One Night in Boston

by Allie Boniface

  She had to be strong. She had to show Neve that it was possible to go on.

  Maggie opened her eyes again. This time, her friend was smiling.

  “It’s okay,” she said before Maggie could utter a word. “The baby—it’s—we’re—healthy. We’re going to be fine.”

  Maggie burst out crying. A whoosh of emotion filled her ribcage, fear and uncertainty replaced by complete joy. “Oh, I—” She began to hiccup. “I th-thought—Andrew said—”

  “They didn’t know at first. But the doctor did a couple of tests and the baby’s fine.”

  “They’re s-sure?” Maggie mopped her face with a corner of her blanket.

  Neve nodded and glanced up at the machine beside her bed. “The doctor said everything looks okay, just bed rest for the next couple of weeks, and when I’m back on my feet, I have to take it easy. But she said all the signs are good, right now.”

  “God, I’m so sorry.” Maggie didn’t know what to say or where to begin. “A-about everything.”

  Neve stopped smiling, and when she spoke again, she sounded as if she were sitting behind the desk at Doyle Designs, putting a cranky customer in his place. “Stop it. Don’t you dare apologize. It wasn’t your fault. Not the storm, not the accident. Not any of it. Things happen. Life happens. So don’t cry, okay?” She squeezed Andrew’s hand. “We’ve done enough of that already.”

  Maggie’s breath slowed. The hiccups subsided. Neve sounded so together. So healthy and smart. Like always. For the hundredth time, she marveled at her assistant’s composure, at her maturity beyond the twenty-two years. I’m not sure I could go through something like that. Hills and valleys of thinking you lost something and then getting it back again. Imagining you’re at the end of it all and then finding you’re only at the beginning. No, thanks.

  “The most important thing is that you’re all right,” Andrew said. He lifted Neve’s hand and brushed his lips against it. “We could always try again. For a baby, I mean. Even adopt, if we had to. But if anything had happened to you, if I’d lost you…” He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t need to, Maggie thought. Everyone in the room could read it on his face.

  If I’d lost you, I would have lost everything.

  Neve met his gaze and ran her fingertips over his chin, in a gesture so intimate that Maggie blushed to be sitting only a few feet away.

  Tumblers clicked inside her brain, and as she sat there, something began to make sense. A padlock, the one she’d fastened across her heart years ago, creaked open. She took a deep breath and drew in the sterile smell of the room mixed with Eden’s perfume behind her. To feel that way about someone, to have that certainty and devotion in your life—maybe it was enough, after all. Maybe Eden was right. Maybe having children, or not having them, wasn’t the only glue that held two people together.

  Neve raised herself on one elbow. “Is he here?” she asked.

  “Who?”

  But Neve was looking at Eden. “Andrew said he was coming. Said you talked to him after the accident.”

  “I did,” Eden answered.

  Maggie twisted in the wheelchair. “What are you talking about?”

  Eden tucked a piece of hair behind one ear. “How do you think I knew you were here? After you left the ball, I thought you went straight home. Neve said you didn’t want to stay ay my place, so I figured that was that. Couple of hours later, I was saying my goodbyes, when I got this call telling me to come to the hospital as soon as I could.”

  Maybe it was the painkillers kicking in, but Maggie couldn’t spin together what her friend was trying to say. “What are you talking about?”

  “It was Jack, silly. Who else?”

  Jack? “But I told him…” I told him I couldn’t have children. I told him he was wasting his time. I told him I knew he was following me just to get my house. “I told him to go to hell.”

  Eden shrugged. “You probably told him a lot of things. Doesn’t matter. He was trying to find you, you know. Showed up right after the accident happened, I guess, and followed the ambulance to the hospital. He called me when he got here.”

  Maggie’s mouth went dry. “You’re kidding.”

  “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

  “I said terrible things to him.”

  Eden put her hands on slim hips. “Mags, he’s so madly in love with you, I don’t think he cares. He would have carried you here on his back if the medics had let him. He’s never gotten over you. That was obvious about ten seconds after you walked into the ball last night.” She shook her head. “Whatever you said, I’m pretty sure it’s forgiven.”

  Maggie bunched the blanket up between her fingers. She didn’t know what to say. What to think. What to feel. Hills and valleys of thinking you lost something and then getting it back again. Imagining you’re at the end of it all and then finding you’re only at the beginning…

  “Maggie.” The voice was Neve’s, quiet and firm. “Give him another chance.”

  She looked at Neve, hand in hand with her husband, and at Eden, and then Maggie knew. Okay, she had debt. She had doubts. She had an ailing mother and broken fences with a stepbrother that needed mending. Jack had a fiancée and a million-dollar business that wanted to buy her tiny one. She could never give him children. He came from one of the most prestigious families in the city. She was stubborn. He was more so. Yet still she wanted to be with him, to wake up next to him, to wind herself into him with every atom that vibrated in her aching being. It defied explanation, but she guessed it didn’t matter. Maybe that’s what makes it real.

  “Where is he now?”

  Eden glanced at the door. “Not sure. Want to go find out?”

  9:00 a.m.

  “She isn’t here.” Dillon backed out of room six-oh-two.

  “What do you mean? The guy downstairs said—”

  He shrugged. “Maybe they took her somewhere.”

  “You think they discharged her already?”

  “Nah.”

  “I’ll go ask.” Jack headed for the nurses’ station. “Gotta find a bathroom, anyway.”

  Dillon leaned against the wall, restless. A nurse, a cute strawberry blonde in purple scrubs, walked by. A chart balanced in the crook of her forearm; a stethoscope hung around her neck. She didn’t look up. He checked the room number again. Then his watch. If what Jack had told him was true, then Mags would need every bit of help both of them could offer. He wondered if that stubborn streak he remembered from childhood still ran strong. He wondered, for the first time, what she looked like now, or if he’d even recognize her. He tugged at his ponytail, pulling it from the rubber band and smoothing back some stray hairs before winding it tight again.

  She never liked my hair after I grew it long. It was one of the last things she’d said to him, right before he left for California.

  You look like a hippy freak. You’ll never get a girl to go out with you. She’d tossed the comment over her shoulder as the two of them stood in the kitchen washing pots and putting dishes away.

  You wish. You probably just want to keep me all to yourself. He’d tried to tease her, but it hadn’t worked. Nothing had worked, not really, since the afternoon he’d come home with bleeding fists only to find an angry Mags waiting for him. Not the grateful little sister he’d expected. Just a girl full of rage and blame and heartache.

  The intercom squawked. A doctor walked down the hall and stopped in one room to comfort some family members. Dillon looked at his shoes and waited for Jack to return. At the murmur of female conversation at the end of the hall, he glanced up again. Checked out the blonde pushing the wheelchair. Admired her dress and the figure inside it. Then his gaze dropped to her fiery-haired passenger.

  And I thought I wouldn’t recognize her. A smile creaked across Dillon’s face. His kid sister looked just about the same as he remembered, small and bright-eyed, with pale freckles and a voice too big for the body it came from.

  They rolled closer, and as Maggie looked up and saw him, she
stopped talking. One arm darted out from her lap. She put a hand on a rubber wheel of the chair and stopped it. He heard the breath she drew in, a sharp whistle across her bottom teeth. Ten feet lay between them. That, and more than ten years of rough spots that needed smoothing. Maggie and Dillon stared at each other. Neither one moved.

  “You need a haircut,” she said after a minute.

  I could say the same thing about you, he thought, looking at the curls that stuck out in all directions. He lifted his shoulders in a shrug, and when she didn’t say anything else, he went to her. Lifting her out of the wheelchair as if she were still a child, still the rebellious, resistant kid he remembered from the day their parents met, Dillon cradled Maggie against his chest. She tensed. Her shoulders heaved. Something shot him through the heart, jump-starting emotions he hadn’t faced in forever. He glanced up at the blonde.

  Thank you, he mouthed.

  She smiled.

  Without another word, Dillon carried Maggie back into her room. Big brother. Protector. The one thing he had tried to be, had wanted to be, so many years ago. Finally, this time, she let him.

  “You’re here.” Maggie felt as if the room were filled with fog, as if one of those smoke machines had shot out dry ice and fuzzed up her vision. Was it really Dillon? She’d expected to see Jack standing outside her room. Not her stepbrother. Not the one person she’d come to Boston seeking in the first place. Not the person she’d almost given up on.

  He leaned back in the too-small chair beside her bed. “I’m here.”

  Maggie turned to Eden. “You called him too?”

  Standing in the doorway, her friend grinned, eyes bright. “I found someone at the ball who had his number. What can I say? The guy gets around.” She shot a look at Dillon, who reddened a little. “Plus, hospitals always hassle you if you’re not a family member. I thought I’d better find one.”

  Maggie barely heard her friend’s last words. She couldn’t take her eyes off Dillon. Curled up against her pillows, she stared at him. He looked different somehow, weathered, more solemn. He looked older and graver around the eyes and mouth. She wondered how much of that change she was responsible for. How much came from time. How much came from trying to shape a brand new life for himself.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. She spread her fingers wide as if trying to indicate the sum of everything she wanted to apologize for. “For…for losing touch. And not calling. And making you come here on a Saturday morning.” And blaming you when I should have blamed myself.

  “I was up anyway.”

  “Yeah, right,” she joked. “You never used to get up before noon on the weekends.” The smile it elicited from him made Maggie feel good, like a familiar quilt draping itself over her shoulders. That, at least, hadn’t changed with time. It melted away the years, the tension, the strain, until her seventeen-year-old brother sat across from her again.

  “How are you? Seriously?”

  She let out something that might have been a laugh. Physically? Mentally? Emotionally? Financially? You don’t want to know. “I’ll be okay. Just a little banged up.”

  “Heard the guy who hit you was DUI.” An edge of anger laced Dillon’s words, as if he might storm out of the room at any minute and find the striped-shirted idiot who’d plowed into Maggie’s car.

  I’m practically thirty, she almost said. You don’t have to protect me anymore. But something hitched in her chest. It had been over ten years since that night. It had been five or six since she saw him last. And still Dillon looked ready to stand up and fight for her today as if nothing at all had changed. As if she hadn’t said horrible things to him. As if she hadn’t blamed him for something that wasn’t his fault.

  Was that what brothers did?

  Maggie picked at the edge of her sleeve, and a thread unraveled little by little. You don’t have to share blood to be family. Why had it taken her so long to understand that? I always corrected people when they called him my brother. As if the most important thing about our relationship was the word used to define it.

  “I’m glad you came,” she said in a whisper.

  Dillon scratched his bare knee. A pale quarter-moon scar she remembered from a childhood bike accident arced across his skin. “Me too.”

  “Hey, what about me?” The voice came from behind her. “Don’t I get any credit for being part of the welcoming committee?”

  Jack. A tingling in Maggie’s toes began climbing its way up her spine, ivy stretching its tendrils along every nerve in her body. Her fingers dropped to the edge of the bed, where they gripped the mattress for support. She thought that if she turned too quickly, she might fall off the bed, through the floor and clear down to China. She squeezed her eyes shut. Send her to the moon and back, keep them apart for a hundred years, she would never forget the sound of Jack Major’s voice or the way it started up a fire inside her.

  Oh, Jack, I love you. Tell me it’s not too late.

  After a long moment, she dared to look at where he stood in her doorway. He still wore his rumpled tuxedo, missing its jacket and tie, and looked sexier than she might ever have dreamed. Bags puffed out under bloodshot eyes, and she knew that he’d been awake all night. Thinking of her. Following her. Rescuing her. Maybe loving her, too.

  The thought stuck in Maggie’s throat. All the nights they’d spent together, all the murmured conversations they’d shared when everyone else in the dorm was asleep, all the heartache of saying goodbye in Vegas, all the years of wondering what if, all the minutes since she’d seen him at the ball and realized nothing had changed between them…they were the thousand little puzzle pieces that made up a love. Her love, her life, was Jack. It always had been.

  “Yeah,” she said in a shaky voice. “You get credit too.”

  Jack glanced at Dillon as he crossed the room. Smoothing the sheet, he sat down beside her. Maggie ran her fingers across the covers. She wanted to touch him so much that it hurt. He cocked his head. One hand moved to her collarbone and stroked the skin there. He traced the pattern of her racing pulse as if they were the only two people in the room. Electricity arced between them and Maggie drew a shuddering breath.

  Jack leaned over, his mouth curving against hers, and kissed her gently. “Don’t ever do that to me again,” he said, the words a whisper.

  “Do what?” she murmured.

  “Almost get yourself killed. Leave me standing in the middle of the street. Decide for both of us that not having kids means the end of a relationship.” His lips moved to her ear. “Take your pick. But I’m not leaving. Not now. Not ever.”

  Maggie tried to stop the fluttering in the back of her throat and found that she couldn’t. “I just…I wasn’t sure. About anything. I didn’t mean to…” She touched the eyes, the nose, the chin she knew by heart.

  “I know.” He cupped her cheek with one hand and studied her. “God, I didn’t realize how much I missed you.”

  It was as if he’d reached into her mouth and plucked out her words. She felt the stirring of fresh tears behind her eyelids and pressed her fingertips against his. I have so much to tell you, so much that needs sorting out. Then maybe we can move on. Move ahead. Start fresh. Maggie leaned closer to him, meaning to snuggle into his chest and dream away the morning.

  But just as quickly as Jack had taken her hands, he leaned back. “There’s still something we have to talk about.”

  Maggie thought she heard Dillon make a sound in his throat. She pushed her hair from her face. This didn’t sound good. She drew away and crossed her arms over her chest. “Okay. What?”

  A mask, smooth and stoic, slipped into place over the melting green eyes and kind mouth. Jack the businessman replaced Jack the man she loved, and something dropped inside her.

  “You still owe the bank upwards of fifteen thousand dollars. Bullieston still wants to buy your house before it goes to foreclosure.”

  Maggie felt as though he’d slapped her. After all that had happened, he had the nerve to bring up her money troub
les? “I already told you. I don’t want to sell it.” She made her voice flat, to match his. Her face grew hot. Leave it to Jack to resort to business, even at a time like this. She should have known she couldn’t trust him. She should have known he’d always wear the stripes of a Major, just like his father.

  “I’ve already drawn up the contracts,” he went on. “All you have to do is sign them.”

  Maggie’s jaw clenched. . How dare he try and take advantage of her? He was probably counting on her to be doped up and easy to persuade, she thought. “Forget it. Just because I’m in the hospital doesn’t mean I’ve lost my mind. I told you I didn’t want to sell my house to your company, and I meant it.”

  Something like a smile creased the corners of Jack’s mouth. “I heard you.”

  She wanted to reach over and peel that smile right off his lips. “Then don’t bother bringing me any contracts. I won’t sign them.” She didn’t care how much love he professed, or how much desire melted her bones. Her business, her house, was the one thing she had left.

  Jack slid off the bed.

  For a moment, Maggie thought he’d tumbled to the ground. She thought maybe he’d had a heart attack or lost control of the muscles in his legs. She was about to press the nurse’s call button when she took another look.

  Jack knelt beside her, palms facing the ceiling, green eyes fixed on her. “Marry me.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Get up,” she said, embarrassed. “You’re not serious.” Twelve hours ago, you were engaged to someone else, she almost reminded him. Don’t make a fool of yourself. And don’t make a fool of me.

  “I’m very serious.” He shifted to the other knee but stayed put. “I’ll stay down here as long as it takes for you to say yes. Again,” he added.

  “I never said yes the first time.”

  “You don’t remember the first time.”