by Neesa Hart
“Perfect.”
Maggie spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning the kitchen, and thinking about Scott Bishop. Ryan had finally fallen asleep. The house had grown quiet as the afternoon shadows lengthened, the stillness punctuated only by the whisper of snow against the windows.
As she stacked dishes in the dishwasher, a clear image of laughter in Scott’s hazel eyes demanded her attention. It had been a long time since she’d enjoyed laughter, the real from-the-inside kind. It felt good. It felt very, very good. Her gaze strayed to the picture of Mark and Ryan she kept on the windowsill. She could no longer deny the pangs of guilt, the eerie feeling that somehow, Mark knew she’d met this man. That she was attracted to him. And that he didn’t like it.
Maggie stared at the picture. “Oh, Mark, what am I supposed to do?”
Mark smacked his fist down on the kitchen table in frustration. “Damn it, Maggie, how the hell should I know?”
Six
Scott rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. He glanced at the small alarm clock in his hotel room. It was already after eleven o’clock. If he hoped to catch his 6:00 A.M. flight the next morning, he’d better call it a night. He stretched his arms, working the kinks out of his back. He dropped his pencil on the desk.
When he’d returned from Maggie’s that afternoon, he’d spent most of the evening redrafting part of his proposal. He’d seen something in her interior designs that had intrigued him, and he was delighted to find it fit perfectly in his new vision for the bedrooms of the Cape Hope project.
Half a dozen times he’d tried to convince himself that he was having trouble concentrating because he didn’t have proper drafting tools. But it hadn’t worked. He’d known from the minute he stepped into the snowy afternoon outside Maggie’s house that he was sinking. Fast.
Scott leaned back in his chair. He stared out the window at the lights of Cape Hope. And thought of Maggie. Since Annie’s death, really since her illness the year before, he had managed to find solace in his work. During the long, anxious months leading up to Annie’s passing, he had relied on the simplicity of his drawings to maintain his sanity. The result had been a blissful numbing effect that had dulled the edges of his grief, and kept the haunting memories at bay. Until now.
Maggie Connell with her chocolate brown eyes, and bewitching smile, had touched some part of him he’d tried desperately to ignore. When he was with her, he felt almost complete again, like she restored his missing piece. It didn’t help matters any that he got aroused just looking at her. He felt a stirring in his lower body and shifted in his chair with a low groan. Evidently, he didn’t need to look. Just thinking about her was enough. It was starting to scare the hell out of him.
He reached for his briefcase. Inside, he found the picture of Annie he’d taken on their last vacation together. She was smiling at him. She had always smiled at him. Annie had made him feel ten feet tall. Maggie touched some new part of him, something he wasn’t sure he liked. Annie made him feel like a giant. Maggie made him feel like a man. Scott put the picture down and stared at it. “I feel like I’m losing you, Annie.”
Annie wiped away a frozen tear. She sat on the bed cross-legged and watched him, just as she had all evening. “You’ll never lose me, Scott. You just need to let go.”
He slipped the picture back in his briefcase before he stood. He loosened the knot on his robe. He brushed his teeth, checked the setting on the alarm clock, switched the lights out, then climbed into the king-size bed. Still uneasy. Still unsettled. He stared at the ceiling for several long minutes before he switched the light back on. He reached for the phone.
“Hello.” Maggie sounded sleepy.
He felt guilty for calling her so late. “Maggie? Were you asleep?”
He heard her yawn. “Scott?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry if I woke you.” He leaned back against the pillows.
“You didn’t. I was lying in bed reading.”
He waited several seconds. Now that he had her on the phone he felt like a fool. What had he been thinking calling her in the middle of the night?
“Scott?” she prompted.
“Yeah?”
“Did you want something?”
He closed his eyes. He wanted something all right. Something he didn’t have any damned business wanting, and something he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her about. “I just wanted to talk to you. I couldn’t sleep.”
He heard her shift in the bed. “I couldn’t either,” she admitted.
“I’ve never felt like this, Maggie. It’s like I’m breaking up inside.”
“I know.”
He threaded his fingers into his hair. “You feel the same way, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
He paused. The clock on his bedside table clicked when another minute rolled by. “What do you think we ought to do about it?”
“I don’t think there’s anything we can do. I haven’t, I can’t—” She stopped.
Scott waited several seconds. “What were you going to say?”
“It’s not important. What time did you say your flight was in the morning?”
He ignored her change in subject. “Please, Maggie.” He heard her move the phone to her other ear. There was something incredibly erotic about talking to Maggie and lying in bed, knowing she was lying in bed, too. “Talk to me,” he prompted.
“It’s just that I . . . I haven’t been with a man since Mark. It feels strange. Good strange, but strange.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“Do you remember this morning, when you told me you’d had such a strong sense of Annie’s presence the past few days?”
“Yes.”
“It’s been the same for me. It’s almost like I think Mark is watching. I’m not sure yet what he thinks.”
“Does it matter what he thinks?” Scott asked, surprised at the question.
“I don’t know,” she said frankly. “I’m not sure.”
“Maggie, I really want to see you when I get back from Dallas.”
“I want to see you, too.”
“Things are moving very fast.”
“I know.”
He bent one knee so he could rest his foot flat on the bed. “Do you mind?”
“I’m not sure. Can’t we just make it up as we go along?”
Scott felt a wave of relief pour through him. “I’d like that. I don’t want to scare you away, but I’m not sure I can control what’s going on here.”
“Me either.”
He released the breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “I’m sorry I called so late. I just wanted to talk to you before I went to sleep.”
“I’m glad you did.”
He waited, not ready to end the connection. “Maggie?”
“Um-hmm?”
“Would you be offended if I asked you what you sleep in?”
There was a slight pause. “Do you want to know?”
“Just in case I dream about you. I want to make sure I get it right.”
“I sleep in a Bruins jersey. Number twenty-seven.”
The picture flashed in his mind and he instantly regretted asking. The image of Maggie covered only by a thigh-length black-and-gold hockey jersey was far more devastating than any combination of silk or lace or satin or lack thereof he could have possibly concocted on his own. He’d have been better off not knowing.
“Scott?”
“Yeah?”
“Is something wrong?”
It occurred to him that the curve of her buttocks would be visible beneath the hem of the jersey. It made him hard. “No, why?” He wondered if his voice sounded hoarse to her.
“You groaned.”
“I did?”
“Yes. Are you sorry you asked what I sleep in?”
“Yes and no,” he said, forcibly pushing the thought from his head.
“What did you think I slept in?”
“Maggie, are you trying to give me erotic dreams?”
She gaspe
d. “Can I?”
His laugh was short, humorless. “Would it surprise you to know that I can almost guarantee it?”
She laughed, and by contrast to his, it had a warm, smoky ring to it. “This feels, well, naughty. Like the time I was thirteen and I sneaked the phone in my room to call David Wanger in the middle of the night.”
“Did he ask you what you slept in?”
“No. I think he asked if he could copy my homework.”
Scott felt some of the tension drain out of his body. “I’m going to miss you, Maggie.”
“I’m going to miss you, too. This is good-bye, I guess.”
He paused, searching for words. “If it’s all right with you, can we just say good night? Annie never liked to say good-bye. She said it was too final. I don’t think I realized until right now that she sort of got me into the habit.”
“All right, but don’t I get to know what you sleep in?”
“No. We’re not going to talk about beds or bedrooms or bedclothes or sheets or blankets or pillows or anything else related to this subject ever again.”
“That’s awfully limiting.”
“I don’t think I can take it otherwise. Next time I call you in the middle of the night, I’m asking for your math homework.”
Maggie laughed. “All right. I guess I’ll just have to use my imagination.”
“Maggie,” he warned.
She didn’t give him a chance to chastise her further. “Good night, Scott.”
He smiled. “Good night, Maggie.”
“Hi, Mom!” On Tuesday afternoon, Ryan crashed through the door, dumped his book bag down on the sofa, and grinned at Maggie. “Guess what?”
She looked up from her desk. “What?”
He crossed the room to stand next to her. “Billy Cooper got in this huge fight at school today.”
Maggie set down her pencil. She ruffled his hair with her fingers. “What got Billy Cooper so riled up?”
Ryan started to giggle when she tickled him under the chin. He squirmed away. “Franklin said we’re going to beat Billy’s team at the game tonight.”
“Oh. It was a hockey brawl.”
“Yeah. Isn’t it cool?”
Maggie nodded obediently. In Ryan’s world, “cool” was the penultimate experience. “Uh-huh. Cool.” She rubbed her thumb over his eye where the dark bruise still showed from his encounter with Tommy Willis’s hockey stick the week before. “Do you have any homework to do before the game tonight?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I have to find a picture of the president in the newspaper or a magazine, and cut it out, and write what he’s doing.”
“We have to leave for the rink in about two hours. If you do that right now, we’ll have time to eat first.”
“OK, Mom.” Ryan bounded for the stairs, and Maggie watched him with a slight shake of her head. Since Thanksgiving, Ryan had not even mentioned Mark or Annie. He had helped Maggie shovel snow that Friday morning and spent most of Saturday playing with Edith Sophy’s grandchildren. Maggie had been relieved.
She closed her design book. She slipped it into her desk drawer, pleased with the progress she’d made on her work. The final designs were due to the developers’ office by Friday, and she was almost finished doing her color palettes, one of the last steps before she completed the project.
With a will of its own, her gaze slid to the calendar on her desk. Today was the first of December. Tuesday. Scott.
Maggie frowned at the date. Scott had not called her since he’d left Cape Hope and returned to Dallas. By Sunday afternoon, she’d begun to suspect that he was having second thoughts. Given time and distance, he’d decided their relationship was moving too quickly. She should be relieved. She’d decided the same thing.
Why, then, was her stomach tied in knots and her nerves frayed at the thought that he was supposed to have arrived back in town that afternoon at two o’clock? It was 3:12, and there was no sign of him. Maggie slammed the calendar shut, then stalked into the kitchen. She barely knew the man, and he had her running around in circles already. A dozen times she’d considered the fact that she knew only the barest of information about him. They had not been together much, and almost never alone, yet something about Scott’s warm personality and open vulnerability drew her like a fly to honey.
A vision of hazel eyes and attractively rumpled sand blond hair popped into her head. She reached for a mug, filled it with milk, then popped it into the microwave. “Ryan?” she called.
“What?”
“Do you want some cocoa?”
“Yeah.”
Maggie rolled her eyes. Manners were a new concept to him. “Yes, what?”
“Uh, please,” he yelled back.
She had already filled his mug. She slid it into the microwave with her own and waited for them to heat. Scott’s face still lingered in her memory. She used the time to reflect on it. She liked the way he smiled at her. She liked the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed. She liked the way his lips had felt when . . . The microwave buzzed, and Maggie nearly jumped through the ceiling. “It’s ready,” she called.
Maggie carried both mugs to the table. She sat in a wedge of sunlight from the kitchen window, where she could stare out at the snow while she stirred chocolate syrup into Ryan’s mug. He came barreling through the kitchen door clutching a magazine.
He thrust the magazine in front of her. “Is this him?”
Maggie looked at the picture of the president. “That’s he,” she said. “Get the scissors out of the drawer.”
He retrieved them. He climbed into his chair, then went to work on the magazine. Maggie cradled her mug in both hands and watched him. “What else happened at school today?”
He glanced up. “Nothing. Just the fight.”
“Did you learn anything?”
He shook his head. “No.”
Maggie studied him in speculation. Ryan was hiding something. He generally talked her ear off when he got home from school. He liked school, usually, and Maggie had long since discerned that he had a crush of sorts on his teacher. “Ryan?”
He put down the scissors and studied the picture. “It’s nothing, Mom.”
“Did something happen?”
He started to squirm. “Some of the kids were teasing me because I was talking to Dad in the bathroom, and they heard me.”
“Oh, Ryan.”
“He was there, Mom. He was.”
Maggie set down her mug and reached for his hand. “Ryan, your father is dead. He’s not here.”
“Not here here,” he said. “Here.”
“Do you think maybe we should make another appointment and go see Dr. Jericho at the church?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Maybe it would help if you—”
Ryan’s face puckered into an anguished mask. “No. I don’t want to talk to Dr. Jericho. I won’t talk about it anymore. I won’t. I promise.”
Maggie slid her chair back. She motioned for him to come sit on her lap. He hesitated only briefly before he slipped out of his chair and crossed to her. Maggie hugged him close. “I don’t want you to stop talking about it, Ryan. It’s not bad that you talk to Daddy. I know you miss him.”
Ryan laid his cheek against her chest and she felt him sob. “Do you miss him?”
“Yes.”
“Do you ever talk to him?”
Maggie nodded. “Sometimes.”
Ryan raised his tear-streaked face and looked at her in surprise. “Really?”
She nodded again. “Really. I can’t see him like you can, though.” She brushed a lock of hair off his heated face. She remembered how strongly she’d felt Mark’s presence in the days before Thanksgiving. “Maybe I just don’t know how to look for him,” she said.
Ryan was quiet for a long while. “Mom?”
“Hmmm?”
“Are we gonna have Christmas this year?”
She felt a twinge of guilt. “What do you mean?”
“I me
an, are we gonna have a tree and stuff?”
This was the conversation she’d been dreading. Before Mark had left, she’d promised him she’d hold Christmas until he returned. She and Ryan had planned to wait until Mark got back before they opened their presents. Maggie had even refused to light the Christmas tree, assuring Ryan that they’d do it as soon as Mark walked in the door.
Of all the things she’d had to deal with since Mark’s death, this was the one she knew she couldn’t handle. She’d bought Ryan Christmas presents, of course, but she knew she’d never get through decorating the house. She especially knew she couldn’t handle a tree. “We’re going to give gifts,” she hedged, in answer to his question.
“I want a tree like always.”
“Honey”—she shifted him on her lap—”I think maybe we should wait until next year to get a tree.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a new house, and everything is all packed away. It would be hard to find all the ornaments.” She felt rotten for not telling him the truth, but she was too close to tears.
“We could make ornaments. We don’t need a lot.”
“Ryan, I just don’t think we need to have a tree this year.”
“Dad wants a tree,” he said quietly.
She hugged him, feeling selfish. She thought back to Thanksgiving, to how sure she’d been that Mark’s presence was in the house. Why hadn’t it occurred to her that Ryan would feel it just as intensely? What if he’d pictured Mark in his mind’s eye in order to explain the odd sensation of his presence in the house. “What’s he wearing when you talk to him?”
Ryan wiped one eye with his fist. “Jeans and a sweatshirt.”
Maggie smiled. It had been Mark’s uniform of choice when he was around the house. It seemed normal for Ryan to picture him that way. “The blue sweatshirt with the Marine Corps emblem on the front?”
Ryan nodded. “Yeah.”
“You know what, Ryan?”
“What?”
“I wish I could see him sometimes. I’d like to know how he’s doing.”
Ryan laid his cheek back against her shoulder. A shudder wracked his small body. “Mom?”
“Uh-huh?”
Ryan pointed to the corner of the kitchen. “He’s over there.”