until she’d learned better than to get involved in all that would inevitably follow. Now she guarded her single friends with the ferocity of a lioness guarding innocent cubs.
But those earlier women most certainly had not been brainless. They had been smart, successful, pretty women. Like anyone he had been even remotely interested in. So what was with the sudden concern? It wasn’t as if he’d even done that much dating of late. She’d noticed that.
The thought then crossed her mind that maybe he had met someone he had more than a passing interest in. She’d certainly been less aware of him being with anyone new but that didn’t mean there wasn’t somebody. Maybe he was serious about someone and having those feelings was making him insecure. Wasn’t that what happened with something that important?
The idea made her stomach churn ridiculously and she had to take a deep breath when she looked away from his profile. God only knew she wanted him to be happy, to learn about real love and to have all the things he hadn’t quite completely admitted out loud he wanted for himself down the line. A woman to love, to love him back. A family of his own. Children who would look just like him.
Maggie wanted those things for him.
But that didn’t mean that losing something of the friendship and the closeness they had wouldn’t hurt. Even the thought of it already hurt. Because in her own way she was already taking the initial steps that would distance her from him.
Clearing her throat, she looked down at the ground and then back at his profile. ‘Did you meet someone new?’
His eyes shot round to meet hers and he wanted to ask her if it would matter. But the words got stuck. He smiled to ease the tension. ‘Me?’
She smiled back at him, her composure in place. ‘Yes, you, unlikely and all as that may be. You tend to go through women faster than most.’
‘No, I didn’t meet someone new.’ He said the words softly and watched for her reaction. To see if she looked at all relieved. But when she just continued to smile at him he jumped right on in with both feet. ‘But then I haven’t advertised myself anywhere or felt the need to, funnily enough. Unlike someone I could mention.’
Her smile faltered. So that was it, then. Her sister had told him about that during their little tête-à-tête on the other side of the lawn. She straightened her spine again and moved a couple of steps away from his side.
‘I may as well have announced it on the news.’
He continued to study her intently before she turned her face from him. ‘What’s going on?’
‘If you’ve been talking to Kath then you know exactly what’s going on.’
‘She said you’ve decided to hunt down some poor unsuspecting single parent.’ His mouth twisted at one edge. ‘What’s the thinking there, then? You want to make sure he can be a good father before you tie yourself down? Sort of already broken in, kinda thing?’
Maggie flushed under his scrutiny. ‘Funny, Sean, really hilarious. You just have such insight into the female mind that it’s a miracle you’ve stayed single this long.’
He frowned at the sharp tone in her voice; frowned even harder when she turned on her heel and walked away. In the space of a heartbeat he was on her heel. ‘Well, explain it to me, then, ’cos I just plain don’t get it.’
‘You don’t have to get it. It has nothing to do with you.’
‘Doesn’t it?’
She swung round so suddenly he walked straight into her and had to reach out his hands to grasp hold of her upper arms to steady them both. A little juggling saved both them and his bottle from an ungraceful contact with the hard ground that would have been aided by a small thing known as gravity.
When they were both firmly on their feet his hands remained, his hold loosening a little, thumbs brushing back and forth against her skin. He laughed. ‘Did the earth move for you too?’
Maggie felt her skin heat where he was touching, felt the warmth moving up her arm and spreading across her chest. Her heart fluttered and she looked up at him from beneath long lashes. Sean looked down at her with his deep, fathomless dark eyes, the smile still on his lips, and her cheeks flushed a deeper red than before.
Swallowing, she took a shaky breath and asked, ‘How could it possibly have anything to do with you?’
He wondered if she had any idea how much she had got under his skin? They’d been flirting around a deeper involvement up until recently; he wasn’t so stupid that he didn’t know that. But did it really add up to anything more in Maggie’s mind? Or was it simply wishful thinking on his part?
He took the one safe route open to him. ‘Can’t your best mate worry that you might make a mistake?’
Maggie avoided his eyes while her mind worked on an answer to his question. She’d known he would probably have the most difficulty with what she’d decided to do. That he would push the most to find the motive behind her decision. He cared about her in his own very individual way, she knew that much. Knew it and had to skirt around it for reasons of her own.
She could never tell him the truth. Because if he knew he would try to stop her, would argue every step of the way unless she was very much mistaken. And she’d already made up her mind. There could be no shifting her. No turn-around.
His thumbs continued to move against her skin. Soothing, reassuring and letting her know that he was right there, beside her, with her. But little did he know that the touch did more than reassure and the last thing it did was soothe.
For months she had been fighting the pull towards him. At first she hadn’t wanted to face up to the fact that she could even see him that way. As anything more than just a friend, a buddy, her pal, her mate. But it had just been so strong, so very real that it had scared her. It had been a losing battle though.
Even now, while his thumbs moved back and forth and back and forth, her blood was humming in her veins, her skin was heating, her pulse was beating irrationally. She couldn’t let him keep touching her. Bad, bad plan.
Sean watched as she moved out of his hold. He frowned when she seemed to shiver, before wrapping her arms around herself. And she still couldn’t look him in the eye.
If she was this disgusted by him touching just her arms then he was way off base with what he’d thought had been happening between them.
He frowned harder.
‘You don’t need to worry about me, Sean. I know what I’m doing.’ She smiled with a little more conviction as she forced out the words she had been rehearsing in front of a mirror for days. ‘You know how much I want a family; we’ve talked about it loads. The more the merrier, as far as I’m concerned. I’m sick to death of the whole singles thing and I’m not getting any younger. I don’t want to wait till I’m old before I find the right guy.’ She paused for a breath. ‘I tripped across the site when I was doing some background on the dating scene for that piece we did last month and it just made sense to me. That’s all.’
He blinked the whole way through her speech and then asked, ‘Is it?’
‘Oh, for crying out loud, yes!’ The fact that he was still asking questions with that deadpan expression was making her more and more nervous.
