A Mum For Amy. Ann Evans
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as if it went all the way to the bone, and a smirky, smoke-frayed laugh that always set her teeth on edge.
“Wow,” Lisa said, as she stared at the enormous aquarium. “They’ve got a lot of fish.”
“Too many,” Maggie remarked as she began to lay towels out on the floor in case she spilled any water on the expensive parquet.
On previous house calls, she’d told Huckabee that he needed to stop buying more exotic fish. She’d explained to him that the fish he had were social creatures, community dwellers, and that in spite of the tank’s size, they were displaying signs of stress from overcrowding. But the man had just laughed. Huckabee was clearly not the kind of guy to take direction from a nineteen year-old woman.
She and Lisa worked for almost an hour. Maggie showed the girl how to check pH levels, how to scrape algae without scratching the acrylic, the best way to move rocks but keep from creating a muddy cloud in the water.
Lisa proved to be a surprisingly quick learner and best of all, she actually seemed to enjoy the tasks Maggie assigned her. She peppered Maggie with questions. She didn’t turn her nose up at the more unpleasant duties, and she didn’t complain. The time went fast, and Maggie felt as though they were really bonding.
“Can you get me about a quart of tap water?” Maggie asked, handing the girl a small bucket. She pointed toward the back of the house. “The kitchen is through that door.”
Lisa nodded and disappeared down the long hallway. Maggie, whose right arm was immersed up to her shoulder in the aquarium, kept mounding rocks in one corner, intent on making a natural hiding place for some of the smaller fish. An inquisitive brown-striped kuhli loach came up to investigate one of her fingers, and Maggie noticed that a tiny portion of its caudal fin was missing.
“Poor little guy,” Maggie crooned to the fish. “Are those big boys beating up on you?”
The fish didn’t let her stroke it—by nature the breed was too shy for that—but she thought it was actually listening to her. It was a funny little creature, one of her favorites in spite of the fact that it looked more like a worm. Long ago, she’d become convinced that some fish really did have distinct personalities, that they could connect with their owners. They weren’t just pretty pieces of living art as Huckabee seemed to think. They needed love and attention. Just like people.
She was glad Lisa had come with her on this call. From some of the things the girl had said, Maggie suspected that she might need an older female in her life. She wasn’t a child anymore. She was a teenager discovering so many new things about her body, feeling her way through the baffling intricacies of womanhood. Maybe tonight, Maggie thought, she should spend a few minutes trying to explain that to Will.
But right now, where was Lisa with that water? Frowning, Maggie slipped her hand out of the tank and dried her arm with a towel. The girl should have been back by now.
She hoped Lisa wasn’t pestering the housekeeper. And had Maggie told Lisa that she mustn’t ever venture farther into a client’s home? The room holding the aquarium, the kitchen or bathroom were fine, but everything else was off-limits. She couldn’t afford any accidents in one of these homes.
Maggie hurried to the kitchen. The room was techno-shiny with stainless steel equipment, but empty.
“Lisa,” Maggie called in a half whisper.
No one answered, and a premonition of trouble flared at the edge of Maggie’s mind. If the girl had been foolish enough to explore, Maggie would make her sit in the car once she found her. And definitely no beach. Even if Lisa hadn’t been told the rules, she ought to know better….
Maggie left the kitchen and went into the formal dining room. Nothing. She walked into the next room, obviously Huckabee’s domain since it was dominated by a huge home theater setup and enormous workout equipment that made the space look like a torture chamber from some medieval castle.
The room led off to the back deck and pool, and Maggie caught movement there. It was Lisa, all right. Standing beside a patio table, chatting with a barefoot man in a white terry-cloth robe who had his back to Maggie. She recognized him as Huckabee—no mistaking that slick blond haircut—and the girl had obviously disturbed him during his sunbathing. He had his hands on his hips, and Maggie wondered if he was annoyed. She knew she was. God, she was going to kill Lisa for bothering a customer—even a jerk like Huckabee.
She made a move toward the French doors, not understanding why in that moment goose bumps rose along her arms. Halfway there, Maggie stopped. She realized suddenly that Lisa wasn’t talking at all, she was listening. And the look on her face was so wary, so anxious, that Maggie immediately knew something was wrong.
And in the next moment Maggie discovered what it was. While she watched, stunned, Huckabee slipped the knot from his robe and pulled apart the edges to expose himself to Lisa.
The air left Maggie’s lungs in a rush as a wave of nausea rippled at the back of her throat. Even as she strode toward the door, galvanized by an anger so deep and strong that she could hardly see the handle for the red haze in front of her eyes, she knew that everything was about to change. Everything.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
Not in her world.
Not in Lisa’s.
CHAPTER TWO
Eight years later
MAGGIE WAS on her computer, creating a six-hundred-gallon wave tank on her AutoCad program, when Zack Davidson strode into her small office. He must have come directly from his workshop behind the building, because a paper face mask still dangled from the string around his neck and bits of sawdust clung to his brown hair like a sprinkling of snow.
He was a tall, good-looking man with impressive biceps from years of carpentry work. He’d been Maggie’s partner in Sapphire Seas Designs for four years, and right now, he didn’t look happy.
“I just got off the phone with Lou Myers,” he said. “Did you tell him he could have cherry instead of oak cabinets?”
“I did,” Maggie replied absently. She used her mouse to erase an errant line from her computer design. “He wants the cabinets to match the waiting room furniture he bought yesterday.”
“Damn it, Mags,” Zack said as he shook a tiny shaving out from underneath the collar of his shirt. “Why didn’t you tell him it was too late to change his mind? You know I’ve already cut the wood.”
Maggie tilted back in her chair. She smiled up at Zack, though she couldn’t really see his features because the Key West afternoon sunlight coming through the window cast his face in shadows. “I know. But remember customer service?”
“We won’t have any customers to service if you drive us out of business by wasting inventory. What am I supposed to do now with a bunch of oak cut for cabinets we haven’t sold?”
“Zack, do you know what Lou Myers does for a living?”
“Dentist?”
She shook her head at him in playful disgust. They’d been friends since high school, even when he was making moon eyes at her sister, Alaina, and getting the brush-off. After he’d moved down here to Key West, she hadn’t seen much of him, but eight years ago, when she’d had no place else to go, he’d been there for her. She owed him a debt of gratitude she could never repay, but he drove her crazy sometimes.
“This is why you’re still back in the workshop, you know.” She saved her design in the computer, then shut it down. “Because you won’t take an interest in the customer side of the business.”
He came to her desk, letting his weight settle against the edge so that one jean-clad leg could dangle as he crossed his arms and stared at her. “I’m back in the workshop because I like to build things. What’s your point, partner?”
“Lou isn’t just any dentist. He’s head of the Pediatric Orthodontia Society of America. That