Helping himself, Cliff went to the refrigerator and searched out a soda. “Morganville doesn’t have a paper. There were stories in the Frederick Post and the Herald Mail.” As he twisted off the top, he nodded toward the phone sitting off the hook. “If you hadn’t done that, you’d have already answered a flood of calls from reporters.” And from himself, Cliff thought silently. In the past twenty-four hours, he’d called her a dozen times. He’d vacillated between being frantic and furious every time he’d gotten a busy signal. What kind of woman left her phone off the hook for hours at a time? One who was independent of the outside world, he mused, or one who was hiding from it. Lifting the bottle, he drank. “That your escape route these days?”

In defense, Maggie rose and slammed the receiver back in place. “I don’t need to escape from anything. You said yourself that this whole business doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

“So I did.” He examined the liquid left in the bottle. “Maybe you were escaping from something else.” He shifted his gaze until it locked on hers. “Were you hiding from me, Maggie?”

“Certainly not.” She swept over to the sink and began to scrub the paint splatters from her hands. “I told you, I’ve been busy.”

“Too busy to answer the phone?”

“The phone’s a distraction. If you want to start an argument, Cliff, you can just take your peace offering and—” The phone shrilled behind her so that she ended her suggestion with an oath. Before she could answer it herself, Cliff had picked up the phone.

“Yes?” He watched the fury spring into her eyes as he leaned on the counter. He’d missed that, he discovered, just as he’d missed the subtle sexiness of the scent she wore. “No, I’m sorry, Miss Fitzgerald isn’t available for comment.” He replaced the receiver while Maggie wiped her damp hands on her jeans.

“I can screen my own calls, thank you. When I want a liaison, I’ll let you know.”

He drank from the bottle again. “Just saving you some aggravation.”

“I don’t want you or anyone to save me aggravation,” she fumed. “It’s my aggravation, and I’ll do whatever I want with it.” He grinned, but before she could think of any retaliation, the phone rang again. “Don’t you dare,” she warned. Shoving him aside, she answered herself.

“Hello.”

“Damn it, Maggie, you’ve been leaving the phone off the hook again.”

She let out a huff of breath. A reporter might’ve been easier to deal with. “Hello, C.J. How are you?”

“I’ll tell you how I am!”

Maggie drew the phone back from her ear and scowled at Cliff. “There’s no need for you to hang around.”