The Man For Maggie. Frances Housden
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shower, and sent her in search of paper and pencil.
Maybe it’s not too late.
This, the first dream of death she’d had in Auckland, had been clearer, more edgy in its intensity. Pathetically, she shied away from the word murder. It was too out there, too in her face. The word death was easier to swallow, if it stopped her wanting to run to the nearest bathroom and throw up. And if living the dream slammed her with a knockout punch, the flashes, images, caught her off guard, winding her with short, sharp jabs to the solar plexus. What could be worse? Nothing—except maybe the ridicule she knew waited on the other side of the door.
She’d been directed to the fifth floor. Reception was empty, though a light, electronic hum issued from a double-doored office. Her muscles tightened, screaming with tension. Maybe she should barge in and sing out, “Can anyone tell me where to find Sergeant Strachan?”
Impatience gave in to need. Fists clenched, teeth clamped over her bottom lip, she stepped toward the office.
Maybe it’s not too late!
A huge, tawny-haired man dressed in uniform blues preempted her decision. Doors swinging in his wake, he asked, “Need any help?”
He had a look of authority, of reliability, and a badge with the legend Sergeant McQuaid sitting squarely on his massive chest. A cop she could trust, thought Maggie, taking in his attractive, craggy features. If only he was the one she had come to see. “Yes, could you show me to Sergeant Strachan’s office?”
“Sure thing.” Warm, teasing hazel eyes gave her a quick, speculative once-over. “Follow me,” he said as he walked on, keeping her pinned with his inquisitive gaze.
Since he hadn’t asked her name, she didn’t have to suffer a swift change in his attitude. Taking two steps to his one, she kept pace with him, keeping close to the wall; the sergeant’s shoulders needed all the space they could get.
They passed two interview rooms before they reached the corner office. Knocking once, Sergeant McQuaid opened the door. With her view blocked by his bulk, Maggie listened for Max’s voice with her nerves prickling her skin like an invasion of ants.
Maybe it’s not too late!
Max looked up as Rowan McQuaid invaded his privacy. “What’s up?” Although McQuaid was slightly younger than Max, they’d been in the same year at Trentham Police College. Jamie Thurlo, the other member of their trio, had been a helicopter jockey when he signed on and now rode the skies in a blue-and-white beauty. Their friendship had survived the years and been tempered by them. The young hotheads were long gone. Rowan, the more methodical member of the group, had stuck to the route where the donkey work lay, the papers and reports that Max hated. Like the ones littering his desk. After eight agonizing hours of constant arousal, while his mind reran in a constant loop every second spent with Maggie, he’d woken up feeling as if half his brain had shut down while the rest worked at half speed.
“Visitor for you, Max.”
Secretly glad of the interruption, he grumbled, “This better be important. I’m busy.” Anything was better than reading each line three times over without taking it in. The hell with it. He needed something, someone, to take his mind off Maggie. “All right, show them in.”
“I’m sure you’ll want to see this one,” Rowan said, grinning, and he moved out of the way, giving Max his first glimpse of his visitor.
“Maggie!” Max was halfway out of his chair before she’d stepped into the room. He caught the conjecture in Rowan’s glance as he rounded his desk. “Maggie,” he said, “this is a friend of mine, Rowan McQuaid.” He watched her offer her hand as he finished, “Rowan, meet Maggie Kovacs.” But her eyes were on him.
Max took in Rowan’s recoil without surprise. The trouble with friends close enough to know your whole life history, preferences, prejudices and the kind of breakfast cereal you ate was they took a personal interest in what you were doing and with whom. They stood up with you at your wedding and cried with you over your divorce, and because of the last two, this meeting with Maggie wouldn’t make any sense to Rowan.
Max cut off the question forming in Rowan’s eyes with a meaningful glare and a nod that said he should leave.
“I’ll leave you to it then.” Rowan started to turn away, speaking over his shoulder as he left. “Good luck, and don’t sweat it, mate. I won’t tell a soul.”
Max brushed past Maggie and closed the door, shutting out his friend and the rest of Auckland Central. He’d no idea why she had come, but he wasn’t sharing. A pulse throbbed in his temple as fantasies born in the dead of night flooded his memory. At the mere sight of her, his palms itched to touch and the fire in his groin as her scent filled his head warned him to keep his distance if he was to maintain control.
“Take a seat, Maggie.”
“I won’t, thanks.” Turning her back on him, she walked over to the corner window and stood looking down.
“If all you came for was the view, there’s a better one from your apartment.” Drawn by the vulnerable picture she made, Max followed, but instead of dropping a kiss in the unguarded hollow at her nape to appease his craving, he turned her to face him. All his good intentions crashed and burned the moment he searched her eyes. They shone darkly, sparkling with unshed tears that made his breath catch. “What are you doing here, Maggie?”
“Maybe it’s not too late!” Emotion made her voice crack as she uttered the words chasing through her brain in a monotonous litany. “It doesn’t have to be.”
“Too late for what? C’mon, give me a clue, babe. I need more.” His hands tightened on her shoulders.
Dammit, he needed Maggie!
It had happened so swiftly, this blinding need for the one woman who should be anathema to him. Steady boy, steady. Max drew a deep, calming breath and compounded his dilemma with her womanly scent. The perfume she favored blended subtly with her own secret essence. It had lingered on his hands and driven him crazy replaying the pleasure derived from touching her. Tasting her. Crushing her against—
He had to stop punishing himself. He couldn’t.
Her warm camel coat, the same one she’d worn last night, seemed to melt away beneath his palms as her tight muscles communicated with him. Could Maggie feel him through it? Feel the heat generated by the burning ache in his groin? Hell! No wonder. Being close to her was playing with fire. And he knew it. Sliding his palms from her shoulders to her hands, he pulled her away from the window before he could set her on the ledge and take her there, for all the world to see. He forced the words “Let’s sit over here,” past the stricture in his throat, and settled Maggie in a chair, pulling the other one close. “What’s got you so upset? Are you still worried about Jo?”
“No, not her!” She felt Max’s hands caress hers as if he would rub her cares away. How would he react when she told him her reason for searching him out? He looked tired, and a strange longing to hug him tightly shoved her other emotions aside. Not that she wanted to mother him. How could she? He was so big, so handsome. And the rakish silver blaze in his hair curled on his forehead and fought with the tenderness in his eyes.
Any second now, all that would change. Preventing it was beyond her control.
She wished this small section of time and space could be set aside for herself and Max. Wished everything standing between them to the farthest ends of the earth. And knew there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of it happening.
What would Max think if she told him she didn’t want him to make her dreams come true? She wanted him to make them go away!
But all this heart searching could only delay the inevitable. Time he faced up to who she was, even if it drove him away.
Pulling her hands back, she reversed their positions, holding his long fingers and taking courage from their strength. “Max, I had another dream last night.”
His withdrawal was more