Finding Christmas (18 page)

This time, he didn’t hesitate. “A little dumb, yeah. But to answer the question, no. You aren’t my girlfriend.”

“Oh, ah… okay then.”

Turning her so she faced him, Will gently touched her jaw and lifted her eyes to his. There was a steady presence in the ocean blue depths, something sure and solid. “You’re my everything, Maggie. Everything.”

‡

A
long with the
chaos in her own house, Maggie missed the craziness of the holidays with her friends from home—and that meant cookie baking day at the Gervais house. Bree’s mom made the day an event. Family, friends, anyone who wanted to spend the day dusted in flour and getting high from the powdered sugar floating through the air, was welcome to join in.

Without a doubt, it was always one of Maggie’s favorite days of the year. Bree’s tribe would be there, and while they always treated Maggie like one of the crowd, those girls had a bond like Maggie had with her sisters. The women—Kara and Elena Larsen, Jade Engle, Cass, and Bree—were raised together because their mothers had been friends for over thirty years. She loved each and every one of them.

The only one she’d seen since coming home was Cass, who was so drunk when Maggie left the bar after what she and Will were calling the “Stan incident”, she had to wonder if Cass was still hungover.

A lot had changed in the last three weeks. Since the snowstorm the week after Thanksgiving, when she and Will spent the night together, Maggie had fallen a little more in love with him every day. She’d learned more about his time in the NBA, about his ex-wife, and the accident that ended his career.

She also discovered that Will was writing a book.

It was a novel, something he wanted to aim at the young adults. Something that would show boys that it was all right to feel things. That understanding others didn’t make you less of a man.

There was no doubt Will was a man, and a strong one at that, but he had this wonderfully soft heart, kind and compassionate. She saw the way he was with his team, with their parents, with the kids he coached on Sundays. He made everyone around him feel important. Valued.

“Earth to Maggie. Where are you?” The hand waving in front of her eyes belonged to Cass. Or, “Drunk Cass” as Bree had been calling her since her bender at Karaoke.

“Oh, sorry.” She looked around at the kitchen full of women and realized all eyes were on her. “Just daydreaming.”

“About a certain teacher, perhaps?” Bree was moving towards her.

No one else in the kitchen was saying a word, but they were all watching her reaction to the question. Of course she was thinking about Will. She always thought about him.

“No doubt there,” her mother said. “She spends all her time with him. I’m assuming it’s serious, but since
I never see her
, I wouldn’t know.” Mom was laying on the guilt like a pro.

“For Pete’s sake!” Maggie exclaimed. “Grace and Claire don’t even live home. You all have jobs. What am I supposed to do, sit around and twiddle my thumbs?”

Claire was icing cookies at the kitchen table. “So he’s just a way to fill your time?”

Sometimes Maggie could throttle her sister. “No. I didn’t say that.”

“No respect for family, these young people.” Cass’ mother, Joann, always had an opinion. Usually very strong ones. “Before today, I hadn’t heard from Cass for two weeks.”

The room erupted with objections. The only one who would push back against Joann’s comment was Enza Gervais, one of her oldest friends. “Good gravy, Joann! Cass and Sean are newlyweds. When you and Roger got married, we didn’t hear from the two of you for six months. And when we did, you were pregnant!” There was a lot of whooping and cat calls until Enza turned on Maggie’s mother. “And Mary Pat, if the man makes your girl happy, let her be happy! God knows, she’s gone through enough and she deserves it.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Gee.” Maggie loved that someone finally stuck up for her. She knew her parents were unsure about her relationship with Will—there were times she questioned everything about her life—but he was the best thing in it.

“I want her to be happy, Enza. More than anything.” Mom smiled weakly. “We all do.”

Hearing her mother say the words was gratifying, but she still wasn’t so sure.

Mom focused right on Maggie, tilted her head, shrugged. “I do, baby. But I’ve been worrying about you for such a long time now, it’s hard to break the habit. I’m sorry.”

That was the first thing her mother had said that made sense. Reaching her arm out, Maggie hugged her mom. Her family was too important for her to only have half-hearted support. Her brother had even started to come around, and if Matt could be happy for her, then she hoped her mom would be.

“Sooo,” Bree asked again. “Is he amazing?”

Maggie sighed. “In every way possible. I’m still wondering when I’m going to wake up.”

“Nice,” Cass said. “He’s a keeper, that one. PD for sure.”

“Yeah,” Maggie agreed, chuckling at Cass’s use of
PD
. Code for ‘panty dropper’. “He is. I can’t believe it. I never thought… you know… after what happened…”

“That you’d have this?” Her mom was grasping her hand, now—happy and hopeful. “That you’d have your
someone
?”

“I didn’t think anyone would want me like this.”

“Oh, honey.” Enza gave her a big squeeze. “You’re a prize, and I’m glad you and Will found each other. He’s darling.”

“
Darling
?” Kara—a single mom—chased her baby, Nadia, into the kitchen. The little girl, who was almost a year old, had just started walking, or rather running, and she was exhausting her mother. “I met Will over the summer at a barbeque here. He’s not
darling.
He’s HOT. Smoldering-tall-dark-and-handsome hot. Tell me you got a piece of that, honey. Let me live vicariously through you.”

The baby was too delicious and Maggie scooped her up. Holding her, loving how the wiggly bundle felt and smelled. Between the talk of Will, and now the baby, Maggie’s ovaries ached. She wanted a baby, more than she ever thought she would.

“Someone has been bitten by the mommy bug.”

Maggie looked up, and once again all eyes were on her. She didn’t know who had made the observation, it didn’t matter. What did matter was that it was true. She wanted a baby.

Scratch that. She wanted Will’s baby. And in a rush—heartache, fear, sorrow—came flooding back. And it wasn’t going to happen. This was her curse.

Intellectually, Maggie understood triggers. She knew the remnants of her PTSD were always floating around in her subconscious. Most of the time it was okay. But holding a beautiful baby made one truth all too real. She could never give Will children of his own. Maggie tried to vanquish the demons, telling herself that he loved her and that they could be happy without babies.

It was crushing her, but this was Maggie’s reality. Blocking it out had done no good. The deeper they went into the relationship, the more this would hurt.

“You all need to stop talking about this,” Maggie sputtered. “I’m not going to have a baby, so, please, don’t mention it again.”

“Oh, could you imagine what a Maggie-Will baby would look like?” Claire chimed in, not hearing what Maggie had said at all. “The kid would be stunning.”

“It’s an excellent gene pool,” Grace added with a grin. “Oh, Maggie! I want to be an aunt—”

“STOP IT! ALL OF YOU!” She finally snapped. God, they all needed to shut up. This was why she’d stayed away. The noise in her head was deafening. Taking a deep breath, she steadied herself. “There… there won’t be any babies.”

“Wait, why not?” Bree took her hand. “Oh, Maggie. I didn’t realize it was a sensitive subject.”

“I think I’m going to head out.”

“You don’t have to leave,” Bree whispered. “Stay here. You don’t have to be alone if you’re hurting. Haven’t you learned anything?”

“Yeah. I’ve learned that I need to be alone sometimes.”

“Not today,” Bree retorted. “And not when you’re hurting.”

Maybe she hadn’t. Her instinct was still to pull away from those who wanted to help, to spare those she loved the most. It was a battle she fought every day.

Jade and Elena, quiet throughout, gave Maggie hugs, heartfelt and compassionate. She felt their support, but there was pity too. All these women had found their happy ever after. Except for Kara, and she had an amazing little girl to love.

Maggie tried hard not to think about having children. It was the big unknown after the accident, the question no doctor would answer one way or the other.

The endless
maybe
.

Maybe you can have kids, Maggie. Maybe you can’t.

We just don’t know. There’s scarring.

Thinking about Will, the
maybe
became all too real. Too scary.

She’d seen him with kids of all ages, and the man was a natural father. Firm and fair, patient and kind, he wasn’t afraid to be honest.

This thing they’d started was on its way to becoming permanent, and she couldn’t let it continue until she’d told him everything.

No matter how much it hurt, not matter what the risk, Maggie had to tell Will the whole truth, even if it could end what they’d started.

Deciding to stay, the conversation went on around her until Charlie appeared before her holding a carved wooden box.

The Wish Box. A family tradition passed down through Enza’s Italian relatives, the custom was to place a wish in the box during the Christmas season. Supposedly, Christmas magic played a role in helping even the most unlikely wishes come true.

“Charlie?”

“You need to make a wish, Maggie.” Charlie didn’t ask, she simply stated what had to be done.

“I don’t know if the box can help. No matter how strong the magic.”

“The box brought me my father,” Charlie said. “It took a while, but I believed and it worked.”

A child’s faith in Christmas magic was nothing to be trifled with. Looking into Charlie’s big brown eyes, Maggie figured she had nothing to lose, and if one of Charlie’s hugs was the reward, it was worth it.

Enza shoved a piece of paper and a pen in her hand. “Go on, Maggie. Close your eyes and think of what you want. Imagine it.”

For a long time, Maggie would have wished for the pain to go away, or she would have wished the fire never happened. A month ago she would have wished for her leg back.

While all those things mattered, nothing mattered more than how she felt about Will. The accident and amputation brought Maggie home so she could find him. So, in the simplest terms the only wish she had was to be with Will, to make a future with him. A family.

Thinking carefully, Maggie wrote down her wish. It was simple, a wish as pure as the season.

She wished for peace and for love. If she had those two things, everything else would fall into place.

Love was something she had in abundance with her family and friends, and Maggie figured whatever spirit was in charge of Christmas magic would know what she meant. She wanted Will. The peace part was all about quieting her frightened soul. She was still afraid of all the future held.

She was afraid her love for him wouldn’t be enough.

Done, she slipped the paper into the box, burying it beneath years of wishes. Maggie didn’t know if she believed. She wanted to, but she just didn’t know.

*     *     *

Something wasn’t right.

Will had been trying to get in touch with Maggie since practice ended. But forty minutes later, with the equipment stored, the paperwork done and the notes on next week’s games ready for his captains, his phone was still quiet.

A door opened and closed in the gym, and he heard footsteps tapping their way across the hardwood floor. A woman, based on the footfalls.

Hopefully, it was his woman.

As she’d been doing at least a couple of nights a week, Maggie slept at his house last night. They’d made love, and it was different. There was something desperate in the way she held him, the way she moved.

His gut told him something was wrong. Something had been wrong since the weekend.

The footsteps slowed and when he looked toward the door, Maggie was there, and Will’s instincts had been dead on. Based on her posture, the look in her eyes, there was a problem.