Chapter 4 #3
"Linda," Maggie greeted her, and was relieved when her voice came out steady. "We were just having coffee. Michael's been buried in the hotel accounts all afternoon."
She was babbling like a nervous buffoon! Good grief, Maggie, get a grip!
“Ah,” Linda said, nodding as she slid in beside Maggie, stealing one of the cookies on the plate. She glanced at Michael. “How is that going?”
“Getting there,” Michael said, his voice a little throaty, so he cleared it, then drained his coffee.
“Did Martin give you all the information?” Linda asked.
“Yes,” Michael said with a nod. “Uh… Um… I need Uncle George’s keys to his cabinets.”
“Oh, yes,” Linda said. “They’re in his office.” She grabbed another cookie and started to slide out of the booth, stopping to look at Maggie. “Can I call you later? I need to chat.”
“Of course,” Maggie said, trying not to look at Michael as his tall, muscular frame uncurled from the booth. “I… uh… I’d better go and find Rosa to get my laundry.”
She too slid out of the booth.
"You don't have to run off," Linda protested. “If you’re not in a hurry, I can get Michael the keys, and we can chat at Heart House.”
"I'm not running. Why would you think I’m running?" Maggie asked a little too quickly, her cheeks flushing slightly.
“Are you okay?” Linda looked at her curiously. “You seem a little… flustered.”
“What?” Maggie’s eyes widened. “No. Not flustered. Just got a lot on my mind.”
“I can relate to that,” Linda said.
This whole time, Michael had not said a word. He’d just stood there watching the exchange between her and Linda, which was making her feel even more flustered.
“Actually, Linda, I have to get home,” Maggie lied. “Could you call me in about an hour?”
“Of course,” Linda said, with a warm smile, hugging her. “We’ll chat later.” She turned toward her brother. “Come on, I’ll show you where I’ve put the keys.”
Michael nodded, then his eyes met hers. They were dark pools, and he smiled. “Is one tomorrow at the Bay Side Cafe good for you?” Maggie didn’t even check her phone calendar; she just nodded. “Good. Is it okay to meet here in Uncle George's office?”
“Sure,” Maggie agreed. The way he was looking at her was making her knees feel a little weak, so she leaned against the booth.
“Goodnight, Maggie,” Michael said with another warm smile.
“Goodnight, Michael.” The words came out a little more formal than she intended them to.
Maggie stood and watched them leave the kitchen. She took a few sharp breaths to steady herself before she made it out of the kitchen on legs that didn’t feel like her own.
Her legs felt like jelly. Her face was still warm.
Her palm, which she had rested over Michael's hand, still tingled from the touch of his, which was the most ridiculous thing in the world, because she was a fifty-nine-year-old woman with a grandson and a failing marriage.
She had no business at all feeling like the seventeen-year-old girl who'd sat beside Michael Heart at a beach bonfire and let him kiss her.
The memory came whether she wanted it or not.
The firelight. The boy who had dumped her hours before the prom to take the head cheerleader instead.
The tears as she and Linda stood in the Heart House kitchen, thinking she was going to be a third wheel with Linda and her date.
Then there he was. Standing in the doorway looking like a hero in a perfectly tailored tux, complete with a corsage—Michael!
She’d be walking into the prom, the envy of every girl in Sweet Blossom Bay, as Michael Heart had been the heartthrob of their generation.
Even the boy who had dumped her and the head cheerleader had been stunned.
It had felt so good to see the envy in that cow's eyes.
And Michael—he hadn’t even so much as looked at another girl that entire night.
He’d treated her like a queen. He'd danced every dance with her.
He'd made her laugh until her sides ached. And later, at the bonfire on the beach, in a quiet moment away from the others, he'd looked at her in the firelight, and she'd looked at him. It had felt like the most natural thing of all as they’d fallen into each other’s arms and their lips had met in the most toe-curling, heart-stopping kiss she’d ever had in her life.
Even thinking about it after all these years made her belly flip and her heart pound.
And then Linda's voice had broken through their intimate moment as she called for them. The two of them sprang apart as if they’d been stung and stood in shocked silence.
Michael's eyes were wide and stunned, mirroring her own. Both of them seemed to understand, in the same breathless instant, that what had just happened was so much more than friendship. And as Linda found them, they knew this could never happen again, and it didn’t.
In fact, they had never even spoken about it.
They had chosen instead to pretend it hadn’t happened.
Because the Hearts were her family, they had taken her in when she'd had no one, because Linda was the sister of her heart. Because there were lines you didn’t cross when a family had saved your life, and the line around Michael Heart was the brightest and most uncrossable of all.
So they'd buried it. They'd never spoken of it. Michael had gone off to college, law school, met Evelyn, married her, and loved her, truly loved her. Maggie had seen it with her own eyes. She had married Kevin. Built her boutique and raised her son. A sadness gripped her heart when she thought of Daniel, whom she’d lost alongside his wife many years ago, leaving her to raise her grandson, Toby.
Between that bonfire night and today, the whole long parade of life had gone marching past. And not once in all these years had either of them said a single word about a beach and a bonfire and a kiss that had tipped the world sideways for her.
And it should have been over. It should have been a faded, harmless thing.
A sweet, sad memory worn smooth by time.
But that was the thing. It was not faded.
It was not harmless. Maggie had felt that the moment his arms had closed around her in the corridor.
The scent of him had filled her head, and her heart had remembered, instantly and completely, exactly what it had spent forty years pretending to forget.
She blew out a breath. And now she'd just said yes to Michael helping her with her divorce, which meant having to spend time with him alone.
Maggie let out a long, shaky breath and looked down at the palm of her hand, which had finally, mercifully, stopped tingling, then admitted—she was in such trouble.