Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson [32]
Her face was hot, her cheeks burning, but hopefully he didn’t notice in the dark cab as he scowled and squinted through the windshield.
He flipped on the wipers, then adjusted the control for the defroster. “Got it?”
“Got it,” she replied tightly, and felt like a fool. Of course he wasn’t interested in her, that wasn’t the point. She thought about holding her tongue, then decided it was best to clear the air. “I just wanted to lay down the ground rules,” she said, slowly forcing her hands from their clenched fists to relax. “It wasn’t that big of a deal.”
“Amen.” A car appeared around the corner, flashing the interior of his truck with white, artificial light. She noticed his profile: Hard. Set. Determined. One hundred percent male. A strong, sometimes fierce man. Someone who didn’t always tell the truth; she knew that from the past. So what secrets was he keeping? What was he hiding? She looked away, through the passenger window to the trees, tall heavy-boughed guardians of the night. Snow clung to their branches, and in other circumstances she would have found them and the steep hillsides they were climbing breathtaking. Tonight they seemed foreboding, casting a spell of fear and desolation.
Where was Mary Theresa? Was she alive? Oh, God, she had to be. Maggie’s throat thickened. Staring into the stormy night, she crossed her fingers and sent up silent prayer after silent prayer for her sister.
Surely Mary Theresa was safe. Surely when they got to Denver they’d find out that the ever-flighty Marquise had just left town for a few days and forgotten to tell anyone. But as much as she tried to convince herself, she felt a chill in her blood that had nothing to do with the weather, and as the snow turned to icy pellets that battered the hood of the truck and slickened the road Maggie couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Terribly and irreversibly wrong.
Be safe, Mary, she thought, closing her eyes and remembering her sister as she always had been—a free spirit who, though self-centered, was a person everyone fell in love with. Everyone including Thane Walker. Even he hadn’t been immune to Mary Theresa’s charms. But then why would he have been? He had been a man, and all men, it seemed, were susceptible to Mary Theresa Reilly.
Maggie had first noticed it years ago, when Mitchell, their cousin who had been raised as their brother, had been alive. They’d been young then, barely seventeen, only a few years older than Becca was now, but already Mary Theresa was developing her charms, honing them on all the boys they knew, including the one whom Maggie had considered her brother…
PART II
Rio Verde
Northern California
1979
Chapter Five
From beneath the water’s shimmering surface, Maggie saw Mary Theresa, sunglasses propped on the bridge of her nose, string bikini showing off every inch of her tan, stroll along the edge of the swimming pool. She kicked out a lounge chair, away from the overhang and shade of the eucalyptus tree, then plopped down just as Maggie’s lungs, burning from her length of time under the water, forced her to swim frantically upward. Shooting through the surface, Maggie gasped, gulped in air, and tossed her wet hair out of her eyes.
“What are you doing?” her twin asked, the corners of her mouth turned down in flat-out disapproval.
“What does it look like? Underwater laps.”
“Why?”
“I’m gonna try out for the swim team.”
“Again?” Mary Theresa sighed dramatically and dabbed at the corner of her mouth where a canker sore dared show on her lips. “You know you’re not going to make