Marrying Maddy

She dropped her arm to her side, clenching both hands into fists. “Joe the great lover. Spare me, O’Malley.”

He shrugged, careful not to smile. Or wince. “Hey, I tried. Now, is there anything else I can do for you? I’m kind of busy, moving in and all. But, as I was just about to make myself a sandwich anyway, I suppose the least I could do is feed you. Oh, and do you know you’ve got great big hives all over your neck? You look kind of polka-dotted, and kinda cute. Still, you probably ought to take something.”

Maddy couldn’t think of anything more to say now that the first, blind explosion of anger was behind her. Besides, she was out of breath from running all the way, she was covered in hives—which couldn’t possibly add anything to her consequence, no matter what Joe said—and it was pretty hard to be cuttingly sarcastic when you could barely breathe and the man you wanted drawn and quartered was all but goggling at your chest as it heaved up and down with each breath.

And she was pretty sure he wasn’t inspecting her for more hives.

“You ’ought my house,” she said at last, her softly pointed but at the moment rather bumpy chin thrust in his direction. That was pretty lame, certainly didn’t convey all the emotions churning inside her, and she was having trouble pressing her lips together to form the letter B, but it would do for a start. “O’Malley, you ’ought my damn house!”

“Is this where I plead innocence, or just when I ask you what in hell you’re talking about? I ought this house from the Harrises. Nice people, by the way. I met them this morning during closing on the property. They’re moving to Arizona, you know. Something about golfing all year round…gardening in every season. Something like that. Um, maybe you should sit down, Maddy. You’re not looking too good.”

You are, she thought to herself, but she’d rather cut out her own tongue with a rusty butter knife than say so.

How had she gotten here, anyway? She’d been looking through the binoculars one minute, and the next she was all but flying across the lawn, with no clear idea what she’d say to Joe when she cornered him. Definitely without remembering that she was rapidly turning into Hive Central.

She still didn’t know what to say. She could only react. To his dimpled smile. His laughing, mocking eyes. The way he lounged against the kitchen counter, his bare legs crossed at the ankles, his body one tall, dark occasion of sin. Nothing at all like the shirt-sleeved, smiling “J. P. O’Malley” she’d seen posed on the cover of Newsweek.

She’d burned her copy. Then gone out and bought another one. Right now it was hidden in her bottom drawer, along with the stuffed penguin he’d won for her at a local carnival, some photographs of them at the beach and a few other things she really ought to toss in the garbage.

“I’m having an allergic reaction,” she answered at last. “And, ’y the way, I hate you,” she said feelingly. “I really, really, really hate you.”

“Which probably means I won’t be welcome at the wedding next Saturday? Too bad, as I’ve already got my invitation and responded in the affirmative. I chose the beef dish, in case you’re wondering. You know how I never could stand fish. Is it an open bar? Probably. God, Maddy, you’re cute when you’re swollen, do you know that?”

That did it. Maddy stumbled toward a chair sitting smack in the middle of the room, and sat down on it. Certainly not a good move, but much preferred to the alternative, which was to fall down.

“I cannot ’elieve my very own grandmother could do this to me,” she said to no one in particular. “Why would she do this to me?”

“That would be Almira, right?” Joe said, locating and opening the bread loaf. “Nice lady. And very concerned for you, you know.”

“Concerned? Ha! Allie just likes to ’eddle—’eddle. Oh hell, you know what I ’ean.” She concentrated on controlling her numb upper lip. It was probably the same size as her nose by now. “Meddle,” she pronounced carefully. “And she seems to like Matt so much…and I thought she liked me….”

“She says you’re unhappy,” Joe said, opening the peanut butter jar. There wasn’t much sense in trying to pretend Almira Chandler hadn’t help set up this entire plot. It didn’t have enough twists to make such a defense plausible. So, as he’d stopped lying, he figured he’d go back ten, and punt with the peanut butter and jelly,

“She had no ’iness—business—telling you that. B-because I’m not unhappy. I’m deliriously happy. Ecstatic, even!”

“Uh-huh. Careful, or your nose will start growing. You’ve got a hive on the tip of it already, you know. Is it okay if we just have peanut butter? I can’t seem to locate the jelly.”

“Eighteen months,” Maddy mumbled under her breath as she reflexively rubbed at the tip of her nose. “Eighteen months of getting myself ’ack together, getting myself on my feet…”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Joe said, enjoying himself very much. After all, those hadn’t just been Maddy’s eighteen months; they had been his as well. And he hadn’t enjoyed too damn many of them, thanks to her.

Poor baby. She really did look like she wanted to crawl out of her bumpy, reddened skin. “Would you like a side of calamine lotion with that?”

Maddy suddenly realized she was going about this all wrong. Using every bit of strength she had, she sat back in her chair and looked up at Joe. “Congratulations are in order, I suppose,” she said coldly, pronouncing every word with care. “You and Loony Larry seem to have hit the jackpot after all.”

Joe’s one-sided grin made her want to jump up and pop him one in the nose.

“You always had such a flair for the understatement, Mad. Yeah, Larry and I got lucky. Hard work, genius, the guts to go for the brass ring—they had nothing to do with it. Just dumb luck, that’s all. Enough monkeys, working at enough keyboards, or however that goes, probably could have done the same thing.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Maddy said, mentally biting her tongue before she could tell him not to call her Mad. She’d die before she’d tell him that, before she’d say anything else he could use against her. Wasn’t it enough that he was using her own grandmother against her? The Harris house against her? His handsome, smiling face and well-remembered body against her?

Did she want his well-remembered body against her?

No, no, she couldn’t think that way, wouldn’t think that way. Joe was the past, long gone and supposedly forgotten. She refused to think about the hives.

Besides, Matt was her future. Kind, sweet, undemanding Matt. Theirs would be a safe, comfortable marriage, the two of them content with their mutual interests, a desire to settle down, to start a family. Matt wanted children; Maddy wanted children. And they genuinely liked each other. What was so wrong with that?

“No, of course that’s not what you meant,” Joe was saying, bringing Maddy back to attention as she tried, rather vainly, to picture Matt’s face in her mind’s eye. “You’re happy for me, I’m sure of that. It’s just a shame you couldn’t have been along for the ride, as it was a lot of fun. I guess you were too busy here in your safe cocoon, finding yourself a nice, safe guy to marry. Banker, right?”

Maddy had a quick vision of her grandmother standing in the center of a huge pot as she, Maddy, lit a fire under it. “Matt is a b-banker, yes. And we’re very, very happy.”