Maggie's Man (30 page)

He heaved himself awkwardly to his feet. His
wound wasn't as bad as he'd made it out to be—he'd figured it would take near
death to get Maggie to leave his side. But the gash was still tight. He could
feel his thigh throb hot and angry with each step. He could walk; he had no
other choice.

Maggie was safe, his first
mission accomplished. And now he had other business to attend to.

Chapter 13

«
^
»

"
B
randon! C.J.!"

Detective McDougal was in the middle of yet
another of his "very important, downright critical questions," but
Maggie didn't care. She bounded out of her seat as if it had been suddenly
electrified and flew across the room.

Four steps and she leaped full-bodied into
Brandon's open embrace, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her cheek
against his shoulder. Immediately his arms were around her, holding her as if
she were the most precious person on earth, and as if simply she was eight
again and he was twelve and together they could survive anything.

Her cheeks were suddenly damp. She thought she
felt his shoulders shake. Oh, she felt bad that he'd been so worried about her,
but it was good to see him again. Him and C.J. The three of them back together
again. They could do anything.

She forced herself to pull back long enough to
hurtle herself into C.J.'s arms, hearing him grunt on impact. Then his
well-toned arms caught her in a giant bear hug.

"Ah, kid," he murmured. "You
scared the daylights outta me."

For her response, Maggie held him even tighter.
Only slowly did she become aware of the third person discreetly clearing his
throat.

She pulled back reluctantly, already wiping at her
eyes. Brandon, impeccably clad in a charcoal-gray suit, was studying the floor
and trying to pretend moisture didn't suddenly stain his sun-beaten cheeks. His
face was grim and much leaner than she remembered. Wearing his usual faded
jeans and loose cotton shirt, C.J. was grinning—he was always grinning—but his
eyes appeared suspiciously moist as well.

Then her gaze came to rest on the new face that
had appeared between her brother and cousin. Joel. Joel Epstein. She remembered
those dark, burning eyes from the TV. How much he must have suffered. She
wanted to grab his hands and tell him it would all be over soon. Cain would
take care of everything.

Just as soon as she helped take care of Cain.

She summoned a smile to her face, shook Joel's hand
as introductions were made and began guiding him toward the door. "So nice
to meet you. Come back in ten minutes. Detective McDougal?" She began
herding him briskly as well.

The men in the room exchanged startled glances.

"Miss Ferringer, we still have
quest—"

"Of course you do. In a minute." The
detective's mouth gaped, then he worked it a few times like a fish. Maggie gave
up on benign smiles and stamped her foot.

"Excuse me," she declared in the most
chastising voice possible, "but I have just been held prisoner by an
escaped murderer for twenty-four hours. I'm exhausted, filthy, bruised and no
doubt suffering from shock. All I want is ten minutes alone with my beloved
brothers! Is that so much to ask for!
Is it?"

Her voice rose to just the right fever pitch at
the end. The room cleared in a hurry.

"Of course, ma'am."

"Sorry, ma'am."

"Let us know if you need anything,
ma'am."

"Yes, yes, yes," she assured them and
practically slammed the door of the room behind them. She turned immediately to
C.J. and Brandon, both of whom were frowning.

"Are you all right?" Brandon asked
immediately. His blue eyes skimmed down her intently, wanting to ensure that
all was well with his baby sister.

She dismissed his concern with a wave of her
hand. "Of course. How are you? And where have you been these days?"

"Indonesia. I'm fine." His gaze was
still narrow and his brow furrowed. "Are you
sure
you're all
right?"

"Indonesia?" She looked at him with
genuine shock. "That's where Max's plane crashed. Brandon, what have you been
up to?"

"Nothing." He turned to C.J.
abruptly, but C.J. just shrugged.

"You're right," C.J. agreed.
"She seems different. And what were you doing in Indonesia? I don't
remember you saying you were going to Indonesia."

Brandon ignored C.J.'s question as well,
returning his frowning expression to Maggie. "Are you
sure
you're
all right? He didn't try … anything, did he? He didn't hurt you?"

"I'm fine," she said brusquely, then
opened her mouth to launch her attack.

C.J. interrupted her at the pass. "If I didn't
know better," C.J. said abruptly to Brandon, "I'd say she found a
man."

"Hey!" She was flustered now.
"What do you mean, 'if I didn't know better'? Why can't I find a
man?" Then she gave up and decided this was as good an opening as she was
going to get. "Fine then. I found the perfect man."

"Congratulations!" C.J. said
immediately, clearly surprised, which didn't improve her mood. Abruptly, his
eyes narrowed and she could see the pieces clicking into place as he realized
what she had just said and whom she had spent the past twenty-four hours with.
"Wait a second—"

"Maggie!" Brandon exclaimed.
"What did he do? Why, that filthy—"

"Stop it!" she shouted at the top of
her lungs. "Just stop it!"

And when their jaws quietly dropped to the
floor at such a display of spirit from their meek little Maggie, she raised her
chin haughtily and stared at them with all the blazing defiance of a Hathaway
Red. "Cain's innocent," she declared in her most authoritative voice.
"In fact, right now he's being pursued by his older brother, Abraham, who
actually committed the crime. And if we don't help him, he'll never survive to
tell the truth."

She leveled them with an impatient stare,
waiting for them to hop to it.

Brandon said quietly, "You've been through
a horrible ordeal, Maggie."

"I'm going to kill him," C.J.
supplied, his tone a bit more succinct.

She stared at them both incredulously.
"Haven't you heard a word I said?"

"Of course. But we know you have a soft
heart," C.J. said soothingly. "It's something I've always admired
about you. But we all know it can be too soft—"

"Not this time!"

"Maggie, you once stopped picking
strawberries because you thought the pulling motion was too painful for the
vines."

"I was nine!"

"And you won't enter the meat section of
the grocery store."

"Well, that truly is barbaric!"

"You won't even buy a down
comforter!"

"I don't want to have a bunch of geese
running around naked because of me!"

"Maggie," Brandon interjected in an
exasperated tone of voice, "if you ever met the devil wandering the
streets, you'd take him home, fix him dinner and offer him his choice of rooms.
Worse, you'd give him your soul for free the first time he wrung his hands and
said 'pretty please.' And we all know it!"

"Cain is not the devil, Brandon. And how
would you know anyway? You've never met the man."

C.J. and Brandon both took deep breaths. She
surprised them, however, by regrouping quickly and launching a counterattack.

"Who said they would always be there for
me?" she demanded.

"We're here!" they both exclaimed.

"Oh yes, and a nice job of saving me you
did, too. You're here because I had you paged!" They both looked
immediately abashed and C.J.'s grin had slipped into a dark scowl. "And
now I am asking you for help and instead of listening to me you're treating me
to a walloping dose of patronizing anecdotes. I won't stand for it!" She
wagged her finger at them in a fine impersonation of their grandmother. "I
have always been there for you, I have always trusted you. I put up with you,
Brandon, though you jet around the globe, are impossible to find and are
scaring the living daylights out of all of us with your strange, Maxlike
behavior. I put up with you, C.J., though I know perfectly well you do more
than just run a bar in Sedona and your weakness for troubled women and lost
causes will probably keep you from living to a ripe old age. Now I'm asking you
two to do the same for me. And you can either sit down, shut up and listen, or
turn around and walk out that door. But one way or another, I'm going to help
Cain.

"And
you're going to be very nice to him when you finally meet him or I'll leak to
the press how the brilliant millionaire Brandon Ferringer once got sprayed down
by a skunk as you tried to sneak up on it because you'd read somewhere that you
could catch and sell them. I believe we even have a lovely picture of you
standing buck naked on the patio while Grandma dumped tomato juice over your
head." She whirled on C.J. "Then I'll describe how a big strong
Marine like you used to run screaming from butterflies because Brandon told you
they were genetically engineered vampire bats. I'm sure photos can be
arranged."

Brandon and C.J. remained suspended for a
moment, exchanging cornered glances.

"I liked her better when she was my little
sister," Brandon murmured.

"I think she's gone and grown up on
us," C.J. agreed.

"If he hurts her, you know what we'll have
to do to him."

"Oh, yeah." C.J. shrugged
philosophically. "But I think now we have to let her have the first crack at
him. She's not too bad, you know. When she scowls, she looks just like
you."

Brandon blinked startled eyes at that. Maggie
beamed proudly. "So you're in?"

"Of course," Brandon grumbled. He
gave her another once-over, then submitted with a sigh. "You know we worry
about you."

"I know," she said quietly.
"Maybe I've let you worry too much. Maybe it's time for me to stop letting
you fight my wars."

"Maggie, you know we don't see it like
that—"

She held up a silencing hand, then gave up and stepped
forward enough to catch her brother's hand. "But I saw it like that,
Brandon. I did. And now I'm twenty-seven years old and I want to stand on my
own two feet. I know you still don't believe me, but Cain is innocent. Once
you've spoken to him, once you realize what kind of man he is, you'll know he
couldn't have committed murder. You'll like him, Brandon. He's so much like
you."

"You've only known him for twenty-four
hours," Brandon warned softly.

Her expression settled. She looked at him
levelly. "And how long did you know Julia before you realized she was the
one?"

His face tightened spasmodically, that ache
slashing through his eyes and hurting her because she knew she'd inflicted the
pain by mentioning Julia's name. Maggie had never seen Brandon happier than the
day he'd stood at the altar with the sassy, irreverent Julia at his side. And
she'd never seen him so lost as the day he stood shell-shocked beside his
lovely wife's grave.

He didn't say anything now. She hadn't thought
that he would. But his fingers squeezed hers and that was enough.

She turned enough for her gaze to include C.J.
"All right," she said quietly. "We need a plan."

The sky was growing dark when Maggie and C.J. crept back up the hillside. It
was only two o'clock, but storm clouds were gathering and another spring
downpour seemed imminent. They'd sent Brandon into town to purchase supplies,
including any surveillance equipment possible. In the meantime, Maggie and C.J.
had retrieved the field first-aid kit C.J. had brought with him from the trunk
of the rental car and they were off to find Cain. Of course, C.J. had suggested
he go alone and Maggie attend to some vague duty such as "keeping others
occupied." She'd set him straight in a hurry—she was going up that hill to
help Cain.

There weren't many officers to keep busy
anymore anyway. Most were merrily encircling Bend after Maggie had told them
Cain planned backtracking and holing up for a spell. Only Joel and Detective
McDougal remained, and that was because ostensibly they had more questions for
Maggie. She'd informed them she needed a nap first and she would come find them
when she woke up. Really, these covert activities weren't as difficult as she
would have guessed.

Now, the stark red hillside was barren and
quiet. The wind whipped at her cheeks, pressing the light cotton of her new
khaki pants against her legs. The black baseball cap covered her hair and she
still wore the too-big T-shirt, though Brandon had brought fresh clothes for
her. The cap and T-shirt tied her to Cain, and she didn't want to lose those
ties.

C.J. paused in front of her, finally twisting
his flattened body enough to peer back at her.

"I think I see the ravine. Is he
armed?"

"Yes."

"Is he going to shoot me?"

"Oh." She hadn't thought of that.
"Maybe I should go first."