Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson [14]
“Not if you try, Mom.”
“Forget it.”
“So what’s wrong with Marquise?”
“I don’t know,” Maggie admitted truthfully. She shifted down for a sharp corner and spied a set of taillights winking on the ribbon of road far ahead. “She’s missing.”
“So? Sometimes she just takes off.”
“I know.” Maggie should have taken solace in the fact that her sister was flighty and had, in the past, disappeared for a few days. But this time was different. This time the police were involved. And Thane Walker, Mary Theresa’s first husband, was waiting for Maggie at her house. “No one seems to know where she is. No one.”
“Don’t blame her. Lots of famous people need to get away.”
“That’s true.”
Maggie had felt her twin growing further and further away, more distant as the months had passed, but she had been dealing with her own problems and had expected that Mary Theresa would eventually land on her feet again. It had always happened in the past.
But this time it’s different.
She couldn’t tell Becca the truth—well, not all of it; not until she was certain of what had happened herself.
“It’s freezing in here,” Becca complained, and Maggie adjusted the thermostat. True, winter was just around the corner, and as the Jeep climbed higher into the mountains, the temperature dropped. Not surprising since the heater, which needed fixing, was down to two settings—hot as Hades, or cold as death. Take your pick. She opted for Hades as Becca seemed to think she was in danger of contracting frostbite.
“So you were telling me why the Thane guy’s hanging out?” she asked, opening one eye and staring at Maggie, whose hands clenched over the steering wheel. “He and Marquise were divorced a long time ago.”
“I guess he’s just concerned about her.” Maggie nodded, preferring not to dwell on Thane or his reasons for being in Idaho.
“I didn’t think you liked him.”
“I don’t.” At least that wasn’t a lie. At a fork in the road, she angled south. The terrain was rugged, high bluffs that were sheer and dark in the night. “He just thought I might be able to tell him where Mary—Marquise is.”
“Why?” she asked thoughtfully. “Is he still in love with her?”
Undoubtedly. Aren’t they all? “I don’t know,” she said instead, and refused to acknowledge the ache in her heart when she remembered his betrayal, denied the hot sting of Mary Theresa’s deceit.
“But he’s waitin’ for us at the house?”
“I think so. He was going to cool down the horses and lock them away.”
Becca yawned and sighed. “Is he gonna spend the night?”
Maggie took in a sharp, quick breath. “No.” She was emphatic.
“Where, then?”
Good question, Maggie thought sarcastically and one she wasn’t going to dwell upon. Come hell or high water, Thane Walker wasn’t going to spend the night under her roof.
Thane patted Diablo on his spotted rump, then switched off the lights of the barn and walked into the night. Clouds had gathered over the moon, and the wind had picked up, bringing with it the first swirling flakes of snow. Hiking his collar around his neck, Thane stared at the little cabin Maggie called home and wished he were anywhere else on earth. Seeing her again had been a mistake—a big one. But it was too late to second-guess himself. Too late for a lot of things.
He paused at his truck, reached into the breast pocket of his jacket, and found a crumpled pack of cigarettes. There was one Marlboro left, his last smoke if he chose to give in and light up. He’d been cutting down over a couple of months, determined that the carton of filter tips he’d purchased at the end of September would be his last. This lone cigarette was all that was left.
Seeing Maggie again, touching her, smelling that special scent that lingered on his skin, had brought back memories he’d tried like hell to repress.
He’d failed. Miserably. Once the dam on his recollections had started to crack, there had been no stopping the torrent of emotions and images that crashed through his brain. He remembered the first time he’d set eyes on her, a smart aleck of a high-school girl in cutoff jeans, cotton blouse, and freckles.