getting you another suitcase, and you’ve got two or three hours’ worth of a shopping spree to fill it. After that… we’re headed to one of the places on your list. And I’ll admit, you gave me a real challenge coming through on this one. You’re going to love it.”
She didn’t plan on loving anything. She’d found a lover last night-an unforgettable lover. But because she’d done the stupid hysterical-deafness thing again, he had a chance to push away. He had a great time doing his fix-Carolina thing…but no one was getting close enough to fix Maguire.
Truthfully she didn’t want to fix anything about him. She just wanted to show him that someone could be there for him, too. That it wasn’t always one-sided.
So far, she’d flunked that course completely.
Chapter Eight
Well, hell. Maguire fixed things. He was good at fixing things-not to be egotistical, but personally, he thought he was downright outstanding at fixing things.
But he was rotten when fate threw him a curveball that he wasn’t prepared for.
“We’re just going back to Washington for a couple of days,” he told Carolina. The interminable overseas flight was…well, interminable.
“You told me. It’s fine.” Carolina, curled up in the window seat, looked sleepy and content.
Maguire wanted to claw the walls. “That wasn’t the plan.”
“I know. And I get it, you’re stressed about this. But whatever you have to do, just do, Maguire. You told me Tommy was coming over tomorrow. I couldn’t be more delighted to see him.”
He could see she meant it. Her eyes lit up at the idea of seeing his young brother-so unlike the rest of the world, who looked at Tommy and tended to see disabilities.
The change in plans had a good side, he told himself. They were going to be around people for a couple of days, rather than alone together. She’d have a block of time to forget that wild night, to get things back in perspective. He’d keep her way, way too busy to think about…well, to think about sex. At least sex with him.
By the time the jet finally touched down in Seattle, they were both blithering tired. Maguire didn’t usually suffer from jet lag, but he hadn’t slept. How was he supposed to sleep, when the damn woman had put down the barrier between the seats and snuggled next to him?
She made out like his chest was her pillow. Like his arm belonged tucked around her. Like it was okay that her hand had drifted between his legs when she fell asleep. That her hand had been there for ages and ages. That the damn woman had reached up to brush her lips against his neck in her sleep, for Pete’s sake.
Was that fair? Was that reasonable? How much could a man be expected to endure?
He’d arranged a limo to pick them up in Seattle, which saved him having to drive when he was bleary-eyed. Once they got back to the lodge, she poured into bed almost as easily as liquid Jell-O, only spoke up when he took off her sacred red shoes.
He had no memory of stumbling into bed, but he must have, and then woke up early in spite of himself. Maybe he was brain-dead tired, but he still figured the rise-and-shine thing was a good idea-he’d have a chance to mentally prepare before Carolina was up.
The rain started at dawn, beginning as a sleepy drizzle and turning into a silent gush. Even inside, the pines seemed to smell more verdant, the air steamed with freshness. By the time Carolina bounced downstairs, in jeans and an oversize sweatshirt, he had a table loaded with papers and information for her-and he was on the nice, far distance of the other side.
He poured her coffee, urged her to sit and started in. “I’ve got a list for you…”
He had a plan, beyond keeping her busy with coffee and thick slabs of French-bread toast. He was going to give her lots to do. Lots to think about. And no time to think of anything personal about him, or them, for damn sure.
“First, here’s a list of good lawyers. Then another list of financial and bank people. Before going with any, you should interview them, talk to them, make sure you’re comfortable communicating with them. It doesn’t help to have smart, good people if they’re speaking Russian to your French. And then…”
She made several hmm sounds, verifying that she was paying attention, listening. But she didn’t stay sitting long. She got up, pressed a hand on his shoulder, started a fresh pot of coffee.
No one had told her where stuff was in the kitchen, but she seemed to guess that spoons would be in the drawer by the sink, mugs in the cupboard above. Maybe women were born knowing this stuff.
And maybe she’d forgotten about that other night, Maguire thought. It didn’t seem possible, when the sex had been so earth-shattering. But she was walking around the kitchen, her hair a little tangled, her face with no makeup, barefoot, as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
She opened a bottom cupboard in the pantry, found a box of brownie mix, lifted it to read the back.
Her fanny was probably the finest he’d ever seen. The sweatshirt completely concealed her figure, but that was the thing. She moved, with that light lithe grace, and there it was-a hint of her breast when she turned, the curve of her hip when she bent down. Promise. Every damn thing about the woman was a capital
For the right man.
Not him.
But for the right one.
“Every time I’ve seen you lose your hearing, Carolina, it’s clearly because you hit a stressor. The last couple of times, it seems the stress trigger was seeing someone emotionally hurt, or feeling beat up on, or being yelled at. So that’s what we’re working on next. We’re going to set up life situations where no one can do that to you.”
“Do you like your brownies with nuts or not?”
“I like homemade brownies any way I can get them. Are you listening?”
“Yes, sir.” Another squeeze on his shoulder, just a whisper of contact, but by the time he whipped around, she was fussing around the kitchen again.
So he started talking faster. “One of the things you’ve been clear about is wanting to share your wealth. Wanting to use some of your money to just plain give away-”
“Darned right I do.” Just for a second, there was a flash of fire in those soft blue eyes. “There are so many causes and people with huge needs.”
“I know, buttercup.” The stupid “buttercup” word just slipped out, but Maguire stayed firmly on course. “That’s exactly the point. You need a way to handle that, where people aren’t battering down your door all the time. So here’s what you do. Decide how much you want to give away to worthy causes in a year. Put that money into a type of account or trust. Then hire someone-part-time, you can make it a single mom or someone who needs to work from home, so you’ll get to do your do-gooder thing that way, too. That in-between person hears all the direct requests, studies the causes, then reports to you-you and you alone decide which ones to give to. But you’re able to stay separate from the people making demands of you. No hounders get to you directly. So…”
He’d been lecturing great guns, until she suddenly turned around. She’d been pouring the brownie mix into a pan, was still scraping the bowl with a spoon. But she had chocolate-just a tear-on her cheek.
She walked over, with that dripping spoon and the chocolate kiss on her cheek, and kissed him on the forehead. Just like that. Got chocolate on his brow. On his knee. She didn’t even notice.
Hell. He didn’t either.
“Maguire,” she said gently, “I’m not telling you often enough how much I appreciate all this. You’re teaching me tons. Giving me ideas I would never have had without you. You really get it. That I wasn’t doing a good job of protecting myself. That I didn’t know how. But I keep wondering…”
“What?” His tone came out snappy for no reason at all.
“Do you ever let anyone protect you?”
The question was ridiculous. Why would he need protecting from anyone or anything? He didn’t know what she was getting at, only that she was increasingly starting to…worry him. He felt like a cat in a thunderstorm who couldn’t sit still, just wanted to restlessly prowl and snap and worry.
She was messing with his head. He just wasn’t sure how. Thankfully the strange moment ended abruptly with
