“Hockey? I thought you had them baking cupcakes.”
She resisted elbowing him because touching him in any way would just remind her of touching him in all the ways she had in the past.
It had turned into that kind of night.
They’d made such a damn mess of their marriage. It was all she’d thought about walking home from Thistle Lane. Maggie realized that something about the box of books they’d dragged out of Phoebe’s upstairs closet had gotten to her. It was as if the books captured a moment in time of a woman’s life, provided a window into her hopes and dreams. Sewing and Hollywood and adventures.
What would the odds and ends of her own day-to-day life say about her, now, at this moment?
Maggie pushed back the thought. “The hockey is probably Dylan’s influence,” she said.
It was a gibe and Brandon obviously knew it, but he didn’t jump up and storm off. He just stretched out his thick legs and shrugged. “Maybe it is.”
Maggie regretted her crack. Whatever his faults—whatever her own faults—he’d always been there for the boys. Just not always for her. But she didn’t need him, right? Wasn’t that what she’d been telling herself for months? Telling him?
“I have ice skates in the budget for winter,” she said. “The town still does the small outdoor rink on the common.” It was just a homemade rink done mostly with hoses and shovels, a Knights Bridge tradition going back at least to when her mother was a child. “The boys and I will be able to walk over there so they can skate to their hearts’ content. I think I even have my old skates.”
“I remember when you and I would go ice-skating together,” Brandon said.
Maggie smiled despite a rush of emotion. “You were a maniac. All that energy. What am I going to do if Tyler and Aidan have as much energy as teenagers as you did?”
“Keep doing what you’re doing.”
“And watch them like a hawk,” she muttered.
Brandon grinned. “Like I said, keep doing what you’re doing.” He looked out at the street, just one window lit in the saltbox house, one of the oldest houses in the village, opposite hers. “You like living in town. The boys do, too. They like being able to walk to everything.”
“You think I’m too soft,” Maggie said, crossing her arms on her chest as she sat up straight. “I’m not raising them to be tough Sloan men. I have them doing story hour at the library instead of roping a steer.”
“Roping a steer? I guess they could rope goats at your mother’s—”
“Goats are soft, too, right? She has a well-equipped toolshed, at least. It’s got hammers, nails, drills, saws. No guns and fire hoses, though.”
Brandon sighed. “What did I say, Maggie?”
“Nothing. I can tell what you’re thinking.” She stood up, glaring down at him in the dark, on a roll now, her emotions boiling over. “You and your family have always thought I was too soft, because my father was such a dreamer and then he died in a stupid accident and it’s just been my sisters and my mother and me for so long.”
“Your father was a good man, Maggie, but he still left you all with nothing.”
“We have the land. We’ve all worked hard to help Mom hang on to it. Tyler and Aidan love it out there.”
“I know they do.” He stood, the light from the house casting dark shadows on his face. “You’re coping with a lot on your own, Maggie. It doesn’t have to be that way. I can help.”
“Help how?”
“Any way you need.”
She hadn’t expected him to be so calm, not reacting to any of her barbs, deliberate or otherwise. She blinked back tears. “I never should have had wine with my sisters. I’m sorry if I…” If I what? She didn’t even know. “Never mind. Why are you back here, Brandon?”
“My father needed the help.”
“You’re giving up on your dream of wandering the world?”
His eyes held hers. “I haven’t given up on anything.”
“What about Boston? You never wanted to live in a small town.”
“If I hadn’t gotten laid off, I’d have kept working in Boston.” He spoke simply, without any obvious emotion. “I do what I have to do. I always have.”
“While wishing you were somewhere else.”
“Not always,” he said softly.
“Why are you living in a tent? I suppose it helps to have a temporary place, so you can pretend you’re not really back in Knights Bridge.”
“So I can save money.”
“For a trip,” she said. “Not for ice skates.”
He said nothing.
Maggie regretted her sharp words. “I’m sorry. I know you’d do anything for the boys. It’s me…” She stopped herself, cleared her throat. “You won’t be living in a tent once the snow flies. It’s fine for now but…” She left it at that. He knew what she was saying. What she was asking. Would he be staying in Knights Bridge?
“Don’t worry about me, Maggie.”