Countdown to Midnight

by Katy Regnery

  Skittering her eyes to the Atwells for a moment, Elizabeth turned back to Jane. “We really don’t know them.”

  “We have lots of friends in common, and I know Amity,” said Jane, a gentle pleading in her honey-brown eyes. “I want to stay here. Please, Bets. For me?”

  A few minutes ago, Elizabeth couldn’t think of a single reason to say yes. But now, here it was. How could she say no? It was clear that Jane and Amity had some kind of history, some sort of unfinished business maybe. Her heart softened as she processed the hopeful, pleading look in her little sister’s eyes. Elizabeth loved Jane more than anyone else in the whole world. She’d do anything for Jane…even put up with a massive, egotistical jerk who’d once made Elizabeth feel one inch tall.

  She looked over Jane’s shoulder at Merit, who stared back at her with blatant annoyance, willing her with his eyes to refuse.

  But Elizabeth wasn’t an adolescent fat ass with a crush anymore. Nor did she go out of her way to please people who didn’t care about her. She could count on one hand the people she loved, and the one she loved best wanted to stay with the Atwells at Butternut Cottage.

  Looking up at Merit’s face again, awash in irritation, she cocked her head to the side, then grinned at her sister. They’d have their own bedroom, right? She could make staying with the Atwells—especially if it meant pleasing her sister and annoying Merit Atwell—work.

  “We wouldn’t want to impose,” said Elizabeth, taking a great deal of pleasure in Merit’s wince and squirm combination. Oh, you really don’t want company, do you? Her heart hardened toward him even more. Well, too bad for you…

  “Really,” said Amity, licking his lips and darting a glance to Jane before locking eyes with Elizabeth. “It’s no imposition. Not at all. It’s our pleasure.”

  Ha! It was anything but Merit Atwell’s “pleasure.”

  Turning to the jerk, she locked her brown eyes with his blue and gave him her sweetest, stickiest, most insincere smile.

  “You know? It’s a great idea, Amity. We’d just love to share.”

  Chapter 2

  Amity and Jane

  The one that got away.

  Sure, Amity Atwell had heard that expression before, but never had it meant anything significant to him until he came face-to-face with Jane Story in the lobby of the View resort.

  As he watched her—and her uptight sister—walk over to the bellhop to arrange for their bags to be delivered to Butternut Cottage, memories of his short, sweet time with Jane came rushing back to him.

  For eight years Amity and Jane had been at Harvard together, enrolled in undergrad and then med school at the same time, though Amity had had a long-term girlfriend, and Jane? Well, Jane was skinny and quiet, smart and studious, unlikely to be out at the parties that he and Simone had frequented during the course of their tumultuous six-year relationship, which had spanned most of his college experience.

  Frankly, Amity really hadn’t really noticed Jane.

  Until one day, he did.

  “Is this seat free?”

  Amity looked up from his open textbooks and notebook to see Jane Story standing across from him, gesturing to an empty chair at the table where he’d been studying for the last four and a half hours for his third-year comp exam.

  Though there were plenty of other places to sit in the vast nooks and crannies of Countway Library, it felt impolite to say no when he was clearly alone, hogging the whole six-chair table.

  “Umm,” he looked pointedly at an empty table across the room, then looked back at Jane. Either she didn’t pick up on his unspoken message or chose not to acknowledge it. She simply stood across from him, a serene expression on her face, waiting for him to welcome or refuse her.

  He wanted to refuse her. After what had happened with Simone, he had no interest in being around women at all. That said, however? He didn’t own Countway Library. Jane had a right to sit anywhere she wanted to.

  He reached forward for the notebook and two textbooks across from him and slid them back to his side of the table, feeling annoyed. “I guess…”

  “Thanks, Amity.”

  It was the way she said his name that made him look up at her.

  Golden warmth.

  Like sunshine.

  Like the glow of a fireplace.

  Like scotch without rocks or soda.

  Although he knew who she was, they’d never exchanged more than a handful of words during their time together at Harvard. Since Amity had been faithful to faithless Simone, he hadn’t regarded other women in his classes as anything more than future colleagues.

  Thanks, Amity.

  Two words that made him raise his head and look into Jane Story’s face. Her sweet face. Her pink lips, full and a little too wide, were spread into a shy smile, and long lashes hid whatever feelings might be simmering behind cognac-colored eyes. Her bottom lip slipped between her teeth for a second as he stared up at her, captivated by the unconsciously sexy gesture. And suddenly Amity marveled at never having actually seen her before, despite seven years spent, virtually, together.

  “They won’t discount the fucking cottage,” griped Merit, turning away from the reception desk and heading for the front doors, where they could catch a shuttle to their cottage. “Oh, and, Am, thanks a lot for saddling us with those two. Really. Nice work. Way to wreck the weekend.”

  Amity ignored Merit, lifting his chin in Jane’s direction as they passed the sisters on the way out, and she responded with the same smile she’d given him four and a half years ago in the Countway Library: sweet and shy, completely unaffected by the way their siblings seemed to hate each other.

  “You could be a little nicer, brother.”

  Merit whipped around to face him. “You can’t be serious.”

  Accustomed to Merit’s bluster, Amity shrugged. “She’s…pretty. Easy on the eyes. Maybe you could—”

  “Jane? I agree.”

  “No! Not Jane. Her sister.” Amity felt his facial muscles tense. “Jane’s off limits, Mer.”

  “Oh, yeah?” One side of Merit’s mouth quirked up. “What’s up with you two?”

  “Nothing,” said Amity, leaning against a bright-white column in the portico of the resort where the van would pick them up. “I knew her at Harvard.”

  “Yeah, right!” Merit chuckled in that annoying way that meant he could see right through Amity. “I’d say there was more to it than that.”

  Actually, there wasn’t. Over the years, Amity may have wished that there had been more to their short, sweet friendship, but the truth was, it had been too brief to become serious. Not to mention, the timing would have been terrible. He’d still been recovering from the mother of all ugly breakups when he first met Jane Story.

  Merit continued, “You haven’t looked at anyone like that since…since…what was her name? Oh, yeah. Simone. Simone the slut.”

  Merit’s voice held all the contempt due the sibling who had watched Amity drink himself into a stupor after Simone’s betrayal.

  Returning to the apartment the couple shared early one day after a canceled neuroscience review session, Amity had found Simone in their bed with not one man but two. Shocked, Amity had stood in the doorway of their bedroom staring at the woman he’d been dating since he was eighteen sandwiched between two grunting men. A moment later, he’d vomited the entire contents of his stomach onto their bedroom floor, then run out the front door.

  To add insult to injury? It was Valentine’s Day.

  Three hours later, he’d called Merit from a beach in Hull, railing about faithless women, half a bottle of vodka in his shaking, freezing hand. Merit had told him to get his ass inside—to any bar, to any hotel, to any coffee shop in Hull, and he would find Amity wherever he was.

  Amity learned later that Merit had chartered a private airplane that night, dipping into his despised Atwell money to swing it, and arrived in Hull three hours later, after a flight to Logan, a chartered motor boat, and stopping in at five or six different estab
lishments in Hull in search of his little brother.

  And when Merit had found him? Sitting at a bar with a mostly empty vodka bottle and another open in front of him? He’d put his mitt-like hands on Amity’s shoulders and leaned in close to his little brother’s ear. “I’m here, Am. It’s going to be okay.”

  Amity had turned around on the barstool to find Merit’s face, red from the cold and deeply troubled. In that moment, something inside of Amity had broken wide open. He lurched forward, weeping uncontrollably, collapsing bonelessly into his big brother’s arms like a marathon runner at the end of a race.

  He hadn’t seen it coming, he muttered over and over again. He just hadn’t seen it coming.

  The following day, his brothers had moved him into Concord’s spare bedroom and encouraged him to keep studying. He only had a few months left before the big third-year comp exam that would heavily determine the course of his career and future.

  Amity had hit the books hard to keep from thinking about Simone, but truth told? He’d been sleepwalking until the day that Jane Story had asked if the chair across from him was free. He had no idea what it was about her that had spoken so effortlessly to his broken soul, but that was the day it had started piecing itself back together.

  “Merit,” he said, looking up at his brother, his jaw clenched, “I need to know we’re on the same page. Jane is…I don’t know what she is. But you can’t—”

  “I get it,” said Merit. “She’s yours. I could see it the moment you looked at her.”

  “She’s not mine. I mean, she’s not not mine, but—what do you mean, ‘the moment’ I looked at her?” asked Amity, feeling uncharacteristically off-kilter and not liking it all that much.

  “Unfinished business,” said his brother. “Big time.”

  Like most bartenders Amity had ever met, his brother was observant in the ways of every heart except his own.

  Merit chuckled humorlessly. “But make me a deal, okay? Don’t leave me alone with her sister. She’s—ugh!”

  “You can’t handle her?” asked Amity, taking his own turn at teasing.

  “I wouldn’t want to! Elizabeth Story? She’s—she’s a nightmare!”

  A loud gasp sounded over Merit’s shoulder, and the brothers whipped around to find Elizabeth and Jane standing behind them just as the shuttle pulled up.

  Amity winced at Jane, then turned back to his brother, who was staring at Elizabeth with wide, surprised eyes.

  “Do you think she heard me?” whispered Merit.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, clapping his hand on his brother’s back as they boarded the van. “Way to go, Merit. Way to go.”

  ***

  Jane tried to catch Amity’s eyes as they boarded the shuttle, but Elizabeth pushed her from behind, and Jane stumbled down the narrow aisle to the last row of seats, letting Elizabeth get in first. Her sister plopped down beside the window with a huff.

  “God! He is such an asshole! I thought he was just a jerk before, but he’s been upgraded!”

  “I’m sorry, Bets,” said Jane. “That was really mean.”

  “I don’t want your sympathy, Janie, but mark my words: I’m going to make his life hell this weekend.”

  Jane reached for her sister’s hand and squeezed it. “Don’t. Please don’t.”

  “Janie!” said Elizabeth, surprised by Jane’s heartfelt plea, and wrestling her hand from her sister’s grasp. “Are you kidding? He called me a nightmare!” She narrowed her eyes. “Whose side are you on?”

  “Yours,” said Jane, instantly placating. “Of course yours. But, Bets, they didn’t have to let us share their place. Come on. Fresh slate. Let’s make the best of it.”

  “The best of it? I’m a nightmare. A nightmare? Gah! As if! He’s the nightmare!”

  With Elizabeth muttering expletives under her breath as she stared out the window, Jane took a deep breath and turned away from her sister.

  Music piped through the speakers of the van as it pulled away from the resort entrance into the dark night. She recognized the song, “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” and Jane couldn’t help leaning into the aisle a little bit to get a glimpse of Amity four rows in front of them. She could see a bit of his blond, wavy hair, and—as he took off his ski jacket and laid it across his lap—his elbow on the armrest.

  Like a lovesick teenager, she stared at that bony protrusion.

  In Sunday school, when she was very small, Jane had heard the story of the bleeding woman who swore she would be healed if she could just touch the hem of Jesus’s garment. Even as a seven-year-old little girl, the desperate longing of the woman in the story had affected Jane. That woman had wanted to be healed. She had yearned to be whole. And so she—bleeding, messy, and scorned—had sought out Jesus and humbly touched him.

  What courage it must have taken. What profound courage. It was a courage that Jane, at the tender age of seven, could barely fathom.

  As the youngest of five daughters and unwanted by the parents who’d fervently hoped she’d be male, Jane had been saved by the unconditional, fierce, and steady love of her four older sisters. No matter what the older Story sisters may or may not have agreed on, there was one thing they held sacred: their adoration and protection of baby Jane.

  She, in turn, learned her own role in the family from an early age: to be the sweet, undemanding baby of four doting siblings. She troubled her parents for nothing and looked to her sisters for love and guidance. Her motto? Stay quiet, be grateful, and blend in. She didn’t make a fuss. She didn’t ruffle feathers. Studies came easy to Jane, and med school was a choice her sisters had celebrated and her parents hadn’t questioned. Why would they? Jane was their invisible child. She didn’t get into trouble, and she didn’t push her own agenda. She knew that with no demands of her own on her mostly absent, completely disinterested parents came no disappointments. Living beneath the radar made for a comfortable, albeit unspectacular, life.

  Unspectacular, that is, until she’d—literally—fallen at Amity Atwell’s feet.

  Like a rock that rose up suddenly in the course of a quiet river, Amity was the force that had changed the current of Jane’s stream.

  As she stared at Amity’s pointy elbow relaxing on the van’s armrest, feelings from four years ago came rushing back, and she understood the bleeding woman more than ever. Those same feelings of longing, which she’d nursed since the first week of undergrad, had made it impossible for her to do nothing. So she’d gathered all her courage too—reaching out to a man she desperately yearned for from afar, who didn’t even know she was alive.

  They’d been studying across from each other for over an hour, but he hadn’t said a word since grudgingly letting her sit down. She sensed that he didn’t want her there, and she was sorry for that, but time was running down so quickly now, with the end of the term only a few weeks away. If she didn’t make a move now, she’d run out of time completely.

  Like the rest of Harvard Med School, she’d heard about Amity’s dramatic breakup with Simone in February. Though she felt awful for his pain and humiliation, part of her rejoiced at the news. After almost seven years of waiting, Amity Atwell, the object of Jane’s quiet and ongoing affection since the first day of freshman year, was finally single.

  But on the advice of her older sister, Jane had decided to wait a few months before approaching him. Meggie had insisted that he’d need time to grieve. “And besides,” she’d said, “you don’t want to be the rebound, Janie.”

  Armed with that sound advice, Jane had kept her distance, confident that the right moment would present itself for her to—finally, finally, finally—make herself known to Amity Atwell.

  And then it had happened: upon walking into Countway Library this balmy, May evening, there he was, studying at a large table all by himself. It felt like fate. And so she’d gathered all her courage and asked if she could sit with him. And yes, it was clear he wasn’t crazy about the idea, but fighting every natural instinct to stop bothering him, she’d held her
ground. And now here she was, sitting across from him.

  She could barely concentrate on what she was reading.

  Hell, she could barely breathe.

  For years, she’d dreamed of the momen—

  “Jane, right? Your name is Jane?”

  “Yes,” she answered breathlessly, surprised by his voice and hoping that the blush in her cheeks was hidden by the dim light in the library.

  “Jane Story,” he clarified.

  “Mm-hm.”

  “I’m Amity—”

  “Atwell.” She looked up at him and nodded. “Yes, I know.”

  He cocked his head to the side, studying her, or maybe trying to recall what he knew about her. “Are you from Boston?”

  “No,” she answered. “Philadelphia. I know your cousins.”

  “Oh, God,” he said, hitting his forehead with the heel of his palm. “Should I apologize for anything?”

  Jane chuckled. The exploits of the Atwell sisters were well known around Philly, but unlike their neighbors, the Englishes, the Story sisters had been mostly unscathed by the Atwell sisters’ scheming.

  “Not that I know of,” she said, grinning at him over the top of her pharmacology textbook.

  “Tell me the truth—are they really that bad?”

  “You literally led with an apology,” she answered, giggling softly. “What do you think?”

  “Believe me, family isn’t exempt from their games,” he said, his gorgeous dimples caving in his cheeks.

  “To be honest,” she said, laying her book on the table, “I only know Felicity a little. She taught a comportment class before the International Debutante Ball several years ago.”

  “Yep. That sounds like Felicity. Well, count yourself lucky. Between you and me? Connie’s the one you’ve got to watch out for,” he said with a dramatic shudder. He lowered his glance to her book. “Let me guess…you’re on track for an anesthesiology residency?”

  Jane grinned, her nerves finally loosening a little as the conversation veered into comfortable territory. “Pediatrics.”