It's Only Temporary - The Complete Collection Read online

  Tanner smelled Ginny before he saw her. Just a slight hint of magnolia to warn him to wipe his eyes, to slide that first bottle under his chair.

  She slid her arms around his neck, leaned against his back and pressed her cheek against his. She murmured, “He’s gone.”

  “For good?”

  She shook her head. “He’s our only hope. You see that, right?”

  It was like a fist to the stomach and he stood shakily.

  She said, “I know what he did to your family. I know that you can’t ever forgive him. But we need him. He’s the biggest man in Texas now and all of our creditors will do whatever it takes to stay on his good side.”

  He turned to her. “We don’t need him, Ginny. We have other options. I have ideas. Plans.”

  She smiled, total trust in her eyes. “I know you do. And this will give us time for one of your ideas to start working.”

  A tear slid down his cheek and she wiped it gently away.

  He hated crying in front of her. Hated that even with his tears to prove it she couldn’t see what a loser he’d turned out to be.

  Maggie saw. Maggie knew.

  But never Ginny. She still looked at him the same way she’d looked at him years ago. Still loved him. Still thought he was everything she wanted. Still thought he would give her everything she deserved.

  She was the only one who still believed it.

  Maggie watched Cole’s taillights disappear down the drive.

  He’d crowed to Tanner that they were engaged and Maggie thought maybe she knew why he was going along with this charade. For forgiveness? To tie his name to the Caldwells more like.

  She hadn’t seen it coming.

  He could still surprise her it seemed and she didn’t like it one bit.

  Ginny had invited him to dinner and Cole had stayed. Flirting and telling stories of his oil wells that would make anyone think twice about eating their steak rare. Oil was dangerous business. Dangerous and profitable.

  Tanner had stayed outside. Drinking.

  Rosa had taken one look at Cole sitting at the table and had let out a stream of uncomplimentary Spanish. And when Maggie had told her they were engaged, Rosa had grabbed for the cross hanging around her neck. She’d stared at Maggie with her mouth hanging wide open and whispered, “Tu padre.”

  If her father had been more than a heartbeat, if he’d been lucid enough to comprehend, it would have killed him. Sent him straight on to the hereafter.

  And she could have only told him that Cole had taught her yet another lesson. Don’t offer a deal to the devil. Because even if you knew he wouldn’t take you up on it, he would.

  Cole had merely sat there grinning, as if he’d known exactly what Rosa had said, what Maggie was thinking.

  Maggie was getting tired of Cole’s lessons. Twelve years ago, she’d learned that if a contract wasn’t enforceable it wasn’t worth anything. And to always make sure that what you were trying to save was worth it.

  Maggie turned away from Cole’s fading taillights and stared at her home.

  Were wood and bricks worth fighting for? Now that she had a real chance at saving it, was it worth it?

  She loved Dallas. Loved the hustle and bustle, the chaos. Missed her apartment in the city, missed living alone. She and Ginny and Tanner had rented out or sold all their properties and had come back to the ranch house to live. To share expenses, to cut costs.

  They’d come back because Daddy was here, slowly dying, and they couldn’t bear to move him.

  They’d come back because this was home. This was Maggie’s home. And she wasn’t ready to give it up yet. Maybe after her father died. Maybe after they buried him next to her mother, she could sell, move to the city for good. Leave her sister to clean up the mess that was her husband.

  But she couldn’t do it yet. Not just yet.

  Most likely Cole would make her rue the day she’d asked him to help her. But right now, he was all she had.

  And if he was going to make her rue, by God she’d make it worth it.

  Maggie arrived at Cole’s just as the sun peeked above the horizon. His truck was parked in front of the detached three-car garage and she breathed a sigh of relief that she didn’t have to drive out to Midland again. She knew he only came home on the weekends and was surprised he bothered at all. It made as much sense as Maggie coming home to the ranch house every night from the city, but most people were none too rational about home.

  She rang the doorbell, not sorry at all about waking him so early.

  When he didn’t answer, she rang again. And again. Then banged on the door.

  “Cole!”

  She made her way to the back, turning doorknobs, trying to lift windows, yelling his name. The place was locked up tight and if his truck hadn’t been there she’d have said it was deserted.

  She headed back to the front door, perplexed and cranky, and saw Cole leaning against her car.

  He was shirtless, his shorts hanging low on his hips, his arms folded, his black hair wild and mussed.

  She stopped at the sight of him. Yesterday when he’d jumped in her pool in his briefs, she’d thought that life sometimes was just not fair.

  She remembered his eighteen-year-old body. Remembered wide shoulders and long limbs. He’d always had muscles, always had that lean fighter build.

  But now he looked like a man. The lanky boy was all gone and he’d grown into his height. He was beautiful. Hard and beautiful.

  Cole looked at her with blue eyes the color of sapphires and said, “It’s five fucking o’clock, Maggie.”

  She put her nose in the air and held up her briefcase. “We have business. I didn’t want to chase you to Midland again.”

  He closed his eyes, rubbing his palms up and down his face. He muttered, “You’d better be naked under that skirt.”

  Maggie didn’t bother to reply.

  He looked at the briefcase in one hand and her car keys in the other. “No coffee either?”

  He pushed himself off her car and turned away, walking towards the back of the garage. He grumbled, “Only I would get myself engaged to a woman who would wake a man up at the fucking crack of dawn without coffee or sex.”

  Maggie followed him, trying so hard not to stare at his back or at his slipping shorts that she was halfway up the outside stairs before she realized where he was going.

  “You live in the guest house?”

  “Yeah.”

  When he didn’t say anything else, she stopped. “Why?”

  He made it to the top, opening the door for her. He blinked when he saw her halfway down the stairs.

  He sneered. “Are you worried I won’t be able to help with your debts after all?”

  Maggie was well acquainted with Cole’s sneers. He only did it when he was feeling self-conscious.

  She tilted her head. “If I am going to pin all my hopes on you and this engagement, I need to know that you can deliver.”

  Cole stomped back down the stairs, stopping on the step above her. He towered over her and said, “I live in the apartment because the house is a 10,000 square foot gilded monstrosity and I fucking hate it.”

  His eyes flashed cold fire at her and she said calmly, “You could sell it.”

  Maggie started up the stairs again, forcing him back on his step. He held his ground, wrapping his arm around her waist, holding her tight so she wouldn’t wobble on the step.

  “I could. I don’t want to.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it reminds me that I couldn’t sell it when I needed to. And now that I don’t need to, it reminds me that all that glitters is just a noose around my neck, slowly strangling me.”

  She laughed. “That’s probably a good reason to get rid of it, Cole.”

  He looked into her eyes, even with his own, and said softly, “You’re wearing those shoes again.”

  She was pressed tight against him, she could tell he was happy to see her this morning. She wouldn’t take it personally. It wa
s morning, he was Cole, and she’d practically dared him to try to get her naked again. And she was wearing those shoes again.

  She said, “I prefer to be eye to eye with you.”

  That was true. She also liked keeping him off balance and she’d noticed that he’d spent four of the five minutes she’d been in his office yesterday staring at her ankles.

  Cole smiled slightly and pushed her up the stairs ahead of him. He said, “Then let me enjoy the view and I might forgive you for the no coffee.”

  She let him enjoy the view, putting a little extra sway into her hips, knowing the small slit in the back of her skirt would make him forget all about coffee. Make him forget just about everything.

  When she reached the top she turned, finding him still halfway down the stairs. She smiled at him, knowing exactly what she did to him, knowing her eyes told him exactly when she’d let him do all the things he was thinking of doing to her.

  Exactly never.

  When he let out a physically impossible suggestion under his breath, she chuckled and let herself into the guest house. And found Cole’s home.

  The apartment took up the entire second story of the three-car garage. A large open space with cream walls and hardwood floors housed the kitchen and living area. No dining area, only a large counter with two bar stools.

  She shook her head at the large flatscreen hanging on the wall in front of a plush recliner, at the entertainment system stocked full of games and movies. Boys and their toys.

  Cole hadn’t followed her in yet and Maggie peeked into the bedroom. A large king-size bed, the sheet hanging off the end, took up most of the space. Maggie could smell Cole’s scent in the air. Something warm and male, with a hint of Irish Spring underneath.

  She remembered. Cole liked the classics.

  Maggie wandered back into the kitchen, searching for coffee. A cold tease she might be, but she could start coffee for the man.

  When the coffee was done and Cole still hadn’t followed her inside, she filled two mugs and headed back outside. He sat on the stair she’d left him on, his back to her.

  She carefully made her way down the stairs, handing him a mug and sitting next to him.

  His fridge had been bare, although there had been a Costco-sized pack of bacon in his freezer, and Maggie had made do with sugar in her coffee.

  Cole got his black.

  They sat in silence for a few minutes. Cole took a sip of his coffee, grimacing.

  Maggie said, “No cream, no milk, no nothing.”

  He eyed her coffee. “Yours, too?”

  Maggie took a sip. “Sugar.”

  He put his mug down and reached for hers. She let go without a fight, a hot coffee spill not on her top ten list of things to do today.

  He took a sip, grimacing even more at the syrupy sweetness. He took another large gulp, handing it back to her with a shake of his head. “Yep, that’ll do it.”

  Cole leaned back, resting his elbows on the step behind him. He said, “I thought we were starting over.”

  Maggie didn’t look at him, just watched the sky turn from pink to blue. “I thought we were, too. Wasn’t that what you were doing in the pool yesterday? Telling me I was going to sleep with you?”

  He sighed. “You’re right, I started it. Let’s start over again, again.”

  He sat up, turning on the step to face her. “Cole Montgomery.”

  “Margaret Caldwell.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Those Caldwells?”

  She raised an eyebrow back. “That Montgomery?”

  He took her mug back from her. “This is going to be harder than I thought.” He took a sip, watching her over the rim.

  He put the mug down, holding his hand out to shake hers.

  Maggie shook her head but grasped his hand, pumping firmly.

  He held on to her hand and stared into her eyes. “I’m Cole. You have beautiful eyes.”

  She laughed. “I don’t think this is going to work.”

  He looked down at her hand in his, running his thumb along her nails. He sighed deeply.

  “I guess I don’t really want to forget all the other times. I don’t want to start over. It wasn’t all bad, Maggie.”

  No, it wasn’t. But funny how the bad times were the easiest to remember. Funny how the good times were good but the bad times were really bad.

  She said, “What’s your best memory?”

  He looked up. “Of us?”

  She nodded and he said, “Last time we met out on the land. Right after graduation. I flashed my binoculars and you left your party to come meet me.” He looked out where his land bordered hers. “You tried to talk me into going back to the party with you and when I wouldn’t, you stayed. We watched the sun set, the stars rise. When it got chilly, I put my arms around you and I kissed you for the first time. And you said ‘Cole’ like you wanted to. Like I had a chance.”

  She stared at him. “You didn’t even have to think about it.”

  “Nope. It’s not easy to forget the last good time.”

  He turned back to her and Maggie stared into his eyes, thinking she’d forgotten what it was like to be with Cole. Forgot how he lived wide open and unafraid.

  He said, “But if you ask me for the second best memory, we’re going to be here awhile.”

  She relaxed. She’d also forgotten how he kept you balancing on that edge, back and forth, not letting you fall unless he wanted you to.

  Cole said, “What’s your favorite memory?”

  “Favorite or best?”

  She smiled when he narrowed his eyes. He’d forgotten that she liked to poke him. Maggie guessed there still weren’t a lot of people in Cole’s life who liked to poke him.

  She said, “Yours was pretty good. I’ll say that one, too.”

  “No. I want yours.”

  Maggie’s best memory was that short window they’d slept together. Before the whole thing had exploded on them.

  She hadn’t cared that she’d bargained for it, they’d been heading that direction anyway. They would lay in bed and talk and then tangle the sheets. She would sneak out of her house late at night and he would be waiting for her. After their first time together he was so gentle with her, and she did everything, anything, to get him to break. To lose control.

  Cole wild and out of control was nearly a religious experience.

  But she wasn’t going to tell him that. He might live wide open and unafraid, she didn’t.

  She said, “When they jumped you.”

  He chuckled, shaking his head. “I give you a wonderful moment and you give me that? Cold, Maggie.”

  “We were seventeen.”

  “Oh, I remember it.”

  “You couldn’t even talk when I found you.”

  He patted her hand and put it in her lap. He said, “I can see why you would like that.”

  He leaned back on his elbows and she smiled at his profile.

  She said, “You didn’t even open your eyes. Just sighed, like you’d been waiting for me. Then you passed out.”

  He glanced at her. “I still dispute that.”

  “Since I’m the one who sat there cradling your head for ten minutes, I think I’ll believe my version.”

  She’d sat there for ten minutes and cried. She hadn’t been there to save him, to step in front of him, to fend off his enemies.

  “Maggie, it is too early to relive getting the shit kicked out of me by five kids. Is there a point to your story?”

  “There were six kids.”

  Cole took a deep breath, carefully not looking at her.

  She watched him not look at her and said, “A sixth kid who just watched, safe from a distance. Who never paid for the punches he orchestrated.”

  “I hate fucking Tanner.”

  She said softly, “He hates you back.”

  Cole smiled. His lips parted, leaving white teeth gleaming in the early light. His eyes hardened, saying all too clearly that Cole would love to meet Tanner Beaumont alone in a d
ark alley, just name the time.

  Maggie made a mental note to make sure Cole never ran into Tanner alone at the house.

  And pushed down, down deep, that little part of her that thrilled at his smile.

  She’d seen him fight, more times than she could remember. She’d seen the abandon that he fought with. No thought for any future pain, no one home to care about the damage. Only fists flying and blood spurting.

  Only the driving need to win, to hit harder than his opponent, to falter less than his enemy.

  He hadn’t changed as he’d gotten older. He’d only gotten smarter, learned where to hit, how to inflict the most pain. And if you went down on the first punch, well, no shame in that. It took a village to take down Cole Montgomery. A stupid, suicidal village.

  And when he lost control, that’s how sex was with him, too. No thought for the future, only the pleasure now.

  God knew why Maggie was saying no to him. Except it was a breathless, terrifying, on-the-edge-of-a-cliff way to live.

  She’d escaped once. And she knew it was much, much easier to stay off that cliff in the first place than it was to convince yourself that you wanted off.

  Or to recover after the fall.

  Cole said, “He told you?”

  “Tanner…gets chatty when he’s had too much to drink. And my point to this story is that after Tanner told me about being the general, about watching his troops do his dirty work, I couldn’t figure out why you never told anyone. You didn’t tell me.”

  “Maybe I just thought no one would believe me.”

  “Is that why?”

  Cole turned to her, wide open and unafraid. “No.”

  “You didn’t tell me, you never said his name to anyone, because I liked him.”

  “I didn’t want you to have to choose between us.”

  Maggie shook her head. “No. You didn’t want to take away my choice. You knew I’d choose you.”

  “You’d choose me only because he’d broken the rules. He hadn’t been fair.”

  “You are what you do.”

  “And let me tell you, there’s nothing that scares me more than that thought.”

  Maggie said, “Want to hear my caveat?”