused,” Cal said slowly.

“I don’t know, man. All I know is we were having a good morning, or we were
going
to be having a good morning, if you get my drift, and all of a sudden she was there. Like she had a fucking key and everything.” Never in a million years would Noah have ever guessed that he’d feel comfortable talking about this with anyone other than Jack—and definitely never Cal Keller, not
ever
—but somehow that was what was happening. Fuck Tabitha and her fucking timing.

“I don’t think you get it,” Cal said, still talking so slowly, as if he couldn’t really believe this was all happening, “Tabitha hasn’t been here in years. Like her version of personal hell is Sand Point.”

“Well she’s here now,” Noah griped.

“I take it Maggie wasn’t very happy about it either.”

“Actually,” Noah said, and then paused, hesitated. Was it right to complain to Maggie’s best friend about her weird as fuck behavior this morning? Noah decided he didn’t care; he needed to tell someone or he’d go crazy with all the feelings churning inside him right now. He couldn’t tell Jack, because then he’d have to explain to Jack that he loved Maggie. Besides, Noah was fairly certain that Cal had already guessed, and that was one of the reasons he’d stopped trying to be Maggie’s personal bodyguard. “Actually, she was really strange about it.”

“She would be,” Cal said knowingly. “Maggie’s never been able to stand up to Tabby. Never.”

“I got that, yeah. It was pretty clear.” Noah looked down at the ground, at his shoes. “She kind of kicked me out.”

“Maggie kicked you out?” The fact that even Cal looked surprised was not good. Not good at all. Noah hated the way he felt right now. He’d clearly been delusional when he’d claimed to want to fall in love. Love sucked. When it was good, it was more than amazing, but when it was bad, it was the worst thing ever.

“She said she felt weird about having me there with Tabitha. And then she said she needed space. What does that even mean?” Noah whined—and he definitely knew he was whining. He was a big fat baby right now, and what he really wanted was for Jack to poke fun at him and laugh at him and tell him so. But Jack wasn’t here, and Cal was, and he’d probably still do a fairly credible job.

Cal didn’t disappoint. He just burst into laughter, throwing his head back. “You are officially pathetic, man.”

“Thank you,” Noah grumbled. “I feel so much better now.”

“She’s just scared. Tabitha makes her so uneasy. And let’s face it, Tabitha
was
your last girlfriend, before Maggie. That situation was never going to be easy.”

It wasn’t that Noah didn’t
see
that. He did. He had already had that talk with himself; about how Maggie was both the best person and the worst for him to fall for. As it turned out, you didn’t choose who you fell in love with, it choose you. What he really wanted was for Maggie to give her obnoxious sister one of those “you’ve got to be fucking kidding me” glares that she handed out like candy to everyone else and fight for him. Fight her natural reaction to just let Tabitha ruin everything.

Then it hit Noah. Maybe that was what love really was—even if he wanted her to fight for him, maybe she couldn’t, so he’d have to fight for her instead. It was a revelation. Noah felt the thunderclouds that had followed him around all morning being to lift, and suddenly he knew what he needed to do.

“Maybe it’s easier than we all think,” Noah contemplated.

Calvin had returned to his tablet, though Noah had the distinct impression he wasn’t reading anything on the screen, he was only pretending.

And wasn’t that interesting? Noah thought. He remembered again how when he’d first arrived in Sand Point, Cal’s disapproval had seemed tangled up in both Maggie
and
Tabitha.

Noah glanced over at Cal again and wondered. But that would be really
crazy, and Cal seemed like he had his shit too much together to potentially risk everything on a bad bet like Tabitha.

Then he remembered what he’d just realized.
You didn’t choose love; love chose you.

When Maggie finally left her comfortable cocoon of the steam-filled bathroom and ventured into the hallway, and then her bedroom, she was both relieved and
unfortunately, more than a little dismayed, that Noah had done exactly what she’d requested and left.

The duffel that had been sitting on the old-fashioned carved chest at the foot of her bed was gone. His shoes, where he’d toed them off last night before falling into bed with her, were missing. The house felt quiet. Too quiet.

Maggie gave a half-hearted glimpse into the mirror and hated the indecision she could see in her eyes. The same indecision that always seemed to crop up when it came to her sister.

You will not be weak anymore
, she insisted to herself and squaring her shoulders, ventured down the hallway, to the guest bedroom.

Tabitha was methodically unpacking her own suitcase, and Maggie felt her heart sink a little at the sheer size of it. Even with Tabby’s clotheshorse tendencies, she was clearly here for at least a week. Through Christmas, then, and maybe a few days beyond. Maggie was obviously a terrible sister because all she felt at the thought of spending her holidays with Tabitha was pure, unadulterated dread.

“He left,” Tabitha pointed out, not even bothering to glance up from the contents of her suitcase. “You didn’t have to kick him out. We’re all adults.”

Technically yes, they all were. But Maggie still felt like she was thirteen and had just gotten caught crushing on her big sister’s boyfriend.

“I have to go to work,” Maggie said instead of admitting any of the shame she shouldn’t feel. It was bad enough that Tabitha had probably already guessed. She wasn’t going to further humiliate herself by confessing it out loud.

Tabitha glanced up, and Maggie hated the lump in her throat as she looked at her sister. Who, even dressed in a loose sweater, jeans and probably almost no makeup, was still ridiculously beautiful. Her eyes were an unnaturally glowing shade of ocean blue, and her hair was both flawless and casual, as if it just
happened
to fall that way, in loose waves around her heart-shaped face.

Maggie had truly believed before this moment that she’d completely come to terms with their differences. If you’d asked her yesterday if she felt jealous of Tabitha, she would have insisted that she wasn’t envious of anything Tabby possessed.

It turned out that Maggie was apparently a huge liar—even to herself.

It didn’t matter that Noah had seemed perfectly content with her looks. In fact, Maggie realized, this wasn’t even about him, really. It was about her own damn insecurities. She’d believed she’d cured them, but instead it turned out that she’d only buried them. And that wasn’t going to work at all.

“I can’t believe you have to go to the Café right now. I just got here,” Tabitha complained, setting a hand on her hip and of course, pulling a complete attitude change from just thirty minutes before. No doubt that little performance had been for Noah.

Maggie couldn’t help it. She just rolled her eyes at how fucking presumptuous Tabby was. It had been years since she’d been home, but nothing had really changed. “Believe it or not, I’m not able to just rearrange my schedule when you show up unannounced.” Maggie paused. “And on that particular subject, why are you even here?”

“I told you. You shouldn’t be alone for Christmas.”

“I’m hardly alone,” Maggie ground out.

Tabitha’s blue eyes narrowed. “Oh, that’s right. Noah’s here. Do you really think you can catch him and hold onto him, Mags?”

Before Tabitha had shown up and stuck her stupidly perfect nose into their lives, that was actually exactly what Maggie had begun to believe.

“What we have is none of your business,” Maggie insisted awkwardly.