Chasing the Sunset(29)

He wanted this woman. He wanted her badly.

Lanny Donaldson could stand the silence no more. She had been behind them and never saw the look the two of them shared. She would have known very well what that look meant for she shared one with her husband nearly every day of their life together. But since she had not seen anything except their stiff backs, she swept between them with a charming smile, shooting Kathleen a look that promised retribution later. Unless one were looking for it, or happened to know her well, one never would have noticed the temper line between her brows. On the surface she was all glittering beauty and helplessness as she took Duncan’s arm and bustled him off to do a little ‘fence mending’, but Kathleen knew that when they got home she was in for a long lecture. She was well acquainted with that frown line of her mother’s. She had put it there between her brows more times than she cared to count. Kathleen turned to look morosely at her friend.

“Well, I have done it now,” she said soberly. “I am going to be on the outs with Mother for a long time over that one.” She shook her head. “He just made me so mad, the way he looked at me.” She sighed, absently brushing a hand over the strands of flaxen hair that had escaped. She tapped a finger against her lower lip, looking suddenly pensive.

Kathleen’s hair looked beautiful, glistening in the lamp light, Maggie thought. Duncan had thought so, too, she could tell. And he had not been offended by Kathleen and her bluntness, quite the opposite, in fact. He was intrigued, and definitely interested in the petite blonde. Kathleen had not been indifferent, either. Maggie managed to keep her smile on the inside, because she knew that Kathleen would be offended if she smirked at her just now.

“Do not worry about it,” she said, and put an arm around Kathleen’s shoulders, giving her a warm squeeze. “I am sure that your mother will get over her mad before too long. Let’s take them in to dinner. Tommy and Ned and your father are getting fidgety.”

Nick stared hotly down the table at Maggie during the long dinner, dry-mouthed with lust. That he had managed to keep his distance and his hands off of her all night was a testament to his willpower. The dress that she was wearing was the exact color of her eyes, and it made her skin glow with the luster of a pearl. And that neckline was doing wonders for his blood pressure. He eyed her cleavage as she bent forward just slightly. Good Lord, she was practically spilling those beautiful breasts of hers out onto the table. He hoped that he was nearby to catch them when it happened.

Looking up, he caught Duncan Murdoch’s eyes on him and he scowled half-heartedly at the man. Duncan’s mouth quirked up on one side, and Nick smiled back despite himself. Dammit, he hated to admit it, but he liked the man. He was smart, and amusing . . . and Nick felt a surge of hot jealousy every time he came close to Maggie. Not that Duncan seemed to be paying very much attention to Maggie this evening, what with ogling Kathleen and fending off her persistent mother.

Nick grinned to himself. Poor bastard. Nick had spent enough time of his own trying to dodge Lanny Donaldson that he felt really sorry for the man. Once Lanny got an idea in her head,

it practically took a rockslide to bust it loose. Look how long it had taken her to quit shoving Kathleen at him, for heaven’s sake. They must have made it plain more than a hundred times over the years that all they felt for each other was friendship. And still she had tried to thrust them together, until Nick had married and Kathleen had threatened to move out. And after Mary had died, he had broken into a sweat every time Lanny came near him, for fear she might start up again with her blandishments. That woman had more than enough wiles for three women, and he was glad that he did not have to live with her. Arnold seemed to like it well enough, but she made him jittery.

“What do you think, Nicky, my boy?” boomed Arnold from the end of the table, and Nick tried to remember what they had been talking about before he had been distracted by Maggie’s charms. His face must have been blank, because Kathleen jumped smoothly to his rescue.

“Oh, Da, cannot we talk about something besides horses and farming for a change? We are guests in someone else’s house, you know. I am tired of the subject. It is all you ever think about.”

“Never have children, Nick, they are all ungrateful little wretches,” Arnold said, glaring at Kathleen from under his eyebrows. “It is grateful enough they are when that farm puts food on the table and clothes on their back, but let a man get an interesting conversation goin’, and it is ‘Oh, Da, must we discuss that at the dinner table?’ “ he finished up in a whiny, falsetto voice that sounded nothing like Kathleen.

”You know that you love me,” Kathleen grinned at her father, who grinned back.

“That I do, Katie. But you are an ungrateful wretch, just like the rest of my offspring.”

Kathleen lifted her wine glass in a salute to her father and winked at him.

“Well, Da, I have noticed that I am only an ungrateful wretch when I do not do what you want. When you want something from me, it is Katie darling, or sweet Kate, or sugar dumpling.” Kathleen wrinkled her nose. “Sugar dumpling, for heaven’s sake. Who would want to be a sugar dumpling? Puts me in mind of a fat old lady with flaky skin.”

They all laughed, and Kathleen winked covertly at Nick. She was a master at diverting attention, and with a mother like hers, she’d had to be. Lanny Donaldson had a will of stone, and if you did not want to butt heads with her all the time, you learned early how to create a distraction.

After eating dessert and praising dinner to the sky, everyone began to leave. Doctor Fell was first. He bent over Maggie’s hand gallantly and told her if she ever considered running away with an older man to let him know.

“It is the pie, you know,” he said roguishly. “I am too old for romance, but that was the best pie I have had in years.”

Maggie laughingly told him that Kathleen had made the pies and gave him one to take home with him, thereby buying his friendship for life. After they had waved him off, Duncan followed him out the door. But not before Lanny Donaldson had extracted a promise from him to have dinner at their house on the following Tuesday. Maggie choked on her laughter when Kathleen rolled her eyes behind her mother’s back and Duncan caught her at it. Kathleen blushed a fiery red when he merely raised one dark eyebrow at her. There was some bond there between the two of them, Maggie was sure of it. You could practically hear the crackling of the fire when they stood close together. If they kept at it, they were liable to send the nearby forest up in flames.

Maggie plopped down in the nearest chair when Ned and Tommy headed for their respective rooms. Kathleen had made her promise to leave some of the work for her to help with tomorrow, but she still had lots and lots of work to do before she went to bed. She jumped when a pair of hands settled over her shoulders and squeezed. A shudder ran down her spine and the hair stood up on the back of her neck when Nick leaned forward and spoke directly into her sensitive ear.

“Let me rub your shoulders for you. You have been stiff as a poker all night, and I could tell they were hurting.”

Maggie gave him no encouragement but said nothing to deter him either, for the touch of his warm hands on her sore shoulders was heavenly. He rubbed the knots out of her muscles until she was spineless in her chair, a big pile of jelly with no bones. Maggie slumped back against him, enjoying the feeling.

“Stop,” she said drowsily. “You are going to put me to sleep and I have to finish up here.”

“I will help,” Nick said. "Two hands make the work go faster, as my dear old mother used to say." They gathered up the dishes in comfortable silence, washing up what was necessary, stacking some in the sink to soak and be washed later, and storing leftover food in the cool of the storeroom.

“It was a wonderful dinner,” Nick said quietly while drying dishes with a towel.

“Thanks,” Maggie murmured, looking down at the silverware she was sorting.

“I . . . like your friend, Doctor Murdoch,” he said. “I did not think I would, but I do. I am sorry. I have been acting like a jackass.”

Maggie’s head came up in shock. It must have cost him a lot in pride to admit that to her. She never thought that it would happen. Nick had apologized, and the least she could do was be gracious.

“It is all right, Nick,” she said simply. And it was. She could forgive him anything.

“I was jealous,” he said to her now, his hands still holding the towel but no longer drying dishes. He took a step toward her and Maggie dropped the spoon she was holding with a clang onto the floor. When he put the towel on the counter and tilted her chin up, she began to shake.

“I was afraid that he would want to do this to you,” he said, and brushed his mouth over hers as lightly as the kiss of a butterfly’s wing. “And this,” he whispered, and licked a trail down the vulnerable slope of her throat.

Maggie moaned deep in her throat and Nick swallowed the sound with his mouth, reveling in her passion. The sound of a throat clearing behind them had them suddenly jumping apart, Maggie’s heart nearly bursting with fright. Ned was standing in the door way to the kitchen, his face twisted in concern. Maggie could force no words past the lump that rose in her throat at the sight of him, and she stared dumbly at his figure. Nick, too, seemed to be mute.