Tempting Fate Read online

  “Yes, I can't thank you enough for the use of your phone. If it wasn't for your kindness, I'd still be baking in the sun.”

  “It was my pleasure. I hate to throw you out of the air conditioning and onto the street, but I do have to lock up here and make the bank before it closes. I'd be more than happy to give you an iced coffee to go while you wait for your ride.”

  He slid off the stool and dabbed his mouth with a napkin. Instinctively, she took the dirty plate from the counter and slipped it into the gray tub filled with soapy water under the counter.

  “You've been more than gracious. I don't want to keep you. But I'm afraid I won't be able to pay the check until--”

  Maggie waved him off. “Don't worry, it's on the house.”

  “You're very kind,” he said in a low voice that stirred something deep inside her. “But I've never left a bill unpaid in my life. I don't intend to take advantage of your generosity now.”

  He dipped his gaze, hiding from her view the most incredible blue eyes she'd ever seen, as if he were embarrassed. She was sure that was the case. She'd had her share of Dutch treat dates for the brief time she'd attended Boston University, but she'd bet this week's register tally that Jonah had never allowed a lady he was with to go Dutch.

  She couldn't help but chuckle. “It's just a cup of coffee and some pie. In some parts of the world people call that being neighborly.”

  Jonah stared blankly, and then his eyebrows knitted together.

  She pointed to the building across the street. “You said your office is in that building.”

  His lips stretched into a slow grin. “I guess that would make us neighbors then.”

  “Exactly. So, don't worry about it. Where I come from we look out for our neighbors.”

  “And where do you come from, Maggie?”

  His question as well as the genuine interest in his eyes caught her by surprise. This man was an enigma for sure. But it didn't take much to figure out they'd lived their lives worlds apart. Not just geographically, but socially. Despite not having two nickels to rub together at the present moment, Maggie could tell this man was from money. Either that or he was a good impersonator.

  “Across the Charles River,” she said. Not quite the other side of the track, but far enough to make their differences evident. He was money, she wasn't. End of story.

  She locked the door behind them and walked out into the sunshine of Harvard Square, wilting immediately under the cruel sun. The choking smell of fuels and garbage from a nearby trashcan made her stomach roll. Every little smell seemed magnified lately, just like this sudden attraction to a stranger.

  Hormones. That's what this is, Maggie decided instantly. Not that she'd had this kind of reaction since she found out she was pregnant two months ago, but she'd never liked the combination of pickles and chocolate sauce either and that had been a regular treat of late.

  “Thank you again, Maggie. I didn't catch your last name.”

  “Bonelli.”

  Jonah gripped her hand. She was struck by how small her hand felt in his stronger one, how snug his fingers curled around hers. Safe and strong. For a moment, she found herself drawn even closer to this stranger. Abruptly, she snatched her hand away.

  “It was nice to meet you Maggie Bonelli. You've made an otherwise rotten day...almost bearable.”

  “I'm just glad I could help. Make sure you stop by again.”

  She turned and walked next door to the bank, muttering to herself she shouldn't look back at Jonah Wallace. And she didn't. She made her deposit and decided her day had already been too long.

  * * *

  “Congratulations, Sir. How was the--” his driver said, opening the door to the back seat of his shining black limo.

  Jonah put up his hand. “Hold that thought, Michael. Did you remember to bring the petty cash for me?” he asked, tossing the tuxedo jacket to the leather seat.

  “Yes, Sir. It's in the--”

  Rummaging through the console deck, he found his wallet and his spare set of keys.

  “I have it, thank you. Be right back.” Twisting around, he walked back the way he’d just come.

  He slammed the back door of the limo just as he saw Maggie push through the bank door, and walk out into the heat, moving in the opposite direction.

  A few quick strides through the crowd and Jonah fell into her stride.

  “I want to thank you again for your kindness.”

  With the sound of his voice, Maggie did a double take, and stopped walking. His heart did a flip-flop as she peered up at him with wide eyes like she had inside the coffee shop.

  “Didn't we do this already?” she asked, her brow crinkling slightly.

  “Yes, but I see that you're still here and I've retrieved my billfold--”

  As he held the leather billfold up for her inspection, she laughed. Little beads of sweat were already forming on her forehead and matting stray ringlets of hair to the sides of her face.

  “You have a hard time letting people help you, don't you?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “I'm use to taking care of things myself. I don’t think you full appreciate how unusual today was for me. I'm grateful for your help.”

  Shaking her head, she said, “It was a cup of coffee and a phone call. You're making too much of this. “

  “Don’t forget the pie. And I’m really not. I'd been to three other shops in the square before I came through your door. No one so much as offered up a smile. With you, at least I got a bite to eat while I waited.”

  She rolled her eyes and grinned, pursing her lips. “It's genetic. I'm a softy. So was my grandmother.”

  She continued walking again, this time passed him, and dropped her bag on the wooden bench in front of the bus-stop sign. She glanced back once, just to see if he was going to follow? He took it as an invitation. She glanced down the street toward the shiny black limousine that was now double parked outside her coffee shop.

  She nodded toward the limo. “Yours?”

  “My ride, thanks to you.”

  She tried her best not to look impressed, but he could see that she was. He was used to it, but not many people were used to having a chauffeur at will. He generally didn't ask Michael to take him anywhere but formal functions. He'd hired him mainly for his housemaid, Mary, since she detested driving in the city on her own.

  “If your friend doesn't want a parking ticket, I suggest he pull into a parking space...or two. The meter maid can be scary, I hear.”

  “I'll have to remember that.” He glanced up at the bus-stop sign and then back at her. “Can I give you a lift?”

  Maggie pulled at the waistband of her skirt. The white cotton top that she'd seemed cool enough wearing inside the coffee shop was now clinging to the swells of her breasts, compliments of the heat and humidity.

  “That won't be necessary.”

  “It's no trouble, really.”

  She let out a quick breath and looked around at the people walking up and down the sidewalk, until her gaze settled back on his face again.

  “Look, you seem like a nice man and all. But I don't make it a habit of getting into cars with strange men I've never met before?”

  “I'm not a strange man.”

  She tilted an eyebrow as her eyes drifted down to his tuxedo.

  “Right. The clothes again.” He motioned back to the diner with his hands. “What was it you said earlier about being neighborly? We’ve just shared coffee and pie together. You could hardly consider us strangers anymore.”

  Maggie chuckled, covering her mouth with her hand to hide her laughter. He liked the sound of her laugh, musical and sweet.

  “Every day people come into my shop.”

  Nodding, he said, “I see your point. These days you can never be too careful.”

  “Exactly. Thank you for the offer. That’s really sweet of you. But the bus will be here shortly.”

  Jonah turned and started toward the limousine, then abruptly stopped and angled back. He did
n't know why this should mean so much to him. It wasn’t just her kindness that had him making the extra effort. He’d met many selfless people working with the Foundation for Young Wanderers. Something told him Maggie was a woman with a heart of gold and perhaps saw little back.

  Now that he knew she'd been working directly across the street from him, he knew he could see her at the coffee shop again. He would see her. Something inside him told him it was a certainty.

  He wasn't a gambling man by nature, but he decided to go for broke.

  “Still, it is August and I hear the busses don't always run on schedule. The limo is air conditioned.”

  Maggie eyed him speculatively, but didn't say a word.

  “I promise to be a perfect gentleman and sit tight on my side of the seat. Scout's honor.”

  She pursed her lips, grinning as she had before, making his heart hammer in his chest.

  “You were never a boy scout.”

  “Correct, but one good deed does deserves another, wouldn't you say?”

  “I suppose,” she said quietly, glancing back at the limo, then at her coffee shop.

  “If you accept my offer, you'll be home in no time. Or you could spend the next fifteen minutes to however long it takes for the bus to arrive roasting in this heat. And then of course, because the busses are usually crowded, another fifteen or more minutes standing with aching feet on a sweaty bus after a long day of--”

  She tossed him a wry grin. “You're pulling out all the stops, aren’t you? All this for a lousy cup of coffee and a piece of pie?”

  “Air conditioning,” he said, smiling devilishly, knowing that would be the catalyst to push her over the edge to accepting.

  She heaved a sigh and then laughed, pointing a finger at him. “If my feet weren't killing me so much... You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Wallace.”

  He gestured to the car with both hands, a grin of satisfaction stretching across his face. “Right this way.”

  # # #

  Chapter Two

  The soft black leather seats of the limo were cool when Maggie sank deep into the back seat. It was a far cry better than sitting on a dingy bus smelling sweat and God only knows what else.

  She could almost hear her grandmother now. You ought to have your head examined, Maggie Pie. If her feet weren't as sore as they were, if the waistband of her skirt wasn't so tight and clinging, she’d never have gotten into this limo.

  “Congratulations, Ma'am,” the chauffeur said. Like Jonah, the formal black suit and tie he wore loaded him down in the sun. A note of confusion crinkling his steel gray brows, almost as if he were expecting someone else.

  “I beg your pardon?” she said as the door shut in her face.

  Jonah slid into the seat next to her, keeping the respectable distance he’d promised. From the other door, she heard the driver congratulated him as well.

  “Oh, there's no need, Michael. I'm afraid we had a change of plans.”

  “Sorry, sir?”

  “There was no wedding.”

  “W-wedding?” Maggie stammered, trying to piece together the conversation.

  “I'm terribly sorry, Sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  The back door slammed and Maggie leaned a fraction of an inch closer to Jonah. “Whose wedding?”

  “Mine.”

  “You mean you were going to be married today? That's why you're all dressed up like this?”

  Jonah stretched his arm out over the back of the seat so that his hand rested a few inches from her shoulder and cleared his throat.

  “That was the plan.”

  Recalling the chauffeur's comment, she glanced down at the uniform she wore each and every day at the coffee shop. She'd already begun looking for a size or two larger to tide her over until she would be forced to wear something resembling a gunnysack. She turned back to Jonah, sitting tall and still sleek in his tuxedo, sans the jacket and vest.

  “Why did he congratulate me?”

  “Michael has never met Catherine before.” He gave an idle shrug. “I suppose he just assumed you were her.”

  Just as the car jerked into motion, the wide automatic window separating the front seat from the back of the car hummed and rolled down.

  “Are we going directly home, Sir?” Michael asked.

  Jonah leaned forward in his seat. “We're taking Miss Bonelli home first. Where to?” he asked, turning to her.

  Maggie gave the driver the address and a quick run-down of the fastest route to her neighborhood in rush hour traffic, although this time of the day it was bound to be bumper to bumper whichever way they went.

  Cool air seeped into her skin, relieving her from the dreadful heat outside but did nothing to mollify the sudden silence in the car.

  She shouldn't do it. She knew it was none of her business. But Maggie couldn't help herself.

  Twisting her body in her seat so she was now facing Jonah, she found herself voicing the question lingering in her mind. “What happened?”

  “You mean with Catherine?”

  He had to be thinking about it. About her. He was supposed to be married to another woman right now. Instead, he was dressed to the nines on his wedding day, sitting in the back seat of his limo with a total stranger who was wearing worn in dirt-on-white sneakers and today's luncheon special stains splattered across her cotton blouse. No beautiful bride in a wedding dress. Just her. Her mind ran rampant wondering if Catherine was as beautiful as she imagined, and what had gone wrong.

  “The bride changed her mind.”

  She drew in a shallow breath, not knowing quite how to respond. “I'm...I'm really so sorry.”

  “Me, too,” he said quietly, his expression serious as he turned to look out the window. All the cars lined along the road blurred as they whizzed down the congested parkway.

  They drove in silence for a few more blocks. Small talk at the diner was her forte, but Maggie honesty didn’t know what to say to Jonah.

  “It's not uncommon to have cold feet before getting married. You know, she might change her mind when she's had some time,” she finally offered when the silence became too uncomfortable.

  With a humorless grin, he said, “I don't think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “Her fiancé came back.”

  “That does pose a problem, Sir,” Michael added from the front seat. Maggie peered up at the back of the driver's head. She wasn't aware that he'd been following the conversation.

  Jonah nodded, rubbing his long fingers across his jaw. “But it is for the best, I suppose.”

  “You don't even look that upset about this,” Maggie said.

  “I truly am happy for Catherine. She's a good person. And she's very much in love. She deserves to be happy.”

  Maggie blinked. Something told her deep down that she should have stuck with her initial plan and taken the bus.

  “And what about you?”

  “Well, Michael is correct. Catherine's change of heart poses an enormous problem for me.”

  “I would think so. It's not every day the woman you love walks out on you. And on your wedding day.”

  Jonah snapped his gaze to her with a look of surprise. “Catherine and I weren't in love.”

  Maggie clamped her mouth shut when she realized it had dropped open, and then cleared her throat before going on. “Now I'm really confused. You were going to be married and you didn’t love each other? Even...a little?”

  “I respect Catherine very much. Like I said, she’s a good person. But it was strictly a business arrangement. My grandfather has a very…old fashioned way of looking at things and required I take a wife. Since things had gone sour with Catherine and her fiancé months ago, she agreed to help me out.”

  “In strictly a business way?”

  “Exactly. It seemed to solve a lot of problems for both of us. However, her fiancé decided he didn't quite like the arrangement.”

  “You mean ex-fiancé.”

  “Well, at the time of our arrange
ment that's what he was. I never would have proposed the arrangement otherwise. I think it's safe to say he's back in rank.”

  “And you're really happy that she...jilted you?”

  He cocked his head to one side. Laugh lines creased across the corners of his eyes as he shined an amused grin. “I'm not going to go drown my sorrows in a bottle of Jack Daniels if that's what you're asking. I’m upset, but not to the point of doing anything rash.”

  Maggie shook her head. “This is the weirdest thing I've ever heard in my life. I didn’t think people did things like that anymore. A business arrangement for a marriage?”

  Jonah laughed, rich and deep. “I agree that it does sound a bit odd. But necessary, I'm afraid.”

  “To each his own.” Maggie leaned forward so that Michael could hear. “Turn down this next road, please.”

  The driver made the turn. Maggie wasn't sure if she was thrilled to have this ride over or sad that her time with Jonah, however strange, was coming to an end.

  Maggie couldn’t imagine marrying a man for any other reason than for love. Like every young girl, she’d had her fantasies of a beautiful church wedding, declaring her undying love to her husband in front of God and the church, her family and friends assembled to witness.

  A pain stabbed her heart just thinking about it. Her grandmother was now gone and like her mother, her impulsiveness had left her with nothing but a girlish fantasy.

  As the limousine turned down a side road, she glanced over at her driving companion. Jonah Wallace was an enigma. And yet something, call it gut instinct, told her she'd been in good hands with him from the start.

  The limousine slowly rolled to a stop in front of the tenement house she'd lived in her whole life. From the time she was a child, all Maggie's dreams had been imagined in the same room overlooking the car-lined street.

  A handful of neighborhood children danced under the sprinkler in the front yard next door, the chewed up lawns turning to nothing more than a mud puddle under their feet. They stopped, their inquisitive eyes drawn to the fancy car. As Maggie climbed out of the back seat into the heat, the children waved and stared. It wasn't often a limo drove down her street. She wondered how many of her neighbors were peeking behind their drapes to see who would emerge.