"Your lawyer what?" Michael prompted.
"My lawyer is not exactly setting the world on fire," Maggie admitted. "He's nice. He's local. He's also out of his depth, and I'm fairly sure Kevin's lawyer runs rings around him in every single meeting. I keep paying for hearings that achieve nothing." She shook her head. Her shoulders slumped slightly. “I’m very close to firing him.”
Michael set his coffee down.
"Maggie," Michael said, his voice low. "Let me look at it for you and see if I can take it over."
"Michael, no. I couldn't ask you to." Maggie looked slightly embarrassed, but something like relief shot through her eyes.
"You didn't ask. I offered." Michael leaned forward. "I may be a little rusty in divorce law. But I do know that just by the few things you’ve told me, Kevin’s lawyer is a shark trying to drag this thing out and bleed you dry. We need to nip it in the bud and end this before you get even more famous with your boutique.” He gave her an encouraging smile. “Let’s get together sometime tomorrow. Bring everything you have from your attorney, and we’ll go over it, then take it from there.”
"You'd really do that?" Maggie asked hopefully. “Because honestly, it would be such a relief to have someone help me with this who knows what they’re doing and who I feel is on my side.”
"You know you could’ve asked me from the beginning," Michael pointed out.
“Yes, but…” Maggie swallowed. “You were going through your own things when all this started.”
A twinge of guilt shot through him. Because Maggie meant he’d been grieving his late wife and had thrown himself into work,piling the cases up so he never had time to think about her too much.
“I’m here now,” Michael assured her. “And we’re going to get that leech off your back.”
"Thank you. You have no idea what that means." Maggie blew out a breath of relief.
It was the most innocent thing to do as she reached across the table and laid her hand over his.
It was a small thing. A thank-you. The kind of touch that passed between people who'd known each other their whole lives without anyone thinking twice about it.
Except Michael felt it go all the way up his arm and into his chest like a bolt of lightning. When he looked up, Maggie was looking at him, and that night when they were teenagers at the beach bonfire was right there between them, as bright and as warm as if forty-odd years had never happened at all.
Her hand was warm over his. Neither of them pulled away.
For a moment, the kitchen and the whole careful wall Michael had spent forty years building all fell away, and there was only Maggie's hand on his, her eyes on his, and the thing they had never once spoken about sitting wide awake between them.
The back door of the kitchen opened. It wasn’t a burst, but it sounded like a gunshot to them as it ripped apart the moment they’d been lost in.
"There you are," Linda called, breezing in with Buddy at her heels. "Michael, I got your message. I'm sorry, I was down on the beach and..."
Maggie
Maggie pulled her hand back so fast she nearly knocked over her coffee.
She wrapped both hands around the mug and fixed a bright, easy smile on her face, the same smile she'd been fixing on her face for forty years whenever Michael Heart got too close, and her heart forgot which century it was living in.
"Linda," Maggie greeted her, and was relieved when her voice came out steady. "We were just having coffee. Michael's been buried in the hotel accounts all afternoon."
She was babbling like a nervous buffoon!Good grief, Maggie, get a grip!
“Ah,” Linda said, nodding as she slid in beside Maggie, stealing one of the cookies on the plate. She glanced at Michael. “How is that going?”
“Getting there,” Michael said, his voice a little throaty, so he cleared it, then drained his coffee.
“Did Martin give you all the information?” Linda asked.
“Yes,” Michael said with a nod. “Uh… Um… I need Uncle George’s keys to his cabinets.”
“Oh, yes,” Linda said. “They’re in his office.” She grabbed another cookie and started to slide out of the booth, stopping to look at Maggie. “Can I call you later? I need to chat.”
“Of course,” Maggie said, trying not to look at Michael as his tall, muscular frame uncurled from the booth. “I… uh… I’d better go and find Rosa to get my laundry.”
