The snow that was still falling – coating the front garden like icing on a very large cake, where it remained, pure and untouched. Not so long ago Ellen would have been out there making snowballs and ambushing passing postmen. Now, she was out at the pub, saying a fond farewell to her super-posh boyfriend Jacob and drinking cider.
Maggie looked out of the window. Looked at her watch. Almost 6pm. He was due any minute, and she had no idea what she was going to do with him. The main living room was now kitted out for him to use, and a nurse was going to come every morning to help him with his ‘personal care’. Even the words made her blush, so she hadn’t pondered that one too closely. There was a TV, she had DVDs, and there was a downstairs loo – which he’d definitely need if he drank all that beer Leah had bought. The second living room – usually draped with fabric samples, patterns and bridal magazine cuttings – had been tidied and cleared so that Maggie had her own space to retreat to.
Upstairs – due to the annoying but convenient broken leg – would be completely out of bounds for Marco. Probably a good thing – the only man Maggie had ever lived with had been her own father, and Ellen had never lived with one at all. He’d probably faint at the sight of their hoards of undies, make-up, and never-put-away tampon boxes. There’d never been any need to man-proof that part of the house, and Maggie was glad there still wasn’t. She remained convinced that one puff of testosterone would result in the whole bathroom exploding.
A few minutes after six, a car drove up outside. It was one of those boxy van-type things, and Maggie knew it had been hired for her to use, to ferry Marco around if he needed it. Her own car – a little Fiat 500 – probably wasn’t big enough for him even without the broken leg.
She watched as a man in uniform walked to the back, and pulled out a folded wheelchair. He set it up, then walked round to the side of the van and slid the doors open. Marco immediately tried to stand up, using the frame of the car for support, and she looked on as the nurse told him off, insisting instead that he waited until he could help ease him into the chair.
Marco’s face as he did it was a picture of frustration and clenched anger. Maggie bit back a smile – looked like Rob was definitely right about one thing. He was indeed going to be a difficult patient.
She jumped off the window seat and ran round to the front door, opening it wide. Luckily there were no steps, it opened right out onto the path, and she stood there with chattering teeth as her new ward was wheeled towards her, the chair making parallel tracks in the snow as it moved.
He looked a lot better than the last time she saw him, which probably wouldn’t have been difficult. The tanned skin had regained its healthy glow; his poor face was starting to heal, and he was wearing loose-fitting sweat pants rather than a puke green hospital gown. His left leg was in plaster and propped upright, and he had a laptop case resting on his knees.
His eyes met hers as he was pushed up the pathway, and he gave her a little lopsided grin that added to the goosebumps. She had the sneaky feeling this man could be coated head to toe in plaster and still make her tummy feel odd.
The nurse came to a stop outside the door, his face creased with a massive frown. It had clearly been a fun ride from the hospital for both of them.
“So,” said Marco, looking up at her, “we meet again. Any chance of a beer? My grandma back here refused to stop on the way.”
Jeez, thought Marco, as he listened to that damn nurse go through his ‘patient aftercare checklist’ for the third time. The man needed to take a chill pill. He’d gone on and on and on. Explaining the meds, explaining the chair, explaining the warning signs. When to up the dosage. When to call the doctor. When to bring him to the emergency room. He talked about him as though he wasn’t there, wasn’t sitting right in front of him, wasn’t ready to stagger straight out of this nifty gadget of a recliner and whack him over the head with his crutches.
He’d had broken bones before. It was no big deal – it hurt like hell, but he’d heal. This guy, though – he was talking to Maggie as though she was about to take on the care of whole platoon of war veterans. The poor woman was looking more flustered by the second as she tried to take it all in.
He hadn’t even wanted to come here. He understood that Leah and Rob needed to leave, but he saw no reason why he couldn’t have simply gone back to his own flat. He’d have been far more comfortable with some hired help. Then, if the mood took him, he could swear, curse, bully, and generally misbehave with no consequences at all other than a mild dose of self-loathing afterwards.
He couldn’t behave like that with Maggie – it just wasn’t in him. Considering the fact that he’d only met her twice – and that on one of those occasions he was distracted by the business of going unconscious – he cared just a little bit too much about what she thought.
Even when he was lying in the hospital bed doped up on morphine, he’d been concerned about her. Worried about her injury. Mildly embarrassed that she was seeing him flat out and vulnerable. It wasn’t exactly how he’d planned to see her again.
That first time, in the wedding dress store, he’d felt how nervous she was around him. Maybe she was like that with everyone – or maybe it was just him. He didn’t know, but the effect was the same: it brought out his inner he-man. Made him feel strangely protective towards her; made him want to wrap his arms around her and keep her from the rest of the world.
It had been a strange mix of physical attraction and her attitude – a mix that made him want to both hide her away and, if he was honest, torment her a little bit himself.
The women he usually socialised with didn’t have that effect on him. They were usually successful, tough, professional women who used him with as much carefree attention as he used them. Friends with benefits – shallow but satisfying.
In fact the only other woman who had ever made him feel that protective before was Leah – back in those awful, messy days in Chicago, when Rob was behaving like a grade A ass towards her. It felt like a million years ago now, but it had been hard – seeing his brother’s pain plunge them all into a black hole of emotional hell.
He’d felt protective towards Leah – but in the way he always imagined a big brother would feel towards a little sis. This was different. His first thought when he met Maggie had been that she was a looker, without even knowing it. His second had been that she came across a little bit shy, a little bit scared. His third had been less wholesome – he’d started to wonder, as they chatted over Luca’s bouncing head, how much fun it would be to see what would happen if he pushed, if he provoked; if he managed to coax out some of that fire redheads were supposed to have.
So he’d flirted, made eye contact, lingered there a few moments more than he should have – just to see what might happen. To see if she felt any of that attraction at all, or if it was all on his side. He wasn’t arrogant, but he didn’t struggle with women – and this one intrigued him right up until the point where Luca’s toilet habits had interrupted. He needed to have a word with his nephew about mentioning doo-doo in front of hot women. It just wasn’t cool.
He’d thought about making up some excuse to see her again. He was in Oxford for the next few weeks anyway, and it’d be nice to have some company. Especially company that was tall and curvy and had crazy red hair you could imagine spread out all over a pillow.
But before he even had time to consider doing that, fate had stepped in – and he found himself reduced to a pile of rubble in front of the woman he’d been hoping to impress. Once a chick’s seen you in a hospital gown, he suspected, there’s no going back – you can never be alpha male again…and now, thanks to Leah and Rob’s insistence, here he was. Sitting