Marrying Maddy (3 page)

Maddy shook her head. “Allie! Don't tell me you actually want to spy on the new neighbors, see their furniture, probably make insulting cracks about every second piece that comes out of the truck.”

“And there's something wrong with this?” Allie's smile faded even as her green eyes twinkled. “Don't let this miracle of plastic surgery fool you. I'm old now, Maddy, and just have to get my kicks wherever I can find them. So humor me, okay?”

Jessie was already on her feet. “Come on, Maddy, it'll be fun.”

“For you, maybe,” Maddy said, also getting to her feet. “But Matt and I wanted to buy that house, remember? If I'm going to scope out the new neighbors, I'd much rather do it with Grandad's old hunting rifle. Buying the place right out from under us like that, topping our bid with a
one-time
offer the Realtor couldn't refuse.”

“I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse,” Jessie said, her voice rather muffled, as if she were speaking with marshmallows in her cheeks. “So, are you saying we've got nefarious characters moving into the old Harris house?”

“No, Jessie. What I'm saying is that I have next to no interest in our new neighbors. You and Allie go spy on them if you want. I'll be out back, checking on my roses.” And taking a peek in the first mirror she saw on her way out, because her upper lip suddenly felt rather
fat.

“Speaking of roses, I heard that the new owner is going to cut down all of Miriam Harris's rose gardens and replace them with a second tennis court, or something like that,” Allie said as she walked away.

“What! How—how could they
do
that? Miriam's roses have been there for fifty years, at least.” Maddy followed after Almira, nearly jogging to keep up with her grandmother's brisk steps, all thoughts of mirrors and her possibly fat lip banished. “I mean, are these people absolute
idiots?
Who needs two tennis courts?”

Mrs. Ballantine stood at attention in the hallway, conveniently armed with a huge pair of vintage World War II field glasses, which she wordlessly passed to Almira before stepping back to let the three women pass. To an observant person, the two women performed like a well-trained tag-team wrestling duo. But Almira's grandchildren weren't being all that observant right now. At least one of them wasn't, anyway.

“Who needs two tennis courts? I don't know, dear, why don't you look and see?” Almira answered, already in the mostly glass-sided morning room, the door closed behind them. Besides being the best vantage point to the driveway next door, the large, wicker-filled atrium was a family favorite for resting, and curling up with a good book.

Almira's husband had added the room as an anniversary present years ago, and the only solid wall in the room was taken up with floor-to-ceiling bookcases stuffed three deep with romance novels. Sarah had them all cross-indexed and alphabetized, and a small card catalog stood in the far corner. Almira Chandler was very serious about her cherished books. Very serious.

Almira shoved the binoculars into Maddy's hands—it was either take the things or have them jammed into her gut. “Why don't you take a peek, and then maybe you can tell me what an idiot looks like. Or didn't I mention that the owner is already on the property, overseeing the unloading of what looks to be a small mountain of boxes?”

Jessie, who had been watching all of this with a rather confused smile on her face—as she knew their grandmother never did anything without a reason—helpfully drew back the sheer curtains to give her sister a better view.

Maddy lifted the binoculars to her eyes, knowing that somehow she had been roped into doing what her grandmother wanted, again. She blinked as she saw nothing but fuzzy greenery through the lenses, then adjusted both the knob on the binoculars and her direction, slowly moving her sight along the sweep of lawn, past the white-painted split-rail fence covered in trailing red roses that divided the two properties.

Now more grass, trees and the start of the sweep of brick driveway that made a huge semicircle in front of the Harris house. She'd planned to plant white petunias and blue alyssum along both sides of that long driveway, as a complement to the blue-
gray stone and creamy white wood trim of the house. With a couple of red geraniums mixed in, to pick up the dull red in the bricked driveway.

So many plans. So many things she was going to do with that house. Holding on to the heavy binoculars with only one hand, she used the other to run her fingernails over the wedge of bared flesh above her vest.

Feet. She saw feet. Male feet. Bare feet, standing on the brick driveway. Giving the powerful binoculars another small adjustment, she moved them slightly upward. Past remarkably straight legs, to a pair of khaki cutoffs and a white shirt with some sort of logo on it.

Too tiny to make out, even with the field glasses.

Maddy took a breath, moved the binoculars another fraction. Forgot about the itch on her chin.

“Joe.”

She said his name calmly, as if she had been expecting to see what she now saw. Why, she didn't know. It had to be something about the knees, or something like that. Joe had great knees, not knobby at all. Her mind must have recognized them even before she saw his face. And now that mind had gone on Stun.

She didn't itch anymore. She could safely say that. Because she was suddenly
numb,
all over.

“Who, Maddy?”

“I think that's
whom,
Jessie, dear,” Almira said, moving closer to Maddy. “Did you say Joe? I thought you said Joe. But you couldn't have said Joe, could you? I mean, what would that mean?”

Maddy was still staring through the binoculars, watching as Joe moved, pointed to a stack of boxes,
said something to one of the workers. Smiled. Showed that single dimple in his left cheek. Made her heart flip over, land again with a sickening
thud.

“I'm going to kill him,” she announced quietly, matter-of-factly.

By now, Jessie understood what was happening. Not all of it, of course. But enough to know that trouble was coming—with a capital
T.
She grabbed the binoculars from her sister. “Joe? Joe O'Malley?
Your
Joe O'Malley? Ohmigod, Maddy!
Where?
Which one?”

“It doesn't matter, Jessie. He'll be dead before you can meet him.”

Jessie squinted as she ran the binoculars over the figure of Joe O'Malley, at last getting a glimpse of the guy who had broken her sister's heart. “Wow, cute. No wonder you—well, never mind.” Sorry she'd said what she said, she quickly passed the binoculars to Allie as she took hold of her sister's arm. “Now, Maddy…”

“I'm having a nightmare, aren't I?” Maddy said, shaking off Jessie's hand. “First Great-Aunt Harriet, and now Joe O'Malley. It has to be a nightmare. But, if I shoot him, I'll wake up. Why, the bang alone would wake me, right? That should work.”

Almira hadn't used the binoculars, just placed them on a small table and walked toward the closed door leading to the hallway. She stood there, silently, her expression blank, and laid a hand on the doorknob.

“This way, darling,” she said, opening the door as Maddy stomped around the room in circles, her fists clenched, her mind going in sixteen directions
at once. “May I suggest the front door? It's the fastest way.”

“
Allie,
for God's sake, don't
help
her,” Jessie said in mingled exasperation and…could it be relief? No, that couldn't be it. She felt sorry for her baby sister. Truly she did.

“Why not, Jessie?” Maddy said as, at last, everything fell into place. Every little bit of what was happening to her at this moment. “She brought
him
here, didn't she?”

Almira Chandler put one fluttering, newly manicured hand to her chest. “
I
brought him here? Why, Madeline Chandler, shame on you. What
are
you saying?”

Maddy growled low in her throat, like an animal about to pounce, then straightened her shoulders and headed past her grandmother. “No, I don't have time for this. You I can kill any time. Joe first!”

Mrs. Ballantine slipped into the room, her head turned to watch as Maddy stomped down the hallway on the way to the front door. She waited until she could hear the door slam, wincing only slightly as the chandelier in the foyer tinkled a bit in the passing breeze.

“Shame on you, Mrs. Chandler,” she said, shaking her head. “Bringing an old heartache into Miss Maddy's life just a week before her wedding to that nice Mr. Garvey. How could you have done such a thing to that poor little girl?”

“I don't know, Mrs. Ballantine, I really don't,” Almira replied, sighing. “It must be this old age of mine. I just seem to do the most outlandish things.”

Jessie looked from one woman to the other. Nei
ther smiled. Neither allowed a single emotion to show on her face.

“Why, you two
sneaks!
You've been planning this together, haven't you?”

“Darling,” Almira said reasonably, “Mrs. Ballantine and I can't even plan menus together, not without nearly coming to blows.”

Jessie thought about this for a moment, then pointed her finger at her grandmother, then at Mrs. Ballantine. She opened her mouth, wagged her finger a time or two as she searched her brain for something to say, anything to say. And then she let her arm drop to her side and said simply, “Thank you.”

“Whatever for?” Mrs. Ballantine said, looking as innocent as a drill sergeant could, which wasn't very much.

Jessie rubbed at her forehead, trying to tell herself that nothing had changed, nothing
would
change. Then her blue eyes widened as another thought struck her. “Allie? Mrs. Ballantine? You aren't going to say anything to Matt, are you? I mean, Maddy needs your help. Lord knows she's been a mess, especially since Joe O'Malley's company went public and his picture was on the cover of
Newsweek—
but you
aren't
going to meddle in
my
life, right? Right?”

Almira put a hand on Jessie's arm. “I don't meddle, Jessica. I never meddle. Why, I'm as surprised as you are that Joseph O'Malley bought the Harris house.”

“Yeah. Right. Sure.” Jessie kissed her grandmother's cheek. “You just keep on believing that Maddy and I believe that. And then keep your meddling out of
my
life.”

J
oe O'Malley heard the faint echo of a slamming door coming from the direction of the Chandler house. He stood stock-still, pretended for a moment he could feel the concussion of moving air and then began to count silently in his head.
Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…

When he got to
twelve,
he turned to one of the workmen. “I'm expecting someone shortly, Chad. Please just say I'm inside, okay?”

Chad lifted his Phillies cap and scratched his head. “How will I know who your visitor is?”

Joe shrugged. “Oh, I don't know, Chad. Smoke coming from her ears. Fire sparks shooting from her eyes. You'll figure it out.”

“Oh, a woman. Well, that explains it,” Chad said as Joe leisurely jogged toward the open door to his new house, stepping inside just in time to hear a rather angry bellow that had his name in it some
where, right before the words “you dirty, rotten,
miserable…
”

He smiled, and headed for the massive kitchen. Food to soothe the savage beast, that was what he needed. He hoped this particular savage beast still liked peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

He was just searching through a pile of cardboard boxes for a loaf of bread when Maddy skidded to a halt inside the kitchen.
“You.”

As openings went, that “you” was fairly ominous, and he hoped all his sharp knives were still lost somewhere inside a packing crate. He turned, slowly, and looked Maddy up and down, careful not to reveal to her how much he wanted to grab her, kiss her and make mad passionate love to her as soon as Chad and his buddies brought in the mattress.

God, how he had missed her. How he had lain awake nights, missing her. Spent his days missing her. Missing her smile, her soft mouth, her sweetly rounded body.

When he wasn't madder than hell at her, that is.

“You rang?” he drawled now, holding up the peanut butter jar, which was a pretty sad defensive weapon. “I've always wanted to say that. Oh, and what happened to your lip? You look like you ran into something.”

There wasn't any steam coming out of Maddy's ears. That had to be good, not that he'd really expected to see smoke.

But he did see green fire, not red, flashing in her eyes. Emerald-green sparks, the sort that warned that a Maddy tornado was about to strike. And then, as if something he'd said had just filtered through the
thoughts of mayhem skipping around in her brain, she brought a hand to her mouth, winced.

“Damn it! Damn you, Joe O'Malley, look what you've done to my lip!”

He leaned one hip against the counter. “Honey, I haven't had time to do that to your lip. But if you want the bottom one to match it, I'd be happy to volunteer my services. A few kisses, a little nibbling…some gentle sucking…”

She dropped her arm to her side, clenching both hands into fists. “Joe the great lover. Spare me, O'Malley.”

He shrugged, careful not to smile. Or wince. “Hey, I tried. Now, is there anything else I can do for you? I'm kind of busy, moving in and all. But, as I was just about to make myself a sandwich anyway, I suppose the least I could do is feed you. Oh, and do you know you've got great big hives all over your neck? You look kind of polka-dotted, and kinda cute. Still, you probably ought to take something.”

Maddy couldn't think of anything more to say now that the first, blind explosion of anger was behind her. Besides, she was out of breath from running all the way, she was covered in hives—which couldn't possibly add anything to her consequence, no matter what Joe said—and it was pretty hard to be cuttingly sarcastic when you could barely breathe and the man you wanted drawn and quartered was all but
goggling
at your chest as it heaved up and down with each breath.

And she was pretty sure he wasn't inspecting her for more hives.

“You 'ought my house,” she said at last, her
softly pointed but at the moment rather bumpy chin thrust in his direction. That was pretty lame, certainly didn't convey all the emotions churning inside her, and she was having trouble pressing her lips together to form the letter
B,
but it would do for a start. “O'Malley, you 'ought my damn house!”

“Is this where I plead innocence, or just when I ask you what in hell you're talking about? I
ought
this house from the Harrises. Nice people, by the way. I met them this morning during closing on the property. They're moving to Arizona, you know. Something about golfing all year round…gardening in every season. Something like that. Um, maybe you should sit down, Maddy. You're not looking too good.”

You are,
she thought to herself, but she'd rather cut out her own tongue with a rusty butter knife than say so.

How had she gotten here, anyway? She'd been looking through the binoculars one minute, and the next she was all but flying across the lawn, with no clear idea what she'd say to Joe when she cornered him. Definitely without remembering that she was rapidly turning into Hive Central.

She still didn't know what to say. She could only react. To his dimpled smile. His laughing, mocking eyes. The way he lounged against the kitchen counter, his bare legs crossed at the ankles, his body one tall, dark occasion of sin. Nothing at all like the shirt-sleeved, smiling “J. P. O'Malley” she'd seen posed on the cover of
Newsweek.

She'd burned her copy. Then gone out and bought another one. Right now it was hidden in her bottom drawer, along with the stuffed penguin he'd won for
her at a local carnival, some photographs of them at the beach and a few other things she really ought to toss in the garbage.

“I'm having an allergic reaction,” she answered at last. “And, 'y the way, I hate you,” she said feelingly. “I really, really,
really
hate you.”

“Which probably means I won't be welcome at the wedding next Saturday? Too bad, as I've already got my invitation and responded in the affirmative. I chose the beef dish, in case you're wondering. You know how I never could stand fish. Is it an open bar? Probably. God, Maddy, you're cute when you're swollen, do you know that?”

That did it. Maddy stumbled toward a chair sitting smack in the middle of the room, and sat down on it. Certainly not a good move, but much preferred to the alternative, which was to fall down.

“I cannot 'elieve my very own grandmother could
do
this to me,” she said to no one in particular. “Why would she do this to me?”

“That would be Almira, right?” Joe said, locating and opening the bread loaf. “Nice lady. And very concerned for you, you know.”

“Concerned? Ha! Allie just likes to 'eddle—'
eddle.
Oh hell, you know what I 'ean.” She concentrated on controlling her numb upper lip. It was probably the same size as her nose by now. “Meddle,” she pronounced carefully. “And she seems to like Matt so much…and I
thought
she liked me….”

“She says you're unhappy,” Joe said, opening the peanut butter jar. There wasn't much sense in trying to pretend Almira Chandler hadn't help set up this entire plot. It didn't have enough twists to make such a defense plausible. So, as he'd stopped lying,
he figured he'd go back ten, and punt with the peanut butter and jelly,

“She had no 'iness—
business
—telling you that. B-because I'm not unhappy. I'm deliriously happy.
Ecstatic,
even!”

“Uh-huh. Careful, or your nose will start growing. You've got a hive on the tip of it already, you know. Is it okay if we just have peanut butter? I can't seem to locate the jelly.”

“Eighteen months,” Maddy mumbled under her breath as she reflexively rubbed at the tip of her nose. “Eighteen months of getting myself 'ack together, getting myself on my feet…”

“I'll take that as a yes,” Joe said, enjoying himself very much. After all, those hadn't just been Maddy's eighteen months; they had been his as well. And he hadn't enjoyed too damn many of them, thanks to her.

Poor baby. She really did look like she wanted to crawl out of her bumpy, reddened skin. “Would you like a side of calamine lotion with that?”

Maddy suddenly realized she was going about this all wrong. Using every bit of strength she had, she sat back in her chair and looked up at Joe. “Congratulations are in order, I suppose,” she said coldly, pronouncing every word with care. “You and Loony Larry seem to have hit the jackpot after all.”

Joe's one-sided grin made her want to jump up and pop him one in the nose.

“You always had such a flair for the understatement, Mad. Yeah, Larry and I got lucky. Hard work, genius, the guts to go for the brass ring—they had nothing to do with it. Just dumb luck, that's all.
Enough monkeys, working at enough keyboards, or however that goes, probably could have done the same thing.”

“That's not what I meant,” Maddy said, mentally biting her tongue before she could tell him not to call her Mad. She'd die before she'd tell him that, before she'd say anything else he could use against her. Wasn't it enough that he was using her own grandmother against her? The Harris house against her? His handsome, smiling face and well-remembered body against her?

Did she want his well-remembered body against her?

No, no, she couldn't think that way, wouldn't think that way. Joe was the past, long gone and supposedly forgotten. She refused to think about the hives.

Besides, Matt was her future. Kind, sweet, undemanding Matt. Theirs would be a safe, comfortable marriage, the two of them content with their mutual interests, a desire to settle down, to start a family. Matt wanted children; Maddy wanted children. And they genuinely liked each other. What was so wrong with that?

“No, of course that's not what you meant,” Joe was saying, bringing Maddy back to attention as she tried, rather vainly, to picture Matt's face in her mind's eye. “You're happy for me, I'm sure of that. It's just a shame you couldn't have been along for the ride, as it was a lot of fun. I guess you were too busy here in your safe cocoon, finding yourself a nice, safe guy to marry. Banker, right?”

Maddy had a quick vision of her grandmother standing in the center of a huge pot as she, Maddy,
lit a fire under it. “Matt is a b-banker, yes. And we're very, very happy.”

“Except that I bought
your
house out from under you?”

Now Joe stood beside her grandmother in the pot, carrots and celery floating around him, an onion in his mouth. She'd boil them into a stew.
Les Ragoût de Traîtres.
Traitor Stew. She might serve them over rice.

“I overreacted,” she said, dismissing the lovely mental picture. “Somebody b-bought the Harris house just as we were about to make a b-bid, yes. And now I know it was you. Now I know it was Allie who tipped you off. I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see her fingerprints all over this one. So, yes, I'm…
marginally
upset about that.”

“Marginally upset.” He handed her a peanut butter sandwich on a paper plate, and she took it—why, she'd never know. “I'd hate to see you really mad, Mad. Do you want something to drink? I've got some cans of soda in the fridge. Sarsaparilla, your favorite.”

Sarsaparilla.
How he'd made fun of her when she'd told him about that. How she had adored him for scouring all the grocery stores around the university, until he found some for her. And then she'd kissed him, and hugged him, and they'd sort of just
fallen
onto the couch….

“Thank you, no,” she said, her molars all but stuck together with peanut butter. Then she faced facts. She needed something to drink before she choked. “I guess I'd b-better have a glass of water, if that's all right?” Lord, was her mouth closed? Her
top lip was so huge and rubbery-feeling, she really couldn't tell.

She'd planned never to see Joe O'Malley again. At least not unless it was on her own terms. When he was down, downer and down. When she could lift him up again.

Then he'd gone and made a success of himself, so that he didn't need her at all. He'd probably made a success of himself just to spite her.

Still, here she was, and here he was, and here the hives were, screwing up what could have been a pretty good confrontation. But how do you verbally beat up a guy, call him the bastard that he was, when you couldn't even get your mouth to close enough to form proper-sounding
B
's?

How could she be sitting in Joe's kitchen—
her
kitchen, damn it!—choking down a peanut butter sandwich and talking as if discussing Allie's duplicity and his arrival on the scene were no more earth-shaking than shared comments on the weather?
Do you think it will rain? Hot enough for you? What are you doing back in my life, uninvited, living next door and offering me sarsaparilla soda?

As if he could read her thoughts, and he'd had a lot of practice, Joe said, “Amazing, isn't it, Maddy? We've been in this kitchen together for about five minutes, and we're not in each other's arms or killing each other. Who would have thunk it?”

Sudden tears pricked at Maddy's eyes. “Why are you here, Joe? I know what this house cost, and that's a little much just to prove how well you've done, just so you could rub my nose in it, isn't it?” That last bit came out as “sud my oze in it,” but she wasn't about to repeat herself.

“Rub your nose in it? Me?” Joe, pretty confident of his translation of that last statement, turned back to the kitchen counter, so that Maddy couldn't see his eyes. She'd always been way too good at reading his eyes. That was how she'd known about the company, he was sure of it, how she'd known to ask those damning questions five minutes before he could marry her, then tell her what he'd done, when it was too late to change the fact that they were married.