So he pulled himself together, and closed the front door behind them. Then he turned to face her.
Watery winter sunlight poured from the skylight onto the gleaming wood floors and glanced off the mirror hanging on the closest wall. A pedestal table held an empty cobalt vase—there’d been no flowers in this hall since Maggie left—and the silence in the house slammed down on top of them both.
Seconds ticked past, marked only by the tapping of Maggie’s shoe against the floor. Justice waited her out, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to be quiet for long. She never had been comfortable with silence. Maggie was the most talkative woman he’d ever known. Damned if he hadn’t missed that.
Three feet of empty space separated them and still, Justice felt the pull of her. His body was heavy and aching and everything in him clawed at him to reach out for her. To ease the pain of doing without her for far too long.
Yet he called on his own reserves of strength to keep from taking what he’d missed so badly.
“Where’s Mrs. Carey?” Maggie asked suddenly, her voice shattering the quiet.
“She’s on vacation.” Justice cursed inwardly, wishing to hell his housekeeper had picked some other time to take a cruise to Jamaica.
“Good for her,” Maggie said, then tipped her head to one side. “Glad to see me?”
Glad wasn’t the word he’d use. Stunned would be about right. When Maggie had left, she’d sworn that he would never see her again. And he hadn’t, not counting the nights she appeared in his dreams just to torment him.
“What are you doing here, Maggie?”
“Well, now, that’s the question, isn’t it?”
She turned away and walked slowly down the hall, bypassing the more formal living room before stepping into the great room. Justice followed, watching as she looked around the room as if reacquainting herself with the place.
She looked from the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on two walls to the river stone hearth, tall and wide enough for a man to stand in it upright. The log walls, with the white chinking between them that looked like horizontal striping. The plush chairs and sofas she’d bought for the room, gathered together into conversation areas, and the wide bank of windows that displayed an unimpeded view of the ranch’s expansive front yard. Ancient trees spread shade across most of the lawn, flowers in the neatly tended beds dipped and swayed with the ocean wind and from a distance came the muffled roar of the ranch tractor moving across the feed grain fields.
“You haven’t changed anything,” she whispered.
“Haven’t had time,” he lied.
“Of course.” Maggie spun around to face him and her eyes were flashing.
Justice felt a surge of desire shoot through him with the force of a lightning strike. Her temper had always had that effect on him. They’d been like oil and water, sliding against each other but never really blending into a cohesive whole. And maybe that was part of the attraction, he mused.
Maggie wasn’t the kind of woman to change for a man. She was who she was, take her or leave her. He’d always wanted to take her. And God help him, if she came too close to him right now, he’d take her again.
“Look,” she said, those blue eyes of hers still snapping with sparks of irritation, “I didn’t come here to fight.”
“Why are you here?”
“To bring you this.”
She reached into her oversize, black leather bag and pulled out a legal-size manila envelope. Her fingers traced the silver clasp briefly as if she were hesitating about handing it over. Then a second later, she did.
Justice took it, glanced at it and asked, “What is it?”
“The divorce papers.” She folded her arms across her chest. “You didn’t sign the copy the lawyers sent you, so I thought I’d bring a set in person. Harder to ignore me if I’m standing right in front of you, don’t you think?”
Justice tossed the envelope onto the nearest chair, stuffed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and stared her down. “I wasn’t ignoring you.”
“Ah,” she said with a sharp nod, “so you were just what? Playing games? Trying to make me furious?”
He couldn’t help the half smile that curved his mouth. “If I was, looks like I managed it.”
“Damn right you did.” She walked toward him and stopped just out of arm’s reach. As if she knew if she came any closer, the heat between them would erupt into an inferno neither of them would survive.
He’d always said she was smart.
“Justice, you told me months ago that our marriage was over. So sign the damn papers already.”
“What’s your hurry?” The question popped out before he could call it back. Gritting his teeth, he just went with it and asked the question he really wanted the answer to. “Got some other guy lined up?”
She jerked her head back as if he’d slapped her.
“This is not about getting another man into my life,” she told him. “This is about getting a man out of my life. You, Justice. We’re not together. We’re not going to be together. You made that plain enough.”
“You leaving wasn’t my idea,” he countered.
“No, it was just your fault,” she snapped.
“You’re the one who packed, Maggie.”
“You gave me no choice.” Her voice broke and Justice hissed in a breath in response.
Shaking her head, she held up one hand as if for peace and whispered, “Let’s just finish this, okay?”
“You think a signed paper will finish it?” He moved in, dragging his hands from his pockets so that he could grab her shoulders before she could skitter away. God, the feel of her under his hands again fed the cold, empty places inside him. Damn, he’d missed her.
“You finished it yourself, remember?”
“You’re the one who walked out,” Justice reminded her again.
“And you’re the one who let me,” she snapped, her gaze locked on his as she stiffened in his grasp.
“What was I supposed to do?” he demanded. “Tie you to a chair?”
She laughed without humor. “No, you wouldn’t do that, would you, Justice? You wouldn’t try to make me stay. You wouldn’t come after me.”
Her words jabbed at him but he didn’t say anything. Hell, no, he hadn’t chased after her. He’d had his pride, hadn’t he? What was he supposed to do, beg her to stay? She’d made it clear that as far as she was concerned, their marriage was over. So he should have done what exactly?
She flipped her hair back out of her face and gave him a glare that should have set him on fire. “So here we are again on the carousel of pain. I blame you. You blame me. I yell, you get all stoic and stone-faced and nothing changes.”
He scowled at her. “I don’t get stone-faced.”
“Oh, please, Justice. You’re doing it right now.” She choked out a laugh and tried to squirm free of his grip. It didn’t work. She tipped her head back, and her angry eyes focused on his and the mouth he wanted to taste more than anything flattened into a grim slash. “Our fights were always one-sided. I shout and you close up.”
“Shouting’s supposed to be a good thing?”
“At least I would have known you cared enough to fight!”
His fingers on her shoulders tightened, and he met that furious glare with