Twice Kissed by Lisa Jackson Read Free Book Online Page B

can’t possibly understand her, and she’s just a poor victim.” The minute the words were out, she cringed. Just because her nerves were frayed, she didn’t need to be bad-mouthing her only child, the reason she found a way to get up each and every morning. “Sorry. That’s not what I meant. She’s in a lot of pain, and she’s trying to sleep.”
    “And giving you a bad time?”
    She bristled inwardly. It was one thing for her to complain about Becca, another thing entirely for an outsider to make a deprecating comment. “It goes with the territory. I can handle it.”
    “Can you?” He didn’t seem convinced, but she ignored the silent questions in his eyes and walked to the telephone. By rote, she dialed Mary Theresa’s number and again was connected with the answering machine. Her stomach clenched when she heard her sister’s recording. She drummed her fingers on the receiver. At the tone, she said, “Hi, M.T., it’s Maggie again.” Leaning a hip against the small table where the phone rested, she bit the corner of her lip and glanced up at Thane, who was watching her every movement. As she turned her back for a bit of privacy, she said, “Look, Mary Theresa, I know I called earlier, but I’m worried. Call me back as soon as you get in, okay?” She rattled off her telephone number again, then slowly hung up, her fingers lingering on the receiver as if she expected the phone to jangle at any second.
    “She’s not gonna call back.”
    Facing him again, Maggie said, “She will.” She has to . Maggie couldn’t comprehend, wouldn’t give a second’s thought to the horrid idea that something had happened to her sister. “It might be a while, but she’ll call.” She wasn’t going to think of the other alternative and opened a cupboard to pull down a can of coffee. Shaking the grounds into the basket of the coffeemaker she felt the same dark fear that had attacked her in the barn earlier today start to stalk her all over again.
    “I hope you’re right.” He adjusted the screen in front of the fireplace, then dusted his hands together and unbuttoned his jacket.
    “You planning on staying?” she asked, suddenly nervous as she filled the coffee carafe with water.
    “For a while.” As if he’d lived here all his life, he tossed his jacket over the screen.
    Maggie was instantly wary, her muscles tense. She glanced at him over her shoulder and sloshed some of the water onto the counter. Damn. The man made her so jittery, it was ludicrous. “How long is ‘a while?’”
    His eyes glinted, and a corner of his mouth lifted. “Don’t worry, Maggie, your virtue is safe with me.”
    She gasped, nearly sputtered out some kind of lame reply, and bit her tongue until she had control of it. “Still the same charmer you always were, aren’t you, Thane?” she mocked, snapping on the coffeemaker, then swiping up the spill with a sponge.
    “I try.” His smile widened into a familiar sexy grin that she wanted to slap off his face. The same cocky, self-assured expression that had won as many hearts as it had broken.
    “Well, it won’t work on me.”
    “No?” he asked, one eyebrow lifting as if he sensed a dare.
    “No.” She was firm.
    “Good. That’ll make things easier.” His gaze swept the mantel, lingered for a while on the photos of Becca growing up, of the framed picture of the two sisters back to back, then stopped short on the only wedding picture that Maggie displayed, one of her and Dean, smiling happily at each other, she in her ivory-colored dress, her veil falling off, her fingers around the nosegay of baby’s breath and pink roses, Dean’s tuxedo tie loosened, his eyes full of life—a spark that had extinguished early on.
    Without comment, Thane took a seat in a worn wing-backed chair and propped one heel on the ottoman as the coffee began to perk.
    “Easier? How?”
    His smile slowly disappeared and he stared at her with an intensity that made her want to squirm. She wrung the