Some Enchanted Season (10 page)

He had to admire her outlook. If he’d been through half of what she’d undergone in the past eleven months, he would be desperate to avoid any future contact with the medical establishment. But then, he might not have been strong enough to endure her ordeal.

“I don’t mind staying until after the surgery.”

“Oh? Then what caused that look of revulsion?”

“I think the idea of having pieces of metal screwed directly into your bones would cause any reasonable person a moment of revulsion—to say nothing of going back a year or so later and unscrewing them.”

She shrugged carelessly. “I was unconscious when they put them in, and I’ll be unconscious when they take them out. It’s no big deal.”

No big deal
. He shook his head in disbelief. “You’re a remarkable woman, Maggie.”

That stopped her short, and then she quietly said, “Thank you. It means a lot to hear you say that.”

The moment was broken by the squeal of brakes out front. Ross watched as a deliveryman carrying an express
package and a clipboard climbed out and started up the driveway.

“Too bad your staff isn’t a little more remarkable,” Maggie murmured. “It’s a good thing you’re not on a
real
vacation. They would never leave you any time to relax. I’ll be inside.” She released the trigger and cut off the flow of water, then recoiled the hose a little less neatly than before.

The uniformed man greeted her with a nod, then double-checked his package. “I’ve got a delivery here for Ross McKinney. That wouldn’t happen to be you, would it?” he said to Ross.

He watched Maggie disappear inside, then forced his attention back to the deliveryman. “Yes. Yes, it is. Where do I sign?”

“A
fternoon, Miss Agatha. Afternoon, son.”

Stopping where the sidewalk crossed the McKinney driveway, Agatha Winchester nodded regally and replied to the deliveryman, “Good afternoon, Fred.”

Beside her, four-year-old Brendan Dalton mimicked both the nod and the greeting, bringing a grin from Fred as he climbed into his truck. The boy watched the truck rumble away, while Agatha turned her attention in the opposite direction.

Standing at the end of the driveway, scanning the contents of the package just delivered, was their new neighbor, the mysterious Ross McKinney. She knew little about him—that he was a businessman, successful and very wealthy. Holly McBride, over at the inn, had
already told her that he was handsome as sin—not a description that a God-fearing woman like Agatha particularly cared for, though she could certainly understand where it came from, with his black hair, sharp eyes, and forbidding scowl.

She knew that on his few visits to Bethlehem last year, he’d stayed shut up in their suite and kept at least one phone line and usually two tied up practically the entire stay. He’d left his lovely wife to her own entertainment and had usually taken work even to the dinner table. He’d also left Maggie all the responsibilities of remodeling this big old house and had neglected to accompany her to even one Christmas party.

In Agatha and Corinna’s opinion, Maggie might as well have been single, for all the attention her husband paid her. She’d tried to make the best of it, but it had been obvious that she was a lonely, unhappy woman.

And then she’d had that dreadful accident. Her husband had told the sheriff that she’d been on her way home to Buffalo, with no explanations, no excuses. While Sheriff Ingles had accepted that—after all, it
was
an accident—Agatha knew there must be more to the story. Home to Buffalo? On Christmas Eve? Impossible! Maggie had been looking forward to the Christmas Eve service in the square. She had been excited about celebrating the holiday in her new home and had planned an elaborate Christmas Day feast. She wouldn’t have decided to return to Buffalo that night unless something dreadful had happened.

And it involved her husband. Agatha was sure of it.

“Miss Agatha.” Brendan tugged her sleeve. “The truck’s gone.”

With a sense of purpose, she gave the boy a bright smile. “Come along, Brendan. Let’s say hello to our new neighbor.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Uncle Nathan says doan talk to strangers.”

“
Don’t
talk to strangers. Uncle Nathan’s exactly right. But it’s all right when you’re with me. I know everyone. Come along.” Pulling on the hand of the ragged bear they held between them, she started up the driveway. “Good afternoon, Mr. McKinney. It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it? I’m Agatha Winchester. My sister, Corinna, and I live in the Victorian on the corner over there.”

He blinked as if startled, then accepted the hand she offered. “Ross McKinney.”

“And this is Brendan Dalton. He lives in the blue Victorian right over there.” She pointed directly across the street, where just a corner of the second floor of the Bishop house showed behind its neighbor. “Say hello to Mr. McKinney, Brendan.”

The boy shifted the bear’s paw to his other hand, then extended his right hand. “Hello, Mr. McKinney.”

The man bent to shake his hand and greeted him with the same polite reserve he’d shown Agatha. The action moved him up one notch in her estimation, but the man who’d played a part in dear Maggie’s unhappiness a year before still had quite a long way to go.

“Corinna and I brought Maggie a little welcome-home gift of cinnamon rolls this morning. We were so sorry to hear about her accident and are so glad to see
her back in her house. She did a wonderful job on the old place.”

“Yes, she did.” He sounded stiff. Guilt over the accident? Resentment that she’d referred to the house he’d paid for as Maggie’s house? Or perhaps just plain old wariness about discussing his wife with a total stranger?

“We issued an invitation to Maggie to join us for Thanksgiving dinner. It’s such a big meal to prepare for only two, and with her just getting discharged from the rehabilitation center yesterday … Well, we’d love to have you both. What do you say?”

He looked uncomfortable. “I—I don’t know. Maggie’s a little self-conscious about meeting a lot of …”

“Strangers,” Agatha said with a gentle smile. “We know she’s forgotten everything about the town, but we haven’t forgotten her. We were her friends a year ago, and we’d like to be her friends now. There will be plenty of people there to make her feel at home—Corinna’s children and grandchildren, Brendan’s family, the Thomases, the Walkers, Holly McBride. We’d love to have you both.”

His smile was polite but insincere. “I’ll tell her, Mrs. Winchester.”

“Oh, it’s Miss. Miss Agatha will do fine.” She gave him her brightest smile. “We’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing. Come along, Brendan. Nice meeting you, Mr. McKinney.”

Agatha rather liked doing things for people, helping them solve their problems, making life a little easier, a little better. Last Christmas it had been Nathan Bishop
and Emilie Dalton who’d needed her and Corinna’s help.

Emilie had been up in Boston, doing the best she could for the three little angels placed in her custody, when catastrophe struck. She’d been cheated out of an entire month’s paycheck by an unscrupulous employer and evicted from her apartment because she couldn’t pay the rent. Desperate to keep her family together, she’d taken them from the homeless shelter and would have fled to Atlanta, her hometown, if a snowstorm and car trouble hadn’t stranded her in Bethlehem.

At the time, Agatha remembered with a smile, Emilie had thought getting stuck there was one more disaster in the string of disasters that had become her life, but now she saw it for what it had really been: the beginning of a miracle. For if the snow hadn’t stranded her there, she never would have met Nathan. They wouldn’t have married last New Year’s Day, and they wouldn’t be so incredibly happy and so blessedly in love.

Agatha liked to think that she and Corinna had played a part, just a small one, in getting those two together. Maybe they could play another small part in fixing whatever was wrong between Maggie and Ross McKinney. At the very least, they could be Maggie’s friends. She needed friends, needed to be surrounded by people and happiness and life—needed it for her heart, needed it for her healing.

And, she rather suspected, Ross needed it too.

•   •   •

G
ripping the envelope along with the contracts, Ross went into the office and seated himself behind the desk. It wouldn’t take more than a few minutes, twenty at most, to go over them, and then he could let Tom know that he was sending them back. As long as he had him on the phone, he could also make sure that whatever had set Lynda off had been resolved and—

Or he could remember that he was on vacation and set them aside for now, the way someone
really
on vacation would do. Later he could come up with a plan for dealing with the inevitable intrusions from Buffalo—a once-a-week schedule, something he could stick to, something that would leave the rest of his time free—and he could make sure that Tom and Lynda understood and respected it.

Reluctantly he slid the contracts back into the envelope, left it on the center of his desk, and returned to the hall. For a moment he simply stood there, listening for some hint of Maggie’s whereabouts. The old house was too solid for creaks and squeaks. The only sounds that broke the quiet were the ticking of the mantel clock in the dining room and faint music from the back of the house—a lone voice, singing softly.

He hadn’t heard Maggie sing in months, probably years, even though she’d always loved music. She’d cleaned house to it, cooked to it, seduced him to it. More times than he could remember, what had started as innocent fun—singing along with the radio during after-dinner cleanup, followed by a dance or two around the kitchen table—had ended in erotic pleasure in their bed.

They hadn’t shared
that
in months either, and they never would again.

The thought unsettled him.

She was sitting on the bench in front of the kitchen windows, cookbooks scattered around her. Her shoes were kicked off, and one socked foot tapped the air, keeping time with her out-of-tune tune.

She wouldn’t stay single long, he thought suddenly. Some smart guy would grab her up, and before long she would be well on her way to having those four or five babies she’d talked about. Before long she would have everything she’d ever wanted—a home, a town, a place to belong. A husband and kids to belong to. He hoped the guy came from a large family, all settled around there, and that they would welcome her as if she were their own daughter.

He hoped she got it all. Every hope. Every wish. Every dream.

Everything
he
hadn’t given her.

She looked up. “There you are. Have you been talking to the deliveryguy all this time?”

“No. Miss Agatha came by.”

“ ‘Miss’ Agatha? How sweet. What did she want?”

“To be neighborly, I suppose. Maybe to see for herself that I really do exist.”

“You do tend to be a bit invisible when you get away from Buffalo,” she said matter-of-factly. “Usually, the hotel housekeeping staff are the only people who see you.”

The comment was too true to disagree with, so he ignored it. “She also wanted to repeat the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner. I told her you’d be there.”

Maggie stared at him. “You what?”

“You said just this morning that you wanted to go.”

“Yes, but—”

When she didn’t finish, he did. “But you thought you wouldn’t give them an answer either way so that if you wanted to back out at the last minute, you could.” Her wide-eyed and wary nod made him relent. “Well, you still can. I told Miss Agatha that I would talk to you about it. But I think you should go. These people are your friends, and they’re going to be your neighbors. Thanksgiving will be a perfect time to start getting to know them again. And who knows? Thanksgiving dinner with a crowd might be fun.” Like being away from the office with nothing to do was fun. Like living even temporarily in a small town that offered none of the attractions of the city was fun.

“It might be.” Finally her startled look dissolved into a yawn. “Sorry. It’s warm and I’m tired—a perfect recipe for an afternoon nap.”

“Why don’t you take one?”

“Actually, I was hoping you would bring the Christmas stuff out from wherever it is. I want to start decorating after Thanksgiving, and I’d like to go through it first.”

The request made him stiffen. If his instructions had been followed, the stuff, as she called it, was in the basement. The ornaments, lights, angels, Santas, and all the presents that had been left unopened last Christmas.

Plus one that
had
been opened. One that he needed to get rid of before Maggie saw it. Before she wondered about it.

“I can do that,” he agreed, his voice remarkably empty of the tension inside him. “If you take a nap.”

She yawned again. “All right. I’ll lie down for a while, but you have to bring up
everything
. Okay?”

“Okay.” He escorted her to the top of the stairs, then made his way to the basement door at the rear of the house.

A switch just inside the door turned on lights above a flight of stairs and every eight feet through the cavernous space. The boxes he’d had delivered from Buffalo were stored there, just a few feet from the bottom of the stairs. All the Christmas things were there too, in cardboard cartons clearly marked
GIFTS, ORNAMENTS
, or
DECORATIONS
. Underneath those labels, some incredibly organized person had been even more specific:
ANGELS. SANTAS. MUSIC BOXES
. If a person knew exactly what he was looking for, he could find it in one of the three dozen boxes in minutes.

What
he
was looking for was in the stack of boxes that held last year’s presents. As his business prospered and grew each year, his gifts to Maggie had become showier, costlier. Five years ago he’d gotten so busy that Lynda had taken over the shopping for him, buying outfits Maggie refused to wear, handbags she refused to carry, trips she refused to take. The only gift he had continued to choose himself was the jewelry, always something to take away the breath of the most avaricious woman around—and always something that failed to impress Maggie.