by Mary Leo
Blake’s face went all serious. “Your phone is dead, remember? And since when do I have to check in with you when I take my own daughter for a drive?”
“That’s not the point and you know it.”
“Then what is the point, Maggie? Because a month from now when you’re sitting in your shiny new office in L.A., both Scout and me will be a mere memory and it won’t matter one lick where she is or what she’s doing. This whole thing—Scout, me, Kitty, all of us—we were temporary until you got what you wanted. Well, you’ve got it, so why don’t you save all of us more grief and just go. We were getting along fine before you showed up and we’ll get along fine after you’ve left.”
Hot tears stung Maggie’s eyes as she watched him walk past her and head for the house. “Blake, wait, I—”
But he just kept walking.
* * *
FOR THE NEXT FEW days, Maggie tried to immerse herself in the wonders of her new job. She called the recruiter at Technix and told them thank you, but no thank you. Then she phoned Allison and accepted the position at her company. Allison couldn’t have been nicer and immediately set Maggie up with someone to help with the move, which would be happening the very next Sunday.
She’d tried to get some comfort out of Amanda or Cori but neither woman would cooperate. Amanda avoided waiting on her at Holey Rollers, and Cori gave her the cold shoulder when she stopped by Kitty’s house to visit the twins.
That was when it hit her that she was actually going to leave Briggs and move to Los Angeles. When she cried for twenty-four hours straight she knew something wasn’t quite right, but by then it was too late to do anything about it. The horse was out of the barn. The die had been cast. The pickle had been brined.
Or, Maggie’s new-found favorite, the bull had sniffed the heifer.
“As long as you’re still breathing there are always options,” Kitty told her as they sat together in the nursery, each holding a baby, trying to get the last little burps out of them while rocking in dual swivel rockers. The rocking chairs were big and plush and Maggie had decided the first piece of furniture she would buy for her apartment in Brentwood would be one of these rockers. They were like heaven.
“Not this time,” Maggie countered. “The position with Allison is everything I’ve worked for. Everything I’ve ever dreamed of. It’s perfect. And besides, I’ve already accepted the offer. I can’t back down now.”
Mrs. Abernathy came in and placed a tray with tea, finger sandwiches and cookies on the dresser. “I thought you might be getting hungry, Kitty. Gotta eat or you won’t make enough milk for them babies.” And she turned and left, completely ignoring Maggie.
“She hates me,” Maggie said.
“No, she doesn’t. You know that’s just her way.”
“There’s only one cup on the tray,” Maggie said as emotion overtook her…again.
“Okay, she’s a bit miffed. But so am I. If this job is so wonderful, why can’t you stop crying?”
Tears streamed down Maggie’s face. She cried more than the babies did. “I don’t know,” she said as she tried to get her emotions under control.
Jessica and Parker let out simultaneous burps, causing Maggie to laugh out loud. “So much for my tears,” she told Kitty as she moved Parker off her shoulder and rested him on her lap, his watchful eyes staring up at her.
“You’re a natural, Maggie. Look how content he is.”
“Don’t or I’m going to start crying again.”
Kitty rocked faster in her chair. “Fine, but tell me one thing, and be honest because I can always tell if you’re lying. Are you in love with Doc Blake?”
Maggie didn’t want to answer. She didn’t want to admit the truth even to herself much less her sister. Besides, what did it matter now? She was leaving.
“He hates me.”
“Where did you ever get that idea?”
“You weren’t there. You didn’t see his face when he told me to leave.”
“Guys do that to protect themselves, especially guys like Blake. He’s a dad, and you see the way Tim protects these babies. He’d do anything to keep them safe and happy.”
“So you think he said all that because he was protecting Scout?” Her voice caught in her throat.
“I’ve been wanting to tell you this for days, but you’ve been too upset. Amanda told Milo, who told Mrs. Abernathy, who told Cori, who told Tim, who told me that she was behind the counter at Holey Rollers that day you thought something happened to Scout, and she said Scout was crying because you were moving to L.A. You’ve got to understand, sweetie, that Scout’s mom lives in L.A. Bethany stayed there when Doc and Scout moved to Briggs, and Scout hasn’t seen her since. To Scout, L.A. might as well be some black hole where everyone who goes there never returns.”
Maggie dried her eyes on the cloth diaper she had draped over her shoulder to catch Parker’s spit-up. “I knew Bethany lived in Los Angeles, but I… Why didn’t somebody tell me this before? So that’s why Scout went crazy on Allison, and that’s why she ran out of the house. I had no idea.”
“The benefits of a small town.”
“But I said some horrible things to Blake about how Scout ruined my meeting with Allison. I really didn’t mean to say that. I don’t know what came over me. I was so frantic to find Scout. Then when she showed up with Blake offering me a doughnut, like everything was fine, when it clearly was not, I guess I lost it.”
“You both did. But you still haven’t answered my question. Are you in love with him?”
This time Maggie didn’t hesitate. “More than anything.”
* * *
BLAKE DECIDED HE could get along fine without Maggie in the office for a few weeks, until Kitty could return. He’d hired Amanda part-time. She’d started dating one of Tim’s many cousins, so she didn’t seem to be interested in Doc anymore, a situation he welcomed.
“Besides,” she told him on her first day, “until you, like, resolve this thing with Maggie, you won’t be a good catch for anybody.”
“Thanks,” he told her.
“Anytime,” she said, straight-faced.
She had a point. Getting along without Maggie in the office was easy, but getting along without Maggie in his bed wasn’t working out, as well. For five nights running he hadn’t been able to sleep more than a few hours. This was something new for Blake. He could always sleep no matter what the upheaval in his life; not even when Scout was a baby did he have trouble falling back to sleep. And not even when he’d drink a gallon of coffee trying to stay awake to study for finals in college. Nothing kept Blake Granger from getting his eight.
Nothing, until he walked away from Maggie Daniels.
Replacing her in his life was proving to be impossible. He tried to act as if she didn’t matter; however, it was like trying to scratch your ear with your elbow. It wasn’t going to happen. At least not anytime soon.
“You know she leaves on Sunday,” Liza, his dental assistant, relayed to him as he filled a molar for one of his older patients, Milo’s brother, Jethro. Both he and Liza wore light blue masks over their noses and mouths, so their speech was a bit muffled.
Jethro calmed himself by listening to his music on his tiny Nano, and fortunately couldn’t hear a word they said.
“Suction. Yes, you’ve already told me, several times.”
Liza vacuumed saliva and a tiny chunk of composite from Jethro’s mouth.
“I just wanted to make sure you heard me.
”
Blake finished packing the tooth.
“How could I not? You’ve been reminding me every hour for the past week. Water.”
Liza sprayed the new filling, then sucked out the excess water, drying it with air.
“You can stop her if you want to.”
“I tried that once before with my ex. It doesn’t work. Light.”
“Maggie’s different.”
He held the spectrometer, a blue LED light, on the filling waiting for it to set and harden.
“Cut from the same cloth.”
“The design might be the same, but this fabric’s pure silk.”
“Silk’s expensive. I don’t have that kind of money. Never will.”
“Maggie’s capable of spinning her own silk.”
“Not in Briggs she’s not. This town’s not made for silk. We’re more into potato sacks.”
He handed the spectrometer back to Liza. She handed him the small blue articulating paper.
“She’s a clever girl. Don’t sell her short.”
He placed the blue paper in Jethro’s mouth above the new filling while still holding on to it with tweezers.
“Bite down,” he told Jethro in a loud voice. Jethro obliged. “I’m not selling her. She sold me, and the sale was final.”
No excess blue on Jethro’s upper teeth. The filling was perfect. Blake pulled his mask down below his chin and tapped his patient’s shoulder to get his attention. “All finished, Jethro. You were great.”
Jethro beamed as the chair automatically moved upright. He pulled his earphones out of his ears and said, “No sale is ever final, Doc. You can always change your mind.”
Blake looked at him. “I thought you couldn’t hear us with that music blasting in your ears.”
“One of the buds is dead. I dropped it in the toilet while I was going.”
Blake didn’t respond. The visual was too disgusting.
* * *
SATURDAY NIGHT HAD finally arrived, and Maggie was all ready to leave the next morning. The tears had stopped flowing and she had made up her mind that leaving Briggs was the best thing for all concerned.
Now, as she sat alone in the living room, on the scratchy sofa, channel surfing at eight-twenty-three at night while everyone else in the house was trying to get some sleep, she couldn’t stop thinking about those delicious rare steaks over at Belly Up.
Kitty had made a delightful dinner of roasted beets and garbanzo beans with a side of cranberry couscous. Tim had devoured it readily, but Maggie had only picked at it and now her stomach was growling for real food.
She hadn’t actually left the house for more than an hour or so over the past week, not wanting to run into anyone she knew and have to deal with their wrath or be away too long from Kitty and the babies. It only made her cry harder. But she felt stronger tonight, strong enough to handle everyone’s loyalty to Doctor Blake Granger.
And besides, how could she possibly leave Briggs without one more Idaho steak and a real Idaho baked potato?
She absolutely had to have it now.
Maggie clicked off the TV, quietly ran up the hallway for her coat and scarf, and slipped on the ratty pair of boots Kitty had given her as a reminder of Briggs. Within minutes she was out the front door on her way to Belly Up.
It was cold outside, cold with snow flurries. Normally, Maggie hated cold weather. She was the warm-weather type, more suited to Los Angeles than even the Bay Area, where it could get down into the thirties in winter. And in Briggs it would certainly get below zero and stay there for weeks. How could she possibly even think of staying?
She told herself she would never be able to handle it. Still, as the snow fell faster and the flakes grew bigger, she felt as if she were stuck in a magical snow globe. It was positively beautiful and amazingly quiet. A few ornate street lights illuminated the sidewalk, giving off a golden glow and making her surroundings look surreal. No cars. No other people. Just snow settling in on a small town. She fastened her red scarf tighter around her neck and burrowed into her warm coat, slipping her gloved hands into her pockets. If she were in Brentwood right now she would probably be wearing a tank top and flip-flops.
Somehow, she liked this much better. Go figure.
She gazed up at the gray sky and watched as thousands of big snowflakes came tumbling down on her. The visual caused her to stop walking, open her mouth and catch a snowflake on her tongue, then another and another until she laughed out loud as they tickled her face and lips. She let go and twirled for a moment, opening her arms as if she wanted to capture the evening and give it a farewell hug. As she spun, she could feel herself getting dizzy. A sensation she hadn’t felt since she was a kid. It made her giggle.
“You know you won’t be able to do this in L.A.,” Blake said. She stopped twirling and stared at him. “I think the last time it snowed there, Teddy Roosevelt was in office.”
He was incredibly handsome in a black overcoat, black jeans and boots with a sky-blue scarf wrapped around his neck. His face glistened with a rosy glow from the cold.
She wanted to fall into his arms. She wanted him to beg her to stay, tell her again that he loved her. She wanted to hear the words tumble from his beautiful mouth, so she could tell him how much she loved him in return.
But he didn’t.
“Harry S. Truman. Although it did hail enough in February of twenty-eleven that it appeared to be snow.”
“I was just guessing.”
“I’m not.”
“How do you know these things?”
“I had to look it up for a client once.”
His eyes sparkled under the street lights. He wasn’t wearing a hat, so the snow caught in his hair. She thought about how handsome he would look when his hair turned gray, and how much she’d like to see that.
“You like that kind of thing, don’t you?”
“What kind of thing?” She’d been lost in her dreams of him in the future.
“Knowing trivia.”
“Yes, but only when it has some relevance.”
“What’s the relevance in knowing when the last snowfall was in L.A.?”
“So I know how to pack. I’m moving there tomorrow.”
The words seemed to strike him and he grimaced for a split second.
Now, she thought. Kiss me now, and tell me not to leave.
He gazed down at the sidewalk then back at her. “Yes, I know. Are you excited?” He threw her a tepid smile.
“It’s everything I’ve worked for.”
He nodded, then after a beat he said, “Where are you headed?”
“Thought I’d grab a steak before I left. Where are you headed?”
“To apologize to a friend.”
His words caught her off guard. Her throat tightened and her eyes watered a little, but she pushed the tears away.
“I’d like to do the same.”
“Seems as if we’ve just accomplished that mission.”
“Easier than I thought it would be,” she said, searching his eyes, yearning for a sign so she could go to him.
But there was none.
“For me, too.”
“Well, then.” She suddenly felt awkward and strange. As if they hardly knew each other. Neither one said a word as the minutes slipped by, as they stood there, silent, under the streetlight. Maggie was desperate to see him smile again, hoping more than anything he would ask her to stay.
But as soon as she tho
ught it, she knew she couldn’t. She knew she had to go. She would never be able to live with herself if she walked away from this job offer. It was perfect for her, everything she ever wanted, and as tough as this was she knew she had no choice but to leave.
A car whizzed by, startling her. The sound of its tires on the snowy ground were like sandpaper on her nerves. It broke the silence between them with a jolt of reality. She wasn’t standing in a snow globe with her lover. She was standing on the sidewalk in Briggs, Idaho, with her ex-lover.
The thought tore at her heart.
“You know, people will talk if we’re seen together.” He gave her that adorable grin of his and suddenly she felt all warm and hopeful inside.
“It’s expected. It’s a small town.”
“Will it bother you?”
“A little, but I can handle it.”
He was taking a step closer, like he was going to kiss her, when her phone vibrated in her pocket. She tried to ignore it, but on this quiet street even Blake could hear it. “You better take that,” he said, moving back. “It might be important.”
She pulled the phone out of her pocket. It was Allison calling her for the umpteenth time. She hadn’t even officially started her job yet and the woman must have called her fifteen times in the past two days alone. There was always something she needed Maggie to handle with the business or with a potential client.
“It’s Allison,” Maggie explained. She hesitated, not wanting to take the call, but she knew Allison would keep calling until she answered.
“Go ahead. I understand.”
“Blake, I—”
“It’s getting late, anyway. I’d best be heading on home. This snow looks as if it’s going to keep coming down and the road to the ranch can be tough to get down.”
Her phone stopped buzzing, and a moment later started up again. She cleared the tension that was forming in her throat. “I better answer this.”
She started to pull a hand out of her pocket wanting to touch him one last time, but she knew if she did, she wouldn’t ever stop.
