by Marta Perry
She glanced up as if startled, then nodded. “It comes and goes.” She snuggled the muffler around her chin. “Smells like snow in the air.”
They crossed the quiet street. No one else seemed to have ventured outside tonight, unless the hamlet’s whole population was already at the church. He slipped his hand under Aunt Elly’s elbow.
“You and Maggie are pretty close, aren’t you?” The question came out almost before he realized he’d been thinking about Maggie.
“Everybody knows everybody in Button Gap, if they live here long enough.”
“You wouldn’t be evading the question, now, would you?”
He could almost feel her considering. She wouldn’t answer anything she didn’t want to—he felt sure of that.
She looked at him as if measuring his interest, and then seemed to make up her mind.
“Maggie lived with me for a bit, when she was eleven,” she said. “Guess that made us close, no matter how many miles or years there might be between us.”
He digested that. “But you’re not really related.”
“No.” She shrugged. “Folks round here take care of each other when there’s trouble, blood kin or not.”
The white frame church was just ahead, its primitive stained-glass windows glowing with the light from within. A chord of music floated out on the chilly air, followed by a burst of laughter.
An urgency he didn’t understand impelled him. “What kind of trouble?”
Aunt Elly stopped just short of the five steps that led up to the church’s red double doors. He felt her gaze searching his face.
Then she shook her head. “I ’spect that’s for Maggie to tell you, if she wants to.”
She marched up the steps, and he had no choice but to follow.
The small church had a center aisle with pews on either side. At a guess, the sanctuary probably seated a hundred or so. Plain white walls, simple stained glass, a pulpit that had darkened with age but had probably never been beautiful—he couldn’t imagine a greater contrast to the Gothic cathedral-style church of his boyhood.
The atmosphere was different, too. There, he recalled the hushed rustle of women’s dresses, the soft whisper of voices beneath the swelling notes of the organ. Here, laughter and chatting seemed acceptable. More than half the people in the church were children, and they trotted around as comfortably as if they were on the playground.
“Okay, come on.” Maggie, standing by the piano at the front, had to clap her hands to make herself heard over the babble of voices. The deep red sweater she wore with her jeans brought out the pink in her cheeks.
“Let’s have a look at everyone who wants to be a wise man,” she announced. “Come up front, right…”
The end of that sentence trailed off when she saw him. Fortunately, the thunder of small feet would have drowned it out anyway.
Maggie’s eyes narrowed as she looked from him to Aunt Elly. Irritation pricked him. She had no reason to look as if he didn’t belong here. He’d been invited.
He’d have slid into the back pew, but Aunt Elly grasped his arm and marched him down the aisle to near the front. Their progress was marked by murmurs.
“There’s the new doctor.”
“Young, ain’t he?”
“Hi, Doc.”
He nodded to those who greeted him and tried to ignore the other comments. He slid into the pew after Aunt Elly with a sense of relief. Then he glanced toward the front and found Maggie still watching him.
She blinked as their gazes met and turned quickly toward the children, but not before he saw her color heighten.
“Well, that’s great.” She seemed to count the small figures who bounced in front of her. “I think we need to narrow this down a bit.”
“Can’t we have more than three kings?” one of the kids asked.
It was Joey, he realized. The boy’s face shone with scrubbing and his blond hair had been plastered flat to his head.
So the little monster wanted to be one of the magi. Grant would have expected a shepherd or a donkey was more his speed.
“I don’t think—” Maggie began.
Some mischievous part of his mind prompted him. “The Bible doesn’t actually say there were three wise men,” he pointed out. “Only that there were three gifts.”
“That’s right.” The man in the pew in front of him turned, smiling, and extended his hand. “Welcome. You’d be Dr. Hardesty, of course. I’m Jim Michaels.”
Pastor Michaels, to judge by the Princeton Theological Seminary sweatshirt he wore. Grant tensed as he shook hands, and had to remind himself to relax.
“Sorry, Reverend. I didn’t mean to start a theological quarrel.”
“Jim, please.” The young minister had a wide smile, sandy hair and a faded pair of jeans to go with the sweatshirt, which looked new enough to suggest he hadn’t been out of school long. “Discussion, not quarrel.”
“I think we’ll stick with the traditional three kings,” Maggie said firmly.
She frowned at him, and he smiled back, unrepentant. This was different enough from the church he remembered that it didn’t bring up unhappy memories. And he enjoyed watching take-charge Maggie being ruffled by a crew of rug rats.
“Three kings,” she repeated, in response to a certain amount of sniveling. “But the rest of you get to be angels or shepherds. Won’t that be fun?”
As she went on with the casting, he had to admit she seemed to have a talent for making people happy. Even the most reluctant angel was brought around by the promise of having a gold halo.
Pastor Jim kept up a quiet commentary about the pageant, which Maggie seemed to tolerate with an amused smile. Unlike the look she’d darted at him when he’d intervened, he noted.
Well, presumably Pastor Jim was her friend, along with everyone else in the sanctuary. He thought again about the bombshell Aunt Elly had dropped on their walk to the church. The trouble in Maggie’s family must have been fairly serious for her to be farmed out to a neighbor at that age.
He studied Maggie’s face as she announced the parts for the pageant. Did that uncertainty in her childhood account for her fierce protectiveness toward these people? Maybe so. He knew as well as anyone the influence a childhood trauma could have on the rest of a person’s life.
“Let’s finish up with a carol before we go downstairs for dessert.” Maggie glanced toward Pastor Jim, who obediently seated himself behind the piano.
“What will it be?” he asked, playing a chord or two.
“‘Away in a Manger,’” several children said at once.
“You’ve got it.” He began to play.
Grant tried to open his mouth, to sing like everyone else.
Away in a manger, no crib for his bed.
But something had a stranglehold on his throat, and he seemed to see his brother’s face, his eyes shining in the light of a thousand candles.
He’d thought he could cope with this, but the old anger and bitterness welled up in him so strongly that it was a wonder it wasn’t written all over him.
Maggie had her arms around a couple of the children as they sang. She glanced at him, and apparently his expression caused her to stumble over a phrase.
Maybe his feelings were written on his face. All he could think was that the moment the song was over, he was out of there.
The expression on Grant’s face when the children began to sing the old carol grabbed at Maggie’s heart and wouldn’t let go. Dr. Grant Hardesty, the man she’d thought had everything, looked suddenly bereft.
She couldn’t have seen what she thought she’d seen. That glimpse into his soul shook her, rattling all her neat preconceptions about who and what he was.
The last notes of the carol still lingered on the air as people started to make their way to the church basement and the homemade pies. Grant looked as if he intended to head straight back the aisle and out the door.
Aunt Elly didn’t give him the opportunity. She grabbed his arm as soon as they stood
, steering him toward the stairs at the rear of the sanctuary.
Maggie followed, shepherding the flock of children along the aisle. She was close enough to hear Aunt Elly as they reached the back of the church.
“Come along now.” She hustled him toward the stairs. “You don’t want to get last choice of the pie, do you?”
Grant was out of Maggie’s sight for a few minutes as they started down. By the time she and her charges had reached the church basement, he had resumed his cool, well-bred expression. That brief moment when she’d glimpsed an inner pain might have been her imagination, but she couldn’t quite make herself believe that.
The children scattered, some racing for the table, others searching for their parents. She hesitated. Should she go up to Grant and introduce him around? She hadn’t brought him. That was clearly Aunt Elly’s idea.
“Come on, Doc.” Isaiah Martin, looking better dressed than he had been for his clinic visit, waved toward Grant. “Get up here and pick out a slab of pie.”
Friendly hands shoved him toward the table on a wave of agreement. Feeding him was their way of welcoming him. Would he recognize that?
“Here you go, Doc.” Evie Moore slid a piece of cherry pie onto a flowered plate. “That’s my cherry pie, and you won’t find better anywhere, if I do say so myself. Those cherries come right off my tree. Now, what else will you have?”
“That’s plenty,” he began. Then he stopped, apparently realizing from the offended expressions on the other women that he’d made a strategic mistake.
He wasn’t her responsibility. Still, maybe she’d better rescue him. Maggie slipped closer.
“You’d better try all of them,” she murmured. “You wouldn’t want to insult anyone.”
“I can’t eat fourteen pieces of pie unless you want to let out my lab coats.” He slanted a smile at her, apparently not surprised to find her at his elbow. “How about getting me out of this?”
Suppressing that little flutter his smile provoked, she took a knife and split the piece of pie, sliding part onto a different plate. “Let’s give Dr. Hardesty a little sliver of each kind,” she suggested.
The pie bakers greeted that with enthusiasm. Evie might be acknowledged as the best cherry pie baker, but no one else intended to be left in the dust. Before Grant escaped from the serving line, they’d managed to add slivers of dried apple, rhubarb, lemon meringue and mincemeat pie.
Maggie helped herself to coffee, then realized that Grant had headed straight for the table where Joey sat. Her nerves stood at attention.
By now, all five hundred and three residents of Button Gap knew about the warning Gus had delivered. They were all on the lookout for Mrs. Hadley. Everyone, in other words, but Grant.
She reached the table quickly. She thought Joey understood how important it was to keep quiet about their mother’s absence, but kids were unpredictable, and it was her job to keep them safe.
Joey wore a rim of cherry around his mouth. “Sure is good pie,” he said thickly.
“You better take it easy, or you won’t be able to sleep tonight.” Relieved, Maggie slid into the seat next to Joey. Unfortunately, that put her directly across from Grant.
His level brows lifted. “Are you talking to Joey or to me?”
“Both of you.”
“You’re the one who made me accept all of this,” he protested.
“You didn’t want to insult anyone, did you?”
He glanced at the crowded plate. “If it’s that or my arteries, I think I’ll take the arteries.” He took a bite of Evie’s cherry pie, and then gave a sigh of pure pleasure. “Although this might be worth the risk.”
Their smiles entangled, and her heart rate soared.
You’re mad at him, remember? she reminded herself, but it didn’t seem to be doing any good. Maybe she’d better concentrate on finishing her dessert and getting the kids home.
Unfortunately Grant seemed to be eating at the same rate she was. He put his plate on the dish cart right behind her, grabbed his coat while she was getting the kids into theirs and walked out the door when they did.
“It’s chilly out here.” He buttoned the top button of his jacket.
She nodded. “Winter comes early in the mountains. We usually have a white Christmas.”
By Christmas, Nella would be safely home with her children, and one source of Maggie’s concern would be taken care of. By Christmas, Grant would be back in his world, probably forgetting about Button Gap the moment he crossed the county line.
The kids romped ahead of them. Joey stopped in the middle of the deserted street. He spun in a circle, his arms spread wide. “Snow!” he shouted.
Maggie looked up. Sure enough, a few lazy flakes drifted down from the dark sky.
“It is snow.” She felt the feather-light touch of a snowflake on her cheek. “Look!”
Her foot hit a pothole in the road, and she stumbled. Grant’s arm went around her in an instant, keeping her from falling.
“You’re as bad as the kids.” His voice was low and teasing in her ear. “Next thing you know you’ll be dancing in the street.”
“Is that so bad?”
She looked up at him and knew immediately she’d made a mistake. Grant’s face was very close, his eyes warm with laughter instead of cool and judging. His arm felt strong and sure, supporting her.
The laughter in his eyes stilled, replaced by something questioning, even longing. Nothing moved—no one spoke. The children’s voices were a long way off, and the world seemed to move in a lazy circle.
He was going to kiss her. She couldn’t let that happen. She had to stop it.
But she couldn’t. Whatever her reasonable, responsible brain said, her body had an entirely different agenda.
It didn’t happen. Grant seemed to wake himself, as if from a dream.
“Well, maybe we’d better say good night.” There was something almost questioning in the words.
“Yes.” She could only hope she didn’t sound as stupid as she felt. “Good night.”
She turned and ran after the children, knowing she was trying to run from herself.
Grant let out a sigh of relief as Maggie closed the outer door of the clinic behind the final patient on Monday afternoon and snapped the lock. She flipped the sign to Closed, not that it would actually stop anyone.
“Are we really done for the day?”
He’d been busier than this in the hospital emergency room, of course. Certainly he’d worked longer hours, especially as an intern. But somehow the clinic seemed a heavier responsibility, maybe because there was no one here to back him up except Maggie.
“That’s the last of them.” Maggie gathered files from the desk. “Congratulations.”
He lifted an eyebrow, trying not to think about how soft her lips looked, or how he’d almost made the mistake of kissing them on Saturday night. “For what?”
“That was a good catch on Elsie Warner’s pregnancy. Some docs wouldn’t have seen it.”
He shrugged. “Hopefully it will be nothing, but the ultrasound will tell us for sure. Better to be forewarned than caught unprepared.”
It had been routine, of course. There was no reason to feel elated at the glow of approval in Maggie’s eyes.
“Well, you did a good job. And you’ve been accepted. That steady stream of patients means that the word has gotten around that you’re okay.”
He considered that, ridiculously pleased. “Sure it wasn’t just the lure of a free checkup?”
“I told you, they don’t take charity.” She nodded toward the desk’s surface. “You now have three jars of preserves, two of honey, a pound of bacon from the hog the Travis family just slaughtered and a couple of loaves of homemade bread.”
He took a step nearer to Maggie, reminding himself not to get too close. He didn’t want to feel that irrational pull of attraction again, did he?
“So deluging me with food is the sign of acceptance in Button Gap?”
“It is.” H
er full lips curved in a smile. “Don’t tell me the big-city doc actually appreciates that.”
“Hey, nobody ever brought me honey before.” He picked up a jar, holding it to the light to admire the amber color. “You sure this is safe?”
“Of course it’s safe.” Her exasperated tone seemed to set a safety zone between them. “Toby Watkins’s bees produce the best honey in the county.”
“Well, I can’t eat all this stuff on my own, and you have kids to feed. We’ll share.”
“You could take some back home to Baltimore with you when you go. Give it to your family.”
He shook his head. “My mother doesn’t eat anything but salads and grilled fish, as far as I can tell.” He grimaced. “She might gain an ounce.”
He tried to picture his cool, elegant mother in Button Gap. Impossible.
“You live with your family, do you?”
“No.” He clipped off the word. The Hardesty mansion, as cool and elegant as his mother, hadn’t been a place anyone could call home in years. But he wouldn’t tell Maggie that.
“I have an apartment close to the hospital. It only made sense to be nearby when I was doing my internship and residency.”
“Will you stay there when your month here is up?”
“Well, that depends.” He put the jar down, and his hand brushed hers. At once that awareness he’d been avoiding came flooding back.
And they were alone in the quiet room with dusk beginning to darken the windows.
Maggie cleared her throat, as if she’d been visited by the same thought. “Depends on what?”
“In a way, on what happens here.” He folded his arms across his chest, propped his hip against the table and kept talking to block feeling anything. “I’m being considered for a place in one of the best general practices in the city. The chief partner is a big supporter of the Volunteer Doctors program.”
Maggie stared at him. “Is that why you came here? To impress him?”
“He suggested it. He said volunteering would be good experience—that I’d learn to relate to patients in a whole new way.”
Actually, Dr. Rawlins had been rather more direct than that.
Technically, you’re a good doctor, Hardesty, but you keep too thick a wall between yourself and your patients. I don’t want a physician who gets too emotional, but I have to see some passion. Maybe you’ll find that if you get into a new situation.
