Chasing the Sunset(24)

“I live over there, at Revelle’s.” She pointed in the general direction of the farm.

“Horses, right?”

Maggie nodded. “I am the housekeeper. Nick Revelle owns the farm, and my Uncle Ned is the head stableman.” She sat herself comfortably down on the ground, spread her skirts around her, and patted the stump for him to sit on. “This will be easier for you to get up from,” she said, eyeing the carved cane. He sat easily, and she chattered on as naturally as if they had been friends for years. He listened as intently to her nattering on as if she were telling him the secret to Life.

“My friend Kathleen works there, too. She is about my age, and she is the only friend I have had for years . . .”

Duncan and Maggie met often in the forest after that. Sometimes she would take a walk and he would just show up; one minute there was no-one, and the next he was there. He often left as silently as he showed up. Maggie would be in the middle of a sentence, turn to ask him something, and he would be gone. Maggie got used to his silent comings and goings. She hardly even turned a hair at them anymore. She never asked him about himself, or what he was doing here. She sensed instinctively that he would eventually tell her all she wanted to know, without questions. hey talked of more important things than that, anyway. Duncan was surprisingly well-read, and something of an intellectual, and he and Maggie had lively discussions on everything from Plato to the fall of the Roman Empire.

“They had all those things,” he had said quietly in that voice of his that seemed to come from the bottom of his chest, getting deeper and darker the farther it came. “But they did not really understand what was important. They forgot about love, and dignity, and worshiped at the altar of greed and sensation instead.”

It was in a moment of accord just like that Nick found them. He had come seeking Maggie over some inconsequential thing; he refused to admit even to himself that the reason he had sought Maggie out was just to be near her. Maggie was sitting on the banks of the river, her legs bared and kicking at the sparkling water. She had leaned back on her arms and was laughing delightedly at something a big, handsome man was saying to her. The man was obviously part Indian, Nick could tell that from here. A friend of his father’s had been Cherokee, and Nick recognized some of the facial features that Indians have in common. That nose was a dead giveaway, as was the straight black hair.

A ray of sunlight struck on the shiny mass of Maggie’s disordered hair and played over the beautiful contours of her face as she smiled tenderly into the big man’s face. Nick’s hand clenched on the bush he was holding out of the way. Maggie was chattering like a magpie, in the bright happy way that she had up to this point reserved for him alone. Nick’s heart twisted in his chest. When pain struck him and he put his hand there, he realized that he was holding his breath and let it out in a slow exhalation.

"And I cannot find my mother’s brooch anywhere. I cannot believe that I would be so careless. I kept it all this time . . .”

“We have company,” he heard the man say clearly as he looked right at the place where Nick stood, and Maggie turned her head toward him and scrambled up from the bank. Undiluted delight spread across her features, and Nick marveled at her, at what an actress she was, as all women were.

“Nick,” she cried. “Come and meet Duncan! He has got the most interesting stories.”

Nick stepped through the brush, letting it snap behind him. His brows drew together and he eyed the big man aggressively.

“Nick Revelle,” he said curtly, staring down at the seated man. “And you?”

The man stood up, and Nick realized that the man was crippled. He struggled upright with the use of a carved cane, and Nick felt guilt for his bad manners that vanished quickly as he took in the way that the other man’s shoulders stretched the material of his plain broadcloth shirt.

“Duncan Murdoch,” he said calmly, his eyes fixed on Nick’s face. Now that he was standing, he towered over Nick by at least a full head and Nick wished sullenly that he had noticed the cane earlier so that he could insist that the other man stay seated. He felt another upsurge of guilt, and felt blood flood his face at his spitefulness. His mother would have smacked his ears sharply by now if she were here.

Nick realized now who the big man was, and he knew in his heart what was really making him act this way. Duncan Murdoch obviously found Maggie attractive and it was clear that she returned his regard. That was what was making him so churlish. Besides, wasn’t this what he said that he wanted? For Maggie to find someone else?

“You are Doctor Fell’s new partner,” he said quietly.

Maggie looked on in amazement. Her eyebrows shot up nearly into her hairline.

“You are what?” she said. “You never said.”

A smile curved Duncan’s mouth. “You never asked what I was doing here in Geddes,” he said calmly. “I would have told you if you had.”

Maggie punched him in the arm, laughing, and Nick was not happy with the level of camaraderie that the two had.

“Just how long have you two been acquainted?” he asked tightly. “And why did you not come up to the house and introduce yourself instead of skulking around on the outskirts of my property?”

“Nick!” Maggie protested. “He likes to take a long walk to exercise his leg, and we met a couple of weeks ago when he was doing just that. And he has not been skulking around!” Her green eyes flashed sparks at him. “He comes out here sometimes to sit at the river, and I told him that it was all right.”

“My pardon,” Nick said stiffly. “I will go on back to the house, as my presence is obviously not wanted here. You have plenty of company.” He nodded stiffly to the big man. “Doctor Murdoch.”

So saying, he turned around and stalked back on the path towards the house, his back stiff and ramrod-straight.

Maggie stared after him with mouth open. What in the world?

“I have absolutely no idea what that was about,” she said.

“Do you not?” was all he said, his gentle eyes amused. Maggie flushed, and his mouth quirked up at one corner. “Don’t lie to yourself, Maggie. You know exactly what that was all about, and it was not about the new Doctor not coming to the house and introducing himself.”

Maggie laughed, and punched him in the arm again. “All right, maybe I do have an inkling. I just do not . . . think of you that way, and I did not expect Nick to be so . . . so . . . “

”Jealous?” Duncan said wryly. “I do not think of you that way, either, Maggie, but I do not think your Nick would believe that from either one of us right now.”

Maggie looked toward the house thoughtfully. “He is not my Nick, and you are right,” she said, and sighed. “I do not think that he would.”

Duncan reached down and captured Maggie’s hand, raising it to his mouth to press a gentle kiss against her knuckle. She smiled up at him. He was precious to her, this man, and her to him. The first time their eyes had met, the pain and confusion they usually kept hidden from the rest of the world was revealed each to the other. She knew him, and he knew her. Details were unimportant; their souls were laid bare to each other’s gazes. That was rare, and she would not give it up.

“I have not had a friend for a long time,” Duncan said softly. “Thank you, Maggie.”

She reached way, way up to lay a hand against the warmth of his cheek.

“For what?” she asked. “I will meet you tomorrow.”

As she turned to go, Duncan called softly to her. "Maggie?" he said. "Look for your mother’s brooch in the place where you keep your aprons. Perhaps there is a loose board in the back and the brooch has fallen through there."

Nick strode angrily through the bushes on the way home, purposefully leaving the path and going the hard way. He slapped angrily at branches, kicked deliberately at tree trunks, and hoped he could burn off his anger by the time he reached the house. He felt the anger course through his body and drive out the desire that he lived and breathed twenty four hours a day. Nick ached night and day to hold Maggie against his hard body, to drink from the sweet, dark depths of her mouth, to ease the craving of his body against her soft curves.

He had gone past obsession at this point; he only had to think of Maggie to have longing sink its claws into him. He avoided her, working longer and longer hours to stay away from temptation. It did not work. And the thought of her with another man was enough to make fury tear him apart. He felt raw and lacerated; as if some huge bird of prey had stuck a talon in his heart and then jerked free, pulling through skin and muscle.

He will not have her, he thought savagely. I will not let him.

The image of Maggie laughing into Duncan Murdoch’s face rose up behind his eyes and mocked him. Nick knew that he was being unreasonable. Had not he himself told Maggie to give up on him and find somebody new? But knowing he was being unreasonable and actually doing something to correct this behavior were two very different things.