“And cook. Of course, you do too. You’re very good at it, you know.”
“You baked the bread we had with dinner last night. It was wonderful.” Maggie accepted the plate, lifted the foil, and breathed in the heavenly scent of cinnamon rolls fresh from the oven. “I love cinnamon rolls. I remember … in the hospital …”
Both women beamed their million-watt smiles again, and Agatha bobbed her gray head. “We sent some with the sheriff when you awakened and he was able to interview you about the accident.”
Maggie remembered. She hadn’t been allowed food yet—she had still received her nourishment via IV—but the aromas, after nine weeks in a coma, had been almost as good as actually eating. Though he’d no doubt thought it best, it had nearly broken her heart when Ross had them taken away.
“So … we understand you and your husband are going to live here for a while,” Corinna said. “Once you’re settled in and feel up to it, we’ll have a welcome-home party to reintroduce you to all your neighbors.”
“Let’s not wait for a party.” Agatha leaned close to pat her knee. “Thanksgiving is the day after tomorrow. We always cook a big dinner and have a lot of people in—family and friends and neighbors. Why don’t you and your husband join us?”
“Oh, please do,” her sister chimed in. “Thanksgiving is meant to be shared by a crowd. It’s much too big a holiday for just two people. Please come. You met everyone last year, and they’ll be so glad to see you again.”
Maggie felt a flutter of panic at the thought, no matter how well intentioned, of being on display for a crowd of strangers who knew her but had no place in her memories. At the same time, part of her relished the notion of spending a holiday with people who were genuinely happy to see her. That same part liked the idea of being welcomed into the community. After all, she was going to be a part of it.
“It sounds nice,” she said, meaning it in spite of the panic. She was going to have to face her fears at some point, and being a part of the holiday they were describing seemed a perfect opportunity. “I’ll have to check with Ross, but it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Everyone starts gathering around eleven, and we eat at one or thereabout. We’d be happy to have you—and you don’t need to bring a thing. We always have plenty. Now, go ahead, eat,” Agatha encouraged. “There’s a napkin underneath the plate, though I prefer to just lick my fingers. Corinna, we should have made some hot cocoa. What good are cinnamon rolls on a nippy fall morning without hot cocoa?”
“They’re wonderful all on their own,” Maggie said as she broke off a piece. She savored the first bite and the next, until half of one roll was gone.
That was when Corinna took a look around. “Is your husband here, my dear?”
“He’s inside—still asleep, I think.”
“We never met him last year. On the rare trips he made here, he was always working.” Corinna clucked her tongue. “Young people need to learn to take it easy, to make time for what counts. Life doesn’t last forever, you know.” Abruptly, her cheeks turned pink. “I’m sorry, dear. That was insensitive of me.”
Maggie smiled to put her at ease. “Not at all. It’s all too true, as I found out for myself.”
“You’re a very lucky girl. We saw your truck when the sheriff had it towed out of the ravine. It’s a miracle that you survived.” Agatha’s expression shifted from grave to joyous. “You got your very own Christmas miracle. We love miracles here in Bethlehem.”
“Then it’s a good place to be.” And as long as she was there, Maggie could use a few more small miracles—if she hadn’t already used up her share.
“Well, dear, we must get back,” Agatha said, getting to her feet. “We’ve got planting to do.”
“Planting?”
“We’re dividing our bulbs,” Corinna replied. “It should have been done weeks ago, but …” She waved one hand dismissively. “Things happened. But as long as we can work the ground, it’s not too late. Why don’t you bring your husband over sometime? We’d love to meet him, and we’re usually home, unless we’ve gone to the library with the children—”
“Or to help out at the church,” Agatha added, “or with something at the school.”
“I will,” Maggie agreed, though the chances of getting Ross to drop in unexpectedly on two old ladies whom he’d never met were slim, to say the least. “Thanks for the rolls. They’re really wonderful.”
“Take care,” one sister called as they made their way down the sidewalk. The other added, “Don’t be a stranger.”
Maggie watched until they disappeared inside their house. As she started on the second roll, a car left from the stone house directly across the street. Another stopped in front of the Winchester house, and a small boy barreled out and across the yard to the porch at full speed. Ross had called them surrogate grandmothers, and the boy’s eagerness to reach them seemed to support that.
Around the corner, shouts and laughter from unseen children were followed by the rumble of a school bus. Children in their Buffalo neighborhood were chauffeured to private schools in luxury cars by employees whose sole job was catering to their juvenile charges. Maggie took such delight in the big yellow bus belching black smoke as it lumbered around the corner that the click of the front door hardly registered.
“We’re going to have to reach an agreement about you and the stairs.”
She glanced up as Ross crossed the porch and sat down at the opposite end of the glider. He wore jeans and a steel-gray sweater and looked too handsome for his own good. There’d been a time when every sight of him had made her heart beat faster and her hands tremble. Now she could simply look and appreciate him the same way she would appreciate anything of beauty. She didn’t have to feel a thing.
“A welcome gift from the Winchester sisters,” she said, offering him the final roll. Once he’d taken it, she responded to his comment. “Every morning for two hundred and forty days, I’ve gotten up at exactly the same time, gotten dressed, wheeled myself or hobbled or limped to the dining room for breakfast, then spent the rest of the morning and all of the afternoon in one sort of therapy or another. This morning I wanted to do something different, and I didn’t want to wait for you to wake up to do it.”
“You could have knocked or opened the door and shouted or thrown something across the room.”
She smiled faintly at the image of herself throwing anything more damaging than a tantrum. With all the exquisite breakables in his mansion, if she’d yielded to such desires, she certainly could have gotten his attention.
“Dr. Allen says you’re not supposed to take the stairs alone. He says you can’t afford to break your hip or your leg or your head again. You could end up permanently disabled, which is a hell of a price to pay for being stubborn.”
“So what are you going to do? Tell on me? I’ve been discharged from his care. He’s not my boss any longer, and neither are you.” Then she yielded with a sigh. “Never mind. All right. I won’t come downstairs by myself again.”
“Or go up.”
“Or go up,” she agreed.
Ross took his victory quietly and changed the subject. “So you met the sisters. Did they seem familiar?”
“They reminded me of someone’s grandmother. Does that count?” Without waiting for a response, she shook her head. “They seemed to like me, though, and they want to meet you. They make a big deal out of Thanksgiving—fix a huge meal and invite a ton of people—and they asked us to join them.”
“Do you want to go?” Neither his face nor his voice gave any hint of his own preference.
“Yes. No.” She shifted uncomfortably on the glider. “I haven’t dealt with strangers in a long time—and these people are worse than strangers. They know me, but I don’t know them. Frankly, the whole idea leaves me feeling …”
“Scared?” he suggested, his voice softer and more sympathetic than she’d thought it could be.
After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded.
“You a
lways loved the idea of that kind of holiday celebration—in part, I guess, because you’d never had it. It would be a shame to turn it down now just because cause you don’t remember the people. Did you feel awkward with the sisters?”
“No. They’re sweet old ladies.”
“Do you think they would let you feel awkward as a guest in their home?”
She gazed across the street at the Winchester house. Sometime in the last few minutes, Agatha and Corinna had come outside again, still bundled up, and were now on their knees in the side yard, digging up, then replanting, bulbs with the help of the little boy. He crouched beside them, intent in his concentration, rarely speaking but quick to respond to their directions. She wondered who he was, which Winchester friend was lucky enough to have him in her life.
“No, probably not,” she murmured before turning away from the scene.
“As far as the rest, no one’s going to comment on any of it. You don’t need to feel self-conscious.”
He was right, of course. Nice people weren’t likely to point out her shortcomings. They might wonder what scars her makeup and clothing hid, but they wouldn’t ask.
“It’s up to you,” Ross said with a shrug. “You can see what you’ve missed out on all these years, or we can have another quiet Thanksgiving at home.”
Just like they’d had for sixteen years. On rare occasions there’d been one or two guests at their table—Tom Flynn, when he hadn’t gone off with whatever woman was temporarily in his life, or sometimes a business associate of Ross’s—but for years it had been just the two of them. In the early years they’d cooked the meal together, stuffed themselves, then watched TV or napped away the afternoon. In recent years the staff had done the cooking before going home to their own meals, and she and Ross had dined in stiff formality before separating to spend the rest of the day in solitary pursuits.
She would love to see what a real Thanksgiving was like.
“Okay,” she agreed. If it was too much to face when the day arrived, she could always beg off, could always come up with a legitimate medical reason to excuse her cowardice or to cut the visit short.
She turned her attention back to the scene around them, and Ross took advantage of her distraction to watch her. That morning was as big a change in his routine as hers. Normally, he was in the office by seven, eating breakfast at his desk, taking care of business, planning the day with Tom and Lynda. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept past six, or had an entire day ahead of him with nothing scheduled and no one demanding his attention. It made Maggie feel free. It made him feel free, too, but she liked the feeling. He was pretty sure he didn’t.
“What do you want to do about breakfast?”
She pointed to the empty plate. “The cimmanon—cin-na-mon rolls were breakfast.”
“One roll?”
“Actually, I had two. Sleep late around here, you miss out.” She gave him a look, made an uneasy offer. “I can make toast.”
Last night she’d suggested oatmeal with bananas. Now her confidence had been reduced to burning a slice of bread on both sides. He hated that the woman who’d once created gourmet delicacies out of nothing now doubted her ability to turn water and rolled oats into oatmeal.
Standing up, he offered his hand. “Come on. Let’s go in. It’s cold out here.”
“That’s why I put on a coat.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“And they say I’m the brain-damaged one,” she murmured. Ignoring his hand, she picked up the plate and stood up without any problem. The instant she tried to take a step, though, she faltered and reached for the closest thing—his arm—for support.
“Sitting in the cold can make your joints stiff,” he murmured mildly as her fingers curved around his forearm.
Sending a scowl his way, she took one small step, then another, then let go. By the time they reached the door, she was walking with only the slightest of limps. With her smug look as she crossed the threshold, she made sure he noticed.
At times her stubbornness and determination had driven him out of his mind. There was no such thing as a simple argument with her, and too often compromise wasn’t part of her vocabulary. She’d decided that she hated his work and had never relented, had determined to despise their house before the plans were even finished, and to this day hated it intensely. She held grudges for ages, stood her ground long after a reasonable person would have surrendered, and consistently refused to admit that she might conceivably be wrong.
But there were also times he’d admired those qualities tremendously. If she hadn’t been so stubborn, her mother would have manipulated Ross right out of her life. If she’d lacked determination, she never could have worked two jobs to put him through his last two years of school. She never could have pushed him the way she had, never could have loved him as long as she did. Stubbornness and determination had brought her back from death last Christmas Eve. They’d brought her through a difficult recovery, and, with a little help from him, they would see her into a new, independent life.
He wished for a little of her determination for himself, to help him into his own new life.
Inside, he refused to open the office door and glance inside, to see if the message light was flashing on the machine, if pages awaited his attention in the fax. He’d broken every promise he’d ever made Maggie. This last promise was one he would keep, no matter how difficult.
The kitchen was warm and made warmer by the sunlight that came through the east windows, falling in brilliant wedges across the vinyl floor. It was a great room if you were the sort of person who spent a lot of time in the kitchen. Over the last five years, he’d forgotten that Maggie was that sort.
He was ashamed to admit that he had forgotten a lot about her.
He watched as she started the coffee. He’d watched her make coffee before, a haphazard operation at best, but that morning her movements were deliberate—removing one and only one filter from the stack, fitting it inside the basket, carefully scooping the grounds from a canister marked COFFEE, measuring the water. She turned it on, frowned, then remembered to plug in the cord. When the red on light appeared, she smiled with satisfaction.
That satisfied look gave him a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. She was one of the smartest and most capable people he knew. She could arrange a last-minute dinner party for fifty without blinking, could coordinate a formal ball for five hundred with ease, could put together the most elaborate feast with no need for recipes or an extra set of hands.
And that morning she was inordinately pleased because she’d gotten the coffeemaker running with only one hitch. Life was so damn unfair.
Which was one way to look at it, he acknowledged. He could feel sorry for her and frustrated over all that she’d lost. Or he could be encouraged by all that she’d regained, could take pride at her resolve.
It was an easy choice.
“What should I try this morning besides toast?”
“Do we have eggs?”
“Yes.”
“Bacon?”
She glanced in the refrigerator. “Yes.”
“You can’t get much more traditional than that.”
She agreed with a nod. As he lit a fire in the fireplace, she gathered ingredients and equipment on the island. Her concentration as she worked was extraordinary, as if the fate of the free world depended on the quality of this meal. Even with all that effort, the eggs were runny, the bacon charred or undercooked. She’d put the toast in when she’d started the bacon, so it was cold long before the strips were done.
They sat in the rockers in front of the fire, their plates on their laps, coffee on a small table between them. Maggie moved the eggs on her plate with a fork, then gave a glum sigh. “I used to be a wonderful cook. Everyone said so. I even thought about opening my own restaurant.”
“You did?” It was news to him. He didn’t know she’d had any interest in restaurants besides eating in them regularly.
“For a while.
I even went so far as to scout out locations and plan a menu.”
“I never knew.”
Maggie shrugged. “You don’t invest in restaurants, and at the time, you weren’t very invested in me.”
Though he wished he could dispute the accuracy of her response, he couldn’t, not truthfully. “Why didn’t you give it a shot?”
“Frankly, I didn’t think our marriage could survive both of us up to our necks in business matters.”
“It’s not too late. As I recall, Bethlehem has a couple of places downtown, a steak house, and the restaurant at the inn. They’d probably be happy with someplace new.”
“Great. I find a good market, and I can’t even fry bacon.”
“So … you want to feel sorry for yourself?”
She gave him a long, wry look before shifting her gaze to the windows. “No. I want to go out.”
“Out as in outside or out into town?”
“Into town.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“To a—a—” She grimaced, and her cheeks turned pink. “A place that sells flowers and bulbs and—and gardening things.”
“A nursery,” he supplied quietly.
“Nursery.” She repeated it softly to herself, as if doing so might ensure that she wouldn’t forget again. “I want to go to a nursery.”
“Why don’t you check the phone book for one?”
With a look around, she spotted the phone above the built-in desk near the fireplace. The phone book was on its side in a cubbyhole underneath, a slim volume only a fraction of the size of the Buffalo directory. She flipped through the Yellow Pages, passed the N’s, and returned. “There’s only one,” she said after a moment’s scrutiny. “Melissa’s Garden. On Eighth Street. Do you have any idea where that is?”
“The street on the side here is Fourth.”
“So Eighth is four blocks in one direction or the other.”
Ross nodded. “What are you looking for?”
“Bulbs. Irises, tulips, daffodils.”
Some Enchanted Season Page 5
