to be impossible to keep it a secret with two more people in the house.
The instant that the thought hit her mind, Maggie was overcome with shame for her selfishness. She should be glad for Nick. She knew that he loved his cousins and had missed them dreadfully, and there was nothing better than spending the holidays with your loved ones and nothing more heart-wrenching than spending them alone. Still, her smile was bittersweet as she agreed that it was a lovely thing, sure to be so much fun . . .
Joanne prattled on about sleigh rides and stringing cranberries and popcorn for a tree, not to mention helping make a whole, traditional Thanksgiving dinner. She never noticed anything wrong, or at least pretended that she did not. But Ronald’s sharp eyes bounced from Maggie to Nick and back again. He raised a questioning brow at Kathleen, who nodded almost imperceptibly.
Ah, so that is the way of it, he thought. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, a small smile creasing his mouth. Nick deserved some happiness at long last, and he just hoped that they were not putting a crimp in his plans with an untimely visit.
Kathleen spent some time grumbling about her terrible mother and her efforts at matchmaking, and about stupid doctors who were much too handsome for their own good and had a dubious sense of humor. And, she said, she was certainly happy about staying here tonight, for more than one reason.
But Nick was distinctly unhappy later on that evening when Maggie pulled him into the kitchen.
She jumped away when he tried to put his arms around her, glancing nervously at the door as if expecting it to come flying open at any time . . . and it might, Nick thought grimly. His cousin Joanne, much as he dearly loved her, had been flitting from one end of the house to the other all day, not giving him a minute alone with Maggie.
“No,” she hissed at him now. “I am not going to be sneaking around with you while your family is here. It is not right, and I will not do it.”
“Not the whole time that they are here?” he asked slowly. “Maggie, that could be months. They are talking about staying until the end of January.”
She turned her back on him resolutely. “I know.” She wanted to cry, or scream, but she did neither, just stood there while misery streamed through every particle of her being. Touch me, she begged silently. Swear that you cannot live without me, and I will change my mind. Tell me that you love me. Tell me, and I will be your lover flagrantly, no matter who disapproves.
Nick said none of those things, however, just stood behind her silently.
“I see,” he said, and she could read nothing from the tone of his voice. It held no pain, no pleasure, no emotion at all, just an empty politeness that echoed frigidly through Maggie’s soul. “If this is what you have decided, I will of course abide by your wishes.”
He turned and left, leaving Maggie alone in the kitchen. His remoteness frightened her as much as her sudden pain did, and she swayed dizzily and caught at the edge of the wooden counter.
She mustn’t fall. There was no one here to catch her if she fell, she thought bleakly. No one.
No one at all.
NINE
Maggie scrubbed half-heartedly at the burnt mess in the bottom of the heavy, cast iron skillet, her mind far away. This week had been pure misery for her, what with Nick’s coldness and her trying to pretend that everything was all right. Kathleen, for once, had not noticed Maggie’s despondent mood. She was too caught up in her excitement over Joanne and Ronald’s visit. She had not seen them in person for more than five years, though they corresponded regularly by post, and she was ecstatic, as was the rest of her family. Kathleen’s mother and father and brothers and sisters had been trooping in and out of the house so much that she had taken to making up two spare bedrooms each night just in case some of them wanted to stay.
And stay they did, all of them getting in at least one overnight visit, raucous and laughing and happy at seeing Joanne and Ronald again. Jenny had stayed for a rollicking three days, along with her wild three-year-old son, Clem. Jenny laughingly described him as ‘a little spoiled’,