*
“How come I never see you at school?” Sam leaned closer to Maggie and pressed one elbow into the pink and yellow pillows on her bed. He’d knocked on her door a few minutes ago, sexy and smiling and smelling like Polo.
She let her eyelids flutter downward a little, the way the popular girls at school did when they talked to their boyfriends. “Well, we take different classes, for one.”
“Mmm.” He ran the back of his hand along her bare leg. Maggie shivered, enjoying his touch even though it frightened her a little. She still couldn’t believe it. This was Sam Knight, Mr. Drop-Dead Gorgeous himself, sitting in her bedroom on a school night. Smiling at her. Touching her. The entire cheer squad would have given their perfect complexions to trade places with her and she knew it.
“That’s too bad,” he whispered. “’Cause you’re amazing.”
She smelled alcohol on his breath, and something else—weed, she guessed— as he bent down and kissed her.
Maggie’s toes pushed into the comforter and one palm pressed against the stuffed bear that she’d wedged into the corner between bed and wall. Sam’s tongue met hers and they darted and twisted around each other.
So this is what Sherry and Daria mean when they say that a guy who knows how to kiss can practically make you forget your own name…
Sam raised a hand and pushed her hair from her face. His thumb rubbed her cheekbone so softly she could swear he left the mark of each fingerprint whorl against her skin. Sherry and Daria vanished.
“Maggie…” Sam’s hands were all over her then, beneath her t-shirt and in her hair and at the small of her back. She felt her nipples grow tight, felt his fingers on them, and wasn’t sure the pleasure or the panic swelled faster inside her chest.
“Sam, wait.” Suddenly, she didn’t know if she was ready for this: his desire, his masculinity, his overwhelming presence in her room and in her bed. It scared her. It thrilled her. She wanted to run away from him. She wanted to dive under the covers with him. She wanted someone to explain what was happening. From nowhere, this want had welled up inside her, from a place she never even knew existed. Maggie pulled away. She had only kissed two other boys, after all, and had only gone to second base with Lenny Wilkins, one night last summer.
Sam Knight was nothing like Lenny.
“What’s wrong?” His voice, heavy and breathless, whispered close to her ear.
“I just—” Maggie wished suddenly that Dillon was awake, that he was paying attention and could hear her heartbeat through the walls. She wished he could sense she was in over her head.
“Maggie, I won’t do anything you don’t want to do.” Sam’s voice was kind and comforting, even as he eased her shirt away from her shoulder and made little sucking noises along her collarbone.
She believed him for a while, until the hours slipped away, and by the time morning poked inside the windows, it was too late to undo what had happened.
*
The steering wheel spun out of control in Maggie’s fingers, and only the blaring horn of the truck behind her startled her back to the present.
Goddammit
. She steadied the wheel and clutched the tan vinyl bumps so tightly she thought all ten fingers might break. She hadn’t relived that night in years. She hadn’t let herself. Looking back only woke the monsters up again. But now the stress of the day, the idea of seeing Dillon again, the image of nurses in a rainstorm, had sent her tumbling back through time. Back to her childhood. Back to the nightmare.
Forget it,
Maggie ordered herself.
It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know what you were getting yourself into, not until it was too late. Sam was drunk and stoned and a seventeen-year-old jerk. He only wanted one thing. You just made a mistake.
But Dillon…there was the heartbreak. Because Dillon had been a seventeen-year-old jerk too, drunk and stoned and sleeping across the hall. He should have known better. He should have waited for Sam to leave. He should have locked the door behind his friend. He should have stayed to watch over her. That was what older brothers did, right?
Hers hadn’t. Somehow, it didn’t matter that Dillon had beaten Sam within an inch of his life the next day. It didn’t matter that Sam went to prom two months later with a scar under one eye and a noticeable limp. Sitting in that chilly doctor’s office in Manhattan four years later, scarred by a disease that would eventually take the one thing that made her a woman, Maggie had needed someone to blame. She’d only been with one guy, ever. Sam. The disease was his fault. The operation could be traced back to him. Back to that single night, when her stepbrother’s best friend stepped across the threshold of her bedroom.
But since Sam had drowned at the local swimming hole the night of his high school graduation, and since Maggie couldn’t bear to look in the mirror and blame herself, the only person left to blame was Dillon. So she did.
*
“What about this one?” Maggie stumbled out of the dressing room, poured into a black dress so tight she could barely breathe.
Beverly DuPree, owner of the only upscale clothing boutique in Hart’s Falls, shook her head. Willowy, square-jawed, somewhere between forty and sixty-five, the woman wore flared black pants and a matching turtleneck sweater. Three thick gold chains hung around her neck.
Maggie glanced into the three-way mirror. “Too tight, right? I look like the hooker who’s supposed to jump out of the cake.” She tugged at the strapless bodice, trying to find an ounce of space in which to draw a breath. “What else do you have? Anything that might have the comfort of a sweatshirt? Or a pair of pajamas?”
Maggie tripped back into the cubicle and grunted as she did her best to squirm her way out of the black sheath. She recalled the only other time she’d gone to a black-tie event.
Right after college, when I was living in New York and working for Delilah’s Design Factory
. She’d agreed to a blind date with Delilah’s nephew, an up-and-coming broker from the East side, thinking it might be fun to mingle with the rich and famous. Instead, she’d ended up spending most of the night standing by the hors d’oeuvres and watching her date flirt with the bartender.
The male bartender, by the way
. The pomposity and pretension of the entire evening had sent shivers clear through her and she’d sworn never to waste her time like that again. She couldn’t believe she was about to sell her soul and do it again.
She slung the sequined dress onto its hanger and pulled on her tank top and jeans. Barefoot, she headed back into the showroom and made her way to an aisle they hadn’t yet tried. She pawed through the size 2’s, hope fading as slinky black dress after slinky black dress passed through her fingers. If these were her only choices, she might as well wear the turquoise monstrosity left over from her second cousin’s wedding.
“What about this one?” From the far corner of the dress shop, Bev beckoned.
Maggie stood on tiptoe and peered around a mannequin. The shop owner pointed to a swatch of deep green poking from between the blacks and navies on the rack. “This one. It’s perfect for you. I should have thought of it before.”
Crossing two fingers in her mind, Maggie walked over. She parted the dresses, pushed the others away, and took a look. Wide, sleeveless straps slid to a vee-neck that was neither offensive nor prudish. At the waist, darts of fabric gathered and puckered, then smoothed to a long skirt that swayed just a little at the bottom. And the color! Emerald satin rustled in her hands, a dark green like the forest after a rainstorm or pine trees at dusk. The material caught the light and deepened as she moved the dress this way and that.
Oh, I really hope it fits
, Maggie thought a minute later, as she pulled it over her head in the dressing room and drew up the side zipper. For a minute she didn’t open her eyes, didn’t want to know. And then she did.
Amazing how something inside her could still feel like a little-girl-princess every so often when the right dress or the right guy came along.
Not that I’ve met anything close to the right guy in years
. She turned toward the mirror. To be honest, she hadn’t had time for romance since she opened her business. Nor had she really had the heart, not when every guy she met reminded her of the one she’d given away. And who could match up with a memory?
“Wow.” Even with the messy bun atop her head and the familiar, freckled road map along her bare arms, Maggie almost didn’t recognize herself. On the hanger, the dress was beautiful. On her, draped to her toes and fitting in all the right places, it became something breathtaking.
Maybe Cinderella will make an appearance tonight after all
.
Bev appeared behind her, and the look on her face matched Maggie’s thoughts. “It’s perfect.”
And it was.
“I’ll be the only one there in green,” she hedged as she smoothed the fabric with calloused hands.
“So?” The woman curled a lip, as if black were out of vogue this season.
“Okay, then, this is it. Thanks, Bev.”
“It’s my pleasure. I owe you, anyway. My profits went up fifty percent after your redesign last summer.”
Fifteen minutes later, with the dress over one arm and a brand new pair of three-inch heels in the crook of the other, Maggie headed back out into the rain. This time, she vowed to take a different route home, to avoid the medical center and any lingering memories it might call up. Hopping into her Honda, she turned on the radio and searched for a good, loud rock song to drown out the chatter inside her head.
Thick white plastic in the backseat, hiding a gown. A fuzzy memory of a stepbrother she’d once adored. A heavy heart, squeezed tight with nerves and anticipation. Her world now seemed to focus on those three things and nothing more. Maggie swallowed and fought back growing fear. Never before had the ticking of the clock held quite as much meaning, quite as much power, to change the rest of her life.
4:00 p.m.
Jack’s cell phone buzzed, and he raised a finger to stop Suzie, who was in the middle of giving him the latest calendar updates.
“Yeah.”
“Hey, big bro. You busy?”
Taz
. Jack smiled and spun in his chair. “Always.” He eyed the stacks of paper on his desk and the file folders in his secretary’s lap. “It’s okay, though. I can take a minute. So you’re back in town? Where are you staying?”
“At the house.”
Jack nodded. He avoided his childhood home in Wellesley as much as he could, but then he had other places to sleep at night, places that didn’t conjure up memories of loss and sadness. Taz didn’t, unless you counted that jalopy he drove around. Jack didn’t. Taz might.
“How was Honduras?” He stared at the rain.
“Rough. Lotta people need a lotta help down there. I’m going back in the fall.”
Jack wasn’t surprised. The bleeding heart of the family, Taz had a way of seeking out the strays, the weak, and the sick.
He and Mom had that in common
. Drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair, Jack wondered what Taz was up to in the meantime. Why the midday telephone call? The four brothers usually only contacted each other around the holidays, after downing too many glasses of eggnog. Never in the summer. Never at work. He set his teeth and waited.
“So, listen,” Taz went on. “I’m setting up a memorial for next week. At the house. Just a few people, plus family. Dad hasn’t committed yet, but I figure he’ll agree to it if you and I push hard enough.”
Memorial? What the hell are you talking about?
Suddenly all the memories came crashing back. Jack cleared his throat to choke back a lump of emotion he didn’t have time for. He didn’t need to look at the calendar to know that sometime next week, the month would slip from June into July. July second, to be exact. Today’s rain would clear by then, because sticky summer heat and unforgiving sunshine always accompanied the anniversary of their mother’s death.
Jesus Christ, I can’t believe it’s here again
. He shook his head. Most times, he just tried to work through the day, with a visit to the cemetery and a phone call to his father, where they both muttered the usual meaningless sympathies.
“Jack? You still there?”
“I’m here.”
“We talked about putting a special garden in the backyard, remember? Thought this might be the year for it.”
A garden
? Yeah, he remembered something about that. “Why now?” Jack heard the sound of his office door closing and glanced up.
Well
. Sometimes Suzie did display tact, after all.
Taz didn’t answer Jack’s question for a minute, and silence hung between them, darkness colored with question marks. “It’s been five years.”
Jack’s knee jounced up and jarred his desk. A paper cup of cold coffee tumbled to the rug, and sticky brown liquid curled into a wet spot under his chair.
Five years
? When the hell had that happened? Couldn’t be. Impossible. It was only two years ago, three at the most, that he’d stood at Mom’s bedside and wrapped her fingers inside his.
“It hasn’t been five years.”
“Of course it has.”
Jack tossed the cup into the trash and rubbed at the wet stain with one toe of his wingtip shoe.
“You’d just taken that VP job at Bullieston,” his brother went on. “You’d finally gotten up the nerve to ask Paige out, after spending way too much time moping around over—”
“Okay. Yeah. I remember.” Jack didn’t want to hear his brother say her name. That name. The one from college. The one from Vegas. The one from forever ago that had resurfaced more in the last three hours than the last three years.
“So you’ll be there?” Taz asked again.
Jack rolled his head from side to side. Neck joints popped. Shoulders too.
Do I have a choice
? “All right. Just let me know when. Did you call Will and Aaron?”
“Not yet.”
He nodded, anxious to get off the phone. Thinking about Mom…well, all it did was remind him of the person he’d once been. The adolescent trying to figure himself out, while she baked him fresh cookies. The college graduate trying to mend a broken heart, while she rubbed the back of his neck and told him one day he’d feel whole again. The corporate whiz boasting about his promotion, while she narrowed her eyes with a warning to keep both feet on the ground. At every turn, a memory of his mother, and with it a memory of the man he used to be. Since she’d left, he’d turned into someone else. Someone different. Someone he didn’t always like to see in the mirror. Jack muttered a goodbye and stuffed the phone into his pocket.
Pressing the intercom, he barked, “Suzie, get in here.”
Back to work
, he told himself. The rigor of a daily routine was the best cure for any kind of ailment. Sadness and tears were weakness, and emotion betrayed you. Say what you would about Jack Major, he wasn’t a weak man. He wasn’t soft. He wasn’t easily swayed.
Not anymore.
*
Dillon locked the office door behind him and climbed into his pick-up. With messages returned, bills paid, and a call to the dry cleaner to see that his tux was ready, he had no reason to spend any more time at the office.
Rain doesn’t look like it’s letting up
, he mused. He peered through the windshield.
Might as well beat rush-hour traffic home
. On Friday evenings especially, the gridlock in and around Boston turned nasty early on. Though the townhouse he’d bought last year was a mere twelve miles away, at the wrong time it could take him up to an hour to reach it.
Not today, I hope
. Waiting for a break in traffic, he found J.J.’s number on his cell and gave his partner the lowdown on the Casterline plans.
“I told you.” J.J. whistled, long and low. “Won’t have to work for the rest of the summer on that profit.”
That’s where we differ
, thought Dillon. He couldn’t sit still if his life depended on it. He wouldn’t stop working even if he won the lottery some day. He enjoyed it, bottom line, especially the part of his job that pushed him outside into the sun, where it was just him and the earth and the project taking shape under his hands. J.J., Spectacular ‘Scapes’ computer whiz and smooth talker, filled in the company’s spaces, especially when it came to PR. He was happy enough to work for the business but happier still for the occasional day off or winter let-up. Today, though, Dillon agreed with his partner on one thing: landing a contract like the Casterline one was cause for celebration. “You still want to grab that drink later?”
“Sure. Junior goes down around eight or so, and Samantha’ll be home by then, so we can go out for a quick one.”
Dillon caught himself before he laughed out loud.
Never thought I’d hear you say that, buddy
. In J.J.’s former life, a quick one had meant going out for Happy Hour and making it home before dawn.
Things sure do change
, Dillon thought, pulling out of the parking lot. Not that he’d mind having that some day, a wife and kids to come home to. He just wasn’t ready for it now.
“Dillon? You still there?”
“Yeah. Sorry.” He turned the wheel sharply and merged into traffic. “How ‘bout I swing by around ten?”
“Sounds good.”
Static filled the line and chopped up their conversation, so Dillon dropped his cell on the seat and waited as the line of cars inched forward.
Things sure do change…
*
Maggie threw some deodorant and lip gloss into a carry-on bag that had seen better days and dashed downstairs. “I’m ready,” she announced, heading down the hall. Her dress and shoes waited in the car. She’d double-checked the directions and filled the tank with gas. She’d even thrown in a road map for good luck. She was ready to go, ready to face down whatever waited for her in Boston, ready to—
She stopped halfway inside the office.
In the middle of the room, still wet from the rain outside, Neve stood with her arms around her husband’s waist. Her forehead pressed against his chest. He stroked the back of her hair. Neither one spoke. Maggie tried to tiptoe in reverse, to give them a little more privacy, but they’d already heard her. At her approach, they pulled apart with the reluctance of new lovers. Andrew’s arm dropped to Neve’s waist and she leaned into it. The room hummed with happiness.
Damn, but Maggie envied them.
“Hear you’re taking my wife on a little adventure,” the lanky carpenter said. He grinned, and a hairline scar along his jaw deepened.
“I guess you could call it that.”
Neve pinked. “It’ll be fun. I mean, I know we just need to find your brother, but—“
“Stepbrother,” Maggie corrected.
Neve’s expression changed a little. “Okay, stepbrother. Anyway, I was thinking that once we find him, and once you talk to him and get things straightened out…well, maybe after that we can stay and dance a little. I mean, as long as we’re there.”
That’s the last thing I want to do
, Maggie almost said, but she bit back the words. She didn’t even want to go in the first place. Neve couldn’t wait to get there. Maggie wondered how it was possible that two people could look through the same looking-glass and see the world so differently.
“You feeling okay?” she asked, wanting to change the subject.
“Fine right now.”
“Brought her another salami sandwich,” Andrew said. “She’s had these weird cravings the last couple of weeks. And Neve said you didn’t eat any lunch, so here.” He held out a small square package, wrapped in cellophane. “Ham and cheese. Tomato, no mayo.”
Maggie’s favorite. “Wow. Thanks.” As if on cue, her stomach growled. She tried to remember why she’d forgotten breakfast that morning and why she’d thought that two bags of popcorn would make a good dinner last night. She dropped her bag on the floor, opened the wrapper, and took an enormous bite of the sandwich, savoring it.
“I’ll take these to the car.” Neve gathered up a small duffel and a plaid garment bag. As she moved past Andrew, her fingers brushed his wrist, a hello and goodbye and I-love-you all at once. She didn’t look up at him, did nothing more than touch him as she moved by in the rhythm of an errand, but his body turned toward hers instinctively as she did so.
“No, I’ll get them.” He took them before she reached the door and brushed the small of Neve’s back as he lifted the bags away.
God, I miss that
, Maggie thought before she could help herself.
The gestures, the shared seconds that mean nothing to the people around you and everything to the person you share them with.
“The two of you met in high school, right?” she asked, though she knew the answer.
Neve nodded.
“And you really never dated anyone else? Never even when you were on a break? Or taking some time off?” The emotional devotion of being with one person forever never failed to amaze Maggie. She loved hearing the fairytale, loved knowing that it could happen to real people, though sometimes it twisted her heart the wrong way. Once she thought she’d had the fairytale too. Turned out she was wrong.
Neve’s cheeks reddened. “I know what people say, that you’re not supposed to date just one person—”
“But we always knew,” Andrew shrugged. “We never needed to be with anyone else.” He laid a hand on the back of Neve’s neck. “I guess we were just lucky.”
More than you know
, Maggie wanted to say.
“Well, I gotta get back. Just wanted to bring your stuff and say goodbye.” Andrew pulled his wife close for a kiss, and they both leaned in, making it last.
Like they won’t see each other for a month
, Maggie thought,
instead of just a few hours.
With a heavy sensation inside her chest, she turned away. She fumbled for her keys and tried not to wonder when, or if, she might ever feel that way about someone again.