Some Enchanted Season

by Marilyn Pappano

  She put too much wheedling into her last plea and, caught off guard, Maggie tumbled back onto the snowy grass with the girl falling on top.

  “Josie!” Alanna said sharply at the same time Ross spoke Maggie’s name. As he moved to help them, Alanna grabbed hold of her sister’s coat and jerked her back, giving her a little shake. “You’ve got to be careful! You know she’s been in the hospital since last Christmas!”

  “It’s okay,” Maggie said hastily as she accepted Ross’s help to her feet. She brushed the snow from her coat, then smiled at the girls. Josie’s cheeks were pale with dismay, and her plump lower lip trembled.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Maggie. I didn’t mean to make you fall. Are you hurt? Do you need a doctor? Dr. J.D. is over at Miss Agatha’s, and I can go get him. I can run fast.”

  “I’m not hurt. It’s okay, really. I’m not going to break.” Maggie’s bright, reassuring smile made the rounds. “Why don’t you give us a minute to lock up, then we’ll all walk over to Miss Agatha’s together?”

  As soon as they were inside, Ross asked, “Are you all right?”

  “It was only a couple of inches—and it made her forget about where babies come from. Heavens, I’d hate to suffer a real fall.” Sarcasm entered her voice now. “The concern would be unbearable.”

  “A real one? You mean like down the stairs?”

  She glanced to the top of the stairs, a long way from here. “Yeah, like that. Speaking of the stairs, would you mind running up and getting some blankets?”

  “Which ones do you want?”

  “How about the comforters from the guest room beds?”

  He left the comforters in the hall near the side door to pick up later, then shut down the office and locked up. With Josie’s hand clasped firmly in Maggie’s, they crossed the street to the Winchester house. A dozen cars were parked out front and along the side, and, like them, another dozen or two neighbors had walked from their own homes.

  All the faces inside were familiar, though he couldn’t put a name to every one, and they all greeted him and Maggie as if they were old friends. It was a curious sensation—this business of having friends. Ross was accustomed to acquaintances and associates. He socialized with people about whom he knew little and cared less, people who wanted something from him or could give him something. The only person he considered a friend was Tom, and even that was based on business. Hell, he’d never even thought he wanted friends, had certainly never needed them.

  Maybe he’d been wrong.

  Maggie wanted friends. She thrived with friendship—grew more serene, more content, more absolutely beautiful. With these people she was like an exotic flower unfolding under the sun’s life-giving light. Having friends made her a different person—No, that wasn’t true. Having friends enhanced the woman she’d always been.

  He wondered if they could improve the man he’d become.

  As soon as they finished their hellos, J. D. Grayson approached them with a tray of delicate Christmas china cups. “How about a cup of the sisters’ special egg nog?”

  Ross accepted a cup and sipped from it, expecting something to rival Maggie’s flavored egg nogs. What he got was … “This is just egg nog.”

  “The sisters don’t believe in the use of spirits,” Grayson said, “except for the rare medicinal dosing. How are you, Maggie?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you ready to be dazzled by the fifty-first annual Tour of Lights?”

  “I’ve been looking forward to it all day.”

  All the lights in the world couldn’t be as dazzling as the smile she gave the doctor, Ross thought stiffly. Grayson reacted to it the same way he had earlier, staring, murmuring a response with absolutely no idea what he was saying.

  Feeling perverse, Ross took Maggie’s arm and pulled. “Come on. We need to find Miss Corinna and Miss Agatha and say hello.”

  As they made their way through the living and dining rooms on the way to the kitchen, he examined the emotion that had led him to put as much distance as possible between them and Grayson—between her and Grayson. Surely it wasn’t jealousy. He’d never experienced it before—she’d never given him reason—and there was no reason for it now. For a very long time he and Maggie had been married in name only. There was little emotion and certainly nothing physical between them. In a few more months there would be no legal bond either. For all practical purposes she was a free woman now—free to start living her own life. Free to start looking for a man to take his place in it. She wanted it. He wanted it.

  He had no logical reason to be jealous because she’d smiled at some other guy the way she’d just smiled at him. No reason at all, just because that guy looked at her in the same stunned, turned-on way that he looked at her.

  No reason. He wanted out of her life, remember?

  Didn’t he?

  He should be pushing the two of them together, not pulling them apart. Grayson was everything Maggie wanted—solid, dependable, a family sort of guy. He preferred small-town life over the city, wasn’t interested in being rich or powerful, kept regular hours in his medical practice so he could have a personal life, and loved all these people in the same way she soon would. On top of all that, she thought he was handsome and admired his obvious affection for kids. Grayson was perfect for her.

  Perfectly wrong.

  “What are you scowling at?” Maggie asked as they squeezed between guests and a table loaded with mouth-watering food.

  “I’m not—” He was. Consciously he forced his face to relax. “I’m not scowling.”

  “You don’t like him much, do you?”

  “Why should I?”

  “I don’t know. You’re both intelligent, successful, respected. You’re both mature adults. With that in common, I’d think you would get along fine.”

  And in a few more months would they also have her in common?

  Just last weekend, when she’d asked what he wanted for Christmas, he’d given her a simple answer: I want you to be happy. He’d given that answer knowing that for her being happy meant being in love, married, and having babies—being in love with and married to another man, having babies with another man. He knew that. He’d accepted it.

  But not Grayson. He was her shrink, for God’s sake—though, granted, so far they’d had only one short session and would probably end the doctor-patient relationship after their next visit. He was—was— Hell, Ross didn’t know what he was, besides unsuitable for Maggie.

  He was saved from continuing the conversation by Miss Corinna’s appearance. “Oh, you’re here,” she said, hugging Maggie, squeezing Ross’s hand. “You’re in for a treat tonight. We’re very proud of our town, and the snow will make it perfect.”

  “That’s what the kids said. Can I help with anything?” Maggie asked.

  “No, no, we’re all set. We’ll eat just as soon as I make an announcement. Come along.” She drew them both back the way they’d just come, then left them near the table while she took up a position in the broad arched doorway. “Can I have your attention please?”

  A chorus of hushes spread through the rooms, followed by silence.

  “Agatha and I are pleased to have you all join us for our fifty-first Tour of Lights opening night party,” Miss Corinna said. “Some of you may have noticed that the Walkers aren’t here. There’s a good reason for their absence this evening. I just got off the phone with Mitch, and he told me that Shelley has given birth to a healthy, beautiful, eight-pound-eight-ounce baby girl whom they have named Rebecca Louise. Mother and daughter are doing fine.” She waited a moment for the whispers and exclamations to die down, then said, “Time to celebrate. Let’s eat, friends.”

  Ross moved closer to Maggie, who’d gone still at the announcement as the guests crowded around the table. “Are you okay?”

  “Of course,” she replied, and she managed a pretty good impression of being just fine. But he recognized the wistfulness in her eyes and the envy that underlaid it. “Why wouldn’t I be o
kay? I’m not the one who just went through the rigors of childbirth.”

  “Precisely.”

  In the crush she reached for his hand, squeezed his fingers tightly. “My turn will come. Maybe by this time next year …”

  At that moment Grayson came into sight across the room. Brendan Dalton was sitting on his shoulders, and Josie and another young girl were plastered to his sides.

  Ross deliberately moved to block him from Maggie’s view.

  They joined the buffet line, then found a corner to share with Alex and Melissa Thomas. Soon after the meal was finished, the party began breaking up—or, rather, relocating to the park on the west side of town. They returned home to pick up the comforters and the car, then met most of the same people around the bonfire in the park.

  It was a still night. The snow continued to fall, heavily blanketing anything that stood still. The logs in the fire sizzled and filled the air with their woodsy scent, and the teams of horses hitched to six hay-filled wagons waited patiently, occasionally pawing the ground or whuffling in the cold air.

  It was like nothing Ross had ever experienced. Although he was cold and annoyingly aware of every move Grayson made, he was also enjoying the whole thing—and that was a new experience too.

  The tickets they’d bought when they’d arrived at the park assigned them to a numbered wagon. When their number was called, they climbed into the old farm wagon with the sisters, the Thomases, the Bishops, and the Dalton kids. They settled in the hay, the sideboards at their backs, and Maggie spread the covers, tucking the first one tightly, leaving the other so the excess fabric was shared with their neighbors.

  Sitting hip to hip, thigh to thigh, sharing space and body heat with people surrounding them … it was unbearably intimate. They hadn’t been this close in well over a year, and that time they’d both been naked and hot and …

  Swallowing hard, he looked away in time to see the last two passengers board—Holly and Grayson. Ross found an inordinate satisfaction in seeing the two of them snuggle in together. If the shrink was involved with Holly, then he was off limits to Maggie. She would never dream of coming between a friend and her boyfriend.

  “This is so neat,” Maggie murmured.

  He glanced down at her—at the sparkle in her eyes and the flush in her cheeks. “You look more like Josie than a ‘way growed-up’ adult.”

  “I don’t feel ‘way growed-up.’ ” She pressed a little closer, pulled the cover a little tighter, and he swallowed hard again.

  “Then you’re not feeling what I am,” he murmured, the words barely audible.

  She looked all around—at the wagon ahead of them, pulling out now, the one behind them, the crowd of people awaiting their turn—before looking at him again. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Sounded like something to me.”

  “Well, you didn’t hear it, so how would you know?”

  “If it was nothing, how could I hear it?” She waited a moment, her expression challenging, before breaking into a big, smug smile. He responded deep inside with a surge of pure, deep affection. Early in their marriage he had been appreciative of the fact that he liked his wife as much as he loved her. More recently, though, the distance, hostility, and resentment had overwhelmed everything else. Everything had become so difficult—most especially him—that he’d lost track of that affection.

  He felt incredibly relieved to have found it again.

  Up at the front, the driver called a command to his team and, with a jingle of bells, the wagon moved out. A slight breeze flipped the end of the blanket off Maggie’s shoulder, and, pretending that he did it all the time, that he had the right to do it, Ross slid his arm around her shoulders, retucked the blanket, then casually left his arm there. Every other man on the wagon had his arm around the woman with him. Why shouldn’t he?

  He could name a dozen reasons, if only he would.

  He didn’t.

  The tour route took them past houses, businesses, and churches, past simple, elegant displays and some tacky ones. Several times they stopped to be serenaded by carolers, and at one church they viewed a living Nativity complete with livestock. It was new, different, interesting, and he saw it all through a fog, because the more Maggie pressed against him, the closer she snuggled for warmth, the hotter he got. When she rested her gloved hand on his thigh, he was surprised that steam didn’t rise through the covers.

  He couldn’t stand this. If there was even the slightest possibility that something would come of it, he could not only endure but enjoy the discomfort and anticipate the relief. But he was going home tonight to sleep alone, as he’d slept for a year.

  All because a few nights last year he hadn’t slept alone when he should have.

  Panic and hopelessness swept over him—the same emotions he’d felt last Christmas Eve in sickening proportions. If he could change one thing in his life, he wouldn’t have had that affair—and that would change all the other things that were wrong. He wouldn’t have hurt Maggie like that, wouldn’t have caused her to leave the house in weather custom-made for an accident, wouldn’t have watched her suffer and struggle for nearly a year, and he wouldn’t find himself now wanting her back with no hope of ever having her.

  Wanting her back … The words repeated in his mind, sly, taunting echoes. Not wanting her, as in sex, as in, in his bed, but wanting her back. As in … In his life?

  The panic increased. No. Not only no, but hell, no. He wanted to have sex with her, but only because he’d been celibate for so long—because whatever else had gone wrong, the sex had always been great. But he didn’t want to be married to her, didn’t want to live in this tiny little town with her, argue with her, insult and be insulted by her. He wanted just sex … and maybe a few quiet meals. Evenings like this one. A holiday or two. A little teasing and laughing. A few hours to simply watch her and appreciate her. To come home to her and wake up with her and …

  God help him, he was in trouble.

  Chapter Eleven

  After the wagon ride and a few minutes warming themselves around the bonfire, Maggie and Ross had said their good-byes and headed home. She would have liked to stay a little longer—would have liked for the evening to never end—but it was cold and Ross had been patient enough.

  Now it was late, the middle of the night, and she was alone in her bed. The snow still fell, but she was warm and cozy. She knew these facts, even though she was mostly asleep, just as she knew that the uneasiness creeping through her wasn’t real but merely the product of a dream. Knowing didn’t ease its effect though—didn’t stop her from shifting restlessly, from curling into a tight ball to protect herself from the dark, the fear, the hurt. She tried to wake herself, to deny the dream its power, but it trapped her now.

  Such pain, such sorrow. Tears slid down her cheeks, wetting her pillow, as heartrending sobs escaped her throat. She’d never known such anguish and couldn’t bear it, couldn’t stand one second more. She had to leave, to escape, but it was inside her, part of her, destroying her. How could this happen? How could she survive it? She sobbed while the semi-aware part of her wondered dispassionately what this was.

  The pain, already unbearable, grew, turning her sobs to helpless, hopeless whimpers, making her body tremble, her chest grow tight. Please, God, she moaned, please make it go away, and in answer to her prayers, strong hands burrowed under the covers to grasp her shoulders, to shake her awake, to drag her shuddering and heartbroken out of the dark. “It’s all right, Maggie,” he whispered. “Honey, it’s all right. Wake up. It’s just a dream.”

  She forced one eye open, then the other, to see Ross bent over her. It was a dream, just as he’d said. She’d had them for month—vague scenes, vague emotions, unsettling but never memorable. Though there’d been nothing vague about the emotions this time, like all the others, it was just a dream.

  She acknowledged that, drew a deep breath, then burst into tears.

  He carried her to the rocker, slid
his arms around her, and began a slow, rhythmic rocking. “It’s okay, Maggie,” he said quietly. “Go ahead and cry.”

  Pressing her face against his shoulder, she cried until there were no tears left, until hiccups ricocheted through her, until she was exhausted and relieved and feeling halfway normal again. And the entire time he held her, rocked her, stroked her hair. His touch was reassuring, incredibly comforting, and arousing. That last wasn’t his intention, she knew, but rather, her need. Her emptiness.

  When she was still and quiet, when even the hiccups had disappeared, he spoke softly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “It was just a dream.”

  “About the accident?”

  She dried his shoulder where her tears had fallen and realized for the first time that his attire was on the skimpy side—a pair of sweatpants and nothing else. His skin underneath was warm and smooth, with a scent uniquely his that she remembered from their past. She was tempted to trail her fingers along his chest as she’d done hundreds of times before, but she settled for simply resting her cheek there again.

  “Maggie? Did you dream about the accident?”

  “I think so. Dr. Olivetti says patients with post-traumatic syndrome often dream about whatever caused their injury.” She gave the answer as casually, as matter-of-factly, as she could, but it wasn’t true. The pain in her dream had had nothing to do with broken bones or head trauma, and the fear hadn’t been of injury or death. No, this dream had been filled with hopelessness, despair, loss, heartbreak. Even now, safe in Ross’s arms, with the impact of the dream lessened by wakefulness, she could still feel the grief, so pure and raw and overwhelming. It frightened her that she’d once felt so lost, and equal parts of her wanted to know and wanted to never know why.

  “Do you remember any of it?”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, felt her throat swell and her lungs tighten, then quickly opened her eyes again and forced the feeling away. “No,” she said flatly. “I didn’t see anything. There were just feelings, and they’re gone.”