The Man for Maggie

“Well, it is edible. I really believe that what we put on our bodies is as important as what we put in them.”

Maggie set the container in the sink and filled it with water. To be totally effective, the mask should stay on for fifteen minutes. She set the timer for ten. She could hardly wait to get Allison out of here so she could go upstairs to find that yearbook.

“Are you comfortable?” she asked.

“I’m fine.”

“These kitchen chairs are pretty unforgiving. I’ll have one of those nice adjustable, reclining chairs in the spa.”

Allison smiled. “How did you come up with this idea?”

“I’m not sure, exactly.” She climbed onto a stool and hooked her heels on the top rung. “I’ve wanted to do this for as long as I can remember but I couldn’t afford to rent a shop in New York.”

“Did you live there all your life?”

Maggie nodded. “Yes, my whole life. My mother lives in the Village. My father was a musician and she is a…” How would Allison react to the truth? Only one way to find out. “She does readings.”

“Oh. You mean, she’s a writer? A poet?” Allison actually sounded interested.

Maggie shook her head. “She’s a clairvoyant.”

Silence. “I see,” she said finally.

Maggie very much doubted she did, since she couldn’t imagine Allison ever consulting one. “She’s very good. She even helped the N.Y.P.D. solve a missing persons case.”

Allison perked up a little. “Oh, now that is amazing. I’ve heard about people who can do that. I’d love to meet her sometime.”

“Oh, I’m sure you will. Gabriella hates leaving the city but now that I’m living here, she’s bound to visit once in a while.” But try as she might, she couldn’t imagine her outlandish mother and her straitlaced neighbor having anything in common. “Tell me more about you and Nick…and John, of course…when you were in high school.”

But apparently Allison didn’t want to reminisce. “Are you really going to hire him to renovate this place?” she asked.

“Would it cause problems for you and John if he’s working here?”

“Not at all. Don’t be silly.”

But Maggie saw the color creep up Allison’s neck. “I like Nick,” she said. “He seems to know a lot about renovating old houses, but he wants to give me an estimate before I make a decision.”

Allison’s eyes widened. “I should hope so. Don’t let him take advantage of you.”

What a strange thing for her to say. “I’m a very good judge of character and I can’t see him doing that.”

Pencil-thin eyebrows arched beneath the pink mask.

“It’s true,” Maggie said. “I can tell he’s honest, but for some reason he’s not happy.” And although he was about as good-looking as a guy could be, he didn’t seem to have a lot of confidence when it came to women. In spite of her track record with men, she’d like to think she could fix that. “You know, I envy you.”

“Me? Why?” But Allison did not sound surprised.

“You’ve been in love twice. Well, twice that I know of.”

“Are you saying you’re interested in Nick?”

“No! I just met him. All I’m saying that being in love twice, first with Nick and then with John…do you know how lucky that is?”

Allison suddenly seemed preoccupied with the cuticle of one perfectly manicured nail. “Are you saying you’ve never fallen in love?”

“Oh, yes, I’ve fallen in love, but I’ve never been in love with anyone.”

Allison looked up at her. “There’s a difference?”

“Of course. I’ve fallen in love twice. Three times if you count sixth grade, but I don’t. I’m pretty sure I was too young. But I fell seriously in love when I was a senior, with a boy who didn’t even know I was alive.” Her insides startled her by contracting unexpectedly. Nick reminded her of that boy. Jeremy… Hmm. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten his name.

“And the second time?”

“The second time was when I moved into my own apartment and became friends with the guy across the hall.”

“But?”

“Just when I started to think he might fall in love with me, a woman named Debbie moved into the apartment down the hall. Six months later he asked her to marry him. So although I’ve fallen in love, I’ve never been in love with someone who loved me back.”

“That’s an interesting distinction. I’ve never thought of it that way.”

Yeah, well, Allison had probably had dozens of boys—and men—fall in love with her, so the odds were that she was bound to love some of them back.

Maggie sighed. “Someone fell in love with me once, in high school. He was so sweet and I did everything in my power to fall in love with him, but nothing worked. I even begged my mother to cast one of her spells on us, but she said a love spell would only work if love was destined to be. In my case, she was sure it wasn’t, and, of course, she was right.”

“Your mother does love spells?”

Watch what you say around these people, Maggie.

Aunt Margaret? Is that you?

Allison was watching her, waiting for an answer.

Now that she’d blurted the stuff about love spells, she couldn’t think of a way out of it. “Yes, she does. But apparently there’s nothing she can do to help me. I have a habit of falling in love with the wrong men. Not bad men—” she hastened to add “—just men who don’t fall in love with women like me.”

“And what kind of woman are you, Maggie Meadowcroft?”

“Me?”

Watch what you say around these people.

“Well, let’s see. I have a tendency to leap before I look. I always have good intentions, but sometimes I rush into things and they don’t always turn out the way I planned.”

There, that sounded safe enough.

“You’ll fall in love someday, Maggie, and when it happens, it will have been worth the wait. But—” she studied her cuticle some more “—just a word of advice. You mentioned falling for the wrong ones. Nick’s one of them.”

Maggie jumped down from the stool and started to clear things off the kitchen table. “I’m sure you’re right.” She wanted to say, “Give me a little credit.” She might be impulsive, but she always learned from experience. Nick Durrance was definitely one of the many, many men who would never fall in love with her.

But she could be curious, couldn’t she?

She decided to change the subject. “Nick said Aunt Margaret was his English teacher. Were you in her class, too?”

Allison seemed to relax a little. “Yes. And trust me, she could have told you stories about Nick Durrance.”

“Really?” Note to self. Find out what Aunt Margaret thinks of him now.

“Miss Meadowcroft loved Shakespeare,” Allison said. “Of course, you probably know that.”

“Yes. Hamlet was her favorite. Whenever she suspected I was up to something, she’d say ‘Maggie Meadowcroft, something’s rotten in the state of Denmark.’ It was years before I understood what that meant. I used to imagine Denmark filled with piles of rotting garbage. Kind of like New York one summer when the garbage collectors were on strike.”

Allison gave her an odd look. “I doubt that Nick ever tried to figure out Shakespeare. He spent more time in detention than in English class. Or any class, for that matter.”

That opinion seemed grossly unfair. Shakespeare wasn’t for everyone. Just like not everyone could renovate a house. “He must have been good at something.”

“Nick was very charming in those days and he didn’t take anything, or anyone, seriously. Not even himself. From what his sister tells me, that hasn’t changed.”

Everyone had strengths and positive traits. Maggie couldn’t tell if Allison had ignored her point, or if she just didn’t get it. She decided to try a different line of questioning. “You mentioned his family. What are they like?”

“You haven’t heard of the Durrance family?”

“Hmm. No, I don’t think so.”

“I thought you used to spend summers up here with your aunt.”

“I did, but she wasn’t into…” Gossip. “Um, she made a point of not talking about her students.”

“That makes sense. Nick’s father was a judge and so was his grandfather. Everybody assumed Nick would go into law, too. He was at the top of the class when we were freshman, then overnight everything changed.”

“How strange. What do you think happened?”

Allison shrugged. “Well, his father died. It was totally unexpected, but still, most people get over things like that. But it seemed to turn Nick into a different person and he never got back to normal.”

Hello? A young, teenage boy lost his father and everyone expected him to just “get over it”? Maggie had only been a little older when her father died. She’d missed him like crazy, but on another level, he’d still been there with her and her mother. That was when she’d first become aware that she had what Aunt Margaret called “the gift.”

“Maybe he really missed his father,” she said.

“Anything’s possible, but according to Leslie, Judge Durrance was a workaholic. He devoted himself to his career and other than having high expectations of her and Nick, he pretty much ignored them.”

“Who’s Leslie?”

“Nick’s sister.”

“I see,” Maggie said, glancing at the timer. Only a few more minutes. “How does your skin feel?”

“Great. How long does this stay on?”

“Just another minute or two. So, is Leslie older or younger than Nick?”

“A year younger. She’s an attorney, just like everyone expected her to be. Probably her mother’s influence. Lydia Durrance—Nick’s mother—is an amazing woman. She has a beautiful home and she puts on the most incredible garden parties you’ve ever been to.”

Except that Maggie had never been to one. The Village was well-known for its parties, but they weren’t the garden variety.

Allison was still gushing. “On top of that, she does a lot for the community. There’s even a charity named after her.”

“Really? She sounds formidable.”

Allison laughed. “She is, in a way.”

And yet you’d give almost anything to be her, Maggie thought. Interesting.

The timer buzzed. “All right, then. Let’s take this off.” She gently washed the mask off Allison’s face and patted her skin dry. “What do you think?”

Allison ran both hands along the sides of her face. “Amazing. I don’t know how you do this with just the stuff in your kitchen.”

“Chemical-based products dry your skin and then you need more chemicals to make it moist again. Natural ingredients are all about pampering yourself.”

“When you first told me about this idea of yours, I didn’t think it would work. Now I can’t wait for your spa to open. Will you let me be the first customer?”

Maggie walked her neighbor to the front door. “Sure. Any chance you might tell your friends about it, too?”

Allison smiled one of her rare smiles. “You know, I’m tempted to keep you all to myself.”

Maggie laughed. “Then you’d better plan to give me a lot of business!”

Allison gave her an unexpected hug. “I’m glad you moved into your aunt’s house, Maggie. Miss Meadowcroft was a nice neighbor, but I think I’m really going to like having you here.”

Maggie hugged her back. “What a sweet thing to say. Thank you.”

“I’d better get home. John will be wondering what’s happened to me and the kids are probably driving him crazy.”

“Tell him I said hello.” Maggie gently closed the door, then bolted up the stairs to find those yearbooks.

NICK CRACKED OPEN a beer and tossed a frozen dinner into the microwave. After punching a few numbers on the keypad, he leaned against the counter and took a swig from the bottle.

Images of Maggie Meadowcroft and the sound of her silky-smooth voice kept drifting through his mind. She was one intriguing woman. Damned attractive—for all the obvious reasons, of course—and he’d swear she didn’t have a pretentious bone in her body. In spite of the pearls.

He tried to picture his mother and sister at a place that served up skin-care products made of yogurt and mayonnaise.

Nope. Couldn’t do it.

Nothing but the best for the Durrance women, and everyone knew the best came with a hefty price tag and a designer label. Maggie, on the other hand, wanted to sink her inheritance into converting an old house into a day spa.

What had she called it? Inner Beauty?

Actually he kind of liked the sound of that. It suggested that she intended to work with what a person already had instead of trying to make them into something they weren’t. Admirable intentions but not much of a business plan. Especially not for this town, where people like his mother and sister were the rule rather than the exception.

The microwave pinged just as he finished his beer. He grabbed another from the fridge, fished around in the cutlery drawer for a fork and opened the microwave. Using a dish towel as a pot holder, he slid his dinner out and dumped it on the counter before the heat completely pierced the towel.

He shoved the newspaper and three days’ worth of mail to the side, pulled the cellophane cover off his dinner and inhaled. Man, he really needed to learn how to cook.

Maggie seemed pretty handy in the kitchen.

But thinking about Maggie was not good. Especially since it looked as though she was about to become a client.

He jabbed the remote, thinking the news or even a sitcom rerun would be preferable to thinking about one very sassy little makeover specialist. Five minutes and twenty channels later, he was still thinking about her. He’d also finished his dinner and was halfway through his second beer. Maybe he should take a look at the mail.

Phone bill.

Credit card application.

Something addressed to “Occupant.” He tossed that one straight into the trash.

An ivory vellum envelope. His mother’s trademark stationery, addressed in his sister’s handwriting. He stared at it, trying to figure out what Leslie might have sent him.

An invitation to someone’s birthday? No. His grandmother’s birthday was in the fall. So was Leslie’s. His mother had just had hers and if there’d been a celebration, he hadn’t been invited. He’d sent flowers, though, and a week later had received a stilted thank-you note—in an envelope exactly like this one.

So what could this be? He picked up the envelope, turned it over and studied the flap.

What the hell? Go for it.

It was an invitation to his sister’s wedding. He sure couldn’t have predicted that.

The inner envelope was addressed to “Nick and Escort.” Great. They expected him to subject someone to a Durrance family function. On the bright side, they didn’t want him to be in the wedding party. And if he worked at it, maybe he could come up with an excuse not to go at all.

He read the card. Leslie was to marry Gerald Bedford III. The third in a succession of stuffed shirts. Nick had only seen them together twice and that was all it had taken to know this was not a match made in heaven. It was, however, the blending of two prominent Collingwood Station families. The wedding would be some shindig and it was taking place three weeks from Saturday. For a moment he speculated on the need to hold a wedding on such short notice. Surely his sister wasn’t having a shotgun wedding.

Nah.

Leslie was too cautious and too smart to let anything like that happen.

He slid the invitation under a magnet on the fridge door and snagged another beer while he was there. That’s when he noticed the light flashing on the answering machine.

Three messages.

One from a subcontractor.

One from Leslie, sweetly asking if he’d received the invitation, saying how much she looked forward to having him there on her special day and apologizing for the short notice but it was the only time she and Gerald could clear their calendars and the only time the country club was available and blah, blah, blah.

Poor Leslie. She was too much like their mother for her own good, except she didn’t nag as much. Maybe if he’d been around more after their father died, she wouldn’t have been so influenced by the family matriarch.

The third message was from the matriarch herself, asking him to inform her, at his earliest convenience, as to the name of his date so she could finalize the seating plan and place cards.

Jeez, Mother. Would you like that in triplicate?

He punched the Delete button.

He stared a minute at the unopened beer in his hand and decided to put it back in the fridge. He’d promised Maggie he’d be there first thing in the morning and he wanted to have a clear head.

He unfolded the newspaper and flipped it open. What he needed was a distraction. A good story about an armed robbery. He turned the page. Murder and mayhem. Another page. The daily horoscope. He rolled his eyes but couldn’t resist scanning the list until he came to Capricorn.

Your life will take a surprising turn today. Whether it’s business or personal, roll with the punches and you’ll reap the rewards. And if you go the extra mile, there could even be a happily-ever-after in your future.

Roll with the punches? Reap the rewards? Who writes this stuff? Come to think of it, though, there had been a few surprises.

Maggie Meadowcroft.

Allison Peters Fontaine.

Leslie’s wedding.

As for rolling with the punches, he’d been doing that all his life. But happily-ever-after? Maggie had been the day’s only prospect. She was new in town so she wouldn’t have heard the mostly unfounded rumors about his bachelor lifestyle. But she also believed in the zodiac and in getting signs from dead people, so in spite of the crazy attraction he’d felt for her, Maggie Meadowcroft was not the woman for him.

So much for horoscopes.

MAGGIE SPRAWLED on the floor of her aunt’s guest room with four of Collingwood High’s yearbooks spread open in front of her. Nick’s freshman photograph had made her laugh. He had a bad haircut, a Star Wars T-shirt and a shaky smile. Over the next few years, an interesting transformation had taken place and by his senior year, Nick Durrance was no laughing matter.

He had probably been the high-school crush of every girl at Collingwood High. He would have been the boy they wanted to go to senior prom with and he definitely would have been the boy their fathers wanted them to stay away from.

Allison Fontaine had been Allison Peters in those days. The girl with movie-star hair and a perfect smile. The girl every other girl wanted to be. Their senior write-ups said that Allison’s favorite pastime was “taming Nick.” Nick’s was “breaking hearts.”

According to what Allison had said that afternoon, some things never changed. Except the part about her taming Nick, of course. The whole world could see that Allison and John were happily married and very much in love, with a gracious home and two adorable children. They had everything they wanted. And Maggie doubted that John had ever needed taming.

She leaned in for a closer look at Nick. Aunt Margaret’s pearls swung forward and she caught them, liking the feel of their smooth coolness between her fingers.

At some point, the sci-fi fan who’d played trombone in the school band had been replaced by a rebel without a cause. If what she’d seen today was anything to go by, the defiance in those dark blue eyes had intensified with time. What had happened during Nick’s high-school years? Had his father’s death been solely responsible for the transformation?

She looked at Allison’s picture again. Maggie hadn’t been cool enough or pretty enough to be a cheerleader or prom queen like Allison but that hadn’t stopped her from having a wild crush on the hottest guy in school. At the time she’d have given anything to have her heart broken by him. That hadn’t happened and if she was careful, it wouldn’t happen with Nick, either.

Her family had always told her that she had a gift for being able to see inside people and to bring out the best in them. Sometimes it was frightening. People kept some scary stuff hidden inside. Maybe… Now, there was an interesting thought… Maybe she could help Nick.

Hmm.

“What do you think, Aunt Margaret?”

She waited for an answer, but either her aunt had no comment or she was preoccupied with something else.

Maggie pondered the thought some more and before she knew it, all kinds of ideas were tumbling through her head. Helping Nick discover himself and bringing out all his positive traits was definitely something she could do. Once she got to know his family—and since this was such a small town, their paths were bound to cross—she’d have even more insight into what was keeping him from being happy.

Yes, her plan sounded better and better the more she thought about it.

Nick Durrance, tortured soul. In need of help.

Maggie Meadowcroft, makeover specialist. To the rescue.

Chapter Three

The next morning Maggie was up at dawn, trying to organize her ideas into a coherent state. Nick had said he’d be here “first thing” to work out an estimate for the renovations. They hadn’t had the best introduction yesterday. He’d made it clear that he thought she was a flake, and he certainly wasn’t the first. She knew her ideas seemed a little strange to some people, but she was more sensible than most gave her credit for being. Really, she was.

She usually didn’t care what people thought but she wanted to convince Nick that she knew what she was doing. She needed him to trust her because, whether he knew it or not, they had a lot in common. He didn’t conform to others’ expectations any better than she did.

He was a Capricorn. She was a Gemini.

Of course, he was a little more down-to-earth and practical. She could be impulsive, even a little rash at times.

While he was absolutely gorgeous, she wasn’t exactly the kind of woman who turned heads. Men like Nick were never interested in women like her. The boys in high school had preferred girls like Allison, and it was something they didn’t overcome with age. Of course, Nick didn’t need to be attracted to her for this makeover to work, but it would help if he liked her.

Or at least trusted her.

A little.

Since yesterday afternoon she’d spent way too much time thinking about him. Studying his yearbook pictures had taken her back to her own high-school days, pining over Jeremy What’s-his-name and settling for being Albert “Einstein” Fedoruk’s prom date. Why couldn’t she have fallen in love with poor Albert? He was now a NASA scientist, which was way more amazing than anything anyone else from her graduating class had done. She had no idea what had become of Jeremy but she hoped he was happier than Nick.

Last night she’d fallen asleep with Nick Durrance on her mind and he’d still been there when she woke up this morning. In between, she’d had one of those dreams that was made up of a collage of bizarre events. Jeremy inviting her to the prom, Albert working on the renovations and a shadowy, ever-present Nick Durrance watching from the sidelines.

She wasn’t even going to try to analyze that. Instead she poured herself a second cup of peppermint tea and thought ahead to the renovations.

Once it was fixed up, this stately old home that had been in her family for three generations would give tons of credibility to her and her business. At least she hoped it would. She’d been in town almost a week and had the impression that the prim and proper people of Collingwood Station thought she was a little odd, even for a city girl. Of course, they didn’t know the half of it, so she still needed all the credibility she could get.

Someone knocked at the front door.

Nick!

She’d kept the door locked on purpose so he’d have to wait until she opened it for him. There’d be no surprises this morning. She smoothed her hair and opened the door.

Okay, maybe just one surprise.

Nick stood on the front porch with a giant schoolboy grin on his face and a huge basket of fruit in his arms.

“Good morning,” she said. “I see you packed a lunch.”

His laugh sounded a little nervous. “I guess it’s a housewarming gift. I stopped at Donaldson’s Deli for coffee and this was sitting on the counter. I figured you can always eat what you don’t use for makeup, or whatever.”