16. Bruised
SIXTEEN
Bruised
THIS REFERS TO A DRINK THAT HAS BEEN SHAKEN TOO LONG AND HAS A SHABBY APPEARANCE
There was a moment of stunned silence before Maggie’s brain could put words to the sight before her. Not that relishing the taste of McGarvey in the back of her throat helped.
Charles Wiggins, leering at her with the hooded eyes that had once made her weak in the knees, but now mostly just made her want to vomit.
His black hair was slicked back in a pompadour with enough grease to fry a donut, his bulky body stuffed into a pinstriped suit that looked like a Spirit Halloween version of a Godfather costume.
His crooked grin widened when they locked eyes, the flash of a silver canine tooth winking from the corner of his thin lips.
Prison issue, she suspected.
“Ch-Charlie?” she stammered, her voice betraying the shock that coursed through her body.
“Hey, baby doll—long time no see,” he drawled, his arms crossed over a chest that he’d added some muscle to without managing to rid himself of the former quarterback flab. “And”—the toothpick rolled from one side to the other—“it’s Chazz now.”
Just when she thought he couldn’t get any more repellent.
“What are you doing here?” Maggie asked, her mind racing to comprehend the sudden shift in her reality.
“Can’t a guy visit his lovely wife?” Chazz replied, eyes widening in feigned innocence.
McGarvey tensed beside her, but Maggie couldn’t bring herself to turn to him, afraid of what she might see.
“ Chazz, ” she said, trying to load the name with the full measure of annoyance she felt. “The only reason I’m still legally your wife is because you refused to sign the divorce papers I served you with four years ago.”
“And I’ve been thinking of you every minute of that four years,” he said, his hand drifting to his chest for emphasis.
“That’s funny, because I’ve been doing everything I can to forget you exist,” she shot back, her words dripping with venom.
“How’s that working out for you?” he asked, his smug smile making the toothpick point toward his bushy brow.
Maggie threaded her fingers with McGarvey’s. “Before you decided to invade my privacy, it was working fucking great.”
She felt a stab of vicious pleasure when his smile wilted.
“That hurts, Shortcake,” he said, shaking his head. “That hurts real bad.”
“Look, Chazz,” she said, trying to regain her composure, “I don’t know what you want, but I assure you, I am not interested. It’s over.”
“You say that,” he said, a wicked gleam in his eye as he took a step closer to them, “but you and I know there’s still something between us.”
Maggie’s chest tightened at the suggestion of his words.
“There’s about to be a restraining order between us if you don’t leave now.”
“Aw, baby, you don’t got to be so cold,” Chazz replied with a smirk. “You know, I think it’s pretty romantic that I found you all the way out here in Townsend Harbor. Shows dedication, doesn’t it?”
“Romantic?” she scoffed, rolling her eyes. “More like completely delusional and downright fucking frightening.”
“Your wit is still as sharp as ever.” He grinned, seemingly unfazed by her sarcasm. “But really, Mags, I came all this way because I love you. You’re the only thing that kept me going while I was in prison.”
The bottom dropped out of her stomach as a numb silence muffled the nearby festivities.
“Prison?” Hearing this word asked quietly in McGarvey’s voice made Maggie feel like someone had dropped a brick on her chest.
Now, Chazz’s smirk stretched into a shit-eating grin. “Oh, she didn’t tell you that, eh, pal?” When McGarvey said nothing, Chazz strutted another step toward them. “Well, if that’s the case, I’m willing to bet there’s all kinds of things my little Shortcake ain’t told you. Like how she’s the reason I ended up behind bars.”
In her peripheral vision, Maggie saw McGarvey turn to her, and knew she could be a coward no longer. Without relinquishing her grip on his hand, she turned to face him. His shock was palpable, his face tight, as he met her gaze.
“What he means is, I testified for the Feds,” she admitted.
“Turned state’s evidence, you mean,” Chazz drawled. “To avoid charges of her own.”
The cold air seemed to thicken around them, freezing them both in place, refusing to fill her lungs.
“Is that true?” McGarvey asked.
“Yes,” Maggie admitted.
The look he gave her then—not of anger but of disappointment—cut deeper than anything she’d ever felt before.
“You have to understand,” she pleaded. “I was young and totally na?ve. I—I didn’t know what he was involved in before I married him. And once I did…” She wrestled with a rapidly closing throat. “I was just trying to protect someone I loved.”
“So you do love me!” Chazz crowed.
“ Loved, ” Maggie corrected him, shooting him a withering grin. “Past tense.”
“Kinda like you loved all them fancy-ass designer clothes and shoes I scored for you?” he said, plucking the sodden toothpick from his lips and flicking it away.
Maggie felt the blood drain from her face, her cheeks and forehead pricking as if infested with a thousand insects. “I… You… Those were gifts. ”
An overpowering surge of Chazz’s sinus-melting cologne enveloped Maggie, making her head go all swimmy.
“You didn’t seem to be asking too many questions about how I afforded them on a plumber’s salary.” He leaned back against the bright red Camaro…what was most assuredly a rental car.
“They were fake ,” she spat, furious at herself for the tears she felt gathering in her eyes.
Chazz’s six-o’clock-shadowed cheeks lifted in his ugliest smile yet. “Then how come you’s still wearin’ them?”
She clutched at the handbag, as if somehow holding it, owning it, would make it genuine.
McGarvey’s eyes followed Chazz’s to where her hand clung to the bag’s strap before slowly lifting to meet hers.
What she read there robbed her of breath.
Pity.
The sting of humiliation seared through her skin like wildfire.
Chazz retrieved another toothpick from his pocket and pointed it at Trent before poking it between his lips. “The difference between me and this guy is that I never minded that you was a phony,” he said. “In fact, I always thought it was kind of cute. Just like when you asked me and the guys to help you break into that asylum for that little radio show of yours. I noticed you never mentioned that when you was talkin’ to the Feds.”
Maggie felt McGarvey’s grip on her hand slacken and tightened hers.
“Please,” she said, hating the plaintive note in her voice. “You have to let me explain.”
Just then, a group of rosy-cheeked, red-hat-wearing MILFs spilled by, tossing out, “Good evening, Deputy McGarvey,” flirtatiously as they passed.
“Deputy?” Chazz burst out in his always obnoxiously loud laugh, even slapping his meaty thigh for good measure. “Holy shit. I bet you’ve been all kinds of useful to her since she’s been in town.”
“Trent, please ,” Maggie said, blinking hard as McGarvey’s fingers slipped from hers. The loss shocked her more than she’d anticipated.
“Don’t feel bad, buddy,” Chazz said. “My Shortcake has never minded her fellas breaking the law. So long as they was breaking it in ways she liked. This one has always had a thing for the bad boys, but I can see she’s upped her game with yous.”
McGarvey took a step back.
Eyes that had looked at her in with affection, flirtation, and even passion countless times over the past weeks now looked at her with questions, doubts, and, most painful of all, hurt.
“Is that why you came to Townsend Harbor?” he asked, his voice icier than the winds whipping around them. “Is that why you…why we?—”
“No,” Maggie said, pouring every ounce of the truth she felt burning in her chest into the word. “Trent, everything I’ve said about the way I feel is true.”
“Wait a minute,” Chazz interrupted, his gaze flitting between Maggie and McGarvey like he were a hungry seagull eyeing a pair of unguarded sandwiches. “Have you two been fuckin’?”
“Shut the fuck up, Charlie!” Maggie roared, letting every ounce of her rage boil to the surface.
“Like hell I will,” he said, thumping his barrel chest like an offended ape. “It was one thing when I thought you was just using him, but I oughta know who’s been keeping my wife company while I was locked up.”
Maggie clenched her fists, digging her nails into her palms as she fought the urge to scream. It seemed that no matter how hard she tried to put the past behind her, it kept clawing its way back into her life, determined to drag her down with it.
“Listen, deputy,” Chazz began, his tone dripping with false sincerity, “I wouldn’t be standing here if I didn’t still love this woman. She’s got her hooks in me deep. Hell, even after she turned me in, she kept some secrets to protect me. That’s how I know she still cares.”
“Is that so?” McGarvey asked.
“Absolutely,” Chazz continued, undeterred. “Just ask her about the time we stole that antique clock from old man Jenkins’ house. She never told the Feds about that one, did you, baby doll?”
The air between Maggie and McGarvey grew thick with tension, as if an invisible fog had rolled in from the ocean. The once-joyful atmosphere that filled the lighthouse after their passionate tryst and the Madame Katz mystery resolution was replaced by a cloud of doubt and disbelief.
“I’m not saying I haven’t made mistakes,” she said, gazing up with him. “But I’ve learned from mine, and I’m not the same person I was back then.”
McGarvey was silent for what felt like an eternity.
“It’s not the fact that you made a mistake that bothers me. It’s that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me.”
His eyes flickered, and for a moment, Maggie saw a shadow cross his face. His usually warm brown eyes turned steely, and the corners of his mouth tensed. He clenched his jaw, and his posture shifted ever so slightly into something more rigid.
She stared at him, her heart sinking like a stone tossed into the harbor. His handsome face, which had so recently been alight with desire and laughter, now bore an expression of steely professionalism as he assessed the situation before him. She felt the weight of his gaze on her, and it was colder than any New England winter.
“Look,” she began, desperately trying to find the right words, “Trent, I know this is a lot to take in, but?—”
“Ma’am,” McGarvey said, his use of the formal title like a slap in the face, “please step aside while I take him into custody.”
“What? You’re arresting me?” Chazz sputtered, looking between them incredulously. “For what? I ain’t done anything.”
“Violation of parole,” McGarvey replied, his tone firm and absolute. “You crossed state lines when you left New York.”
The color drained from Chazz’s face. He gazed at McGarvey, horror creeping onto his features as the reality of the situation sank in. “N-now hold on a minute,” he stammered, panic tingeing his voice. His eyes darted around like he were a cornered fox, seeking an escape route where there was none. “Maggie, baby, tell him!” he pleaded, his voice an octave higher. He reached out to grab her arm, but McGarvey stepped in his way, puffing his broad chest out like an iron shield.
“You don’t want to do that,” he growled, his eyes flashing with warning.
Chazz hesitated for a moment, sizing up McGarvey. He could bluff his way out of most things, but, staring down the barrel of the deputy’s cold gaze, he decided discretion was the better part of valor.
“All right, all right,” he said, holding up his palms. “I’ll go quietly.”
Maggie’s heart ached as she watched the man who had just hours ago been her passionate lover now handle Chazz with the precision of a seasoned law enforcement officer. The intimacy they had shared seemed like a distant memory, replaced by the stark reality of their current situation.
As she watched them disappear into the night, Maggie’s legs gave out beneath her, and she crumpled onto the damp grass.
The desolation that settled over her was as cold and unforgiving as the waves crashing against the nearby cliffs, the lighthouse’s searching scarlet beam a mocking reminder of the safe harbor she’d found, and lost, in the arms of Trent McGarvey.