Moments In Time (3 page)

“What next?” He looked up to find her still watching his face. He wondered if she liked what she saw as much as he did.

“Nothing. That’s great, thank you.” She graced him with the sweetest smile he’d ever seen.

Sunlight on the waters,
he thought, looking into her face.

Aloud he said, “What will you do now?”

“Well, I have a friend who’s running down here somewhere. Hopefully, he’ll be passing by soon enough so that I can get a ride home.”

As if on cue, a lone male jogger came into view. She raised a hand to him, and he quickened his pace as he ran to her.

“Maggie, what happened?” he called out, his voice full of concern.

“I guess I missed a stride. I’m not really sure. Maybe I hit a stone or something,” she called back.

I should have known this one would have a boyfriend,
J.D. thought.
The best ones always do. What the hell, I’ll never see her again anyway.

“How bad is it?” The boyfriend knelt over her anxiously.

“It doesn’t hurt quite so much, now that the cold’s gotten to it.” She looked up at J.D. and smiled that wonderful smile again, and he felt his stomach tighten. “This Good Samaritan here appeared out of nowhere, Jake, and wrapped it for me.”

J.D. and Jake took stock of each other, as men have a tendency to do. Jake looked unimpressed with what he saw.

“Come on, Maggie, I’ll carry you back to the car.” Jake stood up.

He was very tall and very handsome, his size and movie-star good looks intimidating. His casually possessive manner toward the woman irritated J.D., who felt suddenly intruded upon, though he knew full well he had no rights to her. He felt himself fading insignificantly into the background with the stopped cars, the river, and the passing joggers.

“Look, you go finish your lap. I’ll be okay. Maybe just help me over to that bench and
…
”
She gestured toward a small picnic area.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I want to get you home and take a closer look at that leg.” The big man lifted her effortlessly from the ground in one motion.

“I have to admit it does hurt some,” she said with a grimace.

“You might want to have a doctor take a look at that for you sometime soon,” J.D. said as they turned to walk away.

“Jake’s a doctor,” she replied.

Jake grinned somewhat smugly in J.D.’s direction.

She stretched her hand out to J.D., leaning over one of Jake’s immense shoulders to do so. “Thanks for everything. You’ve no idea how much I appreciate your help. And your company.
Oh…
your shirt.” She looked down at the black and purple fabric that was tied around her ankle.

“Keep it,” he said, taking a step forward to take the offered hand. She smiled and for a brief moment looked him squarely in the eyes. Something deep inside told him this woman wasn’t like anyone he’d ever met before, and he acknowledged reluctantly he wasn’t likely to come across her again. His brief involvement with her was over, and so he turned and walked toward the bus.

“She was cute, J.D. You invite her to the hotel later?” Rick Daily, the band’s lead guitar player and a notorious womanizer, assaulted him the minute he’d reboarded. “Wouldn’t mind getting a closer look at her myself. Will you send her to my room when you’re done with her?”

“Go to hell.” J.D. was unusually testy.

“Yeah, you’re right, I never much cared for that healthy, wholesome, athletic type.” Rick stretched luxuriously in his seat as J.D. passed him without a glance.

“Rick likes his women loose and lazy, J.D., you know that,” one of the other band members chimed in.

“Who was she anyway?” the guitarist called over his shoulder.

“Just some jogger” was the mumbled reply. J.D. returned to his seat and leaned back, looking out the window. He could see the big man’s form moving down the path, seemingly unburdened by the weight of the small woman with the big green eyes. He stretched his legs across the seat and looked out the window again. They were no longer in view.

3

“
M
AGGIE,”
H
ILARY ADDRESSED HER FOR THE FIRST
time since
the show began and reached out to touch Maggie’s knee to get her attention. The younger woman seemed momentarily disoriented. “I said, were you as smitten at that first meeting as J.D. obviously was?”

“Oh.” Maggie’d been lost in thought. Her attempts to ignore the sound of his voice had been futile. She’d heard every word, seen it all just as it had happened. She’d hated being transported back to that time against her will. “No. Not really.”

“You simply went on your way with your boyfriend and forgot about him?” Hilary asked, an eyebrow raised, studying the younger woman’s demeanor, trying to get a handle on what was really going on here.

“Jake wasn’t my boyfriend,” Maggie said with some vexation. “He was a good friend, but it was hardly a romantic relationship.”

“Bullshit,” J.D. muttered under his breath.

“Excuse me?” Maggie turned slowly toward him, one eyebrow raised in annoyance.

“Jake was in love with you,” he replied calmly.

“It was not that kind of relationship,” she insisted.

“Maggie, I saw how that man looked at you. It wasn’t as buddy-buddy as you care to recall.”

Hilary leaned back, hoping some sparks would fly or, with any real luck, a good argument.

“I recall perfectly well. I was never in love with him,” she protested.

“That well may be, but he most definitely was in love with you.” He relaxed slightly, delighted to have gotten her to speak to him, even if it was in anger.

Maggie glared at him. Neither spoke for a minute. The fireworks Hilary’d hoped for fizzled into a wisp.

“Had you simply dismissed J.D. then? No interest? No spark? No impression?” She had to reel Maggie back into the conversation.

“Well, I can’t honestly say he hadn’t made an impression
…
”
Maggie grudgingly admitted. He’d made an impression, all
righ
t…

A
s Jake had helped Maggie into the passenger seat of his car, he asked a bit too casually, “Who was that?”

“Who was who?” Maggie knew exactly who.

“The long hair.
The scruffy-looking guy who…
”

“He wasn’t really scruff
y looking. And he was a really nice guy. He just showed up out of nowhere and lent a hand. I’ve no idea who he was.” Maggie wondered why she felt the need to be so defensive of a man she’d never met before and would never see again.

Jake frowned as he slammed the door.

When they’d gotten to her apartment, Jake unwrapped the T-shirt and dropped it on the coffee table as Maggie eased herself onto the sofa. He had stopped at his office and picked up some Ace bandages and some painkillers.

“Actually, it doesn’t look as bad as I had thought, though you know that orthopedics is not my specialty. Maybe getting the cold to it as quickly as you did helped. If it’s bad tomorrow, though,” he added as he wrapped her leg with the heavy bandage, “I’ll want you to stop in for an X ray.”

“I think it will be okay,” she said, “but maybe I’ll take a
few of those little white pills of yours. It is throbbing unmercifully right now.”

“I’m sure it is, Maggie, but I’d recommend that you go easy on the little white pills. What did you eat today anyway?”

Reluctantly she admitted she hadn’t eaten much of anything since breakfast.

He went into the kitchen and returned with a banana, a glass of milk, and two pain pills, which he placed on the table next to the sofa.

“You don’t take this medication on an empty stomach, so eat the banana and drink the milk and then you can have your pills.”

“Okay, doc.” She smiled wearily.

“Want me to run out and get you something more substantial, a sandwich or dinner?” he offered.

“No, no, I’m fine with this. I’m really more tired than hungry all of a sudden. But thanks anyway.”

He went into the bedroom and brought the phone into the living room, stretching the cord as far as it would go.

“Just in case you need it.” He placed the
phone on the floor nearby. “Now
, I’ll let you get some sleep. And I’ll leave you with enough pain pills for tomorrow in case you need them. It looks like it’s only a mild sprain. You should be fine in a day or two. Don’t hesitate for a second, though, if you need anything to call me, okay?”

“Yes, thank you. Thanks for everything.”

He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. She watched as he walked through the door and listened to his footsteps as he bounded down the stairs.

She leaned back onto the pillow Jake had placed behind her head.
I should feel guilty. I know Jake really cares about me and that he is a truly fine and good person. But I can’t help it. There's no fire in him, and God help me, I won’t make that mistake again. Mace was the world's sweetest guy, but I had no business marrying him.

She felt a little groggy from the medication, the pain in her ankle having eased into a dull ache, and she closed her eyes, snuggling down under the afghan Jake had tucked over
her. She thought of the stranger who’d come to her aid this afternoon—the odd clothes and the British accent and the long hair, the hazel eyes slightly too small for his face and the mouth, slightly too large, that so easily drifted into that crooked smile.
Now he,
she thought as she fell asleep,
had fire
…

When Maggie awoke, the room was in total darkness save for the hazy glow of the street light outside the window. She sat up slowly and dragged several strands of hair back from her face. From the center of town she could hear the church bells. It was nine o’clock. She sat up and turned on the lamp next to the sofa, then stood to test her ankle cautiously. The pain wasn’t as acute as it had been earlier.

She glanced at the table in front of the sofa, at the heap of purple and black fabric that had, hours before, been wrapped around her leg. She pulled it to her, spread it out flat, and leaned over to read the one-word inscription across its front: Monkshood.

M
aggie blinked. She could see it as clearly as if the shirt now lay before her eyes.

“Well, then, how did we go from a casual meeting wherein neither of you identified yourselves to fifteen years of marriage and five children?” Hilary asked.

“It’s seven children, Hilary, and that’s the point where fate stepped in.” J.D. realized the effect the conversation was beginning to have on his wife was exactly what he’d hoped for. Oh, she was fighting it, all right, but he knew if he could keep it going, sooner or later she’d surely crack
.
With any luck, he would hit upon that one memory she’d be unable to resist. The key to tomorrow
…

She was still sitting far apart from him, had not looked at him when she spoke. But his hopes were high. They’d been too deeply in love for far too long for him to quit now.

“As I’d said earlier, Hilary, the band—Monkshood, that is—was booked into the local arena for two nights, Tuesday and Wednesday of that week, so ordinarily, we’d have had Monday off. But as it happened, our stage manager had gotten ill and remained in Pittsburgh, and as I was conce
rn
ed about the spots and outlets and so on, we went into the arena on Monday to make certain that everything wa
s lined up for Tuesday’s show…”

J
.D. had become embroiled in an argument with the arena’s stage manager over the placement of the spotlights and the outlets when he and the other members of the band arrived around eleven-thirty the next morning. Nothing seemed to be where he wanted it, and the stagehands didn’t seem to be in any hurry to work things out to his satisfaction.

The stage manager was irritated, too. He called the front office to complain that one of the performers was giving him a hard time. They promised to have someone from the promoter’s office down there to straighten out any misunderstandings. When the promotion assistant arrived and saw how agitated J.D. was, he quickly resolved the situation to J.D.’s satisfaction, then invited the band down to the in-house restaurant for some lunch and a few beers while the agreed-upon changes were made.

They entered the restaurant, which was also a bar that served as a dinner and after-event drinking spot, through a door that opened from the oval-shaped hallway following the curve of the arena’s main concourse directly overhead. Since it was also a private club, it was almost deserted at the lunch hour, it’s patrons being mostly arena employees. They took a large round table opposite the bar and gave their orders to the waitress. She returned in minutes with a tray of frosted mugs of beer.

The promoter was talking in a monotone, telling them how he’d heard from his contacts in other cities how well their tour was going, what a hit they’d been this time around. J.D. was barely listening. Out of the co
rn
er of one eye he saw the door through which he’d passed moments before swing open and watched as a dark-haired woman slowly entered the room. She was wearing dark blue slacks and a fuzzy white sweater, a colorful scarf draping her neck.

She was limping ever so slightly, favoring her left ankle.

Mesmerized, J.D. watched as she slid onto a barstool,
turning herself sideways in her seat to wave a greeting to the thin, gray-haired man behind the bar. She hadn’t turned around, hadn’t seen him there. The waitress walked over, exchanged a few words with her, and returned to the kitchen. The bartender placed a bottle of soda and an ice-filled glass in front of her.

Three enormously tall black men in sweatpants entered the room and, spying the woman at the bar, joined her. J.D. couldn’t hear their conversation but could hear her laughter, lighthearted and unaffected. “Who’s the girl?” J.D. asked
quietly, unable to take his eyes from her.

The promoter, hunched over his lunch, looked across his sandwich, which was dripping large clots of cole slaw onto the plate in messy globs. “Maggie Callahan. Works for the arena. One of the accountants in the finance office.” It was then that he clearly read the look on J.D.’s face and added, “Forget it, pal. She’s not your type.”

“How do you know what’s my type?” He lowered his voice even more, controlling a sudden surge of dislike for this fellow.

Realizing the unintended affront, he attempted to placate J.D. “I’ll rephrase that. You’re not her type.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Maggie dates strictly button-downs, understand? Professional types. Not rock singers.” J.D. was glaring at him, so he continued, trying to smooth the feathers he’d ruffled. “Anyway, she’s not the sort of girl you’d be interested in, trust me. She’s very straight, J.D. When you say
joint,
Maggie thinks elbow or knee, get the picture? And besides, she wouldn’t be caught dead with a guy whose hair is longer than hers.”

Rick turned in his seat to take a look at the object of the discussion, now seated at the table where the waitress had placed her lunch. Rick turned back to J.D. with a wide grin on his face.

“Hey, that looks like—”

“It certainly does
…
” J.D. got up from the table and walked over to where she sat. He pulled out a chair, turned it around, and straddled the seat in one motion.

She looked up at him in utter astonishment.

“You!” Her smile told him she was as pleased as she was surprised at his sudden appearance. “For God’s sake, this is unbelievable.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” He reached his right hand to her. “We never did g
et introduced yesterday. I’m J.
D. Borders. You’re Maggie Callahan.”

“How do you know my name?” she asked, puzzled.

He cocked his head toward the table where he’d been sitting, indicating the promoter. “I asked.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked bluntly, then flushed dark pink, adding, “I mean, people don’t normally just walk in here off the street for lunch
…
”

“Looking over the stage. I’m playing here with my band tomorrow night and Wednesday.”

She paused, trying to recall the acts scheduled that week, then suddenly remembered the T-shirt.

“Monkshood,” she said aloud.

He nodded.

“Are you any good?” she asked.

“Come and find out for yourself.” His grin was a casual invitation.

She smiled slightly. “I just might do that.”

He asked about her ankle, and she told him it was better. They made some small talk for a few minutes. He was running out of things to say but wasn’t willing to leave now that Fate had allowed him the good fortune to unexpectedly cross her path again.

He liked looking at her face. Pretty skin that he knew would be soft to touch, heart-shaped mouth that would be warm and sweet to kiss, those eyes that drew him in and made him o
blivious to everything else…

He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and slid it across the table. “Do you know where this place is?”

“Sure,” she said, glancing at the scrap, “it’s a club in
t
own. Mostly jazz. They get some fine musicians there from
t
ime
to time. I used to go there a lot.”

“Well, one of the finest is playing there tonight. Hobie Narood. Know who he is?”