Wife for Hire

Chapter 9

Maggie took her shoes off on the way home and tried to wiggle her toes. “They’re dead,” she said. “They’ll never be the same.”

Hank sat in a relaxed slouch behind the wheel. “It’s your own fault. You insisted I dance with you.”

“I was trying to keep you occupied so you wouldn’t misbehave.”

“I think you just wanted me to hold you in my arms.”

There was some truth to that, Maggie admitted. He really hadn’t stepped on her toes all that much, and he’d felt wonderful swaying against her in time to the music. In fact, she might have gotten downright carried away if it hadn’t been so obvious that the entire town was watching their every move.

“So, what do you think of the good people of Skogen?” Hank asked.

“I’m not too impressed,” she answered truthfully. “The men are all intent on stealing my diary, and at least half of the women are intent on stealing my husband. Big Irma warned me not to mess with your apple pie recipe. Mrs. Farnsworth told me I’d have a life of eternal damnation if I didn’t take up quilting. And Clara somebody sneezed on my coffee cake.”

“Clara Whipple. She has allergies.”

“She did it on purpose!”

“Honey, Clara Whipple sneezes on everybody and everything.”

Maggie rubbed her toes. “She should use a tissue.”

Hank turned into the driveway and stole a quick look at Maggie’s feet. “I’m really sorry about your toes. I tried to be careful.”

“It’s not your fault. You hardly stepped on my toes at all. I’ve been going barefoot so much lately that my feet aren’t used to being in shoes.”

Three cars passed them going in the opposite direction on the narrow dirt road. The last one was Bubba’s. He stopped and rolled his window down. “Don’t worry,” Bubba said to Hank. “We made sure everything got cleaned up. We even left the porch light on for you.”

“How thoughtful,” Hank said. “I’ll have to do something nice for you someday.” He sat up a little straighter and got a bright look to his face, as if he’d just had a terrific idea. “I know…how about breakfast. Why don’t you come to breakfast this morning?”

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to do that anymore.”

“This is a special occasion.” He shot a look at Maggie. “You don’t mind, do you, cupcake?”

“No bloodshed,” she said. “I threw up watching Rocky II.”

Hank waved good night to Bubba and continued along the driveway. “I thought people in New Jersey liked that kind of thing. And what about the time you hit that kid in the head with your lunchbox?”

Maggie didn’t answer him. She was thinking about the diaries, hoping they were still safely hidden. Tomorrow Hank would make Bubba tell him the name of the person offering the million dollars. That would be a step in the right direction. They could go to the authorities and press charges, although the crime seemed vague. Conspiring to commit robbery maybe.

A million dollars was big time. If you wanted something badly enough to fork out that kind of money, you probably weren’t going to be easily discouraged. When the locals failed to find Kitty’s notebooks, it seemed logical that professionals would be hired, and professionals might be inclined to break kneecaps and shoot people if they didn’t cooperate. In fact, she couldn’t understand why a professional wasn’t hired in the first place. If she were conspiring to steal something, she certainly wouldn’t have told everyone in town.

“Hank, don’t you think it’s strange that someone offered a million dollars for the diaries and turned the offer loose on the Skogen grapevine?”

“Maybe it didn’t start on the grapevine. Maybe the offer was made in private to an individual, and he didn’t keep his mouth shut. Now everybody and their brother is running through my house looking for the good life.”

He parked the truck and walked Maggie to the porch. He tried the door and found it locked. “Well, at least they locked up before they left.”

A grim smile returned to his face. Only in Skogen would a pack of people break into your house and then lock up and leave the porch light on for you. And his best friend, Bubba, had been one of them! Obviously no one in Skogen considered breaking into Hank’s house and stealing Maggie’s diary to be a major crime. The truth is, it had more the flavor of a scavenger hunt or a fishing derby.

He wondered why. People in Skogen were responsible to a fault. They took pride in their town and took care of their own. There had to be a reason for them to feel they had license to get the diary. Greed was strong motivation, but intuition told him there was more to it.

Maggie watched him unlock the door. “How are they getting in? We locked the door and the windows when we left.”

“This morning I had Melvin Nielson make extra keys at the hardware store. I imagine he made more than I requested, and now he’s selling them.”

“Oh, great. That makes me feel real safe. Is there anyone in this town who can’t be bought?”

Hank pulled her into the dark house and closed the door behind them. “Never fear. Horatio and I will protect you. And if we fail, there’s always Elsie and the cat from hell.”

She didn’t need protecting nearly as much as she needed reassuring, she thought. As far as she could tell, everyone in Skogen was nuts. Generations of inbreeding, she decided. She looked at Hank and wondered how he’d escaped. He was a genetic masterpiece.

“Tell me about the people here,” she said. “They aren’t really as awful as they seem to be, are they?”

He hugged her against him. “They aren’t awful, just eccentric. It’s occurred to me that we take a lot of things for granted here because we’re all so familiar with each other. And I’ve been thinking that my reputation might have something to do with the relaxed attitude folks have about breaking into my house.”

“Tit for tat?”

“Something like that.”

His words whispered through her hair, and she felt desire stir deep in the pit of her stomach. She had to admit she’d like to forget about Vern and Bubba and Mrs. Farnsworth. She’d like to go upstairs and spend the rest of the evening making love to Hank. If he could just give her some honest-to-goodness assurance that she’d be happy spending her life in Skogen, she’d race him to the bedroom.

And quite frankly at this point she might not even care if he lied. She was willing to grasp at anything that might justify another night of loving. She was a weak woman, she admitted to herself. She was a sad excuse for a headstrong redhead.

“Tell me the truth. Do you truly think I could be happy living in Skogen for the next hundred years?”

Hank thought that was a tough question. He didn’t even know if he could be happy living in Skogen for a hundred more years. “A hundred years is a little unwieldy. Why don’t we worry about the future in smaller increments of time?”

“How small?”

“Let’s start out with the rest of the night.” He kissed her just below the earlobe. “I feel fairly certain I can keep you happy for the rest of the night.”

As usual Maggie was the last one at the breakfast table. She’d finally managed to roll out of Hank’s bed, lured by the aroma of strong coffee and the sound of a heated argument going on in the kitchen below her. She hadn’t gotten enough hours of sleep, but she felt fine. A little lazy maybe, like a cat with a full belly, sleeping in a sunny spot.

She ambled across the hall to her own room in search of clothes and a comb. Someone was stomping around the kitchen and shouting, but the words were muffled. Bubba was here, she realized as she tugged on a football jersey and a pair of running shorts. She tried to pull a comb through her hair, but it got stuck, so she gave up with an impatient grunt and told herself she preferred the tousled look anyway.

When she reached the kitchen, Bubba and Hank were standing toe-to-toe.

“I’m not gonna tell you,” Bubba said. “It’s not my place to tell.”

Hank had him by the shirtfront. “You’re supposed to be my best friend! I trusted you, and you broke into my house like a common thief!”

“If I’d found the diary, I’d have split the money with you. And it wasn’t exactly breaking in. Slick had already opened the door.”

“You were going to steal something from me!”

“Well, I guess it could look like stealing. On the other hand it didn’t seem like stealing because-”

Hank tightened his grip. “Because what?”

“Oh, hell,” Bubba said. “All right I’ll tell you. Because it was your father who offered the reward for the diary.”

“That’s a lie,” Hank said. “That’s impossible.”

Bubba shook himself loose. “It’s true. He told Fred McDonough he’d pay him a million dollars if he could get hold of the diary.”

“My father doesn’t have that kind of money.”

“Sure he does,” Bubba said. “He’s the president of the bank. He’s the richest man in town.”

It made sense, Hank thought. Ridiculous as it was, it made sense. It was the last piece of the puzzle. People were willing to steal the diary because not only would the diary remain in the family, but everyone trusted his father to do the right thing. His father’s reputation was impeccable. Why his father wanted the diary was beyond his imagination: It was impossible to visualize his father making such an offer. His father wasn’t exactly mob material.

“I’m going to straighten this out right now,” Hank said. “I’m going to pay my father a visit.”

Maggie poured herself a cup of coffee. “Say hello for me.”

Hank clamped a hand on her wrist. “You’re part of this family. You’re coming with me.”

“Oh no. No, no, no, no, no.”

“Yes, yes, yes. It’s your diary. You can drink your coffee in the truck.” He grinned and squeezed her hand. “You look like you need it.”

“Had a rough night,” she answered.

Bubba cleared his throat. “I guess I’ll go home now.”

“No way,” Hank said. “You’re going to go get Fred and bring him over to my parents’ house.”

“Oh, man, Fred’s not going to like that. Fred’s going to be hungover. He doesn’t have a woman to keep him in line,” Bubba explained to Maggie. “Fred’s not what you would call the catch of the town.”

“You don’t know of anyone else that’s going to come looking for the diary, do you?” Hank asked.

“Nope,” Bubba said. “I don’t think there’s anyone else left. Anyway, we searched real thorough, and we couldn’t find it. Some folks are saying the diary doesn’t exist. And most folks are afraid of your house keeper.”

He opened the driver’s side door to his truck. “I’ll make sure Fred gets to your parents’ house, but then I’ve got to go. I have to set the timing on my truck this morning. It hasn’t been sounding right. Don’t forget we promised to help clean up the grange hall this afternoon. And then there’s the poker game to night at Vern’s house.”

“You’re awfully busy with community activities,” Maggie said, sliding onto the bench seat of Hank’s pickup.

Hank pulled her across his lap and kissed her. “Maybe I need to rearrange my social calendar now that I’m a family man.” His hand stole under the football jersey and gently cupped her breast. He kissed her again; deeper, more passionately than before. “This beats the heck out of baseball,” he murmured.

Her fingers fumbled with the snap on his jeans. “How about fixing Bill Grisbe’s car?” She slid her hand along his flat belly until she found what she was looking for. “Does this beat fixing his Ford?”

His answer was an intake of breath and a groan of plea sure.

She wanted to tease him, wanted to take the role of the seducer, but as she curled her hand around him, she felt her body respond with the lovely heat and the delicious thrum of desire that his nearness always triggered. She forgot about wanting to tease, forgot they were on the front seat of a truck, forgot about everything but the man moving over her. He was knowledgeable now. He knew exactly where to touch, knew the rhythms of her passion, knew all her secrets, all her preferences. His fingers stroked her. His mouth devoured her. When she thought she was at her limit, he took her farther. Much farther.

Afterward they held each other close, both in awe of the power of their love, both wondering how they could have done such a thing in broad daylight, in the driveway.

Hank was the first to raise his head above window level. “No one watching,” he said, obviously relieved.

Maggie felt like a silly teenager, except she’d never done this as a teenager.

Hank sat up and adjusted his clothing. “Okay, I’m ready to go see my father now.”

“Maybe we should take showers first. Maybe I should comb my hair.”

He cranked the engine over and stepped on the accelerator. “No. I want to get to the bottom of this.”

Fifteen minutes later his parents were surprised to see him. “I didn’t realize you got up this early,” his mother said.

“Mom, I run a farm. I’m up at the crack of dawn every day.”

“Yes, but you never got up this early when you lived at home. Have you had breakfast?”

“Yup. I’ve already eaten.”

Helen Mallone looked at Maggie’s hair. “A cup of coffee, perhaps?”

Maggie remembered the coffee she’d left sitting on the kitchen counter. “Coffee would be great.”

Harry Mallone was at the table, reading the paper. He looked over the top of his half glasses and raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t think you got up this early,” he said to Hank. “Is something wrong?”

“Dad, I get up this early every day. I’m a farmer.”

“Mmmm,” Harry said. “Fancy apples.”

Hank sighed and slouched in the seat across from his father. “Actually, something is wrong. People have been breaking into my house.”

“I heard about that,” his father said. “I don’t understand it. We’ve never had that kind of crime in Skogen.”

Hank stared coolly at his father. “Rumor has it, you’re the reason people are breaking in. I heard you offered Fred McDonough a million dollars if he’d steal Maggie’s diary for you.”

Harry’s first reaction was disbelief. His second was a smile that creased his face and produced a chuckle deep in his chest. “You aren’t serious.”

“I am serious.”

Harry looked at him. The smile faded. “You are serious.”

“The way I hear it, everyone in town is working nights, trying to make that million dollars.”

Helen gave Maggie a cup of coffee and took a seat at the table. “Harry, did you do that?”

“Of course not,” Harry said. “Where would I get a million dollars?”

“You’re the president of the bank,” Hank told him.

Harry looked appalled. “They think I’d embezzle a million dollars?”

Hank shook his head. “No. They think you’re rich.”

Helen reached across and patted Maggie’s hand. “The people in this town are very nice,” she said, “but you couldn’t accuse them of being smart.”

Fred McDonough knocked at the back door.

Bubba had been right, Maggie thought. Fred McDonough was definitely hung over. His eyes were heavily bagged and only half-open. He had the beginnings of a beard and under the beard his face was ashen.

Helen Mallone opened the door and gently curled McDonough’s hand around a mug of hot coffee.

“I wish I were dead,” McDonough said.

Helen clucked sympathetically. “You shouldn’t drink so much.”

McDonough looked at her like she was from the moon.

“We’re trying to straighten out this stealing business,” Hank said. “Did my father offer you a million dollars to steal Maggie’s diary?”

McDonough took a gulp of scalding coffee and never blinked an eye. “Yep. He said he’d give a million dollars jest to get his hands on that diary. That was his exact words. I tried, too, but your damn dog liked to tear my pants’ leg off.”

Harry Mallone smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Now I remember. That was a figure of speech, you idiot! I didn’t mean I wanted someone to steal the blasted thing, I meant I was wondering about its contents!”

Maggie laid her hand flat on the table to steady herself, as relief washed over her in a dizzying wave. It had been a misunderstanding! She’d been sure someone had been after the diary to save face. She’d thought it might have been a misguided relative, hoping to protect Aunt Kitty. Or perhaps a former client worrying about his reputation. She’d even thought it might have been one of the local upstanding citizens, as preposterous as that might seem.

She took a steadying breath and sipped her coffee before questioning Harry Mallone. “Why didn’t you ask to borrow it?”

Harry shrugged. “It was one of those things you say in a conversation. I don’t really have the time or interest to read about the internal workings of a bordello.”

Maggie felt herself stiffen at the insult. “Too bad,” she said. “It’s pretty interesting.”

Harry gave her a severe look. “I bet.”

“So, let me get this straight,” McDonough said. “You never meant for me to steal the diary?”

Harry removed his glasses, folded them, and placed them in the case on the table. “That’s right.”

McDonough stared off into space, clearly grappling with this new information.

Helen Mallone looked at her husband, her lips pressed tight together. “Harry Mallone,” she said. “You’ve caused a lot of trouble. I don’t usually interfere with the relationship between you and your son, but this is too much. You owe him and Maggie an apology, at the very least.”

“It was an honest communication problem,” Harry said.

“No,” Helen told him. “There’s more involved than that. You haven’t had an open mind about him and his wife. Just look, he even gets up early now and eats breakfast.”

Harry didn’t look especially impressed.

“I think you should give him the loan,” Helen said.

Color instantly rose to Harry’s cheeks.

Helen sat with her hands folded together on the table, her eyes and mouth locked in unyielding determination. “I think it’s the least you could do to set things straight.”

Harry drummed his fingers on the arms of his captain’s chair, assessing his wife’s anger. “He doesn’t have the appropriate collateral.”

“Baloney,” Helen Mallone said, continuing to glare at her husband.

Harry rolled his eyes heavenward and threw his hands into the air.

By anyone’s standards his mother was a flexible person, Hank thought, but when she truly set her mind to something, she was a woman to be reckoned with. Hank knew the only time his father ever threw his hands into the air in a gesture of futility was when he was forced to capitulate to his wife’s obstinacy. Hank could count the times on one hand. The time his mother had insisted they drive to Ohio to spend Christmas with her sister. The time his mother decided to have the kitchen remodeled. The time Aunt Tootie had a hysterectomy and his mother had invited her and her dog, Snuffy, to recuperate in the guest room.

Maggie was in the middle of packing when Hank returned home from cleaning the grange hall.

“What’s this?” he asked. “Why are you putting your clothes in these boxes?”

“I’m leaving. Your father agreed to give you the loan, so there’s no reason for me to stay.”

His thick black eyebrows drew together. “What do you mean, there’s no reason for you to stay? I asked you to marry me.”

“I don’t want to marry you.”

“You don’t love me?”

“I didn’t say that.” Maggie stuffed a stack of T-shirts into her suitcase. “I said I don’t want to marry you. I’ve spent too many years of my life in uncomfortable environments. I love my mother, but I can’t live with her. And I can’t live with you either.”

“What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing’s wrong with you. It’s everything around you that’s all wrong. Your father totally disapproves of me. Your best friend resents me. And your dog is mean to my cat.”

“Is that all?”

“No, that’s not all. I’m going nuts sitting in this room day in and day out staring at apple trees. I don’t think I’m cut out for farm life. If I don’t get to a shopping mall soon, I’m going to go into withdrawal. I want to talk to someone who doesn’t say ‘yup.’ I miss the air pollution. I have a craving to stand in line and curse out someone. I miss being on the road and having other drivers make rude gestures to me.”

Hank put his hand to her forehead. “You running a fever?”

“This town is filled with weirdos.”

“Yeah, but most of them are pretty nice. You’d get used to Skogen if you just gave it a chance.”

“Never!” Maggie said. “I will never get used to Skogen. I’m going back to Riverside, and I’m going to take a job at Greasy Jake’s, and I’m going to finish my book. And then I’m moving to Tibet.”

“Tibet isn’t the paradise it used to be,” Hank said. “I hear Tibet has problems too.”

Maggie stuffed another stack of clothes into her suitcase. “Uh! No one ever takes me seriously.”

“That’s not true. I’ve always taken you seriously…until now. Now I’m not taking you seriously.”

Hank picked the suitcase up and dumped Maggie’s clothes out onto the bed. “We made a deal. The deal was that you would be my wife for six months. I expect you to honor that.”

Maggie felt tears burning behind her eyes and angrily blinked them away. Why was he making this so difficult? It wasn’t as if she really wanted to leave. She loved him. But some of the things she’d said were true. She thought she would be miserable in Skogen in the long term sense of things. And eventually Hank would be miserable too. And then they’d have a miserable marriage. And maybe by that time they’d have miserable children.

No, she thought, she didn’t want to prolong the inevitable. She wanted to leave immediately and start to forget him. Didn’t he understand that every moment in his presence was an agony for her?

“There’s no reason for me to stay. You’re just making things more difficult.”

He set his chin at a stubborn angle. “We made a deal.”

Her eyes were glittery with renewed obstinance.

“Okay,” he said. “I live out in the barn for the next five months. Those are my terms.”

She took on a defiant posture. “Fine. I’ll stay. But don’t expect me to like it. And don’t expect me to cave in again. I intend to devote my energies to finishing my book. I’ll perform what ever social duties you require, but don’t impose your personal needs on me. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly.”