Flirting with Disaster (26 page)

“That is none of your business,” Maggie said emphatically.

“It's a reasonable question,” Juliette insisted. “You're a Forsythe, Magnolia. You're also thirty-two years old. It's time for you to stop behaving impulsively and settle down with someone suitable.”

“Give it up, Mother. I'm not marrying Warren or anyone like him, for that matter. And, if you recall, I didn't know his family either, not at the beginning. And meeting them didn't do a thing to assure that we'd take a respectable walk down the aisle.”

“Water under the bridge,” her mother said with a dismissive gesture. “I'm talking about this current fling of yours. People are talking.”

“Let them.”

“You're embarrassing your father.”

The litany was all too familiar. Juliette had a checklist she went through each time Maggie tried her patience. She lived with the hope that something on it would set Maggie off down a path of which she approved.

“No,” Maggie corrected. “I'm embarrassing
you,
Mother. And disappointing
you.
Again. That's what this is really about. I'm sorry I can't live up to your high expectations. I've stopped trying. I'll never be quite good enough. And as far as I know, I have impeccable breeding, so that must not matter half as much as you claim it does.”

Her mother looked genuinely shocked by the accusation. “Is that what you think?”

“Of course it's what I think,” Maggie snapped. “You've as much as said it. More than once, as a matter of fact. I'm getting tired of having this conversation over and over again.”

Her mother sat back with a sigh. “Oh, dear, I've gotten this all wrong again. Maggie, the only thing I want is your happiness. I don't think you'll find it if you insist on making choices just to spite me.”

“That's not what I'm doing,” Maggie said. “Believe it or not, Mother, Josh really is a good guy. He's decent and hardworking and kind.”

“If he's such a paragon, then why haven't your father and I seen more of him?”

“Because I don't want to listen to you pass judgment on everything that's wrong with him. I like him and that's what matters.”

An unreadable expression passed over Juliette's face then. It almost looked like satisfaction, but Maggie couldn't be sure.

“Bring him around,” Juliette encouraged.

“So you can cross-examine him? I don't think so.”

“If he's half the man you think he is, I won't scare him off. He certainly didn't seem easily intimidated when you brought him to lunch at the club.”

Maggie regarded her mother thoughtfully. “Maybe I should bring him by some evening. You might be pleasantly surprised.”

And way back in the dim recesses of her mind, Maggie had to wonder what would happen if just this once she could win her mother's approval for a man she was already in love with. Would it send her fleeing for the hills? Would the thrill of being slightly outrageous be gone and ruin everything?

Or would she finally be able to claim the happiness that had been eluding her all these years?

 

Maggie had promised to call Josh when she was ready to leave her mother's, but she needed some time alone to think about why she'd gotten involved with him in the first place.

She walked back to Images, shut off the alarm and went inside. Even after working for a few hours Saturday morning, there was still a mountain of paperwork she needed to get to, but she couldn't seem to make herself focus on any of that.

She'd been there half an hour, staring blankly into space, when her cell phone rang—at the same moment the bell over the front door of the shop chimed to indicate that someone had come inside.

Her heart instantly climbed into her throat. Hadn't she locked the door behind her? Surely she had. In that case, it had to be Ellie or Vicki coming back to check on something.

“Ellie?” she called out, scrambling to find her ringing cell phone at the bottom of her purse.

“Sorry, lady. Ellie's unavailable.”

The sound of Brian's cold voice made her skin crawl. She lifted her gaze to meet his, and what she saw filled her with fear. He looked half-crazed, as if he hadn't slept or shaved or even bathed in days. Had he lived on the streets, knowing the police were looking for him for the break-in and the fire?

“Toss that cell phone over here,” he commanded. “I can't have you answering it. That would ruin everything.”

“If I don't, Josh will be here in two minutes,” she lied. “He'll have the police with him.”

“I can do a lot of damage in two minutes,” Brian claimed, his face twisted into an ugly smirk. “You saw what I did to the gallery on my last visit. I did all that in sixty seconds flat. The fire didn't turn out quite the way I'd intended, but it did shake up Ellie.”

“And you're proud of that?” she demanded furiously. “You terrified a woman you'd once claimed to have feelings for! And you destroyed work that talented artists had labored over. You claim to be an artist yourself. How can you do that to someone else's work?”

“That was just a warning, sweetheart. Today we're getting to the real thing.”

“Which is?”

“Making you pay for interfering in my life, for demeaning my talent, for messing things up between me and Ellie and for trying to trap me with that whole poster contest scam.”

Maggie was stunned.

“Didn't think I'd find out, did you? I have a few contacts in this town myself,” Brian gloated.

Maggie knew she should let him rant and try to placate him, but she couldn't seem to hold her tongue. Besides, now that she'd had time to take a closer look, she saw him for what he was—a weak-minded bully who thrived on intimidation. As long as she gave as good as she got, she could keep him off balance, just as she had on the night they'd met.

“You and Ellie were doomed from the moment you figured out she had more talent than you do,” she said bluntly.

“Ellie and I would have been just fine if you'd stayed out of it. Offering to give her a show here got her all worked up. She started thinking she must really be something.”

“She
is
something,” Maggie said. “She's an incredible artist. You see that, Brian, I know you do. Why can't you be happy for her? Why can't you be proud of the role you played in nurturing that talent?”

For an instant he looked flustered, as if he didn't know what to make of her unexpected praise for his teaching abilities. Maggie decided to capitalize on that. Maybe she could still get through to him.

“It takes a very special kind of teacher to recognize when a student has artistic talent,” she told him. “There's such a fine line between letting that talent flourish and find its own way and molding it to fit into some preconceived idea. You gave Ellie room to grow. What she found in herself, what she's able to put on canvas is remarkable. You did that, Brian.”

“I could have been a great artist,” he said with more wistfulness than conviction.

“Perhaps, but then a lot of students would have lost an outstanding teacher,” she said.

She knew she had to make a decision soon about what happened next, because once Josh and the police got here—and if that had been him on the phone, they would show up—things would spin out of control quickly. And if they weren't on the way, she needed to save herself from whatever mayhem Brian had in mind.

“Would you like to see what Ellie's done?” she asked, already out of the chair and moving toward the vault. “I think you'll be even prouder of how far she's come.”

She didn't wait for his response, but quickly spun the combination and opened the vault. An idea was taking shape in her mind, but it was going to be tricky to pull off without risking everything she'd been trying so hard to protect.

“Let me show you,” she called from inside the vault. She began pulling Ellie's artwork into the office and stacking it against the wall. At the sight of the brightly painted canvasses Brian seemed to freeze in place. “Aren't they spectacular?” she enthused, removing them as quickly as she could.

When the last one was stacked against the wall, she met his gaze. “There's one more, but it's too large for me to handle. You probably remember it from her studio. It's amazing, a real masterpiece. Help me bring it out, then you can take a leisurely look through all of them and tell me what you think.”

Brian shook himself as if coming out of a trance. “What?”

“Help me bring out Ellie's last painting. It's the best of all, I think.” When he didn't move, she grabbed at one last straw. “I predict it will hang at the Museum of Modern Art one day.”

“You've got to be kidding me,” he sneered.

“See for yourself.” She stepped into the vault and waited.

It seemed like an eternity before he moved. She heard his approach and waited until he was just inside the vault.

“Where is this masterpiece?” he demanded.

“Against the back wall,” she lied, allowing him to move past her.

Then she shot through the door and slammed the vault door closed. She was already dialing 911 when he realized what she'd done and let out a bellow that could be heard a block away.

At practically the same instant the front door of the gallery burst open and Detective Ryan and half a dozen policemen stormed in.

At her first glimpse of them, Maggie's knees gave way and she sank onto the chair behind her desk. “In there,” she whispered, pointing to the vault.

“Give 'em the combination, sugar,” Josh said, appearing out of nowhere and putting a steadying hand on her shoulder.

She looked up into his eyes. “I can't remember it,” she whispered, starting to shake.

Josh knelt down in front of her and clung to her hands. “No rush,” he told her. “Brian can wait. Is there anything in there he can destroy?”

She shook her head. “I got it all out,” she said, nodding toward the paintings leaning against the wall. “Every last one of them.”

“Good work,” Josh said, grinning.

She kept her gaze on him, trying to steady herself. “How did you figure out what was going on? You were here before I even finished calling the police. That was you calling a little while ago, wasn't it?”

“It was,” he confirmed. “And when you didn't answer your cell phone, I called your mother. She said you'd left thirty minutes ago. I guessed you were here and that you might be in trouble, so I called Detective Ryan.”

“You must be furious that I slipped out of your protective custody,” she said.

“Yeah, well, it wasn't a huge surprise. You've been champing at the bit for days now. All that matters is that you're fine and that, thanks to your quick thinking, Brian's in custody.” He glanced toward the locked vault. “Or will be if you can ever remember that combination.”

“I wonder how much air there is in there,” she said thoughtfully.

“Maggie!” Josh said.

“Okay, okay, I know I can't leave him in there to die, though it is a temptation.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“Do I look hurt? He never laid a hand on me.”

“And thanks to whatever scheme you devised, he didn't touch those paintings, either. I'd say you did a good afternoon's work.”

Maggie thought about what might have happened, and a wave of dizziness washed over her. “I think I want to go home.”

Detective Ryan ambled over. “You can go as soon as you tell us how to get into that vault. I assume you'd prefer we didn't blow it up.”

Her eyes widened. “You would do that?”

“If we had to,” he confirmed.

Maggie weighed the threat against whatever satisfaction she might get from Brian's continued screams. She rattled off the combination, then turned to Josh.

“Get me out of here. I don't want to see him when he comes out.”

Josh glanced at the detective. “Okay with you?”

Dan Ryan nodded. “I know where to find you. I'll be by later to take a statement.”

“Lock up when you leave,” Maggie ordered.

“Yes, ma'am,” Detective Ryan replied with a grin.

Josh gazed down into her eyes. “You're feeling more like your old self again already, aren't you?”

“A little controlling, you mean?”

He nodded.

“I'll work on that.” She met his gaze. “In the meantime, we have a lot to talk about.”

“Oh?”

“I think that's sufficient warning.”

His eyebrows rose. “Warning?”

“I had Sunday dinner with my mother, remember.”

“I'm drawing a blank here, sugar. What does that have to do with anything?”

“You'll see,” she told him. It might be better if she didn't say another word till she had him right where she wanted him—in bed. It was the one place she could count on him being totally focused and attentive.

G
eorge had just arrived to take Nadine to the movies when Josh called to tell her what had happened at the gallery. Stunned, Nadine sank onto the edge of the bed.

“Maggie's okay? You're sure?” she asked. She was shocked by how much Maggie had come to mean to her, as well as to her son. “And you? Are you okay?”

“I'm fine. It was all over by the time I got inside. Maggie's remarkable. She had Brian locked in the vault. Now that it's over, she's a little shaken up,” Josh said. “But we're at her place now. She'll be fine once she's had some time to settle down.”

“I'm coming over,” Nadine said at once.

“No, don't,” Josh told her. “She needs to rest for a while. She doesn't need to be reliving what happened.”

“Has she spoken to her mother?”

“No. I guess she'll call her as soon as I get off the phone,” he said with a man's typical nonchalance.

“Mrs. Forsythe shouldn't hear something like this over the phone. I'll go by there and tell her in person,” Nadine volunteered.

“Are you sure?” Josh asked doubtfully. “You hardly know her.”

Actually she and Juliette knew each other better than their children could possibly imagine. “I'm still sure she'd prefer to hear something like this from me rather than from a TV newscast or over the phone,” Nadine said confidently. “Besides, George is with me. He's known the Forsythes forever. He'll help me break the news.”

“Fine. I'll let Maggie know you're taking care of it,” Josh said. “Thanks, Mother.”

Relieved that he hadn't asked a million questions about what George was doing in her room or why she was so determined to speak to Juliette, Nadine hung up. “You heard?” she asked George.

“Enough to figure out what happened. You can fill me in on the rest on the way over to Juliette's.”

“You don't mind missing the movie?” she asked. A lot of people would rather eat dirt than break bad news. Of course, since Maggie was fine, the news wasn't that bad. In fact, Brian's being in custody was the best possible news.

“Of course not,” George said readily. “I think it's very thoughtful of you to want to make sure Juliette isn't upset unnecessarily.”

She gave him a chagrined look. “Actually I have an ulterior motive,” she confessed.

“Oh?”

“Maybe it's best if you don't find out till we're over there,” she told him. “Think you can contain your curiosity that long?”

“I suppose I'll have to,” he grumbled. “You do love your little mysteries, don't you, Nadine?”

“A few harmless little secrets and mysteries keep life interesting,” she informed him. “If we're going to spend much time together, you'll need to adapt to that.”

He grinned. “I'll work on it. I imagine I'll get the hang of it eventually.”

Nadine smiled contentedly at the implication that they would be together for a while. Not that she was counting on too much yet, but the promise was there. For once she was going to demonstrate a little patience and let the relationship progress at its own pace. It was her rush to seal the deal that usually landed her in trouble. Who would have thought that she'd wait till her fifties to finally grow up and mature?

When George pulled up in front of the Forsythes' home, she sucked in her breath. She'd passed a dozen houses like this over the years back when she'd lived in Charleston, but she'd never been inside one. The size of it daunted her. Thank goodness most of her conversations with Juliette had been over the phone or in little out-of-the-way restaurants where they were unlikely to be spotted by anyone they knew. If she'd known just what kind of wealth Maggie came from, she might have had second thoughts about trying to give Josh and Maggie a push down the aisle.

“How do you suppose they manage it without the slaves?” she muttered.

George laughed. “I heard that.”

“Well, do you have an answer?”

“One good housekeeper can work miracles,” he said. “I should know. My place is just up the road.”

“You're kidding!” She'd known he was well-to-do and powerful, but if his home was anything like this antebellum mansion, he was way beyond rich. “Why didn't you say something?”

He regarded her with amusement. “Such as?”

“Oh, I don't know,” she said wryly. “Maybe, ‘Hey, Nadine, I'm way out of your league, but I feel like slumming for a while.'”

George's jaw tightened. He cut the engine of his car without looking at her. When he finally faced her, his eyes were dark with barely suppressed anger. “Do you think so little of me?” he asked.

To Nadine's astonishment, he was genuinely upset by her comment. “No, of course not,” she said, shaken that he'd taken her so seriously. “I guess what I said was more about me than you. You have to know this isn't my world.”

“Nadine, you could fit in at a presidential ball. Not having money is no disgrace.”

“It's not just the money,” she said, helpless to explain why she suddenly felt so far out of her depth when only a few moments ago she'd been perfectly comfortable with this man. Suddenly she understood another reason that Josh was so terrified to acknowledge his feelings for Maggie. She came from a similar world, a world of privilege and roots. Because George deserved an explanation, she tried to find the right words.

“You have a history,” she said, knowing that was only part of it.

He smiled faintly. “So do you.”

“You can hardly compare the two,” she said.

“One of these days I'll tell you all about my great-granddaddy the bootlegger,” he promised. “But right now we'd better table this discussion and go inside. Juliette's peeking through the curtains to see what we're up to out here.”

For a few minutes Nadine had actually forgotten where they were. “Of course. How could I forget the reason we came?”

Juliette had the front door open before they climbed the steps onto the veranda. She smiled at them. “This is an unexpected pleasure,” she said with apparent sincerity. “What brings you by?”

“We have some distressing news, I'm afraid,” George began.

Nadine shot a daunting look at him before he could blurt out the rest. “Everyone's fine,” she said hurriedly as Juliette turned pale. “We should go inside and sit down.”

Inside, Juliette's manners kicked in and overcame her distress. Apparently Nadine's assurances that no one was hurt had calmed her fears. Only after she'd insisted on ringing for tea and taken a few sips, did Nadine explain what had happened at the gallery. “Josh has taken Maggie home and he's there with her. She wasn't harmed at all, just shaken up a bit.”

Juliette stood up at once, her dismay evident. “I have to call Frank. We need to see her.”

Nadine understood Juliette's need to go despite assurances that Maggie was unharmed. She wasn't about to tell Juliette she shouldn't, either, even though Josh had told
her
to stay away. “Of course. You shouldn't be driving, though. We'll take you, won't we, George?”

“Absolutely.”

“Of course, those two might prefer to be alone,” Nadine said casually. “You saw Maggie earlier, didn't you? What was your sense of how things are going?”

Juliette gave her a sly look and sat back down. “You're very clever, Nadine. I haven't given you half enough credit. I'll settle for making a quick phone call to speak to Maggie, and then I'll tell you everything.”

“Everything about what?” George asked, obviously confused by the rapid change in plans. “Are we going over there or not?”

“Not,” Nadine and Juliette confirmed together.

He sat back with a heavy sigh. “I will never in a million years understand women.”

“Probably not,” Juliette said.

“It's probably best if you don't even try,” Nadine added, then sat back herself while Juliette called and had a brief conversation with Maggie. She looked relieved when she hung up.

“I think things are progressing quite nicely over there,” she told Nadine.

Nadine grinned. “That's been my perception. So, what did Maggie say earlier?”

“The minute I raised a single doubt about her relationship with Josh, she leaped to his defense. By the time she left here, I think she was half convinced to propose to him herself.”

George leaned forward, his gaze utterly fascinated. “The two of you have been conspiring?”

“We've been talking,” Nadine corrected.

“It's our duty as mothers to look out for the best interests of our children,” Juliette added in a prim, self-righteous tone. She ruined it by winking at Nadine.

“Lord help those two,” George said fervently.

“His help is certainly appreciated, but they have us,” Juliette said. “I doubt they'd get the ball rolling without a little push.”

“I know Josh wouldn't,” Nadine agreed.

“And Maggie's happiest when she's defying me,” Juliette said. “I must say it's been more difficult than usual for me, because I genuinely like Josh. Keeping that from her hasn't been easy. I had to do something, though. Watching her try to twist herself into knots to make things work with Warren was painful, and she did all that because she thought I approved of him. I realized then she was trying to be someone she's not to please me, and I swore I'd never let her do something so ridiculous again.”

George frowned. “Then you approve of Josh?” he asked. “But you don't want Maggie to know you approve? Have I got it right?”

“Exactly,” Juliette said.

“Whatever happened to just keeping your opinion to yourself and staying out of the way?” he asked.

Nadine and Juliette exchanged a commiserating look.

“If you were a mother, you'd understand,” Nadine told him.

“Not in a million years,” he said with certainty. “And as a lowly man, I'm not even going to try.”

“Just keep everything you've heard here today to yourself,” Nadine told him. “You're privy to a huge secret. If those two find out what we've been up to, who knows what might happen. They might break up just to spite us.”

George shook his head. “I don't think things were this Machiavellian when I was young.”

“And just look how your marriage turned out. Even you have to admit you were unhappy long before Virginia Sue died,” Juliette said. “Perhaps if your parents had done a little more meddling, things would have turned out differently.”

“Perhaps so,” he conceded. “But then I might not have been free when a woman like Nadine came along.”

Nadine felt her cheeks turn pink. Sometimes the man said the sweetest things. “If you go on saying things like that, George, you're going to turn my head.”

Juliette laughed. “Give it up, Nadine. I saw the way things were between you two that day you barged into my luncheon.”

Nadine stared at her in confusion. “We didn't even like each other then.”

“Of course you did,” Juliette said impatiently. “What is it they talk about these days? Pheromones? They were flying all around. In my day, it was just plain old chemistry.”

“Could we talk about something else?” Nadine pleaded.

“I'm sure I can't think of a better topic,” George said, looking smug. “Seems to me that love is in the air all around these days. Why deny it?”

Nadine met his gaze and felt her heart take a familiar little lurch. Why indeed? The least an optimistic woman could do was open herself up to the possibility that this time she'd finally gotten it right.

 

Josh had done everything he could think of to try to get Maggie to lie down and rest after she'd spoken to her mother, but she was on a mission. She had things she wanted to discuss and she wasn't going to be happy until she'd gotten them off her chest. She'd even staged some sort of halfhearted seduction in what she claimed was an attempt to get him completely focused and attentive.

After he'd accepted that the seduction was going nowhere beyond the preliminaries, Josh had resigned himself to the fact that they were going to have this conversation, no matter what. Having it in bed with no clothes on was going to provide a real test of his powers of restraint.

“This has something to do with whatever you and your mother talked about today?” he concluded.

Maggie nodded.

“Okay, then, spill it. What did she want?”

“She was all over the fact that we're living together.”

“But you told her why I'm here, right?”

“She saw right through that. She assumed you weren't sleeping downstairs, so she wasn't impressed by the whole bodyguard thing.”

First Nadine, now Juliette Forsythe. When had mothers become so damn nosy, especially when it came to their adult offspring? “And this is her business because?” he asked.

“It's not, of course, and that's what I told her, but naturally that didn't shut her up. She thinks I'm only seeing you to exasperate her.”

“I thought we'd established that you aren't.”

“We did,” Maggie said hurriedly. “But I can't be entirely sure. I have this pattern, you see. In the past, annoying my mother would definitely have had a lot to do with my motivation in going out with you. How am I supposed to know if it's really different this time?”

Josh didn't like the direction this conversation was taking. “So what? You want to clarify things for her? Prove something to her? What?”

“I want to figure things out for myself,” she said. “It's only fair to you. You need to know what my real feelings are as much as I do.”

“I always thought that was something you needed to figure out for yourself over time.”

“It is, of course. I just want to speed up the process,” she said, as if it were a simple matter.

The twists and turns of her mind were beginning to make his head spin. “How do you propose getting at this truth?”