The Summer He Came Home

Chapter 25



Maggie dried the last of the supper dishes and put them away. She placed the damp dish towel over the drying rack and glanced around her small kitchen. A crystal vase of purple tulips so dark they appeared black stared back at her from the table. They’d been a gift from Cain.

The table had been set for two tonight—the first time in the last several nights. She hadn’t heard a word from him since he left this morning, but maybe it was for the best.

She sighed and glanced down the hall toward the bathroom. The shower had stopped. “Michael, make sure you brush your teeth. I left clean pajamas on your bed.”

His answer was muffled, and from the sound of it, his mouth was full of toothpaste. She wandered into the living room, tossed a magazine into the rack beside the sofa, and stared out the window. The sun was still bright, even though it was nearing nine in the evening.

She spied Luke out front, bringing his garbage cans back in from the road, and swore under her breath. “Dammit!” She’d been in a daze this morning and had forgotten to put hers out. She wrinkled her nose. With this heat, her little shed out back was going to smell. Huge.

“All done, Mom.”

Maggie turned and walked over to her son, doing the inspection dance as she checked behind his ears, sniffed his hair, and eyed his fingernails. He giggled. “Do I pass?”

She brushed his damp hair back and kissed his forehead. “With flying colors. Good job, sir.” Maggie gave him a hug. “Twenty minutes and then bed, all right?”

He nodded and plunked himself on the sofa. “Mom?”

Here it comes. Maggie’s gut tightened. “Hm?”

“How come Cain didn’t come for supper? He loves your cucumber salad.”

She pasted a smile to her face and shrugged. “He was busy, honey. He had to go and pick up a musician friend of his.” She watched his face closely. Her son was smart and didn’t miss much.

“Dax Jones?”

“Yes, I think that’s his name.”

“Cain told me he’s from across the pond and that he speaks funny.” His forehead furled. “Like David Beckham.”

“He’s British, sweetie, so yes, he’ll have an accent.”

“Oh.” He shifted a bit. “Did I tell you Cain asked me to play with him in the charity football game? It’s supposed to be father and son, but”—Michael shrugged—“he said it didn’t matter. We’re going to be on the same team with Tommy and his dad.”

“Yes, I think you mentioned that a couple hundred times.”

As one of the fundraiser events, a charity football game had been organized, with a host of alumni and their children. It was to take place in the afternoon on the Fourth, just after the parade.

“Tommy’s dad said that Cain was a really good football player, like he could have gone to the NFL and everything!”

“Really,” she murmured, sliding onto the sofa beside him.

“Yep.” Michael nodded. “Tommy’s dad said Cain has the Midas touch, whatever that is, and that he’s one lucky son of a—” Her son’s face froze, and then he giggled. “Well, you know what I mean.”

“Yes, I do,” she said drily.

“So”—Michael bit his lip—“is he, like, your boyfriend?”

Okay, she hadn’t been expecting that. For a second Maggie was speechless, and though her first instinct was absolute denial, she watched her son closely and spoke, deciding honesty would be the best bet.

“I’m not sure. Would it be weird if he kinda was?”

Michael’s face screwed up. “Weird? No”—he shook his head—“Richard Masterson’s mom has three of ’em.”

“Three?” She blinked, thinking she’d heard him wrong. He was quite serious, though, and nodded, his damp curls bobbing against his forehead.

“Yep, but it’s supposed to be a secret, because one of them is married to another lady.”

All right then. Maggie tousled his hair. “Well, you’d better keep that to yourself. Time for bed.”

Michael gave her a hug, and she held his body close. She didn’t want to let him go, and when he began to squirm, her arms fell away reluctantly. “You want a story?”

His tired eyes brightened. “‘Cozy Land’?”

Maggie grinned and nodded as he slipped from her arms and dashed toward his room. Cozy Land was a magical place that little boys and girls went to just before Sandman grabbed them and pulled them into slumber.

A child could be anywhere in the world…or be anything. In a pirate boat out on the Caribbean Sea. A whale rider off the coast of Australia. A tea party on a bank of clouds. Every night in Cozy Land was different. It was a product of her imagination and had grown as her stories evolved. So much so that she’d started to write them down and draw accompanying illustrations.

Michael loved the stories, and it was her secret ambition to get them published one day. Just one dream in a long line of yearnings.

That would be her Cozy Land.

Maggie followed him to bed, and they snuggled together for almost forty-five minutes until his head bobbed forward and didn’t recover. She would tell him the rest of his Cozy Land adventure the next night. She was pretty sure he’d want to know what happened after the tree house in the Amazon rain forest had begun to float into the air.

She tucked him in and kissed him on the forehead before closing the door to his room.

The quiet of her home was deafening, something she hadn’t noticed for a while. She wasn’t in the mood for television, and even the thought of writing or drawing didn’t excite her. She was out of sorts. Restless.

She closed her eyes and reached for the throw blanket. God, she felt like a dark cloud was hanging over her.

Maybe it was just a cloud of self-pity. Or maybe she just missed Cain.

Maggie rested her head back and closed her eyes. She’d never been in an adult relationship before. Her marriage didn’t count. That relationship had been unhealthy. The only good thing that had come out of it was Michael. So the notion of give-and-take was a little foreign to her. She understood Cain’s frustration with her, but it wasn’t easy for her to open up.

No one knew the details of her marriage, of her life…of the many disappointments and losses she’d endured. Some of them had speculated. Lauren and Raine certainly knew her past wasn’t all puppies and rainbows. But they didn’t know.

Did Cain deserve that sort of trust? She’d let him into her home, into her bed, so why was it so hard for her to open up to him?

What was the point? That was the real question.

Maggie sank into the sofa and tried to find some warmth. She’d never be free of her past, and she knew she should break it off with Cain before things became more complicated than they already were.

She must have dozed off, because when she woke later, her house was in darkness. She stretched and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, groaning softly as her stiff muscles protested. A soft knock sounded at her door, and she froze.

It was Cain. She knew it.

Her body shifted inside; it felt like a dose of shock therapy had been discharged. She was all kinds of excited, sick, and scared—at the same time. This was her body’s reaction to Cain. It was like radar, only instead of producing a blip, she got nauseous.

Her heart pounded so hard, a wash of heat rushed over her skin, but she tossed the blanket aside and crossed to the door. She opened it before she had the chance to chicken out.

Cain stared down at her in silence. He filled the space around her, and though he hadn’t even touched her yet, she felt him like a physical force.

“Maggie, I…”

She didn’t let him finish. Her arms were around him, and her lips reached for his. Searching, seeking his warmth and strength…his soul. She didn’t care about anything other than the man in front of her. She kissed him as if she was starving. As if he was the only thing that could save her.

His hands slid down her body, and he hugged her to him, murmuring words into her ear, though honestly, she had no clue what he was saying. All she knew for sure was that the anxiety and fear that had settled into her body for the day were gone.

Seconds later, or maybe it was minutes, he gently pushed her inside and closed the door behind them.

“I meant to call earlier, but I got hung up with Dax. I’m sorry.” Cain exhaled. “After the way things were left this morning, I didn’t want you to think…” His dark eyes shone. “I didn’t want you to think that I wasn’t coming back.”

Her heart constricted. This morning he’d promised they’d finish their conversation. “Cain, I don’t want to fight.”

His hand caressed her cheek, and she leaned into his touch like a flower seeking the sun. “I don’t either. I just need to be with you.” He shrugged. “I can’t explain it any other way.” His hands crept around her waist. “This must be what a junkie feels like when they’re jonesing for a hit. You’re my drug of choice, Maggie.”

Cain lifted her with ease and sank onto the sofa with Maggie across his lap. She rested her head against his chest, listened to the heavy beat of his heart, and for the first time all day felt peace.

***

Cain drank in her scent, her softness, and her surrender.

He’d had one hell of a day. Anything that could have gone wrong did. As soon as he returned to the cottage with Dax, he’d been called to the football field because his input was needed on how the stage was to be built. Planning something on this scale should have been easy, but in a small town, nothing ever was. Too many hands in the pot led to wasted time. In the end, he’d called Mac, and the job was finalized.

Though that had led to discussions about production—sound equipment and lights—and he’d driven nearly fifty miles to the closest city in order to make sure the proper gear was reserved for the Fourth. He’d lucked out and had been able to finagle Pat Rossi—a guy he’d worked with in the past—to do sound and lights, and only had to throw in an extra case of beer to seal the deal.

He’d hightailed it back to Crystal Lake and had come straight here, anxious because he hadn’t been able to call Maggie. His cell had died, and his charger was nowhere to be found.

Cain kept her close, his hand caressing her cheek. He loved the small upturn in her nose, the way she leaned into his touch. His arms tightened around her, and his chest constricted something fierce. This little firecracker had come to mean a lot to him in the past few weeks. What was he doing? His arms tightened, his breathing quickened.

“Her name was Rose.”

“Sorry?” he murmured.

“My mother.” Maggie pulled away and glanced up at him, her blue eyes shadowed and sad. “Her name was Rose,” she whispered.