Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson [64]
“No, I—”
“Oh, come on.” Mary Theresa looked over the tops of her sunglasses, pinning her sister with her knowing green eyes as Maggie stood with the passenger door swung wide. M.T.’s voice dropped an octave and was barely discernible over the rush of traffic and the pulsing beat of a tune by Bruce Springsteen. “We both know about temptation, about being turned on by things we shouldn’t, about…” She lifted a shoulder. “Living a little. My shrink would call it rebelling.”
“I’m not—”
“Sure you are.” Mary Theresa’s gaze was steady. “We both are.”
“Wait a minute—”
“You wait a minute, Maggie. I know how you feel. I understand you better than anyone else in the world. We’re twins, remember. Supposedly you heard me when I cried out in my mind—though I still can’t figure that one.”
“I—” Maggie tied the burgundy-colored apron around her waist with nervous fingers.
“Somehow you heard me or read my mind or whatever you want to call it.” Mary Theresa shook her head in wonder. “I don’t know how or why, but you did. So, trust me, I can feel things about you, too. And you’re falling in love with Thane Walker. Whether you want to or not. So—could you close the door? I’m late.”
Maggie nudged the door closed with her knee. Mary Theresa, cigarette clamped firmly between her peach-tinged lips, threw the BMW into reverse, shoved her sunglasses onto the bridge of her nose with one finger, and turned to look over her shoulder as she backed out of the parking space.
“Don’t forget to drop the car off…” Maggie said, but Mary Theresa had already flipped on the blinker and gunned the sports car into traffic. Great. For a reason she couldn’t explain, Maggie felt as if the trouble she sensed on the horizon had just taken a giant step closer.
Maggie, dead tired from her shift, walked out of the restaurant at eleven and, after a quick view of the parking lot, wanted to strangle her twin. Mary Theresa had forgotten her again, she thought, when she didn’t spy the BMW parked anywhere in the lot. “Damn you, M.T.,” she muttered, intent on going into the restaurant and calling the house.
She’d gotten as far as the door when she saw her father’s red Mercedes speed into the lot.
Dad was behind the wheel.
Maggie’s guts clenched.
Something was up.
And it wasn’t good.
Frank Reilly stopped the car by the front entrance and Maggie braced herself. Her father’s expression was as dark as the night. His jaw rock-hard, his lips beneath his mustache white with repressed anger.
Terrific.
She slid inside, closed the door, and felt her father’s anger radiating in unspoken waves as he jammed his pride and joy into Drive.
“What happened? Where’s Mom’s car?” Maggie asked, her feet aching from the long hours of standing, walking, and carrying tubload after tubload of dirty dishes into the kitchen.
“In the garage.”
Something was definitely up.
“My God, what is that odor?” he demanded.
“Garlic…spices…it gets on my shoes.”
“Well, roll down the window, will you?”
She opened the window, and cool night air raced into the posh interior.
“Is there a reason you picked me up?” she asked, cringing as she reached down, slid one pump off with the toe of the other, and massaged her foot.
“I thought you and I should talk. Alone.”
Uh-oh. Her stomach tied itself in painful knots. This was no good. No good at all. “About?” She tried to sound calm and nonchalant, as if her father picked her up from work every night.
“About what’s going on, Maggie, and don’t start denying anything before I start talking.”
Maggie’s mind was spinning in circles, and none of the images that flashed by were good.
“Your mother and I…we’re afraid that one of you girls is involved with some boy, that you’re seeing him behind our backs. That you might be getting yourself into trouble.