For the Love of Pete (25 page)

He studied her intently. "I didn't do all the decorating. I just brought in enough furniture so we wouldn't be sitting or sleeping on the floor tonight. You can change it all, if you want."

"I'm not going to change a thing," she told him firmly. "We'll just add to it together, like the layers that come with time in a marriage."

He reached for her then. "I love you, Jo."

"And I love you." She met his gaze. "You know, I realized something while we were in Boston."

"What's that?"

"That this was the way it was meant to be. All the time apart was a blessing, because now we know how much being together really matters."

"That's one of the things I love most about you," he told her. "You've always been able to turn things around and find the blessings."

Jo wound her arms around his neck and rested her cheek against his. "And from now on, I won't have to look far."

He slid his arms around her. "You talking about the view?"

"That, and your face," she said quietly. "Being able

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to wake up and look into your eyes is the greatest gift I've ever been given."

"Same here, darlin', and I'll never, ever take it for granted."

And like the tides changing just a few hundred feet away, Jo knew what they were feeling right now would go on forever, steady and reliable and powerful.

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241 Please turn the page for a sneak peek

at the second book in Sherryl's

LOW COUNTRY TRILOGY,

Flirting with Disaster,

on sale in December 2005

from MIRA Books!

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243 r\.s interventions went, this one pretty much sucked. Not that Maggie knew a whole lot about interventions, having never been addicted to much of anything with the possible exception of making truly lousy choices in men. She was fairly certain, though, that having only three people sitting before her with anxious expressions^?one of them the very man responsible for her current state of mind?was not the way this sort of thing ought to work.

Then again, Warren Blake, Ph.D., should know. He'd probably done hundreds of interventions for his alcohol- or drug-addicted clients. Hell, maybe he'd even done a few for women he'd dumped, like Maggie. Maybe that's how he'd built up his practice, the louse.

"Magnolia Forsythe, are you listening to a word we're

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saying?" Dinah Davis Beaufort demanded impatiently, a worried frown etched on her otherwise perfect face.

Maggie regarded her best friend?her former best friend, she decided in that instant?with a scowl. "No." She didn't want to hear anything these three had to say. Every one of them had played a role in sending her into this depression. She doubted they had any expertise that would drag her out of it.

"I told you she was going to hate this," Cordell Beaufort said.

Of everyone there, Cord looked the most relaxed, the most normal, Maggie concluded. In fact, he had the audacity to give her a wink. Since he was yet another one of the reasons she was in this dark state of mind, she ignored the wink and concentrated on identifying all the escape routes from this room. Not that a woman should have to leave her own damn living room to get any peace. She ought to be able to kick the well-meaning intruders out, but she'd tried that and not a one of them had budged. Perhaps she ought to consider telling them whatever they wanted to hear so they'd go away.

"I don't care if she does hate it," Dinah said, her expression grim. "We have to convince her to stop moping around in this house. It's not healthy. She needs to get out and do something. This project of ours is perfect. If she doesn't want to help us with that, then she at least ought to remember that she has a business to run. She has a life to live."

"What life is that?" Maggie inquired with faint curiosity. "The one I had before Warren here decided I wasn't his type and dumped me two weeks before our wedding? Or the humiliating one I have now, facing all

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my friends and trying to explain? Or perhaps you're referring to my pitiful and unsuccessful attempt to seduce Cord before you waltzed back into town and claimed him for yourself?"

Of all of them, only Warren had the grace to look chagrined. "Maggie, you know it would never have worked with us," he explained with great patience. "I'm just the one who had the courage to say it."

"Well, you picked a damn fine time to figure it out," she said. "What kind of psychologist are you that you couldn't recognize something like our complete incompatibility a year before the wedding or even six months before the wedding?"

Warren regarded her with an unblinking gaze. "We were only engaged for a few weeks, Maggie. You were the one who was in a rush to get married."

"I was in love with you!" she practically shouted, irritated by his determination to be logical when she was an emotional wreck. "Why would I want to waste time on a long engagement?"

Warren's patient expression never wavered. It was one of the things she'd grown to hate about him. He wouldn't fight with her.

"Maggie, as much as I would love to think that you fell head over heels in love with me in a heartbeat, we both know the rush was all about keeping up with Dinah and Cord. The minute they got married, you started getting panicky. We'd already stopped seeing each other after just a few mosdy disastrous dates, but you decided we should give it anotiier chance."

"I was being open-minded," she countered. "Isn't that what the sensible women you so admire do?"

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Cord tried unsuccessfully to swallow a chuckle. Warren and Dinah frowned at him.

"I have to say, I think Warren is right," Dinah chimed in. "I think you latched on to Warren as if he were the last life-raft in the ocean."

"Oh, what do you know?" Maggie retorted. "You and Cord are so into each other, you barely know anyone else is around."

"We're here, aren't we?" Dinah asked calmly. "We know you're in trouble and we want to help."

"Who invited you?" Maggie responded sourly. "I don't need the three of you sitting here with these gloom-and-doom expressions on your faces trying to plan out my life. Hell, Dinah, you're the one who talked Warren into going out with me in the first place. Considering how things turned out, I should hate you for that."

In fact, she was pretty darn irritated about it. If it hadn't been for Dinah's meddling, Maggie would never in a million years have fallen?even half-heartedly?for a man like Warren Blake. He was rock-steady and dependable, quite a contrast to the men she'd always been attracted to in the past. Men like Cord Beaufort, as a matter of fact. Dark, dangerous and sexy.

If she were being totally honest, she'd have to admit that she'd known all along she was settling for someone safe with Warren. He might not rock her world, but he'd never hurt her either. At least that's how her muddled thinking had rationalized the relationship. As it turned out, she'd been wrong about that. He had hurt her, but mostly it was her pride he'd devastated, not her heart. If a man like Warren couldn't truly love her, who would?

That's what she'd been pondering inside her Charles-

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ton carriage house for a few weeks now. If she wasn't interesting enough, sexy enough, or lovable enough for Warren, then she might as well resign herself to spin-sterhood. He was her last chance. Her safe bet. Sort of the way Bobby Beaufort, Cord's brother, had been Dinah's backup plan.

Even as Maggie was struck by that notion, she realized she should have seen the handwriting on the wall. Wasn't she the one who'd told Dinah that safe was never going to be enough? If it wasn't good enough for Dinah, why had Maggie ever thought it would work for her?

"Mind if I say something?" Cord asked, his gaze filled with surprising compassion.

Maggie shrugged. "Suit yourself."

"Here's the way I see it," Cord said.

He spoke in that slow, lazy drawl that had once sent goose bumps down Maggie's spine til! she'd realized he'd never want anyone except Dinah.

"Nothing's stopping you from sitting in this house of yours all the livelong day, if that's what you want to do," Cord said. "Your art and antique gallery can pretty much run itself, thanks to those competent employees you've hired. And if it doesn't, so what? You've got a nice little trust fund from your daddy. You don't need to do a thing."

Maggie bristled. She'd never liked thinking of herself as the kind of spoiled little rich girl who didn't need to work for a living. She'd poured her heart and soul into making a go of Images, just to prove she was her own person. She'd never treated it like a hobby. She'd taken pride in the success of the high-end shop that catered as much to Charleston's wealthiest citizens as it did to the

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tourists who came through the historic district every day. As for her employees, she didn't know where Cord had gotten the crazy idea they were competent. She'd be lucky if they didn't run the place into bankruptcy.

If Cord was aware of her growing indignation, he ignored it.

"Maggie's a smart woman. I think we should let her decide for herself how she wants to spend her days," Cord continued mildly, aiming his words at Dinah and Warren and leaving Maggie to draw her own conclusions. "She can go back to work running her business, if that's what matters to her. She can come on out and help us with this project we've been telling her about and make a real difference in someone's life. Or she can sit right here and feel sorry for herself. It's her choice. I think once we clear out and give her some space, she'll make the right one."

Maggie saw the trap at once. If she did what she wanted to do and hung around here wallowing in self-pity and Haagen-Dazs ice cream, they'd worry, but they'd let her do it and they wouldn't think any less of her because they loved her. But in her heart, she'd see herself for the ridiculously self-indulgent idiot she was being. She'd lost a man. So what? Warren wasn't the first and undoubtedly he wouldn't be the last, despite her current vow to avoid all males from here to eternity.

"Tell me again about this stupid project," she said grudgingly.

Cord, bless his devious little heart, bit back a grin. "We're going to be building a house for someone who needs one. The church got the idea, a benefactor donated the land, and the preacher asked me to put together a volunteer crew. Dinah and her mama are in charge of

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raising money for whatever building supplies we can't get donated."

"What do you expect me to do?" Maggie asked suspiciously.

"What you're told," Dinah said with a glint of amusement in her eyes. "Same as me. It'll be a refreshing change for us. At least that's what Cord says. We'll be hammering and painting right alongside everyone else."

Maggie turned her gaze on Warren. "And you?"

"That's up to you," he replied. "I said I'd help, but I'll stay away if you want me to."

Maggie wasn't sure Warren had any essential skills for building a house, so sending him away might not be much of a loss, but why bother? Maybe it was time to show all of Charleston that she wasn't devastated by her broken engagement. It was past time she held her head up high and behaved like the strong woman she'd always considered herself to be.

"Do whatever you want to do," she said indifferently.

"Then you'll help?" Dinah asked.

"I'll help," Maggie agreed. "If I don't, who knows what sort of place you'll build. Everyone knows I'm the one with taste in this crowd."

"We're building a three-bedroom bungalow with the basic necessities for a single mom with three kids," Cord warned. "Not a mansion."

"You're building a house," Maggie retorted emphatically. "I'll turn it into a home."

But just as she said the words, Maggie spotted the satisfied glint in Dinah's eyes and wondered if she wasn't making the second worst mistake she'd made all day. The first had been opening the door to these three.