Temptation Bay (A Windfall Island Novel) (7 page)

She’d kept it secret, in deference to his family and with the understanding that if she even thought he was up to his old tricks, all bets were off. Meeker lived in fear of the knowledge she carried. And hated her for it.

“If you’ve overcome your loathing of publicity, Joe, there are some guys from the local news over there. They’re probably only second-string reporters, but I bet they like a good story. I’ve got a doozy—”

He looked around, saw the faces turned toward them, and the twist to his mouth slid away, along with all the color in his face.

Maggie stepped around him and continued on her way.

The crowd closed behind her, swallowing Meeker, and good riddance. She’d pretty much eaten her limit of crow, even with getting the last word on Josiah Meeker. So, of course, as she headed for the blessed peace of her car, who should fall into step with her but Dexter Keegan?

“Will this day never end?” she muttered, not quite under her breath.

“Inevitably,” he said, “and on a high note if you’ll have dinner with me.”

“You want high notes, find yourself an opera singer.”

“Hmmm, not up to the wit I’ve come to expect from you, Solomon. Something weighty on your mind? Or someone?”

You
, she wanted to say,
you and your preoccupation with me
. It wasn’t ego; it was suspicion. And fear. Admiral Solomon had sent his spies before, digging into her life, her relationships, looking for a weakness he could exploit in order to drag her onto the path he’d mapped out for her life.

It hadn’t occurred to her at first, but Dex was being so damned persistent.

“I would have thought you’d moved on to grilling the rest of the population by now,” she said, keeping her face turned carefully away from him.

“Maybe we just happen to be going in the same direction.”

“Maybe you should find yourself another lab rat. You’ve learned everything you’re going to learn from me.”

“Including the fact that your father is a four-star Admiral, currently on the short list for appointment to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

“Congratulations. Now go away.” And then she swore under her breath, because Dex had gotten a look at her face.

“Maggie, I’m sorry.”

She kept walking.

“I’ve got a couple of shoulders here.”

“I have a pair of my own.”

“And you don’t lean on anybody.” He glanced back the way they’d come. “Suddenly that makes sense.”

“Are you a lawyer or a psychiatrist?” she asked, but she held up a hand before he could answer. “Whatever you are,
you can save the five-dollar words and fancy diagnoses. I know exactly what my problem is.” When she met his eyes this time, hers were absolutely emotionless. “At the moment, it’s you.”

He grinned over at her.

Her mood lightened, marginally, and only because she could dig at him. “Not the kind of reception you’re used to from women?”

“I’ve had worse.” Again with the grin. “But not often.”

A few more steps took Maggie to the driver’s door of her Mustang. She almost regretted it—until she reached for the door handle and Dex got there first.

She stared at his hand, one eyebrow raised.

“Not used to men with manners?”

“I’m used to men who know I can open my own door.”

Dex opened it anyway and stood back, leaving her no choice but to climb in. “Nothing wrong with accepting a hand when it’s offered.”

Except in her experience, there was always a price involved. And she’d already learned enough about Dex Keegan to know that, for all his big talk about manners and help freely given, his visit to Windfall was going to cost somebody.

T
he decor in the big dining room of the Horizon consisted of wood-paneled walls, wood floors and wood ceiling, all stained nearly black from centuries of fires in the two big fireplaces that had been used not only to heat the place, but to cook the fare, once upon a time. Tallow candles had contributed to the patina; so had the pipes, cigars and cigarettes that had finally been banned by state law, to the annoyance of many citizens who considered the island its own little fiefdom, no matter what the stuffed shirts in the state senate dictated and George Boatwright chose to enforce.

Even without secondhand smoke, the air was a little murky and a lot aromatic from a grill that had never really vented properly. A fire crackled in the big fireplace; Zeke Gifford, Sam Norris, and Han Finley—joined at the hip since high school—argued good-naturedly over a game of darts. Cutlery clinked on dishes, glasses banged on tables, jokes were laughed at, thighs were slapped, and music poured out of an ancient jukebox, just the tinny high notes and pumping base audible over the buzz of conversation and the shouts of greeting when Maggie strolled through the door.

Home, she thought, had nothing to do with white picket fences and DNA. Home was where you found it. She’d never really had one, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t recognize it when she felt it.

Same with family. The Horizon was lousy with family.

Every chair in the place was occupied with islanders chowing down, drinking up, and embellishing gossip.
Or trying to score it
, she thought, with a grin that faded when she spotted Dex Keegan at a table in the center of the room, surrounded by all sorts of new friends. Trudie Bingham, with her blond hair and her dimples, sat close, her hand on his knee.

Maggie had known he would be there, decided she wouldn’t let it keep her away. Hell, if she was being strictly truthful with herself, she’d admit she’d been looking forward to the interaction.

In the two days since her father’s… invasion, Maggie had hunkered in, buried herself in work, kept her own counsel. She enjoyed solitude, she loved her work, but even flying, for the first time in her life, failed to give her mood a lift. After a couple of days keeping her own company—morbid as it was—got to be a little much. So, she’d brought herself down to the Horizon for a bit of cheering up.

This place and these people always did the trick. Surprisingly, so did seeing Dex Keegan. A man, she mused, and an outsider. Another first.

Still, Dex Keegan had a quick wit, and she did love a verbal duel. Too bad he wasn’t getting in the game.

In the screenplay she’d written in her head, she would have breezed in and been lavishly greeted by her friends and neighbors—it was her place, wasn’t it? Dex Keegan would be sitting by himself. His eyes would be on her, only her, those dark eyes that made her itch for things she rarely
indulged in. And that wide and wildly talented mouth—or so she imagined—would be tipped up at the corners just enough to tell her he knew she was ignoring him on purpose and that it was their little joke.

So much for her imagination, Maggie thought. She sauntered over, watched his brows lift and his smile widen.

“Have a seat,” he said.

“I like to separate business and pleasure.”

“Which one am I?”

She turned it over in her mind for a second or two. “Come to think of it, neither. Give Jessi a call when you’re ready to leave Windfall.”

“So you can slot me into the business category again?”

“Yep.” And then she could put him out of her mind once and for all.

“That’s a narrow little world you live in, Maggie.”

She laughed a little, shook her head, “I misjudged you, Keegan,” she said, and started to walk away because she knew dismissing him would rankle. Like seeing him cozied up with Trudie rankled her, she admitted.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She stopped, turned back, and because she kept her eyes straight on Dex’s when they wanted to shift to Trudie, she saw it strike home when she said, “I pegged you as a guy who likes a challenge.”

She had to give him credit; he laughed. Even as she watched his temper fire, he held it together and laughed. And when she felt her lips curving she let them.

“Maggie,” AJ Appelman said, laughing with the rest of the Horizon’s patrons who’d been close enough to overhear the exchange, and since all other sound in the place had died out for that brief minute, that meant everyone. “Haven’t seen you in a couple days.”

“Been busy,” she said. “No time to entertain the tourists.”

AJ laughed again, a deep belly laugh—and he had the physique to make it ring from the rafters.

Tall and barrel-chested, with hands the size of hams, skin ruddy from the sun and wind, and a prize-fighter’s face, AJ Appelman was just the opposite—jolly, cheerful—and those huge hands were so skilled and delicate when it came to cooking he could have been a great chef anywhere. Instead he owned and ran the Horizon. His love and respect for Windfall Island ran clear down to the bone, and Maggie’s love and respect for him was just as deep and strong. If she’d been able to choose her father…

She shook off that thought, but the feeling hung around, so she couldn’t ignore AJ, even when he walked over and stopped right next to Dex Keegan.

She deliberately skimmed her eyes over Dex, putting everything she had into the smile she aimed at AJ.

Dex laughed, and even though she was careful not to look at him again, she could hear the ease and good humor in it.

AJ looked a little stunned.

“Who says I don’t have people skills,” Maggie muttered to herself, adding, loudly enough to be heard over the thumping bass of the song someone had punched up on the Wurlitzer, “S & M?”

“Rihanna’s an islander, too,” AJ said. “Different island, but still, gotta love a girl who’s not shy about getting her freak on.”

Maggie just shook her head as she made her way to the bar, slid onto a stool. “I’ve got a new one for you. Aloysius Joseph.”

Laughing, AJ took up his position behind the bar, which wasn’t just shaped in a long, fluid curve like the side of
a ship, it
was
the side of a ship, at least part of one that had wrecked long ago off the island’s coastline. “Still on Aloysius?”

“I guess you look like an Aloysius to me.”

“That’s too bad, because I’m not.”

“Aha.” She pointed a finger at him, mimed taking out a notebook and crossing it off her imaginary list. She ran a finger down it, grinned at him. “How about Alphonse?” Which she knew was next because she’d been prepared.

AJ just boomed out his big, rich laugh and slapped a hand on the bar. His mother had named him, of course, but like everyone else, she’d never called him anything but AJ. Not that he’d been a junior, either; his father had been a son of a bitch who’d run out before AJ had even been born.

Maggie had that in common with him, not that her father had poofed on her, not physically, at least. She’d always known where he was, even when his career took him away for months at a time. But he’d been absent even when he was in the next room.

AJ turned back from the pass-through window, where he’d carried on a short, pithy interchange with his line cook. “You’re eating,” he said.

“Don’t change the subject. I’m going to figure it out, even if I have to ask Ma.”

“She’s been keeping it to herself for five decades.”

Maggie snorted. “I could get it out of her.”

AJ laughed again, this time the boom softened by affection Maggie knew was, at least in part, for her. The rest was for his mother, who was tough as nails, with a soft, sweet center that was even more surprising and endearing because of the prickly exterior. Everyone on the island knew her, and everyone called her Ma—not necessarily to her face. She chose who got to see that soft, sweet center.

For everyone else, she was Mother Appelman, the woman who ran the island with an iron fist, if not an actual title. Windfall had a mayor and a city council, but nothing got passed, or even considered, without Ma’s stamp of approval. She was the Queen, the Boss, the Don, without any compensation but for her own personal satisfaction. The island and its citizenry, even the ones she didn’t like, were her first priority. Not everyone appreciated her interference, but no one could argue with her results, or with tradition. Windfall had always been exactly what it was, an island unto itself. Ma kept it that way.

“She won’t tell you,” AJ said, “if only to keep you visiting her.”

“That’s a first. Usually people are trying to get me to leave.”

“Maggie.”

That one word, just her name weighted with sympathy and delivered with a mild undercurrent of rebuke, had a lump forming in her throat. When AJ reached across the bar and gave her a light, understanding cuff on the shoulder, it was almost more than she could bear.

Knowing Dex Keegan might be watching, watching and interpreting, was enough to make her suck it up. “What’s on the menu?” Maggie asked him, because the normal helped to steady her, and because, while AJ always served burgers and fries, the rest changed frequently, sometimes more than once a night depending on his whim.

“A little of this, a little of that,” he said. “You’ll eat it and you’ll love it.”

She gave him a smile, a real one. “I always do.”

“He flirting with you again?” AJ’s wife, Helen, wanted to know. She was a short, scrawny, wild-haired, chain-smoking virago, and she was more Maggie’s mother than her own had ever been.

Not that Nancy Solomon had ever done anything objectionable. Nancy Solomon had cooked and cleaned, and she’d given her husband one child, a daughter. She’d spent the rest of her life atoning for that failure, not making waves, and catering to a husband who had little respect for her.

Helen Appelman wouldn’t have tolerated that. She had an opinion about everything, sure, and sometimes she beat you over the head with them, but at least Maggie never felt like an afterthought or a disappointment. Or a burden.

“He’s a pain in the ass most of the time,” Helen said, “and when my ass isn’t wondering why I married him, my feet want to know why I let him work me like a dog in this hole in the wall.”

“You always say you’re going to kick me to the curb,” AJ shot back, “but you never do.”

“So it’s my own fault, is that it?”

Maggie grinned hugely.

“Okay.” Helen drilled a finger into AJ’s arm. “You’re on notice, Mister.”

“On notice for what?”

“As if you didn’t know.”

AJ turned to Maggie. “See what you started?”

“Don’t worry, Alphonse. If she sends you packing, I’ll take you in.”

Helen brayed out a laugh, bumping AJ with her hip. “In his dreams.”

AJ shooed her away, winked at Maggie. “Just give me the high sign and I’m yours, Maggie.”

Maggie snorted out a laugh. “I’m immune to your flirting.”

“Folks around here are beginning to think you’re immune to men in general,” Helen put in.

“Folks around here need to stop worrying about my love life.”

“Up until today they had nothing better to do. Now they can get into Dex Keegan’s business.”

“Better him than me,” Maggie muttered, frowning as AJ slid a plate in front of her.

“What?” he said. “Not in the mood for meatloaf?”

More like she wasn’t in the mood to be reminded of Dex, especially when she could feel his eyes boring into her back—which was foolish, of course. The man had better things to do than stare at her.

“You know if you don’t at least try that he’ll sulk for a week,” Helen said to her.

Maggie took a bite of the whipped potatoes and gravy, closing her eyes while the flavor burst on her tongue and warmth spread from her stomach outward.

AJ, how do you always know?
Every couple of nights she wandered into the Horizon in order to quiet the hunger pangs, and each time AJ and Helen filled a whole other emptiness inside her.

She ached to say it to them, the good kind of ache that made her want to press a hand to her chest and wax sentimental. Thankfully she caught herself before she embarrassed everyone. “You’d better be nice to AJ, Helen, or I will steal him away.”

“I made the potatoes,” Helen said.

“Then I guess I’ll have to steal you away.”

Helen threw her head back and laughed. “Like I’d have you.”

“How do you put up with her?” Maggie asked AJ.

“Habit,” he said, “and poor hearing. And sometimes I can get her to shut up for a little while—at least then she’s not capable of forming words.”

Helen went red in the face. “Don’t get your hopes up tonight,” she snapped.

AJ leaned over, whispered something in her ear that made the red of embarrassment deepen. She swatted him on the arm, but by the time he straightened, she was smiling, too, and they shared a look so intimate Maggie couldn’t bear to watch.

Not looking didn’t mean not feeling, though, and what moved through her was surprising. The loneliness she was used to. But the yearning caught her off guard. She wanted that, she realized, adding
someday
with enough conviction to have her stomach settling.