By Joey W. Hill
A man’s forearm
captured Maggie’s interest first. This
man’s forearm, revealed by the rolled-up sleeve of a denim shirt, showed dark
hairs woven like a soft web over tanned skin.
She leaned over to glimpse his face in his rear view mirror. It didn’t work. He was one car up on her in the right lane,
in a Dodge Ram pickup that gleamed with care and polished chrome, even through
the gray sleet. The pickup put him up
higher. All she could see was the
reflection of the forearm in the driver’s side mirror.
Maggie straightened back up in her seat and winced as the rip
in the upholstery pinched her bottom.
She shifted and grimaced. The
light changed, but only seven cars inched through the icy intersection before
the light caught her again. Maggie
hugged herself, tucking her fingers into her armpits, and blew a cloud of steam
toward the broken heater. Sexy Forearm
was now two cars up on her right. No
bumper stickers, no personalized tag, and still nothing to see except that
tempting arm. She imagined Mel Gibson
blue eyes, maybe Mel’s jaw, too, coupled with a Sean Connery voice and Jean
Claude Van Damme’s body. Now that
vision could replace a car heater.
She imagined meeting him in a boardroom for a one-on-one
closing of a corporate merger, equal players in a game of high stakes that had
gone on for weeks. There had been
attraction there, yes, but they had both fought it. Now, the battle almost over, his hand rose to
stroke through her hair in a way that she knew would turn into a deep
plunge. His fingers would reach through
her hair, find the nape of her neck and pull her forward to meet his lips. She indulged the idea, felt the meeting of
lips, the solid press of a broad chest.
No, that was good, but a few more moments of anticipation would
be better. She rewound the image. She raised her hand, meeting his in mid-air,
deflecting it, staying tough, hard-to-get…
A horn blared behind her.
Maggie jumped out of her daydream and punched the gas.
The Dodge truck pulled into her lane. She hit the brakes hard, shrieked and
wrenched the wheel, but it was too late.
Chains weren’t as responsive as expensive snow tires. Maggie crashed headlong into the satin smooth
side of the truck bed. Horns blared to
her right and tires squealed as the motorists behind them tried to avoid the
collision.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God…” Maggie fought with her door latch,
kicked the base that always stuck and scrambled out when the door came
open. The wind cut through her worn
sweatshirt, but she barely felt it. She
held onto the side of her car and skidded in her thin sneakers across the
ice.
He opened his truck door as she let go of her car to turn
toward him. She was watching her feet to
keep her balance and Maggie had a momentary impression of a pair of worn brown
cowboy boots splashing down into the water and the resulting wet jean
cuffs. Then her stomach dropped with the
weightless sensation of impending injury and her arms flailed out. He lunged forward and caught her at the rib
cage. Instinctively, she grabbed for
those great forearms, her fingers clutching into the rolled-up sleeves of the
soft cotton shirt. Maggie came to a safe
halt in a classic Fred and Ginger dip pose.
“Are you all right?” she blurted from a ninety degree angle
with the ground.
Mel Gibson’s blue eyes rated supreme in any beating female
heart, but suddenly golden flecked hazel eyes that looked more amused than mad
had their points, too. Her victim? rescuer? had a wonderful face, all solid jaw and prominent
cheekbones, and thick brown hair that fell over his forehead but shaved in
neatly at his neck. His right eyebrow
crooked with an old, whitish scar. The
nose had the faint ridge on the downward slope that all big men seemed to
have. He righted her and the top of her
head just grazed his chin. Maggie
inhaled a scent of coffee on his breath and Aqua Velva aftershave, which she
had always liked. Her brother wore it.
She looked him over, ostensibly to check for blood or broken
bones, and got an eyeful of broad chest and shoulders. Maggie went back to his face. She liked his face. “You look okay,” she said. “Do you feel okay?”
“I’m fine,” he assured her.
“A tank would have to hit that truck to hurt me. How about you, though?” The voice matched the face and body, deep and
timbred by thirty plus years and a southern
birth. He looked over Maggie’s shoulder
and she twisted to see her car. The hood
resembled the mouth of a disgruntled cartoon character, and smoke poured out
between its crumpled lips like a stream of invective. Maggie suppressed a moan of anguish. She needed the steadying hands he kept at her
waist.“I’m fine,” she said
faintly.
He pulled her back against him and spoke in her ear. “What?”
“I’ll be just fine,” she said louder, to compete with the
shower noise of the vehicles growling around them. “Just fine.” She would have to move again. She could make friends again. She could do it all again. “Really. Just fine.”
“Do you have insurance?”
Maggie turned her attention back to him. He released her and stepped back a bit, but
he kept one hand at her elbow. A gentleman. She
nodded. “I have it.” At
least, I hope I do.
“Are you
sure?” He studied her intently. “If you don’t have it, I won’t call the
cops. We can work something out.”
It should have embarrassed her that her poverty showed so
clearly, but she couldn’t afford the luxury of embarrassment anymore. She could take him up on his offer, just get
her car to the side of the road, see him on his way and then abandon it, but
they’d find the car and she’d still have to run again. It wasn’t fair to him.
Maggie folded her
arms around herself, a mental hug to keep herself together. That’s why the Lord tried
to give everyone arms, so when nobody could hold you, you could hold yourself.
“I have insurance,” she repeated.
“There’s a pay phone at that station over there. I’ll go call the police.” She hoped he took the tremor in her voice as
shaking from the cold. Her feet had
become ice blocks, ankle deep in water and slush, so it wasn’t a total lie.
“I have a phone. Come
here.” He pulled her a couple steps to
the truck. “Here, grab on.”
“What?”
He turned her toward him, set hands to her waist and lifted her
easily into the driver’s seat. “Scoot
over and we’ll call the police from in here.
It’s too cold to be freezing our butts off.”
Maggie scooted and he got into the truck after her. The powerful heater warmed the truck cab,
driving out the cold air in moments. He
plucked his cell off its cradle on the dash, and while he talked to a
dispatcher, she checked out her surroundings.
The greasy, mouth-watering odor of a burger and fries filled
her nose and she located them first, in the recessed area in front of the
gearshift. A portable coffee maker was
mounted on the dash and plugged into the cigarette lighter. The half full ten-cup carafe steamed, leaving
a moist spot on the windshield above it.
His coffee cup rested in a wooden holder mounted next to the pot. The mug, with a wildlife design of wolves and
pine trees, had to be a gift, which meant family, or wife. No one bought decorative mugs for
themselves. No ring on his left hand,
resting casually along the top of the steering wheel, so maybe a
girlfriend. The body in the shirt and
jeans was in great shape, and the shoulders were the kind that gave Maggie a
mushy, fuzzy feeling inside. Those kind of looks came with a constant girlfriend.
A pen and pad scribbled with figures lay in the floorboard next
to her feet with a small crate of CD’s and a flashlight. She turned and saw several shirts and one
pair of slacks hung up on a rack behind the seats. A small sack of snacks and a cooler were
wedged in next to a duffel bag. He
didn’t look like a traveling salesman, but he was obviously on the road a lot,
from the economy of the packing and its careful arrangement in the truck.
Maggie held her cold hands to the vent and the blasting heat
warmed her fingers. It had dual blowing
options, so she enjoyed the heat on her legs, though her wet toes refused to
thaw.
She stole another, closer look at the man that belonged with
the truck. His gray denim shirt was so
worn at the collar that the two mother-of-pearl, silver-rimmed button snaps
open at the neck pulled the placket down into a curve that showed a generous
mat of hair beneath and the shadowed curve of a pectoral. The scar on his eyebrow interfered with its
feathered line, which started brown at its thickest point, but lightened into a
sandy finish, as if the sun had found them around the brim of a hat. The lines of his eyes were drawn
symmetrically with the strands of the eyebrows, as though the sun had sculpted
the face and hair like wind rippling over desert sand. His face had the tight, lean look of a face
used to bearing the sun, and his cheekbone bore the faintest impression of a
shaved sideburn. Maggie noted a tool
belt hung behind her, with a pair of work gloves tucked in the empty pockets. The belt was a work of Southwestern art,
complete with beading and fringe.
He beeped off the phone and remounted it. “Well –“ he stopped himself.
“How about we do this? I’m Matt
Bryson.” He extended a hand. Maggie tentatively took it and returned the
handshake. His fingers were so strong
they felt like a caress when they pulled away.
“I’m Maggie Adams.”
“Matt and Maggie. Should be easy for us to
remember each other’s names.” He
smiled. “Nice to meet
you, Maggie. Looks
like we’re going to get to know each other real well. The police dispatcher says there’s an accident
on about every corner this afternoon.
You know how it is down south.
Weather gets bad, people forget how to drive.”
Maggie looked away. Matt
waved a hand.
“I didn’t mean you. I
meant all those other idiots out there.”
She bit back a smile and his eyes glinted with humor. “Anyway, it’ll be awhile before they can get
somebody out to help us. She said we can
sit tight where we are or move to the side of the road, if the cars can
move. I’m betting yours can’t, so we’ll
just sit tight.”
“I’ll go wait in my car, then,” Maggie said, reaching for the
passenger door latch. “No reason you
should have to—“
A horn blared. He
reached over her and shut the door, his fingers covering hers. Maggie jerked back defensively, both at the
touch and the proximity of his body.
“Hey,” he backed off, lifting his hands. “It’s all right. I didn’t mean to startle you. I just don’t want you to get hit. Why not stay here? It’s warmer.
We might as well keep each other company. Plus,” he lifted a brow, “I want to know why
you motioned me to go ahead of you and then plowed into me like a battering
ram.”
“What?” Her voice
squeaked a little, making it two syllables.
Don’t show fear. You’re in the middle of traffic. You can get out of here if you need to, no
matter how big and strong he is.
He turned slightly, crooking his knee upon the seat, and
stretched his arm along the back as he rested his other on the steering
wheel. “You motioned me to go ahead,” he
lifted his hand above him, demonstrating.
“And then, when I pulled forward, you hit the gas.”
“Oh.” The memory came
back, only this time the man in the fantasy had a face. Maggie blushed. She had not done that in awhile. She hoped he would think it was the warmth in
the truck.
“You look like you’re freezing.” He adjusted the heater up. “Here – well, that’s really what you
need. Wait a minute.” He reached behind the seat, unzipped the
duffel bag and started rummaging.
“This is good, really.
I’m very warm.” While she
couldn’t remember the last time she had been so warm that she wasn’t thinking
about wanting to be warm, this was closer than she’d been to it in awhile.
“No, you’re not. This
truck doesn’t come with a vibration option, so that must be you. And you haven’t answered the question.” He came back over the seat with a pair of
heavy gray hiker’s socks that would reach her thighs. “Put your feet up here. If we’re going to be here a bit, you need dry
feet. We can dry your socks out on the
dash vents.”
“But—“ Maggie smiled and shook her
head, realizing there was nothing to fear from this man, except being mothered
to death. “Are you always this pushy?”
Matt looked surprised.
“Pushy? I wasn’t being pushy.”
“No?” She grinned. “You order me into your truck, tell me we’re
staying here until the police get here, demand to know why I caused this
accident and insist I strip down to my bare toes in front of a total stranger.”
He lifted a brow. “We’re
not strangers. We know each other’s
names. And is there something strange
about your feet? Do you have webbed toes
or something? Or a
lead foot? I’d believe that one,
at least.”
Maggie dodged his playful grab at her ankle, squishing herself
up against the car door. “Quit it,” she
giggled, despite herself. She put her hand to her mouth, regaining some
control. “You’re weird. You should be mad, but you’re not. You don’t know me, but you act like you do.”
“And you laugh easy. You
must be used to dealing with people you don’t know.” He settled back, his arm back on the seat
while he held the socks in his lap. “I
didn’t mean to be pushy. I just don’t
want your feet to freeze. I don’t really
talk to people much, except to order them around. I guess it rubs off.” Matt flicked the socks against the car wheel,
looking at her expectantly.
Maggie hesitated, then shook her head
with another smile. She braced her toe
against the heel of one shoe and got it off with a wet sucking noise. She pushed off the other one in the same
manner and then pulled off the soaked socks.
The cold damp cuff of her jeans touched her skin and she shivered. She reached for the socks. He flapped them at her.
“Put your feet up here.
It’s tough to put socks on in a car.
It’s a two person proposition. One to bring the feet and the other to bring leverage.”
Maggie capitulated, putting her bare feet onto the truck
seat. He took her right foot and began
working the wool over her frozen toes.
It was strange to watch him dressing her. His hair fell over his forehead and his brows
drew down over his eyes. He had a side
part. The brown and gold strands mingled
with a bit of white and gray, here and there.
His deft hands were warm on her bare skin as he worked the sock up under
her jean leg. A shiver prickled up her
calf that had nothing to do with cold.
“European style, hmm?” his finger lightly touched the fine
blonde hairs on her left leg before he covered it with a sock.
Lack of razor, Maggie thought, but she
nodded, uncomfortable.
“I’ve always thought women spend too much time trying to undo
what Nature knows is best. There. Is that better?”
She nodded again and pulled her feet back down to the
floor. “What about you?” She nodded at his clean-shaven chin, rubbing
her own jaw. “Is that what Nature
intended?”
“That’s different. It
makes my face itch. It’s practical to
take it off.”
“Oh.” Maggie put her
tongue in her cheek and nodded with exaggerated understanding. “Or is it that you like women to fantasize
that you’re Robert Redford or something when they see you?”
He smiled, and it was a Dermot Mulroney smile, teeth and
dimples and melt-in-your-mouth sexy. “Is
that what you were doing? Fantasizing
you were some kind of heroine in a movie, and you
lifted your hand to your brow to fake a swoon?”
This time the blush was instantaneous. Maggie looked out the window and met the gaze
of an intensely annoyed motorist who obviously thought they should be figuring
out a way to move her dead car rather than sitting in a warm cab teasing one
another. “I—I was just reaching for
something in my visor. What do you do
for a living that makes you so pushy,…I mean, makes
you have to order people around?”
“I’m a master carpenter.
I take special jobs around the country, where I go in and take charge of
a bunch of other carpenters and subcontractors and build special projects. Right now I’m on my way to
“You didn’t,” she fiddled with the frayed hem of her
sweatshirt. “You’re just very
direct.” She shook her head, managed a
smile. “I’m being silly. That’s exactly what I was doing. Daydreaming. It wasn’t a swoon, though. A real heroine would never swoon. And I’m not going to tell you what it was
about either, so you can just forget that,” Maggie warned, seeing the gleam in
his eye.
He chuckled. “Fair enough. Piece of gum?” He
drew a pack from his shirt pocket and offered it to her. “Two sticks left. Cinnamon.”
“Sure.” He took one and
then handed her the rest of the pack.
She took the gum, slid off the outer wrapper and then tucked the gum in
its aluminum foil in her coat pocket.
She’d save it for later.
Sometimes gum helped her think she was really eating. At this rate, she was going to miss the meal
she had hoped for tonight. Someone
probably needed it more, anyway. I will not look at his French Fries. I am not a starving dog. Not yet.
She pushed the thoughts away, with the sudden vision it brought
of her dying car and the problems it brought.
“That’s a really amazing job, different.
What are you doing at the
“Oh.” He reached down in
the floorboards and retrieved her shoes, brushing her legs with his
shoulder. He arranged the shoes on the
dash and Maggie draped her socks next to them.
“They want an outdoor wedding chapel constructed on a platform
overlooking the canyon. It’ll bring in a
little more money for the park without ruining it.”
“That’ll be beautiful,” Maggie said wistfully, imagining
it. “Did you design it?”
“Sure.” He reached in
the back again and pulled a sheaf of paper out of a large portfolio. “Here’s the design, if you’re interested in
seeing it.”
Maggie tensed, but when he laid it in her lap and she saw the
detailed drawing, she relaxed. The
chapel was going to have a gazebo, a trellis awning, and he would build the
whole structure around a small pond with a rock waterfall fountain in the
center. It looked as if he planned to
incorporate a great deal of rock formations into the basic wood structure,
creating a natural blend against the canyon sketched in the background. “Matt, this is going to be gorgeous. I feel like I’m standing at the railing, just
looking at it.”
He shrugged, but he looked pleased. “I hope it will look as good as it does on
paper. It’s important that every job be
the best I can do, but when it’s going to be somewhere that people are going to
start a whole life together, it needs to be even better than that. Have you ever been to the
She shook her head. “My
brother moved up to
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Oh,” Maggie looked down and laughed at herself. “I take care of some kids during the
day. For Christmas this year, we made a
tree garland out of gum wrappers. The
kids collected thousands of them, so I guess every time I get a gum wrapper in
my hand, instinct takes over.”
“That’s pretty inventive.”
“That’s nothing. You can
do all sorts of things with old junk to entertain kids. Can I borrow that?” She pointed to a paper clip on his sheaf of
papers. He slid it off and handed it to
her. She leaned forward and bent it into
a triangle, overlapping the two ends on the dashboard. “You put pressure on the ends, then let it
go, and in a minute –“
Twang! The paper clip popped open, jumping into the air and bouncing off
the dash. She caught it and
handed it back to him. “The kids and I
see whose can hop the highest. You can
also find a piece of rock, most of them write like chalk, and then do hopscotch
designs on the ground,…” Maggie stopped. “Sorry, I tend to go on and on about the
kids. They’re a great group.”
“Not at all. I like kids, too.” He reached forward and brushed the scar on
her forehead with a knuckle, startling her with the touch and its
gentleness. He had such large hands, too
large to have that tender a touch.
“Where’d you get that?”
“Look!” Maggie surged
forward in her seat. “It’s snowing.”
He peered out the windshield.
“You’ve got better eyes than I do.
Hold on.” He switched off the
wipers, and the first crystalline flake landed on the glass, followed by a clan
of brothers and sisters, like white frost fairies alighting on a glass
pond. “Well, look at that.”
“It never snows here,” Maggie’s voice quavered. She put her fingers up to the glass. “I love snow.”
“Well, I expect I’ll see more of it than I want to in
She pulled her shoes off the dash. His thick socks made it harder to pull them
on and she grunted a bit at the exertion.
“It’s snow,” Maggie said impatiently. “It’s bad luck not to catch some. I’ll be right back.”
“Well, wait a minute.”
He snagged a coat from a rack behind him and shrugged into it. “Come out this side so you don’t get run
over.”
He stepped down out of the truck and held out his hands to help
her. Maggie allowed herself to enjoy the
brief touch of his large hands at her waist again. The flakes fell thick and heavy now, as if
encouraged by her enthusiasm. The angle
of their impacted cars gave them a shallow triangle of protection from the cars
passing on either side, though the occasional oncoming car spotlighted them
before it changed into the left lane.
Maggie spun in the white light of snow and cars, arms outstretched, face
to the gray sky.
Matt might have said something, laughed a question, but her
whole being focused on the snow, snow that happened so rarely in this part of
the country her mother had said it was the ultimate magic.
Spin, spin, spin, snowflakes in the air, make a wish if you
dare. If your heart be true, your wish
will come to you. A mother’s silly
rhyme, made up between loads of laundry and a grueling nightshift at the
textile mill, but that’s how straw got spun into gold. All you had to do was believe, believe,
believe… I believe, Momma, I
believe… A cloud parted, and Maggie knew
at least one bright star looked down at her.
Her heel hit ice and shot out from under her. Maggie went down clutching air. The left ankle crumpled and a lancing pain
shot through her leg as the rest of her body landed on it. She yelped as a horn blared and she stared
into the blinding headlights of a skidding minivan.
Her heart leaped into her throat, choking her, and she blacked
out. No, she didn’t black out. Matt’s formidable body was between her and
the van.
“Slow down next time,” he bellowed, punctuating the statement
with an inventive curse.
The van roared off to the right, the driver thrusting them an
obscene gesture.
“Maggie,” Matt knelt next to her, “Can you get up?”
Maggie looked behind her and grabbed her car door handle. She raised herself to her feet. She tried to put weight on the ankle and went
white. He caught her elbow. “It’s sprained,” she gasped. She hoped her tears looked like diamond snow
flakes. No wishes for you, Magna. You
used yours up, threw them away…
She shook her head violently.
She couldn’t do this, couldn’t lose hope…she knew what happened to those
who lost hope. She had seen it.
“Maggie,” Matt was speaking to her. He was going to think she was nuts, holding
an argument with herself. She tried to
focus on him. When all else fails, think
about something else, go home to
“Maggie,” he repeated.
He shook her slightly and she calmed down. “Do you have anything like an ace bandage in
all this junk?” He looked into the dirty window of her car.
“No.”
“Hold on, I think you do.
Hang onto that door handle.” He
opened the back door, which unfortunately did not lock, and which also did not
stick. He paused, looking. Maggie hopped a turn so she could face the
driver’s door and yanked it open with enough force to pull it off its hinges,
if frustration could translate into arm muscles. “I’ve got something better up here,” she
mumbled.
“What?” he dragged his attention from the interior.
“I said,” she shouted, “I’ve got
something up here.” The Norman
Rockefeller Christmas cookie tin held her homemade first aid kit. Her gaze fell on the picture on the tin,
where the whole family bowed their heads in prayer over their sumptuous
Thanksgiving dinner. It was a lie. It was all a lie.
Maggie gave it up, turned and sank into the driver’s seat,
letting her feet mire in the sleet and snow washing past the wheels. She held the tin in her lap and cried as if
she could bring back Noah’s flood. She didn’t care that he saw, that anybody
saw. They were all strangers. They could all go jump
off a cliff.
“Maggie,” he squatted down next to her, bracing his hand on the
door, sheltering her from the wind with his large shoulders. “Honey, don’t cry. Does it hurt that bad?”
A fresh convulsion of sobs took her and she nodded. She knew by his look that he knew she didn’t
mean her ankle. Matt laid his hand on
her knee, squeezed gently, then half rose, staying bent over before her. “Put your hands around my neck; leave the tin
there.”
There he went, being pushy again. She put her arms around his neck and he
scooped her up, tilting her toward him so the tin caught in the bent crevice of
her lap. She wrapped her arms tighter
around his shoulders and buried her face in his neck, suddenly not caring that
he was a stranger. Sometimes, the
momentary kindness of a stranger could get you through another day.
He seemed to hesitate, shifting her in his arms, then he muttered something under his breath. He slammed the car door with his booted foot
and strode back to the truck. Maggie
loved the smell of Aqua Velva. She
planned to buy a bottle of it to carry around with her from now on.
Matt opened the truck door, still holding her, and levered it
open with an elbow. He put her down on
the fabric seat. “Slide over so you’re
backed up against the passenger door and let me see your foot.”
Maggie obeyed, trying to stifle her runny nose with a shaking
hand as she stilted her way back with one arm.
Sometimes it happened this way.
She lost control of her nerves and they just had to fray until the
natural anesthetic of exhaustion kicked in.
She didn’t want this to happen in front of a stranger, in front of
anyone, but there was no help for it.
She looked down at her lap and watched the dark splotches grow on her
dark brown coat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall to pieces. It’s just--“ her
voice caught, and he glanced up at her.
“It’s been a hard day,” she quavered.
“Do you have a tissue?”
“Sure,” Matt said, working her shoe off like he was handling a
porcelain doll. “Look in the glove
compartment.”
She found an assortment of fast food napkins, a neat stack of
car papers and one screwdriver. “You
must be some carpenter, if you can do it all with one tool.”
“What? Oh.” Some of the seriousness left his eyes. “I keep most of my tools in the box in the
truck bed.” He pressed her ankle gently
and she winced. “That looks pretty bad,
Maggie. It’s already swelling. We might want to get you to a hospital.”
Maggie shook her head.
“It’s a sprain,” she insisted. “Look
in the tin. There’s
a couple ace bandages in there.” She
blew her nose, wiped her eyes and pulled herself together. “I’ve never let a man get so intimate with my
feet.”
He slanted a glance at her. “I have that
effect on women. They see me and they
can’t tear off their Reeboks fast enough.”
Maggie laughed through her tears. She hoped that whoever called this man hers
knew how lucky she was.
Matt rummaged through her first aid kit. Most of it had come from the hospital
dumpsters. The rolls of bandage tape
discarded with a few inches of tape left had made one fat roll. Handfuls of clean gauze pads and Q-tips got
thrown away unused all the time. Her
real find had been a full bottle of peroxide, unnoticed in the far corner of
its cardboard case. The box had been
used as a refuse container and then trashed.
He unrolled one of the ace bandages, examining it critically.
“It’s clean,” she hiccuped. For the life of her, she couldn’t stop
crying. “It’s just stained.”
Matt sighed, laid the tin aside. He picked up the burger, unwrapped
it, spread it on her lap and shook the fries out next to it. “I’ll wrap your ankle. You eat that.
You weigh less than a hundred pound sack of grain.”
Her eyes snapped up to his face. He returned her look in full measure. He looked braced for anger, for denials, for
the necessity of force-feeding her.
Based on what she knew thus far of his nature, she wouldn’t put the last
past him. Maggie swallowed, and
reclaimed her dignity with simple honesty.
“Thank you,” she said.
She picked up the sandwich, pressing her fingertips into the
soft, fresh bun, and sank her teeth into it.
The satisfaction of a mouthful of warm food took her away from
everything for a moment and her eyes closed.
She chewed slowly, savoring every bit of it. Once, she had chewed food like a cow working
its cud because diet books said you felt full faster if you chewed your food
like that. Now that same advice helped
her conserve what little food she could find.
If she ate slowly enough, she could stretch a meal over a whole day,
eating a little here and there.
“So, you’re a Winnie the Pooh fan?” he asked lightly.
She opened her eyes and he nodded at the box of band-aids in
the tin.
Maggie self-consciously used her napkin to wipe a blob of ketchup
escaping down her chin. “Like I said, I
take care of kids during the day. They
like the band-aids with pictures.” She
almost managed a smile. “That’s my
second box. The first time I used them,
all the kids kept falling down and scraping themselves so they could have
one.” The band-aids were the only
store-bought item in the kit. They
brought laughter and light to the kids’ eyes, and that also could carry her
through a whole day.
Matt twisted her leg a bit to accommodate the bandage he
wrapped tightly around her ankle and Maggie drew in a breath. He glanced at her. “Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“It’s okay.” His eyes
got that still, serious look to them again, wandering over her tear-streaked
face, and she didn’t want it to get serious again. Her insides were still quaking. “Tell me where you live when you’re not
building castles at Disney or wedding chapels at the
He picked up on her need and bowed to it. “I live in a one-blink town called Crestonboro. It’s in
the
“Is that your girlfriend?”
Matt glanced sharply at her, then he
inserted the metal clamps in the wrapped bandage. “Nope. I don’t have a girlfriend. Nosy female.”
“I—“ Maggie opened her mouth, then
shut it with a smile. “All right, so I’m
nosy. All women like to know that kind
of thing. Just like men always think
they’re right about everything.”
“That’s because we are,” he informed her, a twinkle in his
golden flecked eyes that grew into a full faced grin when Maggie wiggled her
toes experimentally. “No, I travel too much to make a good husband, or
boyfriend, or whatever. Here, though --
I’ve got a picture of my house.”
He turned, stretched out a leg and lifted a hip to remove his
wallet. Even through misty eyes, Maggie
appreciated the fact that the man wore the heck out of a pair of jeans. He flipped open the billfold and handed it to
her.
“Do all master carpenters carry pictures of their houses
instead of their families?” she asked, carefully wiping a greasy hand on her napkin
before taking the billfold from him.
“I have pictures of my family in there, too,” he informed
her.
The picture had been taken from a crest overlooking the
house. She looked at a brown wooden
castle burrowed in a green nest of trees.
The house was a structural wonder of gazebos, cupolas, balconies,
winding staircases and screened porches framed with elaborate wood
scrollwork. The fence around it looked
like wrought iron, but as Maggie peered closer, she realized it wasn’t. “The fence is wood,” she exclaimed.
Matt leaned forward, and the lock of hair on his brow brushed
her forehead. “Yep.
Mom says I’m overdoing it, but the house is kind of my testing ground
for paid projects. Next time I’m home
I’m going to replace the drain spouts with wood gargoyles. One of the guys who lives
near me carves with a chainsaw. He’s
going to show me how to do it. Did you
know the word gargoyle originally came from the word garglers,
because they were put at the end of spouts and the water from the gutters came
out of their mouths?"
“Wow, no, I didn’t.”
Maggie looked up into his eyes, hazel green and all of two inches from
her face. His gaze dropped from hers to
her mouth and the perusal made her feel kissed, brief as it was. She sat back abruptly, flushing. He looked at her, motionless, then slowly he leaned back.
Maggie looked down at the opposing picture. “So this is your family?”
“The whole clan. Mom, Dad, my two brothers
and my sister.”
“Do they live near you?”
“No. They’re scattered
out. We all try to get together in
“You’re an uncle,” Maggie said, pleased for him. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks. Hey, you barely
touched that,” he protested, as she began to wrap up the sandwich and the
remaining fries.
“I ate about a third of it,” she corrected. “I’ll save the rest for later, if you don’t
mind me having it.”
He helped her turn her back to the seat. He propped her foot on a small lumbar pillow
he dug out of the back. It still had its
tag, probably an unused Christmas gift.
The heat from the dash warmed her toes.
He laid his arm along the back of the seat and looked down at her. Meg’s shoulder was very close to his rib
cage, much closer than strangers should sit.
But she guessed they really weren’t strangers any more.
“Whoever you’re saving it for, I’ll buy them a whole new
sandwich,” he said bluntly.
“Do you get lonely, living up in the mountains by yourself?”
Matt suppressed a sigh.
Maggie could tell because his chest touched her briefly as the swallowed
breath expanded his rib cage. “I have a
couple dogs that wander in and out when I’m home. They belong to the cow farmers. No, I don’t usually get lonely.” He shifted and crooked his left leg up on the
seat, stretched the other leg out further.
It touched her hip and thigh. She
got a twitchy feeling, like she didn’t want to move the leg, but she was so
worried he’d move if she moved that her muscles twitched in reaction. She bade them sternly to be still and tried
to keep her eyes open. The tears, food
and heat were taking their toll, but one did not fall asleep in someone else’s
truck. It simply wasn’t proper. She smiled to herself.
“Why’d you move up there to begin with?”
His response came slow.
She suspected the real answer was more than what he gave her. “I like the quiet. It gets too noisy down here. You get sucked into the momentum, forget
what’s real.”
She rolled her head to the right so she could peer up at him
without lifting her head. It tangled her
hair into his loosely dangling fingers over her opposite shoulder. “So what’s
real?”
Matt looked at her a long moment as she blinked sleepily at
him. He curled his fingers in slightly,
and Maggie felt them brush her skull. He
began to move them, stroking her hair down.
Her eyelids dropped further.
“Easy things are real.
Tomatoes coming up in the garden; the way cicadas sing when it’s dog-nap
hot; sitting on the porch for an hour with nothing to do…”
Her eyes fell closed. At
one level, she stayed aware of his presence as a distant warm strength,
supporting her, giving her an unusual sense of safety, but everything else
disappeared into the soft, feather-grey muzziness of
sleep.
Maggie felt him move his arm from beneath her. “I’m going to go check something,” Matt
whispered in her ear, just the voice of a pleasant dream. “I’ll be back. Maggie, let go of me, hon,
I’ll be back.”
She lifted her hand from the collar of his shirt and shifted
off him. Cold air touched her briefly,
making her frown, then it got warm again.
It felt so good to relax, to be warm and not-so-hungry, and to
sleep. Darkness eased into her vision,
sleep taking her like the gradual dimness of twilight.
The glass of the passenger door shattered and a two-by-four
swung toward her face. Maggie threw her
arms up and screamed, scrambling away, scrabbling for a weapon to protect herself. Pain shot
through her leg, but it was her head, her head that hurt. She latched onto something and swung it.
“Maggie, wake up! Wake
up!” It was Matt, Matt’s voice. Matt, the man in the truck. Maggie came fully awake to find her wrist
caught in his grasp, his flashlight locked in her hand. She opened her fingers reflexively and it
dropped back to the floorboard. Maggie
gasped, trying to get her breath and slow her rapidly pounding heart. A sharp rap hit the window behind her. Maggie yelped,
tearing her hand loose of Matt’s to jerk around defensively.
“Maggie, it’s okay,” Matt soothed,
stroking her hair back with one hand and making a placating gesture toward the
window with the other. “It’s the police,
okay? They knocked on the window and it
startled you. You’re all right.”
Maggie saw a very tense-looking officer standing outside her
window. He circled around the back of
the truck to Matt’s side. She looked
back at Matt and released him to push hands in her hair. She knocked her cap off and scrambled to
retrieve it.
Matt motored down the window.
The officer approached warily.
“Are you all right, ma’am?” he called across Matt.
Maggie came up with the toboggan and jammed it on her
head. “Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” he responded, a slight smile crossing his face. He looked to be in his fifties, and like he
had suffered through a really bad day.
Maggie’s heart went out to him.
“I’m okay,” she added.
“I just fell asleep. You startled
me.”
“Fair enough. Let me see if I can get you two out of the
intersection. There’s a wrecker that
will come get your
“Yes,” Matt nodded. The
cold air woke Maggie up further and she realized that one of his hands rubbed
her lower back, his strong fingers kneading her spine and the knotted muscles.
“Do you two know each other?”
The officer asked.
“We just met,” Maggie said.
“But we’re getting along pretty well.”
That caused both Matt and the officer to smile. He cleared his throat. “I guess that’s good, as long as y’all’ve had to wait.
I’m Officer Briggs. I need to see
your licenses and registrations first, then we’ll talk
about what happened for the report.”
“Mine is in my car,” Maggie said, prepared to hobble out of the
truck. “I’ll go---“
“I’ve got it,” Matt nodded at the dashboard. “I saw it in the seat when I went to check
out the damage to my bed. Figured you weren’t in much shape to go get it.”
“The lady injure herself?”
“It’s just a sprain, officer,” Maggie said abruptly. She thrust the billfold at him. Officer Briggs glanced at her tight face,
took Matt’s license and registration and nodded. “I’ll be right back.”
Matt put the window up and Maggie rounded on him. “That wasn’t in my seat. You were in my car, snooping around.”
“The plastic flowers in the coffee can are a nice touch,
Maggie. They make your car seem like
home. How long has it been?”
“That’s none of your business,” she snapped. His lips compressed into a hard line and she
noted his eyes got greener when his will was thwarted. The truck cab filled with a brooding
silence. Maggie gathered up the sandwich
and fries and put them in her jacket.
She would have left them, but people didn’t eat someone else’s
half-eaten food, and she wasn’t going to leave it for Matt to throw away. Pride wasn’t as important as hunger.
She replaced her shoe on her foot, then
reached for the door handle. “Thank you,
Matt,” she said quietly. “I appreciate
all your help.”
“I want to help you more, Maggie. Let me.”
Warmth filled her at the simple, direct way he said it, like he
meant it. “You did. Good luck in
She opened the door and slid out of the truck. The police car was parked to the right of the
truck, protecting her from oncoming cars now, but she still had to hold onto
the truck to support her ankle. The
sleet and snow on the ground immediately soaked her shoes, the thick socks and
the bandage. The wind sucked her breath
out of her body. Maggie gritted her
teeth, hobbling along. The wind wouldn’t
be in her car, and the wrecker would drop her downtown. On a night like tonight, she could get a bed
at the shelter.
The truck vibrated as the driver’s door slammed,
none-too-gently. She heard two splashing
footsteps before the world tilted and she was lifted into Matt Bryson’s
arms. She grabbed at his shoulders, but
he had her securely.
“Women,” he muttered.
“Matt, I told you—“
“I’m just taking you to your car. I’m not going to sit on my butt and watch you
bust yours. Now shut up and say thank
you.”
She settled for tightening her jaw and her grip. He got her car door open and set her down in
the driver’s seat. He turned on his heel
and went back to his truck without a word.
When Matt didn’t have anything to say, he didn’t waste the air. He worked alone a lot, and in the mountains
he was alone a lot. He knew that
thinking something through was a good sight smarter than running his mouth to
cover awkward silences or talking himself into decisions he’d regret. Noise distorted judgment. He had taught himself to enjoy silence, to
leave the TV and radio off so that he could hear what his heart had to say,
clear. He’d gotten so good at it, now he
could hear what it had to say even when he was out of the mountains and among
the noisemakers.
His mom had always said he was a magnet for damsels in
distress. Over the years, he had gotten
embroiled with women who were trying to ditch abusive husbands, those who were
trying to raise kids alone, those broken down on the side of the road without
money to pay for the repairs. All of
them trying to make it in a world that said women were supposed to do it all
without the help and care of a man, or anyone, for that matter. That was a load of crap, as far as he was
concerned. Caring about each other and
helping each other out were the only good things that lasted. So he fixed flat tires, bought bus tickets
for new lives, and babysat for mothers trying to make it on their own. In return, he got the occasional homecooked meal and a hug and a kiss from a tiny, sticky
face, and that was a fine trade.
But this damsel in distress was different. She had wrapped her small cold hands around
his heart the moment he laid eyes on her.
Matt knew about being careful.
He knew first hand that the lady with the broken down car could have a
boyfriend hiding in the car with a gun to take your wallet. Sometimes women turned the bus ticket down to
go back to the same abuse and spat in your face for calling it what it was. It was a tough world, and it could suck
everything out of you. And Maggie seemed
like she was just about sucked dry.
He watched her through his driver’s side mirror. She took her knit cap off and ran fingers
through her hair. It was a nice color,
golden brown like a deer’s hide. The cop
came back to her window. She offered him
her passenger seat with gestures, but he shook his head. She smiled up at him. Nobody could resist that smile, or those
eyes. Their spring day blue had startled
Matt when he first caught her in his arms.
An angel’s eyes looked like that, a combination of timeless wisdom and
eternal innocence that could give a person faith at first glance.
As he watched, her smile disappeared and those eyes got worried
looking. Officer Briggs gestured and she
nodded. She began speaking, fast. The officer held up a placating hand, but he
shook his head, and he kept shaking it as she became more agitated.
Matt was getting pretty uptight himself. He wanted to get out and see what was going
on, but cops didn’t much care for someone butting their nose in when things
were getting a little hot. So he sat on
his hands, watching and hating it.
Maggie's hands fluttered back down to her lap like dying
butterflies and she nodded, staring straight ahead at the windshield. Officer Briggs gestured with his
clipboard. She looked at it, then at
him, and then she spoke one short sentence, her face tired and sad. Officer Briggs nodded, spoke for a few
minutes. Maggie nodded again and signed
the clipboard where he pointed.
The police officer started to turn toward Matt, hesitated and
turned back. Maggie shook her head at
whatever he said and half-smiled. It
looked like a fish hook was pulling up one side of her mouth. She rolled up her window and became a shadow
behind dusty glass streaked with gray tears from the sky.
Matt hit the automatic window button and the airy noise of wet
weather and passing traffic came in, along with a foggy cloud of Officer
Brigg’s breath. “Problem,
officer?”
“’Fraid so, Mr.
Bryson. The young lady claims the accident’s all her
fault, said she basically t-boned you when you pulled into the lane ahead of
her.”
Matt nodded. “So why is that a problem?”
“Her license and registration are out of date, and her
insurance card expired about eight months ago. You’re going to have to turn it in to your own
company.”
“What about her?” Matt
looked back at Maggie’s car. She was
moving around in there, but he couldn’t tell what she was doing. “She’s not being charged with anything, is
she?”
Officer Briggs hesitated, and the lines on his fifty plus face
softened. “Well, Mr. Bryson, I could
ticket her for all those things, and for the fact that heap of junk she’s
driving is out of inspection. But I’d
say she has enough problems, wouldn’t you?”
Matt met the officer’s shrewd gray eyes, and they understood
each other. “She won’t let me help her.”
“Sometimes they won’t.”
The officer grunted. “Women.”
Matt grinned. “Officer
Briggs, did I offer you a cup of coffee?
I’ve got some here on my dash.”
The officer looked at the coffee maker, and an eyebrow
lifted. “That’s real handy.”
Matt poured him a cup in a paper container and handed it over
to him. “My sister gave it to me for
Christmas one year. If she doesn’t ever
give me anything else, I’m happy.
They’re great when you travel a lot.
She got it at Wal-Mart,” he added helpfully.
“I’ll have to mention it to my son. He keeps getting me things like meditation
tapes.” The police officer took a sip of
the coffee.
Matt looked back at the Toyota.
“She told me she had insurance.”
“She probably thought she did.”
Briggs grunted. “Listen, Bryson, I don’t want you thinking she was
trying to pull anything on you. I’m not
sure how she got a driver’s license in the first place. She can barely read.”
Ten minutes later, Matt sat in his truck, thinking again. Briggs had gone over the accident report and
he had signed it. The officer told him
he was free to go, that Maggie’s car would be impounded but the wrecker service
would take her wherever she needed to be dropped.
Matt sighed and turned the engine over. He put the truck in gear, checked his
mirrors, and providence gave him a moment of clearance. The miracle of a five second lull in rush hour
traffic cinched it. He punched the gas
and snaked the truck behind her car, then killed the main lights and let the
emergency blinkers take over.
Matt shrugged back into his coat as he got out. He had seen the junk in the passenger side of
Maggie’s car and knew he wouldn’t get one leg in. He went to the driver’s side. Maggie looked at him through the glass, and
it seemed like her face faded into the drops, a memory rather than a real
person. He yanked open the door with one
pull.
Maggie looked up at him.
“Hi,” she said.
Matt squatted down in the water, which put him at eye level
with her. He framed her face with his
hands and buried his fingers in her hair.
He found the nape of her soft neck and brought her face to his. Maggie’s hands lifted to his wrists, but she
did not stop him. He pressed his lips to
hers and he knew he was right.
Maggie was stunned into numbness at first, but under his hands
and lips, numbness did not last long.
She had thought of a thousand reasons for him coming to her car, and
this was definitely not one of them.
He deepened the kiss and somehow got one arm snugged around her waist.
He pulled her to his chest as he went to one knee in the water. His other hand stayed under her hair,
gentling her with soft caresses to her neck.
She reached up and pulled off her knit cap so his caress became a full
fisted hold. If this was a dream, she
wanted the full effect.