Commitment by Margaret Ethridge Read Free Book Online

Sheila blew out an exasperated breath. “If I thought for a moment that drunken old coot had ten dollars to his name I’d let each one of those bids stand,” she hissed. “Excuse me.” She slipped her hand from the crook of Tom’s arm and smoothed her hands over the skirt of her dress.
    Maggie tried to seize the opportunity to escape. “I was just going—”
    “Do not leave,” Sheila ordered then turned her sharp gaze on Tom. “Stay here. Entertain Maggie. She hates these things almost as much as you do.”
    “But—”
    “Stay, or I’ll order you file suit on Haven House’s behalf against a senile old judge. Would you call it malicious mischief or fraud?”
    “More than likely Johnnie Walker Black,” he muttered.
    Sheila set sail, cutting through the throng like a battleship running full steam ahead. Maggie glanced at Tom and raised an eyebrow. “Buy a girl a drink, Sully?”
    One corner of his mouth lifted. “My pleasure. Mags .”
    His smirk more closely resembled a sneer. Unfortunately, it didn’t detract from the overall effect. He was every bit as gorgeous as she remembered. He offered her a gallant arm, and Maggie slipped her hand into the spot Sheila vacated, reminding herself he was still way too hot for her to handle.
    They approached the bar. She dropped her hand from his arm and fiddled with the clasp on her evening bag. He kept his gaze fixed on the bartender as they inched forward.
    “What would you like?”
    Maggie bit her lip. She wanted the biggest, fattest bottle of Malbec ever made and her hula girl pajamas, but it looked like she was going to get was another dose of Tom Sullivan’s infuriating indifference. She snapped her bag shut and tipped her chin up. “Champagne, please.”
    Without sparing her another glance he stepped to the bar. “ Chivas neat and a glass of the bubbly stuff,” he muttered, stuffing a bill into the brandy snifter that served as a tip jar. “So, did you and Tracy have a good time the other night?”
    She blinked and reared back. “How did you know I saw Tracy?”
    He turned at last, shooting her an exasperated glare. “How do you think?”
    There were tiny flecks of brown in his deep blue irises. Somehow the disconcerting combination made his eyes as purple as pansies. How had she never noticed that before? Oh yeah, he’d never stood this close before. Maggie frowned as snippets of Tom Sullivan sightings flickered through her brain. They attended the same pre-wedding festivities, three baptisms, and dozens of backyard barbeques over the past decade and a half, but she could have swung all fifteen pounds of Fred and never come close to hitting him.
    It was galling. The guy was the consummate player, flirting with every woman from eight to eighty, but he barely ever spoke to her. He screwed his way from Lincoln Park to Lincolnshire, but he never bothered to give her a second look. That fact alone was more than vaguely insulting.
    Resisting the urge to smooth her hands over the clingy black dress she wore, Maggie observed others of the species. The bartender blatantly ogled her cleavage as he filled her champagne flute. A guy with a paunch and thinning blond hair practically crawled onto the bar to peek around Tom’s arm. Some pervert standing behind her kept trying to grope her ass. She gave brief consideration to hitting the ass grabber with a whirling backhand but dismissed the thought. At the moment she needed every ounce of validation she could get.
    Maggie accepted the glass of sparkling wine Tom presented and raised it in a silent toast, inching away from the bar but keeping him in her sights. The bubbles made her tongue tingle. His index finger brushed the bump on the bridge of his nose when he took a greedy slurp of his scotch. The urge to brush her finger over that bump had her tapping a sharp staccato against her glass. He spared her a glance more effective than a cease and desist order and she reined in her nerves.
    “How is Sean?” she asked,