Night Moves: the classic story from the queen of romance that you won’t be able to put down

C.J. had estimated six weeks before she flew back. Cliff, without ever setting eyes on her, cut that in half. But perhaps before Maggie Fitzgerald grew bored with her shot at rural living, he could put his own mark on the land.

He turned off the paved road onto the quarter-mile lane that cut through the Morgan property. It had been years since he’d been on it, and it was worse than he remembered. Rain and neglect had worn ruts in the dirt. From both sides of the lane, branches reached out to whip at the truck. The first order of business would be the lane itself, Cliff thought as his small pickup bounced over ruts. It would be graded, leveled, filled. Drainage ditches would have to be dug, gravel spread.

He went slowly, not for the truck’s sake but because the land on either side of the lane appealed to him. It was wild and primitive, timeless. He’d want to work with that, incorporate his own talents with the genius of nature. If Maggie Fitzgerald wanted blacktop and hothouse plants, she’d come to the wrong place. He’d be the first one to let her know.

If he had a distrust of outsiders, Cliff considered he’d come by it honestly. They came, often from the rich suburbs of D.C., and wanted their lawns flat and free of the poplar and oak that had first claim. They wanted neat little flowers in orderly rows. Lawns should be even, so that their mowers could handle the weekly cutting effortlessly. What they wanted, Cliff thought derisively, was to say they lived in the country while they brought city attitudes and city tastes with them. By the time he rounded the last bend, he was already out of patience with Maggie Fitzgerald.

Maggie heard the truck coming before it was in sight. That was something else she liked about her new home. It was quiet—so quiet that the sound of a truck, which would have been ignored in the city, brought her to attention. Halfheartedly brushing her hands on the seat of her pants, she rose from her planting, then shielded her eyes against the sun.

While she watched, the truck rounded the curve and parked where the Mercedes had been only an hour before. A bit dusty from the road, with its chrome dull rather than gleaming, the truck looked much more comfortable than the luxury car had. Though she couldn’t yet see the driver through the glare of sun on windshield, Maggie smiled and lifted a hand in greeting.

The first thing Cliff thought was that she was smaller than he’d expected, more delicate in build. The Fitzgeralds had always been larger than life. He wondered, with a quick grunt, if she’d want to raise orchids to match her style. He got out of the truck, convinced she was going to annoy him.

Perhaps it was because she’d been expecting another Mr. Bog that Maggie felt a flutter of surprise when Cliff stepped out of the truck. Or perhaps, she thought with her usual penchant for honesty, it was because he was quite simply a magnificent example of manhood. Six-two, Maggie decided, with an impressive breadth of shoulders. Black hair that had been ruffled by the wind through the open truck windows fell over his forehead and ears in loose waves. He didn’t smile, but his mouth was sculpted, sensual. She had a fleeting regret that he wore dark glasses so that his eyes were hidden. She judged people from their eyes.

Instead, Maggie summed him up from the way he moved—loosely, confidently. Athletic, she concluded, as he strode over the uneven ground. Definitely self-assured. He was still a yard away when she got the unmistakable impression that he wasn’t particularly friendly.

“Miss Fitzgerald?”

“Yes.” Giving him a neutral smile, Maggie held out a hand. “You’re from Delaney’s?”

“That’s right.” Their hands met, briefly, hers soft, his hard, both of them capable. Without bothering to identify himself, Cliff scanned the grounds. “You wanted an estimate on some landscaping.”

Maggie followed his gaze, and this time her smile held amusement. “Obviously I need something. Does your company perform miracles?”

“We do the job.” He glanced down at the splash of color behind her, wilted pansies and soggy petunias. Her effort touched something in him that he ignored, telling himself she’d be bored long before it was time to pull the first weeds. “Why don’t you tell me what you have in mind?”

“A glass of iced tea at the moment. Look around while I get some; then we’ll talk about it.” She’d been giving orders without a second thought all her life. After giving this one, Maggie turned and climbed the rickety steps to the porch. Behind the tinted glasses, Cliff’s eyes narrowed.

Designer jeans, he thought with a smirk as he watched the graceful sway of hips before the screen door banged shut at her back. And the solitaire on the thin chain around her neck had been no less than a carat. Just what game was little Miss Hollywood playing? She’d left a trace of her scent behind, something soft and subtle that would nag at a man’s senses. Shrugging, he turned his back on the house and looked at the land.

It could be shaped and structured without being tamed. It should never lose its basic unruly sense by being manicured, though he admitted the years of neglect had given the rougher side of nature too much of an advantage. Still, he wouldn’t level it for her. Cliff had turned down more than one job because the client had insisted on altering the land’s personality. Even with that, he wouldn’t have called himself an artist. He was a businessman. His business was the land.

He walked farther away from the house, toward a grove of trees overrun with tangling vines, greedy saplings and thistles. Without effort he could see it cleared of undergrowth, richly mulched, naturalized perhaps with jonquils. That one section would personify peace, as he saw it. Hitching his thumbs in his back pockets, Cliff reflected that from the reams that had been written about Maggie Fitzgerald over the years, she didn’t go in much for peace.

Jet-setting, the fast lane, glitter and glitz. What the hell had she moved out here for?

Before he heard her, Cliff caught a fresh whiff of her perfume. When he turned, she was a few paces behind him, two glasses in her hand. She watched him steadily with a curiosity she didn’t bother to hide. He learned something more about her then as she stood with her eyes on his face and the sun at her back. She was the most alluring woman he’d ever met, though he’d be damned if he knew why.

Maggie approached him and offered a glass of frosty tea. “Want to hear my ideas?”

The voice had something to do with it, Cliff decided. An innocent question, phrased in that sultry voice, conjured up a dozen dark pleasures. He took a slow sip. “That’s what I’m here for,” he told her with a curtness he’d never shown any potential client.

Her brow lifted at the tone, the only sign that she’d noticed his rudeness. With that attitude, she thought, he wouldn’t have the job for long. Then again, he didn’t strike her as a man who’d work for someone else. “Indeed you are, Mr….?”

“Delaney.”

“Ah, the man himself.” That made more sense, she decided, if his attitude didn’t. “Well, Mr. Delaney, I’m told you’re the best. I believe in having the best, so.” Thoughtfully, she ran a fingertip down the length of her glass, streaking the film of moisture. “I’ll tell you what I want, and you tell me if you can deliver.”

“Fair enough.” He didn’t know why her simple statement should annoy him any more than he could understand why he was just noticing how smooth her skin was and how compelling were those large velvet eyes. Like a doe’s, Cliff realized. He wasn’t a man who hunted but a man who watched. “I’ll tell you up front that my company has a policy against destroying the natural terrain in order to make the land into something it’s not. This is rough country, Miss Fitzgerald. It’s supposed to be. If you want an acre or two of manicured lawn, you’ve bought the wrong land and called the wrong landscaper.”

It took a great deal to fire up her temper. Maggie had worked long and hard to control a natural tendency toward quick fury in order to block the label of temperamental daughter of temperamental artists. “Decent of you to point it out,” she managed after three long, quiet breaths.

“I don’t know why you bought the place,” he began.

“I don’t believe I’ve offered that information.”

“And it’s none of my business,” Cliff finished with an acknowledging nod. “But this—” he indicated the property with a gesture of his hand “—is my business.”

“You’re a bit premature in condemning me, aren’t you, Mr. Delaney?” To keep herself in check, Maggie took a sip of tea. It was cold, with a faint bite of lemon. “I’ve yet to ask you to bring on the bulldozers and chain saws.” She ought to tell him to haul his buns into his truck and take off. Almost before she could wonder why she didn’t, the answer came. Instinct. Instinct had brought her to Morganville and to the property she now stood on. It was instinct that told her he was indeed the best. Nothing else would do for her land. To give herself a moment to be sure she didn’t do anything rash, Maggie took another sip from her glass.

“That grove there,” she began briskly. “I want it cleared of undergrowth. It can’t be enjoyed if you have to fight your way through thorns and thickets to walk in it.” She shot him a look. “Don’t you want to take notes?”

He watched her, consideringly. “No. Go on.”

“All right. This stretch right here, in front of the porch—I imagine that was a lawn of sorts at one time.” She turned, looking at the knee-high weeds. “It should be again, but I want enough room to plant, I don’t know, some pines, maybe, to keep the line between lawn and woods from being too marked. Then there’s the way the whole thing just sort of falls away until it reaches the lane below.”

Forgetting her annoyance for the moment, Maggie made her way across the relatively flat land to where it sloped steeply down. Weeds, some of them as tall as she, grew in abundance wherever the rocks would permit. “It’s certainly too steep for grass to be practical,” she said half to herself. “But I can’t just let all these weeds have their way. I’d like some color, but I don’t want uniformity.”

“You’ll want some evergreens,” he said from behind her. “Some spreading junipers along the bottom edge of the whole slope, a few coming farther up over there, with some forsythia mixed in. Here, where the grade’s not so dramatic, you’d want some low ground cover.” He could see phlox spilling and bumping over the rocks. “That tree’s got to come down,” he went on, frowning at the one that leaned precariously toward her roof. “And there’s two, maybe three, on the rise behind the house that’ve got to be taken down before they fall down.”

She was frowning now, but she’d always believed in letting an expert set the plan. “Okay, but I don’t want you to cut down anything that doesn’t have to be cleared.”

Maggie could only see her own reflection in his glasses when he faced her. “I never do.” He turned and began to walk around the side of the house. “That’s another problem,” Cliff continued without checking to see if she was following. “The way that dirt wall’s eroding down from the cliff here. You’re going to end up with a tree or a boulder in your kitchen when you least expect it.”

“So?” Maggie tilted her head so she could scan the ridge behind her house. “You’re the expert.”

“It’ll need to be recut, tapered back some. Then I’d put up a retaining wall, three, maybe four, foot high. Crown vetch’d hold the dirt above that. Plant it along the entire slope. It’s hardy and fast.”

“All right.” It sounded reasonable. He sounded more reasonable, Maggie decided, when he was talking about his business. A man of the land, she mused, and wished again she could see beyond the tinted glass to his eyes. “This part behind the house has to be cleared.” She began to fight her way through the weeds and briars as she talked. “I think if I had a walkway of some kind from here to the lane, I could have a rockery … here.” A vague gesture of her hands indicated the spot she had in mind. “There’re plenty of rocks,” she muttered, nearly stumbling over one. “Then down here—”

Cliff took her arm before she could start down the slope on the far side of the house. The contact jolted both of them. More surprised than alarmed, Maggie turned her head.

“I wouldn’t,” Cliff said softly, and she felt a tiny trickle, an odd excitement, sprint up her spine.

“Wouldn’t what?” Her chin automatically tilted, her eyes challenged.

“Walk down there.” Her skin was soft, Cliff discovered. With his hand wrapped around her arm, he could touch his fingertips to his thumb. Small and soft, he mused, enjoying the feel of his flesh against hers. Too small and soft for land that would fight back at you.

Maggie glanced down to where he held her. She noticed the tan on the back of his hand; she noticed the size and the strength of it. When she noticed her pulse wasn’t quite steady, she lifted her gaze again. “Mr. Delaney—”

“Snakes,” he said simply, and had the satisfaction of seeing her take two quick steps back. “You’re almost sure to have some down in a spot like that. In fact, with the way this place is overgrown, you’re likely to have them everywhere.”

“Well, then—” Maggie swallowed and made a herculean effort not to shudder “—maybe you can start the job right away.”

For the first time, he smiled, a very slight, very cautious, curving of lips. They’d both forgotten he still held her, but they were standing much closer now, within a hand span of touching. She certainly hadn’t reacted the way he’d expected. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d screeched at the mention of snakes, then had dashed into the house, slamming and locking the door. Her skin was soft, Cliff mused, unconsciously moving his thumb over it. But apparently she wasn’t.

“I might be able to send a crew out next week, but the first thing that has to be dealt with is your road.”

Maggie dismissed this with a shrug. “Do whatever you think best there, excluding asphalt. It’s only a means of getting in and out to me. I want to concentrate on the house and grounds.”

“The road’s going to run you twelve, maybe fifteen, hundred,” he began, but she cut him off again.

“Do what you have to,” she told him with the unconscious arrogance of someone who’d never worried about money. “This section here—” She pointed to the steep drop in front of them, making no move this time to go down it. At the base it spread twenty feet wide, perhaps thirty in length, in a wicked maze of thorny vines and weeds as thick at the stem as her thumb. “I want a pond.”

Cliff brought his attention back to her. “A pond?”

She gave him a level look and stood her ground. “Allow me one eccentricity, Mr. Delaney. A small one,” she continued before he could comment. “There’s certainly enough room, and it seems to me that this section here’s the worst. It’s hardly more than a hole in the ground in a very awkward place. Do you have an objection to water?”

Instead of answering, he studied the ground below them, running through the possibilities. The truth was, she couldn’t have picked a better spot as far as the lay of the land and the angle to the house. It could be done, he mused. It wouldn’t be an easy job, but it could be done. And it would be very effective.

“It’s going to cost you,” he said at length. “You’re going to be sinking a lot of cash into this place. If you’re weighing that against resale value, I can tell you, this property won’t be easy to sell.”

It snapped her patience. She was tired, very tired, of having people suggest she didn’t know what she was doing. “Mr. Delaney, I’m hiring you to do a job, not to advise me on real estate or my finances. If you can’t handle it, just say so and I’ll get someone else.”

His eyes narrowed. The fingers on her arm tightened fractionally. “I can handle it, Miss Fitzgerald. I’ll draw up an estimate and a contract. They’ll be in the mail tomorrow. If you still want the job done after you’ve looked them over, call my office.” Slowly, he released her arm, then handed her back the glass of tea. He left her there, near the edge where the slope gave way to gully as he headed back toward his truck. “By the way,” he said without turning around, “you overwatered your pansies.”

Maggie let out one long, simmering breath and dumped the tepid tea on the ground at her feet.

Chapter 2

When she was alone, Maggie went back inside, through the back door, which creaked ominously on its hinges. She wasn’t going to think about Cliff Delaney. In fact, she doubted if she’d see him again. He’d send crews out to deal with the actual work, and whatever they had to discuss would be done via phone or letter. Better that way, Maggie decided. He’d been unfriendly, abrupt and annoying, though his mouth had been attractive, she reflected, even kind.

She was halfway through the kitchen when she remembered the glasses in her hand. Turning back, she crossed the scarred linoleum to set them both in the sink, then leaned on the windowsill to look out at the rise behind her house. Even as she watched, a few loose stones and dirt slid down the wall. A couple of hard rains, she mused, and half that bank would be at her back door. A retaining wall. Maggie nodded. Cliff Delaney obviously knew his business.

There was just enough breeze to carry a hint of spring to her. Far back in the woods a bird she couldn’t see sang out as though it would never stop. Listening, she forgot the eroding wall and the exposed roots of trees that were much too close to its edge. She forgot the rudeness, and the attraction, of a stranger. If she looked up, far up, she could see where the tops of the trees met the sky.

She wondered how this view would change with the seasons and found herself impatient to experience them all. Perhaps she’d never realized how badly she’d needed a place to herself, time to herself, until she’d found it.

With a sigh, Maggie moved away from the window. It was time to get down to work if she was to deliver the finished score as promised. She walked down the hall where the wallpaper was peeling and curled and turned into what had once been the back parlor. It was now her music room.

Boxes she hadn’t even thought of unpacking stood in a pile against one wall. A few odd pieces of furniture that had come with the house sat hidden under dustcovers. The windows were uncurtained, the floor was uncarpeted. There were pale squares intermittently on the walls where pictures had once hung. In the center of the room, glossy and elegant, stood her baby grand. A single box lay open beside it, and from this Maggie took a sheet of staff paper. Tucking a pencil behind her ear, she sat.

For a moment she did nothing else, just sat in the silence while she let the music come and play in her head. She knew what she wanted for this segment—something dramatic, something strong and full of power. Behind her closed eyelids she could see the scene from the film sweep by. It was up to her to underscore, to accentuate, to take the mood and make it music.

Reaching out, she switched on the cassette tape and began.

She let the notes build in strength as she continued to visualize the scene her music would amplify. She only worked on films she had a feeling for. Though the Oscars told her she excelled in this area of work, Maggie’s true affection was for the single song—words and music.

Maggie had always compared the composing of a score to the building of a bridge. First came the blueprint, the overall plan. Then the construction had to be done, slowly, meticulously, until each end fit snugly on solid ground, a flawless arch in between. It was a labor of precision.

The single song was a painting, to be created as the mood dictated. The single song could be written from nothing more than a phrasing of words or notes. It could encapsulate mood, emotion or a story in a matter of minutes. It was a labor of love.

When she worked, she forgot the time, forgot everything but the careful structuring of notes to mood. Her fingers moved over the piano keys as she repeated the same segment again and again, changing perhaps no more than one note until her instincts told her it was right. An hour passed, then two. She didn’t grow weary or bored or impatient with the constant repetition. Music was her business, but it was also her lover.

She might not have heard the knock if she hadn’t paused to rewind the tape. Disoriented, she ignored it, waiting for the maid to answer before she recalled where she was.

No maids, Maggie, she reminded herself. No gardener, no cook. It’s all up to you now. The thought pleased her. If there was no one to answer to her, she had no one to answer to.

Rising, she went back into the hall and down to the big front door. She didn’t have to develop the country habit of leaving the doors unlocked. In L.A., there’d been servants to deal with bolts and chains and security systems. Maggie never gave them a thought. Taking the knob in both hands, she twisted and tugged. She reminded herself to tell Mr. Bog about the sticking problem as the door swung open.

On the porch stood a tall, prim-looking woman in her early fifties. Her hair was a soft, uniform gray worn with more tidiness than style. Faded blue eyes studied Maggie from behind rose-framed glasses. If this was the welcome wagon lady, Maggie thought after a glance at the unhappy line of the woman’s mouth, she didn’t seem thrilled with the job. Much too used to strangers’ approaches to be reserved, Maggie tilted her head and smiled.

“Hello, can I help you?”

“You are Miss Fitzgerald?” The voice was low and even, as subdued and inoffensive as her plain, pale coatdress.

“Yes, I am.”

“I’m Louella Morgan.”

It took Maggie a moment; then the name clicked. Louella Morgan, widow of William Morgan, former owner of the house that was now hers. For an instant Maggie felt like an intruder; then she shook the feeling away and extended her hand. “Hello, Mrs. Morgan. Won’t you come in?”

“I don’t want to disturb you.”

“No, please.” As she spoke, she opened the door a bit wider. “I met your daughter when we settled on the house.”

“Yes, Joyce told me.” Louella’s gaze darted around and behind Maggie as she stepped over the threshold. “She never expected to sell so quickly. The property had only been on the market a week.”

“I like to think it was fate.” Maggie put her weight against the door and pushed until she managed to close it. Definitely a job for Bog, she decided.

“Fate?” Louella turned back from her study of the long, empty hall.

“It just seemed to be waiting for me.” Though she found the woman’s direct, unsmiling stare odd, Maggie gestured toward the living room. “Come in and sit down,” she invited. “Would you like some coffee? Something cold?”

“No, thank you. I’ll stay only a minute.” Louella did wander into the living room, and though there was a single sofa piled with soft, inviting pillows, she didn’t accept Maggie’s invitation to sit. She looked at the crumbling wallpaper, the cracked paint and the windows that glistened from Maggie’s diligence with ammonia. “I suppose I wanted to see the house again with someone living in it.”

Maggie took a look at the almost-empty room. Maybe she’d start stripping off the wallpaper next week. “I guess it’ll be a few weeks more before it looks as though someone is.”

Louella didn’t seem to hear. “I came here as a newlywed.” She smiled then, but Maggie didn’t see anything happy in it. The eyes, she thought, looked lost, as if the woman had been lost for years. “But then, my husband wanted something more modern, more convenient to town and his business. So we moved, and he rented it out.”

Louella focused on Maggie again. “Such a lovely, quiet spot,” she murmured. “A pity it’s been so neglected over the years.”

“It is a lovely spot,” Maggie agreed, struggling not to sound as uncomfortable as she felt. “I’m having some work done on both the house and the land …” Her voice trailed off when Louella wandered to the front window and stared out. Heavens, Maggie thought, searching for something more to say, what have I got here? “Ah, of course I plan to do a lot of the painting and papering and such myself.”