Working Out

Chapter Twelve

Maggie didn’t know how it had happened, but somehow, she found every minute of every day accounted for until Christmas. Mimi and Ron, Shelby, and even Shane dominated her free time. Kim had been ecstatic with the rest of her pieces, so at least Maggie had her deadlines covered. But honestly, her friends had become needy for attention lately.

Her time at the gym passed the way it normally did. She and Mac sniped at each other. She felt him watching when she wasn’t looking, but no one commented on anything between them. She made sure to treat him the way she always did, with irreverence and an attitude just shy of disrespect. He was the boss, but it didn’t help to pander to his ego. She’d seen the many presents he’d received from an assortment of women.

She’d secretly fumed about it, then been more than grateful to receive her own share of candy and flowers from male admirers. Mac hadn’t been too happy about that.

They’d spent the past two days apart, and as Christmas Eve dawned, she had her day planned around a morning outing with Shelby and her evening with Mimi and Ron. The actual party would take place at Shane’s house on Christmas.

It irked her that her contact to Mac had been limited to texts, but the man wasn’t good about answering calls, so she could only do so much. His texts amused her. He abbreviated everything, half of which she barely understood. But from the gist of what she’d read, his uncle, Shane, and Geo were annoying the hell out of him.

She couldn’t wait to show him her Christmas presents.

A knock on her door startled her, and she looked at the time. Nine o’clock. Shelby had arrived for their morning together. Maggie opened the door and nearly fell under the massive hug from her giant friend.

“Oomph.”

“Merry Christmas!” Shelby danced around, swinging Maggie like a ragdoll.

“Put me down, you freakish giant,” Maggie pleaded, laughing at her friend’s lunacy.

When Shelby did, Maggie saw a rock on her finger. She glanced at Shelby’s beaming face, then looked back at the ring. “That’s an engagement ring,” she said stupidly. “You got engaged.” She blinked, then laughed. “Oh my God. You got engaged.” She squealed with joy and hugged Shelby back. “Let me look. Oh wow! He must really love you. That’s a friggin’ rock.”

She and Shelby went out for breakfast to celebrate. Maggie peppered her friend with questions, but Shelby remained surprisingly tight-lipped, her interest in Maggie’s life a little strange.

“Seriously?” Maggie stared at her best bud over her coffee cup. The waiter brought their breakfasts then left, and Maggie continued. “You’re engaged to be married. You and Shane are actually moving in together, and you have nothing better to talk about than my love life?”

“Um, well, no. I just don’t want to be all about me.”

“Hey, loser, this is all about you. I’m not the one getting married.”

“Who are you calling a loser, cat lady?” Shelby’s smirk told Maggie to be cautious. “But then, you’re not the cat lady anymore, are you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Though Maggie and Mac had agreed to be discreet, it wasn’t as if she was embarrassed to be with him. But she didn’t know where their relationship might take them, and she didn’t want to be pitied when, not if, they broke up. For some reason, Shelby always acted like Maggie should be coddled after a breakup, which made Maggie feel bad. Sometimes relationships ended, and normally, without smothering empathy from her friend, she accepted the termination, half expecting it anyway.

“I can’t say for sure, but I get the feeling you’ve met someone. There’s a look in your eye I recognize. But it’s different. It’s like you’re glowing.” Shelby paused. “You’re not pregnant are you?”

Maggie choked on the coffee she’d been in the process of swallowing. “No, you idiot.” At least, she didn’t think so.

“Oh my God. You turned pale. You’re having sex.”

“Would you shut up?” Maggie blushed when several people near them looked at their table. “First of all, my life is private. Second, this is not the place to talk about stuff like that. You’re turning into your mother.”

“Okay, that was just mean.” Shelby had been dealing with a flamboyant but well meaning mother her entire life. She didn’t like being the center of attention any more than Maggie did. “Can’t I be happy for us?”

“No. Be happy for you. You’re engaged. I might have had a good night. But until I know if it will go anywhere, I’m keeping it private.” The disappointment on her friend’s face forced Maggie to confess, “I think I really like him. And I don’t want to see your pity when we break up, okay? So give me a few more days, maybe a week or two, to enjoy him. Then when he and I break off, we can share some ice cream and talk about how men suck.”

“Okay.” Like that, Shelby let it go.

It was too easy. “I mean it.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Shelby held out her hand. “So let’s talk about my ring.”

“Let’s.”

They spent the rest of the morning laughing and walking around Queen Anne. Maggie liked how excited Shelby was about moving in with Shane. She’d been such a mess for so long that seeing her in love and happy about the engagement was like a balm to Maggie’s own hurts. If Shelby could find love with a decent guy, that meant Maggie had hope.

An immediate image of Mac came to mind. She smiled to herself, holding onto that closeness they’d shared. When he’d let her be herself, when he’d accepted the dirty, terrible desires she had and fed them, he’d given her more than a sexual rush, but a deep seated contentment, that maybe she wasn’t so bad a person for having weird desires. She wasn’t the only one who’d gotten off on the naughty talk, or the spanking, or the anal sex.

She hurried to rejoin Shelby by a chocolate store and wondered if Mac would like the other present she’d decided to give him. The sex he’d love, she had no doubt. But the other item had come straight from her heart. She just hoped he wouldn’t laugh at her. No, Mac wouldn’t laugh, but if he didn’t treasure it like she hoped, he’d hurt a part of herself she’d unconsciously given him.

Her time with Shelby passed swiftly. Shelby returned to Shane’s, breaking up his guy time with Mac, Geo and his father. Apparently the Collins family had decided to fly to Portland to spend the holiday with his mother’s relatives, leaving Shane to spend Christmas with Shelby and her family. Which includes me, Maggie thought, pleased.

And on that note… She checked her messages for any word from Trevor and frowned, finding none. She knew he had business to take care of, but a nice note to his sister wouldn’t have been too much to ask.

Due at Mimi’s in another hour, she refreshed her makeup and grabbed gifts for everyone. Then she drove over and parked behind several other vehicles. Mimi lived in a home in Queen Anne, not that far from Maggie’s. The large Victorian had a bohemian feel, which suited Mimi to a T. Done in bright colors, with detail on the carved shingles and trim painted to contrast the cornflower blue of the wooden paneling, the house clearly had the style of its owner.

Mimi answered the door in a flowing caftan that had been chic in the 80s. She pulled off the red and green, as she did all her clothes, with her accessories. Bangles clanged and shimmered as she embraced Maggie in a big hug. Mimi tugged her inside, where she saw Ron and Justin, his new boyfriend, sitting by the fire.

Like Shelby, Maggie wondered how Mimi would fare when Justin turned into a permanent fixture in Ron’s life. Mimi and Ron had been together for nearly thirty years, almost all of Shelby’s life. The pair were inseparable, but it looked as if Justin might the one man who could pry Ron away. Maggie liked him. The guy had a great job—he owned the architectural firm where Shane worked—a nice personality, and looks, which obviously suited Ron. All that, and Mimi hadn’t scared him away yet.

“Hey Maggie.” Ron stood and crossed the room to hug her. Justin did the same.

“You guys look great.” They wore matching grins. Such a handsome couple.

“Yes, isn’t it disgusting?” Mimi put a hand around Maggie’s shoulders. “That they look perfect paired together just makes it worse.”

“Too true, darling.” Ron winked.

Maggie chuckle and handed Mimi a large bag holding their gifts. “No opening these until tomorrow. And Justin, my gift to you is a massage from Shelby. Sorry, but she refused to give me the gift certificates when I asked.”

Mimi nodded. “Girl is head over heels for her new fiancé.” Mimi grinned. “We’re going to have gorgeous grandbabies.”

Ron and Justin nodded, and Ron said to his boyfriend, “I cannot believe you never tried to put a move on him. He’s so cute.”

“True.” Justin moved back into the living room. “He’s also my employee, and he’s straight.”

Ron sighed and joined him on the couch before the fire. “Isn’t he great?” Ron asked Mimi as he hugged Justin. “So dreamy to have a man with principles.”

Mimi made a face at the pair. “You know, not all of us are in love.”

“Really?” Ron’s purr alerted Maggie.

“What’s going on?” Please don’t let them have discovered Mac and me. Not yet. They’ll interfere and ruin everything.

“Well, honey, I’ve seen our Mimi with a handsome stranger. One that looks a lot your arrogant boss.”

“Arrogant, so not Kim.” She played along. “You must mean Mac’s uncle, Ian.”

“Handsome?” Justin asked.

“Don’t worry, baby. You’re much better looking. Ian looks like a brute. Too many muscles. Just the way Mimi likes them,” Ron added.

“Oh shut up.” Mimi flushed.

The woman never turned red. All three of them stared at her in shock. Maggie might have worried Mimi was plotting about Maggie’s love life, but that blush sealed it.

“You have a boyfriend!” Maggie hooted.

She, Justin and Ron teased Mimi until the woman relented and told them about the new man in her life. Ian Jameson—the man who would be joining them tonight. With his nephew.

Maggie’s mouth went dry. She and Mac hadn’t been together around other people who really knew them. Those at the gym had seen them working together, but she and Mac hadn’t been in an intimate setting together. Could she look at him without mooning? Mac said she wore her emotions on her sleeve. Did she really? Or was it that he knew her so well?

The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it.” Mimi danced out of the room.

“Maggie, some wine?” Ron asked.

“Yeah. A big glass,” she muttered.

Justin grinned. “You know, Ron warned me, but I really like Mimi.”

“We all do. It’s just hard to take too much of her at one time,” Maggie teased. “She and Ron adopted me years ago. They’re good people.”

Justin looked at Ron, and she could see the love on his face. “Yes, they are.”

Maggie was struck with a fierce longing, a need to feel and see that kind of emotion for someone special. Not a friend or relative, but a lover who would view her the same way. She had a bad feeling she’d lost her heart to Mac. But could he ever feel the same way about her? She’d never had permanence with anyone but Trevor, and he was barely around.

As if she’d thought him into existence, her brother appeared out of the blue.

“Trevor?”

“Surprise.” Mimi clapped.

“Hey, short stuff. Did you miss me?”

Overcome with emotion, she threw herself into his arms and hugged him tight. What a very merry Christmas.

Mac entered Mimi’s house behind his uncle, only to slam into Ian’s back. “Why’d you stop?”

“Uh, sorry.” Ian didn’t move though, so Mac pushed him aside to shut the door behind him.

He turned around and stopped short. “Who the fuck is that?”

He must have said it louder than he’d anticipated, because the room came to a standstill.

The big blond guy holding a clingy Maggie spun on his heel and gave Mac a glare. He stood as tall as Mac and had a build that suggested he did something physical. Mac didn’t care about this size. The bastard was holding Maggie way too tightly.

She saw Mac and grinned through tears. Tears?

Concerned, he stepped forward. “Maggie?”

“Mac, this is Trevor.”

The name didn’t register for a moment, and then he noticed the same blue eyes and blond hair on the guy. Familiar facial features that on Maggie were breathtaking, on her brother looked ruggedly handsome. Though Mac wouldn’t be caught dead describing him as such.

Mac moved to greet him. “Oh right, the brother.” He put his hand out, and Trevor gripped it hard. Mac didn’t flinch, and Trevor let go.

“Name’s Trevor Doran.”

“Mac Jameson.” He couldn’t help looking down at Maggie. Thank God, those weren’t tears of sorrow but joy. “So your brother’s in town?” Though glad for her, he felt disappointed too. He’d hoped to spend his free time with her through the holiday.

“I know. Isn’t it great? He surprised me.”

Trevor smiled down at her, and Mac found himself liking the man.

“Great that you could come back in time for Christmas. I know Maggie misses you.”

The room grew quiet, and he glanced back to see his uncle and Mimi exchanging a glance.

“What?” He realized what he’d said and how it must sound. Like the truth, that he and Maggie talked about more than work. “I don’t just order Maggie around the gym. We talk some.” And fuck like a pair made for each other.

“Right. Well, don’t just stand there gaping. Mimi, introduce us to your tall, dark and handsome beau.” Ron nodded to Ian.

While Maggie disentangled herself from her brother, Mac turned to regard his uncle—Mimi’s beau? The man had his poker face on, and Mac steeled himself for some unpleasant fallout. He’d never liked that look on his uncle’s face, the one that spoke of trouble soon to follow.

Justin tapped Mac on the shoulder. “Beer?” He held out a cold bottle.

“Thanks.” Mac took a long drag, waiting.

“Hell.” Ian wrapped a hand around Mimi’s shoulders

Mac stared in shock. He noticed Maggie’s jaw drop as well. Good to know Mac wasn’t the only one surprised.

“Ian and I are dating,” Mimi announced.

“That’s, uh, that’s great?” Maggie offered.

“So, you think you can put up with her?” Trevor asked and laughed.

“Trevor, really.” Mimi smiled. “Ian’s a perfect gentleman.”

Mac coughed. “Wait. My uncle? A gentleman?”

“Shut up, Top.” Ian kissed Mimi on the cheek. “This dear girl is precious to me.”

“Oh God.” Mac didn’t know if he could handle all the drama that came with Shane’s future mother-in-law. He liked Mimi, but from what he’d heard, dealing with her on a daily basis would drive him nuts. Hell, even Maggie had admitted the same.

“Top?” Maggie squeezed next to him. She looked so damn beautiful wearing a soft red sweater and black slacks. She’d clipped her hair up in a comb that left strands to tickle the neck of her sweater, which hid the love bites he’d left the last time they’d played.

He smiled and met her grin, knowing she’d guessed the direction of his thoughts, because she tugged on the high neck. Before he could answer, Trevor did for him.

“Top is a nickname for a Master Sergeant in the Marine Corps.” Trevor came to stand next to Maggie and assessed him. “You look military.”

“Yeah.” Mac gave Trevor a long look and met the hard glint in his eyes. “So do you.”

Maggie crossed her arms over her chest and studied her brother. “Not my brother,” Maggie said as if he she didn’t believe that for a second. She gave Trevor a fake smile. “He’s an investment banker. I mean, does this big ape look like he could handle danger in foreign countries? Are those the hands of a man used to handling a weapon or a keyboard?” It was obvious to Maggie, apparently, that her brother worked at a dangerous job.

Trevor’s backpedalling would have been funny if Mac hadn’t sensed Maggie’s anger.

“Now Maggie. You know I got these calluses from lifting weights. I’m an investment banker who happens to do work occasionally for Uncle Sam. Government contracts, honey. That’s it.”

“Really?” Mac had felt the hard skin on the man’s trigger finger and middle finger, the callous at the V of his hand, where he no doubt often held a pistol.

“Really,” Trevor said with a hard growl.

“Now, now. It’s Christmas.” Ron tugged them into the living room. “Sit and be merry before I get unpleasant.”

“You’d better do it.” Justin downed his beer. “The man doesn’t look it, but he can get pretty ugly if he doesn’t get his way.”

Ron flashed a brilliant smile. “True. Mimi, drag in your new man and tell us all about him. How did you two meet, and how long has this been going on?”

Mac crossed his arms over his chest. Just what he’d like to know.

His uncle answered all of Ron’s questions easily. Too easily. Mac had that itch that had always forewarned him of danger. He had a feeling his uncle and Mimi coming together had more to do with him and Maggie than them coupling up.

But to his bemusement, he didn’t think he minded. The panic he should have felt over the pair trying to fix him and Maggie up didn’t appear. He knew Mimi had plans for Maggie, the same way she’d once had plans for Shelby. And look, Shelby now had a fiancé. Shane, his good buddy, was head-over-heels in love with her.

At the thought, he met Maggie’s gaze. Those sky-blue eyes sucked him in and refused to let go. Man, he liked just looking at her. Seeing her laugh or smile, watching her go toe-to-toe with some asshole while she dressed him down. He liked the woman, and she’d somehow burrowed under his skin and into his heart without him realizing she’d been on her way there.

“Hey, jarhead, you want to help me grab something from my car?” Trevor asked, staring from him to Maggie with suspicion.

“Sure. Why not?”

Maggie, he liked. The brother? He didn’t yet know. “Be right back,” he told his uncle, who waved him away and continued waxing quixotic about his destined first meeting with Mimi at the gym.

Once outside in the cold wind, he and Trevor stood behind a black SUV. Mac sighed. “Well?”

“What’s with you and my sister?”

“What’s it do you?”

Trevor stared at him. “You dating?”

“Again, what’s it to you? She’s a big girl, and you’re never around to protect her, so what do you care?”

Trevor scowled. “I have a job.”

“Yeah? So do I. It’s not the one I want, but it’s helping my uncle out, so what the hell, I do it.”

Trevor said nothing for a moment. “She seems happy. Mimi tells me she’s doing well, working at a gallery and your gym, apparently.” Trevor widened his stance and crossed his arms. The ass acted as if he didn’t feel the cold.

Mac, on the other hand, felt every bit of it. His knee ached, and he wanted nothing more than to go back inside and be with Maggie. But if her big brother wanted a confrontation, so be it. He waited.

“Well?”

“Well what?” Mac asked.

“Are you taking advantage of her or what?”

Mac had to laugh. “You’re kidding, right? You do know your sister, don’t you? Maggie works for me because she wants to, not because she has to. The woman wraps every guy she knows around her finger by batting those big baby blue eyes.” He scoffed, but inside, he knew she’d already done the same to him. She’d entrusted him with her secrets, with her desires. His little sub owned his heart, as much as he wished it weren’t so.

The truth about sunk him to his knees.

“You have a point.” Trevor studied him. “I don’t like being away from her so much, but it’s what I do.”

“And it’s dangerous.” Mac didn’t need to ask specifics. He could read the truth in Trevor’s frame, his stance, the way he measured everything around him as if prepared to defend himself. “She loves you, you know. All that sappy orphan crap makes her worry about you even if she won’t say it.”

Trevor grinned, and it made the guy look even more like Maggie. “Orphan crap?” He laughed. “You say that to my sister?”

“Sure. I’m not going to pity her because she had a rough childhood. You want my opinion, it gave her a leg up. That woman is mean.”

Trevor’s grin widened. “Yeah, she is, isn’t she?”

“She gives me shit all the time.” Mac smiled thinking about it. “She’s always telling me what to do, and I’m the boss. You’d think because she’s little that she’d be easier to work around, but she’s not.”

He paused in thought, wishing he felt better about loving her. The dreaded L word.

What if she ditched him too? He didn’t have the best track record when it came to women. First his mother, then Julie. Now he felt himself loving again for the first time in years. What would stop her from ripping out his heart and stomping on it?

“No, she’s not easy to deal with,” Trevor said quietly.

Mac didn’t know what had happened, but her brother put out his hand.

“Sorry,” Trevor apologized. “I’m protective and it seems I don’t need to be. Truce?”

“Ah, sure.” Mac shook his hand, and this time there was no contest, just a meeting of two men who wanted the best for Maggie.

“Let’s go back in and see if we can rattle your uncle. The man wants to date Mimi. He’s gotta have brass balls, I tell you.”

Mac chuckled. “He was Corps too.”

“Yeah? Figures. He’ll need to be strong to handle her.” Trevor walked with him back to the house. “Some women are like that. Make you work for them, but there’s that payoff at the end.”

“Payoff?”

Trevor smiled sadly, and just that quickly, the sorrow vanished. “When they say I love you and mean it, you know you’ve struck gold.” Trevor punched him in the arm. “So don’t blow it, jarhead. Or after Maggie’s through gelding you, I’ll take a shot at making your life miserable.”

“Oh yeah. You’re definitely related.” Mac followed him inside and joined in the laughter and joy of the holiday.

But as he smiled with the others, his gaze continued to meet Maggie’s.

He couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made a mistake by not pulling back when he’d had the chance. Now, he knew, it was too late. He’d fallen in love.