Passion and Peril. Suzanne Brockmann
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Maggie knew was that Matt and Angie had had the mother of all fights shortly after rehearsals for West Side Story had started. And that was saying something because theirs was a very stormy relationship, filled with conflict.
Angie had come running to Maggie’s house for comfort. And soon after, Matt had shown up, too.
Maggie could tell he’d been drinking from the aroma of alcohol that surrounded him. It had been whiskey she could smell, which alarmed her. Usually he only drank beer.
“Are you okay?” she’d asked him, coming out onto the front stoop.
He sat down heavily on the steps, and she knew as she sat next to him that something was really wrong. In addition to having too much to drink, he looked anxious and ill at ease.
He couldn’t quite meet her eyes. “Mags, there’s something I have to tell you,” he said.
“Get the hell out of here, you creep!”
Maggie turned to see Angie inside the front door. Her eyes were blazing and her arms were crossed as she glared down at Matt.
He swore softly. “I should have figured you’d be here.”
Maggie had looked from Angie to Matt, feeling hopelessly caught in the middle. She stood up. “Look, you guys, why don’t I go inside? This doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
Matt started to laugh, and Angie kicked him, hard, in the back. He fell off the steps, landed in the shrubbery and came up mad.
“Damn it!”
“Stay away from me,” Angie shouted back at him. “And stay away from Maggie. I’m warning you, Matt!”
Maggie had never seen such venom in her friend’s eyes.
Matt turned deliberately away from her and looked at Maggie. “I would like to talk to you. Alone. Will you come for a ride with me? Please?”
“I wouldn’t let her go for a ride with you even if you were sober,” Angie shouted. “Get lost, you son of a bitch!”
“I wasn’t asking you,” Matt shouted back. “Just shut the hell up!” He turned back to Maggie. “Come on, Mags. If you don’t want me to drive, we could take a walk.”
“I’m sorry,” Maggie said as Angie pulled her back into the house.
After that, she’d only seen Matt at rehearsals.
She’d urged him to patch things up with Angie, but he’d simply smiled. “You still don’t get it, do you?” he’d asked.
Finally, she did get it. Matt and Angie were through, and their three-way friendship was over.
The next year, Matt went off to college. Angie found a new boyfriend and life went on. Maggie had kept track of Matt for a while.
The last address Maggie had had for him was from nearly seven years ago, when he was living in Los Angeles. Since then, she’d heard nothing of him, as if he’d dropped off the face of the earth.
But now he was back.
Maggie picked up the phone and dialed.
It rang four times before a breathless voice answered it. “Hello?”
“Hey, Matt.”
“Mags!” he said, genuine pleasure ringing in his voice. “Thanks for calling back so quickly. How are you?”
Awful. “I’m fine. Welcome back to the East Coast.”
“Yeah, well.” His voice sounded subdued for a moment. “I, uh, actually, I’m back in Eastfield on business and, um, that’s partly why I called. I mean, aside from just wanting to see you. God, it’s been forever.”
“You sound exactly the same,” she said.
“Yikes,” he said. “Really? That’s kind of scary.”
Maggie laughed. “So what kind of business are you in these days?”
“The inheritance business,” he told her. “Can you meet me tonight for dinner? I’m going to ask you to do me a giant favor and I’d rather not do it over the phone. I need the opportunity to use visuals—you know, so I can properly grovel.”
He did sound exactly the same. “How giant is this favor?”
“It’s about twenty-five million dollars giant.”
Maggie choked. “What?”
“I really want to wait and talk to you about this in person,” Matt said. “How about if I pick you up at six-thirty?”
Maggie looked at that new stack of files on her desk. “Let’s make it later. I’m going to be here for a while, and I was hoping to hit the health club tonight. I want to go to a class that ends at eight. Is that too late?”
“That’s right. Tonight’s that dance class you like to take. I’ve seen you over there, you know.”
“You’re kidding. You saw me at the club and you didn’t bother to say hello?” Maggie couldn’t believe it. “Thanks a million.”
“You didn’t see me?” he asked.
“If I had, I would’ve said hi. Jeez, Matt.”
He laughed. “It makes sense that you wouldn’t recognize me. I’ve put on some weight.”
“Really?” Maggie tried to picture Matt carrying an extra fifty pounds around his waist. Oh, dear. He was probably balding, too. No doubt it was his cosmic punishment for being too gleamingly handsome as a seventeen-year-old.
“Look, why don’t we meet at the club?” he asked. “We can get something healthy to eat in the café.”
Maggie snorted. “Yeah—since when do you eat anything healthy, Mr. Cheese Fries?”
Matt laughed. “I’ll see you a little after eight.”
* * *
THANKS TO THE files on her desk, Maggie missed the dance class. It was eight-fifteen before she pulled into the health club parking lot.
And there he was. Her jungle man. Hanging out right by the door, leaning against the wall. Dressed in jeans and that white T-shirt, just like in her fantasy.
Only this was real.
He was just standing there, as if he were waiting for her. And she was going to have to rush right past him, because she’d already kept Matt waiting.
Boy, she hated being late.
But as she moved toward him, the jungle man pushed himself up and off the wall. His hair was down around his shoulders, shiny and clean. His shoulders and chest were unbelievably broad, and the muscles in his arms actually strained against the sleeves of his T-shirt.
His face was twice as handsome as she’d imagined—although the twilight still made it hard to see him clearly.
He smiled as she drew closer, and she realized that his cheekbones were indeed a work of art. And his chin and his smile with those gracefully shaped lips, and those golden-brown eyes that were—oh, my God!—Matthew’s eyes...
Maggie couldn’t remember the last time she’d been completely speechless. But she sure as hell was speechless now.
Matthew.
Her fantasy jungle man was actually her old buddy Matthew.
He’d put on some weight, all right, but it was all solid muscle.
“Hey, Mags,” he said—Matt’s voice coming out of this stranger’s mouth. He was laughing at her. He knew damn well that she’d noticed him in the club but hadn’t recognized him.
Come on, Maggie. You’re an actor. Act.
“Hey, Matt,” she said,