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newspaper reporter out of doing a story on your stint with the FBI."
"I could have talked him out of it Cord said curtly.
"Yes," Travis said, clearing his throat. "But Red did it without using his fists."
"Asset or not, he'd better watch his step."
Maggie ate her chili quietly, listening to the byplay with amusement but without commenting. She noticed
June giving her curious looks, followed by curious looks at Cord. Maggie wondered what June had
noticed that she hadn't.
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Cord could have told her, although he wouldn't.Davis had paid just a little too much attention to Maggie.
Cord didn't like it. Until now,Davis had been one of his favorite employees.
"Cord said you were a widow," Travis said suddenly, smiling at Maggie over his chili spoon. "Wasn't
your husband Bart Evans fromHouston ?"
Maggie stiffened. "Yes."
"Dad..." June said abruptly, trying to ward off trouble.
Her father waved a hand at her. "I'm not being nosy, but I knew him, is why I mentioned it. That was
when he was living with his second wife," he recalled, totally oblivious to the discomfort he was causing
Maggie. He sighed, fingering his spoon. "Her name was Dana," he added with a faint smile. "She was
pretty and sweet, never hurt a living soul." His face hardened. "He put her in the hospital."
Cord actually flinched. He knew Maggie had gone rigid. He scowled at Travis. "He did what?!"
Travis winced when he saw the turmoil he was responsible for in his dinner companions. "Gosh, I'm
sorry! I didn't think..."
"He put his wife in the hospital?" Cord was relentless. "How?"
Travis sent an apologetic glance at Maggie, who was white and totally without appetite now. "He beat
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her senseless because she burned the bacon,"
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he continued. "It wasn't the first time, but it was when she finally confessed it. I made her tell a police
officer, and her husband was arrested and charged with domestic abuse. He denied it, of course, and
then he apologized to Dana and tried to get her to come back to him," he added angrily. "But I wasn't
having that. Men who abuse women don't stop. I took her to a good lawyer and we convinced her to file
for divorce. She wouldn't even take a settlement. She was such a good person." He put down his chili
spoon with painful deliberation. "She had a stroke two months later that left her paralyzed on one side
and unable to function alone ever again. They said it was probably from the beating she took, but nobody
could prove it. He had a great lawyer."
Cord felt sick to his stomach. He'd suspected Evans might have hit his second wife. He'd never
suspected that sort of violence. And what had Maggie gone through? He stared at her with muted anger.
She'd never told him anything about this, and she certainly knew about it.
"I'm sorry," Maggie told Travis unexpectedly. "I know that she's still in the nursing home."
Travis's intake of breath was audible. "You do?"
She nodded. "When my husband ... died-" she almost choked on the word "-I had his estate split
between his two ex-wives. There was more than enough to keep Dana in comfort for the rest of her
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life-even enough to hire the best specialists in stroke management. I don't guess you know that she can
speak now, and she's relearning other skills as well-reading and writing, too. I don't know that she'd
remember you, but I imagine she'd enjoy company. She has no family."
Cord was shocked. He'd not only just learned what Maggie had done with her wealthy late husband's
fortune, but even more surprising news.
"You go to see her?" Cord asked.
She nodded. "Frequently. From what was left of his estate, after I split it between his ex-wives, I funded
an outreach program for abused wives that helps them with money to finish their education or learn a
technical trade."
"Good out of evil," Travis said, and his eyes warmed as he looked at Maggie. "You're a winner, Miss
Barton. A real winner."
"It was a way of making amends for him. Maybe he wasn't a bad person when he started out in life," she
said. "Some people just snap, in different ways. He had a drinking problem that he wouldn't admit." She
shrugged. "Later it turned to a drug problem he wouldn't admit. He was self-destructive."
"He was a potential murderer," Cord said coldly, without knowing how close to the truth he really was.
Maggie didn't look at him. She couldn't afford to let him see how accurate that guess was.
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"He was," Travis agreed surprisingly. "Dana told me that his first wife had a hip injury from a beating that
left her crippled as well. She moved out of state to get away from him."
Maggie smiled. "I found her inFlorida . She was working in a home for elderly women and coaching a
volunteer baseball team at the facility. It was a real hit. She can't run, but she can still bat." She glanced
shyly at Cord. "She's using her share of the money to found a baseball camp of her own for retired
people. I hear she's got an ex-vice-president and twoexgovernors on one team."
Everybody laughed. But Cord was looking at her with different eyes. This was a facet of Maggie that
she'd never let him see. She did her good works without telling anybody. He'd always assumed that she
lived on her inheritance from her late husband. It had come as a surprise to find her having to work for a
living at all. Amy had left them a little money, but she'd lost the bulk of her fortune to bad investments
long before she'd died. He'd often wondered if that wasn't why Maggie chose investment as a career.
Now he could see how caring a person she really was. Bart Evans had left an estate worth a fortune. He
couldn't imagine a woman who would willingly give up that kind of money out of the goodness of her
heart. Until now.
"She went through enough, like poor Dana did,
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to deserve something good in her life," Travis said, watching Maggie. "But you kept nothing for yourself.
Why?"
Maggie lifted her coffee cup in numb hands and sipped at the cooling liquid. "I wanted nothing of his."
Travis's eyes narrowed. "Your memories must be pretty bad, too."
She didn't answer. She didn't look at him. But her fingers trembled as she put her cup down. Something
exploded inside Cord.
He tossed his napkin down impatiently, got to his feet and pulled Maggie to hers. "You can have your
cherry pie later. I want to talk to you," he said, nodding to the others as he took her hand and led her
away to his office.
He closed the door behind them, glaring at her. "Why do I constantly have to learn things about you
from strangers?" he demanded. "You couldn't tell me that the rat was abusing you? I'd have mopped the
floor with him!"
"FromAfrica ?" she asked deliberately. "From theMiddle East ? FromCentral America ? And exactly
how would I have found you to tell you? And why would you have listened? You hated me!"
It was a painful question. His conscience had driven him clear of the states after Amy's funeral. He
couldn't even face Maggie, remembering what had happened between them.
He turned, with his hands rammed deep into his slacks' pockets. "Eb could have found me," he said
dully.
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"I can handle my own problems, Cord, whether you think so or not," she replied. She perched herself on
the thick arm of a leather chair. "I'd already started divorce proceedings when Bart ... crashed his car. I
did them from the hospital..." She stopped at once, but it was too late.
His eyes flashed at her from the window. "The hospital?!"
She bit her lower lip, hard. "All right. I was his third victim. But it was only the one time," she added
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