What We Find (Sullivan's Crossing, #1)(58)

“You mean that’s all true?”

“Maggie, I may be guilty of withholding, not being ready to talk about some things, but I’ve never lied to you.”

“How can you manage that?” she asked.

“Force of habit, I guess. Tell me stuff.”

“Well, Phoebe had it hard,” Maggie said. “She rescued me from this shit hole, as she called it, and took me to Chicago where she somehow managed to get a very nice apartment. I have no idea how she did it. Sully swears she never asked him for any money. She got herself a very good job in a posh restaurant and although I seemed to spend most of my time with the next-door neighbor lady, Phoebe only worked or looked after me. When she got home in the middle of the night, her feet were swollen and her head ached. After about a year she brought Walter home—she met him in the restaurant. She must have picked him on sight. And I hated him because I knew what he meant—Walter getting together with Phoebe meant I’d never see Sully again. I was horrible to him. And to Phoebe, for that matter. They even had me sitting with a psychologist for a while. I ran away several times but I only made it a couple of blocks. I got bad grades, had temper tantrums, wouldn’t eat, or so they thought... I was a growing girl—I sneaked food. And then when I was eight Walter said to me, ‘I think you should visit your father, but if you’d like to do that, this is no way to go about it.’ When I tried to explain that Phoebe would never let me he just said, ‘Let me work on that. Try to be patient. And for God’s sake, try to behave. You and I both know what you’re doing.’ It wasn’t just the fact that he had me nailed that made a difference, but that he spoke to me as if I were an adult.”

“And he won you over,” Cal said.

“Not yet, but he was getting closer. You have to remember, Walter was a busy surgeon. We didn’t spend a great deal of time together.”

“He must have loved Phoebe very much to put up with you,” Cal said.

“I don’t know that Walter cares that much about love, though clearly he cares about Phoebe. I asked him once why the devil he married her and you know what he said? He said she was uncomplicated. How’s that for an assessment?”

He pulled her chair closer to him, put his arm around her and drew her in. Lips hovering over hers, he asked, “And what are you looking for, Miss Maggie?”

“Well, obviously I like ’em real complicated, California.”

Maggie made Cal laugh with stories of being a grave disappointment to Phoebe her entire youth. She wouldn’t take tap and ballet but played soccer and volleyball, forcing Phoebe to sit in the hot sun or smelly gymnasium. And when it came to the debutante ball? Of course Maggie wanted no part of that and her mother cried for a month. She wore a uniform at school but the rest of the time could hardly be pried out of her tight, torn jeans, boots and gauzy blouses that showed her bra. And just to see her mother freak out she’d leave out pictures of tattoos she was thinking of getting.

“I was a serpent’s tooth,” she said, sending him into peals of laughter. “And oh God, if she ever found out I lost my virginity here at the camp when I was fifteen, she would die. But first she’d kill Sully.”

“But of course you were safe and protected and—”

“I was fifteen! I worried about being pregnant for a year and the guy broke my heart by being a summer dude who never called or wrote or came back. But all things considered, I’d rather go through that than put on a white formal gown and dance a waltz.”

Cal sprinkled sand on the embers and they left their chairs sitting out. He had his arm around her shoulders as they walked toward the house. As they grew closer, his hand slid down and he began to caress her butt. “Are you worried that I’m just a summer dude?” he asked.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, no one stays here. This is a bump in the road.”

“Sully stayed,” he reminded her.

“Well, that’s different. It’s his legacy.”

“You haven’t made any noises about leaving,” he said.

“I was born to this. I might be different like Sully. But mostly this is a place people escape to. Most of our guests are getting out of the city or away from work. Some think better in the solitude and serenity of the trail—they work things out. But no one stays.”

“You think I’ll go? That I’ll love you all summer, right in your father’s house, and leave you?”

“Probably,” she said.

He stopped walking. He turned her toward him and took her into his arms, kissing her deeply, passionately. He backed her up a couple of steps so that she was against the thick trunk of a big tree and he pressed the length of his body against hers. He was already aroused and if he knew Maggie, so was she. “You don’t think this time it might be different?” he whispered against her lips.

“I can want it to, but there’s been nothing to convince me. I don’t really know you. I’m trying to know you but there’s new information every day.”

“Maggie, you know the best parts of me. When I make love to you, I give you everything I have.”

“Will you deny there have been quite a few women along the way who have benefited from your rather amazing erotic skills?”

“Not really quite a few. Not as many as you might think, but at least one princess...”