The Rebel (The Millionaire Malones Book 3) (8 page)

It was … it was just … totally unexpected.

She sighed. It was only natural that she was thinking about it. She was a woman who hadn’t been anywhere near that part of a man’s body—or anywhere near a man for that matter—since Evan was conceived.

‘You’re a freak,’ she told herself, ‘You know that?’ She shook her head at the ridiculousness of
her predicament. It wasn’t that she didn’t like sex. She
loved
sex. If she could remember it. Six years without sex. It hadn’t been anything she’d planned in advance, as if she’d been saving herself for some mythical perfect man. Time had just slipped by, month after month, year after year, until suddenly here she was, a single mom and a born-again virgin. Maggie closed her eyes and rested her
forehead against the tile, savouring the warm throb of the water on her skin. She’d probably forgotten how to do it. Her body probably wouldn’t know how to react if she had the chance to have sex.

Oh, that was such a lie.

Her body would know exactly what to do and it was doing it right this second. Her nipples were budded and hard, aching and tight, and she pressed her palms flat against them
to stop the throbbing. And down in her sex? Well. Fireworks were exploding down there.

And it was all Cooper’s fault. Because the way he’d looked at her back in the bedroom, when she was pushed up against the door, her nipples on high alert and with side-boob happening? That wasn’t a friendly look at all.

She wanted to enjoy it, the way his burning look had made her feel, but she couldn’t let
herself hold on to it. That was too dangerous. She’d put her regrets about Cooper away in the back of her brain years ago. She couldn’t long for Cooper. She had to find a man who was solid, grounded. A man from San Clemente, or maybe from Orange County, who was dependable and reliable.

What she needed, more than anything, was a man who would stay.

‡

A
fter her shower,
Maggie felt antsy. Parts of her were still traitorously throbbing as she pulled on knee-length shorts, a plain cotton bra, and her baggy Foo Fighters T-shirt. If she wanted to stop the firecrackers, she needed to dress down. Way down.

When
she turned the corner from her short hallway into the kitchen, the two most important men in her life looked up at her. Something about the view took her breath away.

‘Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!’ Evan called. ‘Come and see!’ He had a tea towel tied around his little waist and he was standing on a chair at the kitchen table. As he spoke, he flicked his wooden spoon in the air and a dollop of whatever
he was mixing hit his instructor, who was sitting on a chair next to him.

Cooper squinted and a hand flew to his eye. ‘Ow.’

Maggie smothered a laugh.

‘We’re making pancakes, Mommy!’

She approached, rolling her lips in to stifle a giggle. Cooper had grabbed a corner of Evan’s makeshift apron and was wiping his face. When he was done, he looked up at her and smiled.

She felt the tension leave
her tight chest. It was the old Cooper. She had to remember that he was her friend, first and foremost. The world settled back on its axis. Things were right with the world. Good. That was very good.

‘Pancakes sound delicious,’ she said as she wrapped her arms around Evan. ‘Can I have one?’

*

Saturday went by
in a flash. After the
delicious pancake breakfast, Cooper had offered to sit with Evan and watch cartoons—he’d tried to convince her it was an enormous sacrifice—while Maggie had run some errands and shopped at the grocery store. When she’d come home, she’d found Evan eating lunch—another thing Cooper had taken care of—so she’d hit the computer for a couple of hours. She didn’t normally work on the weekends but, given
she’d lost valuable time that week being with Cooper in hospital, she had to make up some hours for a couple of clients. Maggie liked to be diligent and hand in work on time. Her reputation was everything and, safe in the knowledge that Evan was completely enthralled with Cooper’s choice of entertainment, she burrowed herself away in her office slash bedroom and worked. And she worked carefully and
fast. She’d had no other choice being a single mom who worked from home. On weekdays, once Evan was in school, she rarely stopped for lunch. She didn’t have the safety net of another income earner in the house so she worked. And then picked up Evan and came home and shrugged off her accountant persona and became his mom. It wasn’t the life she’d expected but she loved her son and she loved her life
with him.

Her phone rang. It was her mom. She loved her mom to bits, too. She leaned back in her chair and pressed her phone to her ear. ‘Hey there.’

‘Hello, darling. How’s everything there at
General Hospital
?’

Maggie laughed. ‘I take it you mean with my patient?’

‘Of course. Has he asked you to give him a sponge bath yet?’

‘Mom!’ Maggie spluttered and tried to hear the joke in the words
but her cheeks flamed. They wouldn’t normally redden after such a raucous comment from her mother—neither of them were prudish—but the thought of Cooper and a sponge bath made her think about him being naked and wet and then she had a flash of how it had felt to be in his arms, the warmth and the shock of how good it felt, the tremor of her heartbeat while she stood there barely dressed, with his
eyes on her breasts.

Maggie pulled herself back from the memory. ‘What are you up to today?’

‘Well, I figured you might need a night off after looking after two boys for a couple of days. Would you like me to have Evan over here for a sleepover tonight? I thought I might make pizzas and then take him to the Farmer’s Market tomorrow morning. We could pick up some things for lunch and then come
home and share it all with you. How does that sound?’

Maggie sighed with relief. ‘Oh, Mom, that sounds perfect.’

‘I’ll be round in an hour.’

Maggie thanked her mother, ended the call and rubbed the tiredness from her eyes. Evan normally loved spending time with his grandma, and Serena made up for the fact that she was effectively his only grandparent by lavishing the little boy with attention
and affection. But things had changed in his world in the past couple of days and now Maggie wasn’t sure how Evan would take the news, given Cooper’s presence. Dragging her son away from his new sleepover friend might be harder than she imagined, but Maggie found her resolve. She needed to go to bed early and get the best night’s sleep she’d ever had, including a rare Sunday sleep-in. Tonight,
she could make things easy for her and Cooper by ordering in some take out.

It sounded like a plan.

She went to the living room and waited until the end of the cartoon they were watching, then perched herself on one of the sofa’s over-stuffed arms. The credits rolled and Evan tugged on Cooper’s hand.

‘Cooper Cooper Cooper. Can we watch another one?’

Cooper looked up at Maggie with raised eyebrows.

‘Actually, Evan,’ she began with her mom voice. ‘Grandma’s invited you over for pizza night and a sleepover. It’s been ages since you’ve seen Muffin and he really needs a hug from you.’ Muffin was Serena’s ginger cat. It was bribery, Maggie knew it, but she was a mom with a plan and sometimes had to use every tool in her tool box.

Evan’s face fell. ‘But I don’t want to go to Grandma’s. I want
to stay here with Cooper.’ Maggie looked down at her son’s face. That pout right there was a gold medal winner.

Cooper noticed it too, but wisely said nothing.

‘I know you do, Evan. Cooper is very cool.’ She tried not to notice the grin that split his face. ‘But Cooper needs to rest, too.’

Evan crossed his little arms across his chest and pulled his lips together even tighter. His shoulders
started to shake and Maggie’s heart wobbled just a little. Cooper looked up at her and could see her indecision.

‘That’s true, matey,’ Cooper added quietly as he put an arm on Evan’s shoulder. ‘I know I seem big and tough, but this knee is starting to hurt and I reckon I have to go to bed real early tonight. Like, maybe, five o’clock.’

Evan sniffed. ‘Five o’clock?’

‘Yeah. It’s not fair, is
it? I reckon you’ll have way more fun with Muffin than me. Because I’ll be asleep. Snoozing. Counting sheep. Dreaming.’

‘What will you dream about?’

Maggie didn’t want to notice the quick glance in her direction and the dark look in Cooper’s eyes.

‘I won’t know that until I wake up, will I?’

Evan wiped his cheeks. ‘Okay, I’ll go to Grandma’s.’ He hopped off the sofa and with his chin on his
chest, dragged his feet to his room.

Maggie watched him go with a heavy heart.

‘He’ll be okay,’ Cooper said quietly.

‘Of course he will,’ Maggie said with a sniff of her own.

‘Ah, c’mon, Maggie. How many sleepovers has he had at Serena’s? Loads.’

‘I know that,’ she murmured as she heaved a big sigh and wiped her eyes with the palms of her hands.

‘Shit, Maggie. Don’t cry.’

‘I’m not.’

‘If
I could get up I’d hug you,’ Cooper said quietly.

She tousled his hair as she walked past him to go help Evan pack. ‘If you did, I’d smack you.’

*

The house was
strangely quiet without Evan. Serena had picked him up half an hour ago, and Maggie had slipped away into her office to finish her work for the day. While she was studying
her spreadsheets, she heard lopsided footsteps in the hallway and the occasional curse word, which made her smile. Cooper was doing as he was told by his doctor and exercising his recovering knee. He was a professional athlete and she knew that his recovery would be methodically laid out for him. On the surface, Cooper may have appeared to be a laconic Aussie, but she knew he’d always been deadly
serious about his career.

He must have gone back to the sofa—or to his bed to lie down—because the cursing and the noises had stopped. Maggie closed up her documents and powered down her computer. She glanced over at the sofa bed and hoped she remembered to get back in it tonight after her middle-of-the-night bathroom break.

Once was an accident. Twice would start to look like wish fulfilment.

*