Home at Rose Cottage (24 page)

She was enjoying the routine they’d worked out. While Rick spent the mornings roaming the area, camera in hand, taking photographs of the region, she puttered around the kitchen trying out new recipes, which he was more than happy to taste when he got back from his wanderings.

When they weren’t playing one of the games she’d found tucked in a box upstairs, they talked about their days like an old married couple.

When she’d asked what he intended to do with all the pictures he was taking, he’d told her he planned to convince some splashy magazine to combine the shots with a travel article he’d been urging her to write.

“Trying to draw more people to the middle of nowhere?” she inquired, lips quirking.

“Something like that, at least in small numbers. Have you seen the osprey around here? They’re amazing. There’s so much undisturbed land. It needs to be protected. The bay’s already in trouble. I read a report this morning on the impact pollution is having on the fish, the crabs and, worst of all, on the oyster harvest.”

She laughed at his indignation, not because she didn’t agree with it, but because even away from work, he’d found something to become passionate about, a cause she shared, as a matter of fact. Only since coming back to her grandmother’s cottage had she rediscovered the magical beauty of this place, and she didn’t want thoughtless people destroying it for generations to come. Maybe she would write that travel article and make it a plea for preserving some of the pristine land that remained and saving the bay for the watermen who worked it for a living.

In the meantime, though, she was trying to plan the food pages for the magazine’s September issue. Just because she was on vacation didn’t mean she could delay her deadline. Her editor was sending almost daily emails begging for some clue about what she had in mind.

Back-to-school lunches had been done to death. What was wrong with peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, anyway? Nor could she get excited about doing yet another spread on football tailgate menus. September was too late to focus on summer vegetables and too early to write about soups. She needed a fresh angle, something entirely new, at least for
Cityside
readers, and it wasn’t coming to her.

Thoroughly frustrated by the lack of ideas, she waited
anxiously for Rick to arrive. Maybe he could inspire her. He usually did, though his form of inspiration had less to do with food than it did with other passions she was trying to resist.

When he walked in the door, he crossed the room, dropped a kiss on her forehead and sat down on the sofa beside her. Before he could even say hello, she said, “Picture this. It’s a cool September evening and you’ve just come home from a long day at work. What’s on your mind?”

He gave her a long, lingering look that set off sparks and spoke volumes.

“Not that,” she said impatiently. “I mean for dinner. What do you want? What food says fall to you?”

He stared at her blankly. “Huh?”

“Oh, come on,” she said, nudging him in the ribs. “You know what I mean. In summer we wait for the first tomato off the vine or the first watermelon or the first peach pie. At Christmas we can’t wait to start baking cookies. See what I mean?”

He nodded, his expression turning thoughtful. “Apples,” he said at last. “Apples for school lunch boxes. Apple cobbler. Bobbing for apples. Sweet apples. Tart apples.”

“Bingo.” Maggie grinned as the spread began to take shape in her mind. “I knew we’d make a great team. Want an assignment?”

“Doing what?”

“Pictures of apples for the September issue of the magazine. I’m not asking for a freebie. I can call your agent tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry about Frank. What kind of pictures did you have in mind?”

“Maybe you can find some orchards around here someplace. That would provide a great backdrop for the
pictures. We could do a red-checked tablecloth on the ground with apple pies and cobblers. I’ll start looking for recipes tonight.”

“Hold on a minute,” he said, his expression thoughtful. “Forget all those cookbooks of yours. I know the perfect recipe for you to use.”

“You do? How?”

“Remember that pie I brought home a while back? I told you about the restaurant where I got it.”

Maggie recalled that pie. It had been heavenly. “Is it baked there?”

“No, it’s baked by an eighty-year-old woman who lives over toward Reedville. Seems to me she could be at the heart of your story.”

Maggie considered the idea. “Does she have an orchard?” she wondered aloud.

“I never asked. I only know she bakes like a dream.”

“Can you find out?”

“Sure.”

She beamed at him. “This is perfect. It’s probably some old family recipe that she used to make for her children and grandchildren, then the neighbors. Now it’s a community favorite. It’ll give new meaning to the idea of the apple pie as an all-American dessert. Do you think the restaurant is open now? Can you call and get this woman’s name?”

“Not until we do this,” he said, drawing her into his arms. “All that talk of food has made me hungry.”

She gazed into his eyes and saw the unmistakable heat. Unless she was very much mistaken, it wasn’t food he was hungry for.

“Rick?”

“Sssh,” he said. “Don’t talk. Just let me taste you.” His
mouth covered hers. His hands began to roam, following the curve of her hip, the gentle swell of her breast.

She was breathless by the time he released her. Regret washed over her. Why had he quit? she wondered, but it wasn’t what she asked. Instead, trying to keep her voice steady, she asked, “What was that for? You’ve been following the ground rules so carefully. What happened tonight?”

He grinned. “You’re so sexy when you talk about work and food. You get all passionate and excited. It makes me want to be part of it.”

She laughed, though there was a nervous edge to it. The temperature in the room had escalated by a good ten degrees. She’d been in saunas that were cooler. Her willpower, so carefully nurtured up till now, was withering faster than a daisy out of water.

“That must mean you’re starving,” she said, making one last desperate attempt to pretend that she didn’t know that the rules between them had suddenly changed. “Can I assume you want dinner? Here or out?”

“Out’s safer,” he said, his expression solemn.

It was, but Maggie was suddenly feeling reckless. Impulsiveness had always gotten her into trouble, so she made one last attempt to tamp it down.

“Probably wise,” she said, but without much conviction.

“Are you feeling particularly wise?” Rick asked quietly, watching her intently.

“Not really,” she admitted. In fact, wisdom had pretty much flown out the window about ten minutes ago. She gave herself a minute to see if it would come surging back, but it didn’t.

“In fact,” she said eventually, “let’s eat in.” She bounced
up to get started before wisdom could kick in, but Rick caught her hand.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “We had a deal. I need to be perfectly clear here. This is about more than dinner, Maggie. I want you.”

She nodded slowly. It was time to be honest. It was time to trust the feelings that hadn’t gone away, feelings that had only gotten stronger.

“And I want you,” she admitted. “I think we’ve both been patient long enough.”

He stroked a finger along the curve of her jaw. Her pulse jumped, then skittered crazily. She was making the right decision. She had to be.

“Be certain, Maggie,” Rick begged. “I’d rather be patient days or even weeks longer, if it means you won’t wake up in the morning with regrets.”

“No regrets,” she promised. Whatever happened, she wouldn’t regret it. Not this time.

And morning would be soon enough to worry about whether or not her impulsiveness was going to set the experiment back. Or whether it even mattered anymore.

R
ick fought off the sense of urgency that had his blood pumping hard through his veins. He intended to take it slow and easy with Maggie tonight, to savor every moment of anticipation. Now that she’d agreed to sleep with him again, he planned to let the evening unfold at its own pace.

The risk, of course, was that she’d change her mind, but it was a risk worth taking to savor this sweet anticipation. Watching the color rise in her cheeks each time their hands brushed, feeling the leap of her pulse when he skimmed a finger along her wrist, made every second of the delay worthwhile.

He stepped up behind her as she rinsed lettuce in the sink and trapped her there with his body, his arms linked loosely around her waist.

“What are you up to?” she asked, a breathless hitch in her voice.

“Helping,” he said, all innocence.

“Really?”

“Sure. I’ll wash the vegetables for the salad for you,” he offered.

“Then I can get the chicken ready to go in the oven,” she said, though she didn’t try to move away.

“Why would you want to do that when this teamwork is going so well?” he asked, picking up the vegetables she’d dropped and holding them under the running water. To do it, he had to press his body even more tightly to hers.

She laughed. “Is that what you call this? Teamwork? Now that you’ve got the lettuce, peppers and tomatoes under the faucet, I’m just standing here. That’s not much of a contribution.”

“Sure, it is. You’re providing inspiration.”

“I suspect what I’m really providing is a cheap thrill,” she taunted, deliberately wriggling her hips in a move designed to drive him mad.

Rick’s breath caught as every bit of blood rushed south. “Bad move, darlin’, at least if you hope to have dinner anytime soon.”

“Thought so,” she taunted triumphantly. “Let me go so I can fix the chicken.”

“I’m not stopping you,” he insisted.

“You’re not getting out of my way, either.”

Rick chuckled at her firm refusal to try to wriggle free on her own. He finally stepped aside. “Bet you don’t have this much fun in that test kitchen at work.”

“I don’t know,” she said, her expression thoughtful. “Mordecai is pretty sexy.”

He stared at her. “Who the hell is Mordecai?”

“My assistant.”

Rick didn’t recall any sexy males around the
Cityside
test kitchen. “Really? Was he at the photo shoot?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He’s shy.”

“You have an assistant who’s sexy and shy?” Rick asked, unable to hide his skepticism.

“Very sexy, very shy,” Maggie confirmed.

Rick studied her with a narrowed gaze. “You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you? There is no Mordecai.”

“Of course there is. I would never lie to you.”

“But…?”

“There’s no but,” she insisted.

His suspicions were not allayed. Nor was this unexpected and totally unfamiliar streak of jealousy. “Well, there’s definitely something you’re not telling me,” he groused.

She laughed then. “You are so hysterical. You’re practically turning split-pea-green right in front of me.”

“If you’re suggesting that I’m jealous, you’re nuts,” he retorted, though the truth was he wanted to find this Mordecai person and remind him very forcefully that Maggie was officially off-limits. Come to think of it, maybe he should punch the guy for good measure.

“Then you don’t care if I spend a lot of late nights with Mordecai?” she asked, looking innocent as a lamb.

He studied her with a narrowed gaze and concluded she was having way too much fun at his expense. He knew precisely how to put a stop to that.

“No more than you care if I spend a lot of late nights with the
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit models,” he retorted just as innocently.

As Rick had expected, her amusement instantly vanished. “Mordecai is very sweet and very sexy,” she repeated, then added, “for a seventy-year-old man.”

Rick felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off his chest. “Ah, I see.”

She gave him a hard look. “Now’s the part where you
tell me you’re only doing landscape photography for the rest of your life.”

He had a hunch she wasn’t entirely joking. “I can’t do that, Maggie.”

She sighed with undisguised disappointment. “No, I suppose not.”

“My work isn’t really going to be a problem, is it?”

“I wish I could say it won’t be, but I honestly don’t know,” she admitted. “It’s not very enlightened of me, is it? I’m sorry.”

“Forget about being enlightened,” Rick said with a trace of impatience. “Tell me what I have to do to prove to you that you have nothing to worry about.”

“I don’t think you can prove it,” Maggie told him. “I think this is something I have to work out for myself. It won’t happen overnight, either. It’ll take time.”

Rick had no idea where this low self-esteem of hers came from. From the instant they’d met, he would have bet money that Maggie had more confidence than any ten women, but maybe that was just in the professional arena. He studied her intently.

“Would it help if I hauled you up to bed right this instant and showed you just how much you excite me?”

She frowned at him. “You are such a guy,” she accused. “You think everything can be solved with sex. I
know
we’re fantastic together in bed.”

Rick bit back a sigh. He’d gotten it exactly wrong, after all. “Maggie, you’re going to have to help me out here. I
am
a guy. And you’re sending out a million signals, but they’re getting garbled.”

She whirled on him, looking as if she might explode, but then all the steam went out of her. “You’re right,” she said at last.

She looked so forlorn, he couldn’t help reaching for her.
She resisted at first, her body still and filled with tension. “Come on, sweetheart. I’m not hitting on you, at least not right this second. I just want to hold you. I want you to talk to me,” he urged. “Tell me what you want, what kind of reassurance you need for this to work.”

“I need to know this thing between us is about more than sex,” she said simply.

“Of course, it is,” Rick said, then realized there was no
of course
about it. He tried to find the right words to reassure her. “When I agreed to stay here and keep my hands to myself, it was because you matter to me.
You,
Maggie, not just your body. Otherwise I would have hit the road. I’m not sure where this is going or why it’s so important to me that we give it a try. I just know that I couldn’t walk away from you the way I have every other woman I’ve been with.” He searched her face. “Is that enough for you for now?”

To his astonishment, tears were welling up in her eyes. She nodded. “More than enough.”

Because he didn’t want to make another mistake, he asked, “Does that mean I can forget about sleeping here tonight?”

Even as the tears spilled down her cheeks, she laughed. “No, you’re staying, Flannery. I’m getting tired of going to bed all alone when you’re right across town. And every time you touch me, I’m reminded of how much I’ve been missing by being so stubborn.”

“Really?” She sounded so eager, he risked pushing for more. “Does that mean I can pack up and move over here?”

For an instant he thought she was going to say yes, but he could see the internal war she was waging over the question. Before she could reply, he touched a finger to her lips. “Never mind,” he said, hoping that the short-term
sacrifice he was making would pay off in the long run. “Let’s concentrate on tonight. We’ll worry about tomorrow another time.”

It wasn’t enough that Rick could make the very air around her sizzle, now the man had to go and get all sensitive and intuitive on her. Maggie was pretty sure she was going to be head over heels in love with him before too much longer if he kept this up.

“That can’t happen,” she told herself sternly. She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until she saw the quizzical expression on Rick’s face as he sat across from her at the kitchen table.

“It was nothing,” she assured him. “Just talking to myself.”

“Anything you’d like to share?”

“Nope. Are you ready for dessert?”

“Only if we can eat it in bed,” he said, his gaze locked with hers.

Maggie shivered with anticipation. “Dessert can wait.”

Rick grinned. “Good answer,” he said, scooping her up from her chair and cradling her against his chest. “What about the dishes?”

Maggie felt a little twinge of conscience about leaving them where they sat on the table, but one look in Rick’s eyes pretty much dispelled that. “They’ll be here in the morning.”

His smile spread. “That’s my girl, throwing caution to the wind.”

Little did he know that she usually did. She fought off the mental reminder that she’d been trying to change that. “Kiss me,” she pleaded.

“Upstairs,” Rick promised.

“No, now.”

“We might not get upstairs,” he warned. “I’m just about clean out of self-control.”

She grinned. “Good. Me, too.”

This time the trail of clothes led only as far as the living room. With Rick’s hands all over her body, caressing and coaxing, Maggie wondered why she’d ever held out. Wicked sensations, heart-stopping anticipation, the lick of fire through her veins, these were the most basic of life forces. Why should she deny herself this, especially with a man who excelled at it?

She was already on the edge, every nerve raw, every muscle tensed, when Rick finally entered her and sent her reeling. He waited for her delicious spasms to end and then started to move, his gaze on her face.

It was only as she looked into his eyes that she got the difference between this man and every other man she’d ever been with. Rick was looking back at her, reading her, intent on pleasing her. This wasn’t just about his pleasure, or even hers. It was about theirs. It was about the two of them, united for this moment, body and perhaps even soul.

Suddenly, for the first time ever, she truly understood what all those storybook romances were talking about. And even as she came undone, even as waves of pleasure crashed over her, somewhere deep inside, the magical intensity of it scared her to death.

Rick reluctantly crawled out of Maggie’s bed at dawn, gave her a lingering kiss goodbye, then went back to his place to shower and change and make arrangements for the photo shoot she wanted him to do. More than that, though, he needed a little time on his own to think about what had changed between them the night before.

Something had, there was no question about that. He’d seen it in her eyes, a sudden spark of awareness, a sudden look of shock, to be honest. He’d tried to interpret it, but he couldn’t. Maybe it was another one of those inexplicable female things that a mere man would never get. For an instant, he’d even wondered if it was the difference he’d always heard about between having sex and making love. Did that awareness come crashing over a person in a heartbeat?

He groaned at himself. When had he ever given a damn about putting a label on what happened with a woman in bed? He wasn’t going to figure it out on his own, and it was hardly something he intended to discuss with the guys. Maggie had clearly gotten some crazy notion that he was sensitive, but he wasn’t
that
sensitive. This was beyond him, which meant he’d just have to backburner it for another time.

Instead, as soon as he’d had his second cup of coffee, he called Mike to check into the orchard situation around the region. Surely a landscape designer who did jobs all over would be able to point him in the right direction.

“You’re up awfully early,” Mike said, then added a little too cheerfully, “Having trouble sleeping these days?”

Rick glanced at the clock and realized it wasn’t even seven yet. “Geez, man, I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

“Hardly. I have to hit the road any minute now. I’m meeting Jeff for breakfast. Want to join us?”

The prospect of having those two cross-examine him held no appeal. “Not today. I called to see if you know of any apple orchards around the region.”

“I don’t, but Jeff would. Give him a call. He’ll be up,” Mike said. “It’s a little soon in the season to go picking apples, though.”

“I’m not interested in picking them. Maggie wants
pictures for the magazine. And I’m hoping she can snag this incredible recipe for apple pie while she’s at it.”

“Are you telling me that a woman who writes about gourmet food can’t bake an apple pie?” Mike asked.

“I don’t think anyone bakes a pie quite like the one I’ve been getting at a little country restaurant over by Callao. Do you know the place?”

“Afraid not.”

“You should try it. The pie alone is worth the drive. If you’re free for lunch, you could come with me. I need to get information about the woman who bakes them. Willa-Dean, she’s the waitress, says the woman lives somewhere near Reedville.”

“Wait a minute, that must be Mrs. Keller,” Mike said. “Her pies are always the hottest baked goods at the church bazaar. I’ll bet Jeff can tell you how to find her. If he’s not around when you call the nursery, ask Pam. She’s as knowledgeable about the area as he is, and she usually works on the bazaar, so she’s bound to know Mrs. Keller.”

“Thanks, pal.”

“So,” Mike ventured casually, “everything okay with you and Maggie?”

Rick laughed at the sudden switch in topic, to say nothing of Mike’s lousy attempt at subtlety. “Are you asking for yourself or gathering information for your wife?”

Mike chuckled. “Both. She’s hanging over my shoulder right now.”

“Then Maggie and I are doing just fine,” Rick assured them both. “That’s the official statement.”

“No details?”

“Not a one.”

“Ah, well, at least Melanie knows I tried.”

“Think that will satisfy her?” Rick asked curiously.

“Not a chance,” Melanie chimed in. “I guess I’ll just have to go over to the house and pester my sister.”

“Sorry,” Rick said, not feeling the first hint of guilt over the lie he was about to tell. He would just work hard to make sure it turned into the truth before Melanie could get over there. “She won’t be home today.”