href="#ulink_9584ca6c-1bf9-5ba7-a921-3cfdc52104f8">Chapter Two
Two years later...
“The prodigal son of Sanders Mountain is coming home. Today?” Callie Grimes asked.
Maggie settled into her desk chair at the Double Knot ranch house and pressed the phone to her ear. She and her twin sister might live two hundred miles apart, but they were still as close as ever. Whether she needed a sympathetic ear or someone to roll ideas off of, Callie was who she called. And when the widowed Callie needed a shoulder to lean on, Maggie was there for her, too. “That’s what the message on the office voice mail said.”
Just to be sure, she’d played it back several times, listening to the deep, husky timbre of Hart Sanders’s voice while tremors of awareness went up and down her spine.
Deliberately, Maggie pushed away the memory of the last time she and Hart had seen each other. Although that momentous encounter would forever be emblazoned in her mind, she was no longer just considered a runaway bride around here. In fact, she was a valued employee-slash-Jill-of-all-trades who had also managed to work off her portion of the botched wedding. It had been important to her that her parents not be left saddled with that. Almost as important as finding a place where she could heal, away from the inquiring eyes and minds of her family. And the fact that she had helped out Fiona and Frank Sanders, in turn, after Hart had departed for a job in Los Angeles, was of comfort to her, too.
Clueless to Maggie’s musing, Callie continued her inquisition. “And you’re there alone?”
“Temporarily.” She bit her lip. “I mean, I have prospective clients coming in later.” But not until after Hart had indicated he would be arriving.
Callie’s momentary silence indicated she was not fooled. “You’re not going to bare your soul to him again...are you?” her sister persisted above the happy babbling of her one-year-old son, Brian.
Maggie barely stifled a groan. “Callie!”
“The last time you were alone with Hart Sanders was on your wedding day. And you poured your heart out to him then.”
Don’t remind me. I can’t stop thinking about that day as it is. How kind he was. How sexy, how male. How personable, despite all the drama...
Never had she felt such pure animal attraction to another human being.
“I told you that was a mistake.” Maggie pressed a palm to her flushed skin. “I was overwrought.”
Callie laughed. “Don’t you mean turned-on?”
Maggie drew a deep breath. Leave it to her twin to intuit her deepest, darkest fantasies. She massaged the tension from her temples. “I am not having this conversation with you.”
“Mmm-hmm. Methinks my sister doth protest too much.”
“Oh, please,” Maggie huffed. “Stop conjuring up romance for me and go back to your adorable baby boy—”
Maggie heard the back door to the office complex open and shut. She covered the mouthpiece with her hand and spoke quietly into the phone. “And here he is.”
“You call me later! I want a full report!”
Her pulse racing, Maggie quickly put the phone down. She sat forward in her chair and went back to tackling yet another prenuptial task for a client. And not a second too soon, either, as firm male footsteps and the sound of something being rolled—maybe a cart?— followed. Seconds later, a familiar face appeared in the portal.
Maggie blinked at the sight of the ruggedly handsome ex-soldier. Although she and Hart had talked—or was it flirted?—from time to time on the phone when he “accidentally” called her extension, she’d never imagined what it might be like for them to actually come face-to-face again.
“Hey.” Ignoring the jolt of excitement coursing through her, Maggie rushed to fill the awkward silence. “What are you doing here?” she asked cheerfully.
Message or not, it wasn’t like Hart to just drop in. Particularly since he and his parents had barely been on speaking terms the last couple of years.
In fact, things had been so tense between Hart and his folks since he had taken a job in Los Angeles that the two times Hart had returned to the ranch, Maggie’d taken advantage of the prior notice and arranged to visit her own family until Hart was gone.
No such luck now, though, Maggie thought, still feeling a little embarrassed to square off with the man who had chased her down on what admittedly had been the worst day of her life. Not that Hart seemed to be thinking about that, Maggie noted cautiously. Or anything else remotely connected to her, thank heaven.
Apparently oblivious to the conflicted feelings welling up within her, Hart faced her across the cluttered surface of her desk. Clad in an expensive olive green button-up, nice-fitting khaki pants and boots, he looked handsome and sexy. His sandy brown hair was still cut short enough to require little in the way of maintenance, although it was more stylish now. The taut, masculine angles of his face had been left unshaven. He also appeared unusually contained and exceptionally tired around the eyes, like he’d been travelling for what seemed forever to get there. Which, given the fact he accompanied his famous boss, Hollywood movie actress Monica Day, wherever her work took her, could certainly be the case.
“I came to see my folks,” he said. Every taut inch of his tall, imposing frame was poised and ready in a way she’d never seen before. “Are they around?”
Maggie studied the sticky-sweet smear of what looked like apple juice on the shoulder of his expensive shirt, and lower still, what looked like ground-in-cracker debris. Maybe it had been a long flight. Maybe he’d sat next to...well, what did it matter.
Aware he was still in need of an answer, she said, “Ah—actually, no. Your mom and dad are on a cruise to New Zealand and Australia.”
Briefly, Hart appeared stunned. “When will they be back?”
Maggie shifted her gaze upward, over the strong suntanned neck, to his intense sable brown eyes. He had the same devastating impact on her that he’d had the first time they’d met. “Ten days.”
His brow furrowed in a way that said he was anything but pleased about that.
Maggie fought back her attraction and pushed on, “I gather you’ve got some time off, too?”
“A little over two weeks, yeah.” He shrugged his broad shoulders restively. “I had something important—” He sighed. “I wanted to surprise them.”
Maggie leaned back in her chair. “Well, you did that, all right.”
He shoved a palm through his hair, looked around at the empty suite of rooms where The Wedding Train business was conducted. “I just assumed it being the height of the season, they’d be here.”
Normally, they would have been, Maggie knew. Unfortunately, bookings were down almost twenty-five percent in the past two years. Sadly, for a lot of reasons, it wasn’t looking to get any better. Not that she planned to get into any of that with Hart, who made it a habit to stay as far away from the family business as possible. She watched him tilt his head, as if listening in the direction of the hallway beyond. For the first time she wondered if it was possible he
