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  Chapter Two

  Maggie flipped the deadbolt on her apartment door, immediately went to the laundry room, and held her breath as she let the soiled doctor’s coat drop from the bag into the washing machine. She plucked her badge from the collar before tossing a soap pod in along with it and then shut the lid and took a breath. The coat reminded her of the subtle stench that had accompanied her on her first day. Even though she wasn’t sure others noticed it, she hadn’t had time to worry about it if they had, and she’d become immune to the odor quickly.

  When she reached her apartment, after stripping off her clothes, she wanted to shower and crawl into bed. The dozen or so boxes staring at her from the middle of the living room made that luxury impossible. She’d made a deal with herself to unpack at least one box a night before she showered and slept. If she had to endure chaos daily at work, she needed her house in order. Now that Stacy was becoming part of her household, she needed to be even more organized. Who knew what kind of roommate Stacy would be—sloppy, clean, noisy, quiet. If first impressions were any indication, Stacy would be ideal, but she’d been wrong before, and she wasn’t taking any chances with her belongings.

  She dropped her bag onto the chair and headed into the bedroom. Considering how miserably her day had started, she would shower first. After her shift, she’d met Stacy briefly and given her the directions and apartment number. Thankfully, Stacy had opted to stay later and familiarize herself with her cases. Maggie knew that would put Stacy ahead of her with the attending physician, but her first day had been exhausting, and she couldn’t stand the smell of puke one minute longer. She just didn’t care.

  As the hot water rained over her head and across her sore limbs, she warmed. It seemed like she’d spent more time on her feet today than she had in her four years of medical school. She needed a new pair of sneakers but would take care of that on her next day off, whenever that was. As she thought about her day, vivid blue eyes popped into her head—the woman who’d bought her lunch. She didn’t know if she was a doctor, nurse, or someone else who worked at the hospital, but Maggie would find her and repay her somehow. She appeared sweet, snarky, and beautiful, the perfect combination. Stop. She shook her head and smiled. She’d didn’t have room for romance in her life right now. And that was only one of the reasons she’d made it so easy for her girlfriend, Brenda, to stay behind in Boston. The others concerned the foundation on which their relationship was based, which wasn’t much.

  After showering, she towel-dried her hair before she pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a Boston University T-shirt and walked to the kitchen to forage for food. She’d been to the grocery store a few times in the past several weeks, so she had milk, juice, cheese, and bread. A cheese sandwich it would be for tonight’s dinner.

  The knock on the door wasn’t loud. In fact, if she hadn’t been in the kitchen, she probably wouldn’t have heard it. She figured it was Stacy but looked through the peephole just to make sure. She wasn’t in the mood for anyone selling anything. Even a Girl Scout giving away cookies would get the worst of her tonight.

  “Hey,” Stacy said as she bent her arm at the elbow and waved. Getting to know this one on a personal level was either going to be fun or miserable, with no in-between.

  Maggie moved to the side and swept her arm in the air like she was displaying a prize. “Welcome home.”

  “Again, I’m so thankful for this.” Stacy had already thanked her about a hundred times since she’d offered her the room at lunch.

  “You can stop that now. You’re in.” She grinned. “You’ll have to take the couch until we can get your bed and the rest of your stuff moved in.” She led Stacy to the empty bedroom to the left of the living room. “This one’s yours.” Maggie’s flanked the other side of the living room.

  Stacy smiled widely. “I don’t have a ton of stuff—just a bed, nightstand, and dresser. I’ll search the internet tonight and find someone to move it on my next day off.”

  “Maybe we can tap some of the guys on our service.”

  “That’s an idea. Russell looks pretty strong.” Stacy’s voice perked up as she spoke, which made Maggie wonder if Stacy was interested in him.

  “Jonathan looks pretty sturdy too.”

  “Yeah, but he’s kind of an ass. I doubt he’ll help.” Stacy’s voice was firm.

  “You already know that?” She’d been leaning that way but thought she’d give him a few days before she cemented her thoughts.

  Stacy shrugged. “Just a feeling.”

  “Well then, Russell will be our muscle,” she said, then grinned at the cheesy pun.

  Stacy laughed, then sighed. “Definitely.”

  Now Maggie knew something was going on in Stacy’s head about Russell. Only time would tell whether Stacy would get into his head as well.

  After getting Stacy settled and offering what was in the kitchen to eat, Maggie took her cheese sandwich and went to her room. She wasn’t up for much more interaction today. She’d just crawled into bed when her phone buzzed on the nightstand. She looked at the screen, hoping she could ignore it, but it was Brenda, and if she didn’t answer, she’d just keep calling.

  “Hey. I didn’t expect to hear from you today.” She took a bite of her sandwich and dropped it to the plate, deciding she really didn’t want it after all.

  “It’s your first day. I wanted to see how it went,” Brenda said, her voice light and cheery, a nice change from her usual pessimistic tone.

  Maggie got in a few words about her day, and then, as usual, the conversation turned to Brenda’s day and how shitty it was. Her eyes were closed as she half listened to Brenda ramble on about all the problems she’d encountered. It didn’t sound like a terrible day to Maggie. It was a blip on the radar compared to her own, but Brenda was a glass-half-empty kind of girl. If anything positive ever happened to her, something negative always overshadowed the good. Somehow Maggie had learned to block out her negativity in the past, but tonight it irritated the fuck out of her.

  When she heard the blip of another call, she immediately rolled to her side and checked out who it was. Carrie. Her best friend since college, who was having her own first day at Boston Children’s Hospital. She immediately perked up. “Brenda. Brenda. Brenda!” Finally, Brenda stopped talking long enough to listen. “I have a call from the hospital that I need to take, so I’ll have to call you back tomorrow.” She was lying about both, but she didn’t care. Brenda was a definite downer to cap off her day, and Carrie would change that and make her feel better about everything. Carrie and her aunt Lynn were so much alike in that way it was ridiculous, and it was one main reason they were still friends.

  She switched to the FaceTime call before Brenda could protest. “Hey. I thought you’d be dead to the world by now,” she said to Carrie.

  “Same. The dark circles haven’t totally filled in under my eyes, but they’ll get there soon.”

  Maggie could see from the screen that Carrie was in bed too. “I don’t even see them. You look great.” It had been only a few weeks, but Maggie really missed their late-night talks and study sessions.

  “I knew you were my best friend for a reason.” Carrie tucked a pillow under her head and looked into the phone. “So, how was your first day?”

  Maggie did the same with her pillow and filled her in on the puke incident. Carrie couldn’t stop laughing and made a number of puns so ridiculously corny that soon they were both convulsing so hard they could hardly breathe. Talking to Carrie always reminded her to not take things so seriously. It was definitely a memorable first day, but it certainly wasn’t the end of the world.

  “So what about the beautiful blue-eyed brunette? Are you going to track her down, stalk her until you know everything about her?” Carrie asked, her voice rising.

  “Like I have time for that.”

  “True. Well, maybe you’ll run into her again soon.” Carrie winked. “Accidentally on purpose.”

  “She was just being nice. Besides, she’s way
out of my league.” She seemed to be very familiar with the hospital, so she was probably a resident. Not necessarily someone she’d tag for stress-relief sex.

  “Stop that. You’re at the top of your game. No woman with any sense would pass up a chance to date you. You just suck at picking the right women.”

  “Right. The boobs always distract me.” In recent years, Maggie hadn’t been good at looking past the outer shell, the aesthetics of a woman, probably because her heart wasn’t up for grabs. It had been shattered before, and she refused to let that happen again. She also didn’t have the time to dedicate to a real relationship.

  Carrie let out a huge laugh. “I can’t say I’m not attracted to a well-built chest myself.” That was totally true. In Boston, Carrie worked out at the hospital facility frequently but mainly to meet guys involved in medicine in some way. People in that field understood the long hours, weird schedules, and crazy lifestyle that accompanied the profession. Keeping in shape was just an added perk.

  “Any new prospects at the gym?”

  “As a matter of fact…”

  “What the hell?” She propped herself up against the headboard to stay awake. “You should’ve led with that. Spill, right now.”

  “His name’s Scott. I’ve only talked to him a few times, but…” Carrie sighed, silent for a moment. “We just click. You know what I mean?”

  “I do.” And Maggie did. That feeling hadn’t occurred recently, but she remember vividly what it was like.

  “He’s super smart and gorgeous.”

  Maggie started humming “Here Comes the Bride.”

  “He really is dreamy, Mags.” Carrie’s voice grew soft. “He may be the one.”

  Maggie had never heard this emotional lilt in Carrie’s voice in relation to any of her boyfriends before. She seemed serious. “Wow. I was only kidding, but that’s awesome. I can’t wait to approve—I mean meet him,” she said with a chuckle.

  “I can’t either. You’ll have to come visit. Or maybe when we get a little further down the line, we’ll come visit you. He’s actually from Baltimore too.”

  “Definitely. If I ever get more than one day off, I’m in.”

  “I’m absolutely positive you’ll like him.”

  “Okay, then I’ll give him the benefit of all my doubts.” If Carrie said he was the one, then most likely he was. She’d never heard those words from Carrie’s lips before, and as long as he treated Carrie well, Maggie would do her best to like him even if she couldn’t stand him. She hoped that wasn’t the case, but that’s what friendship was all about.

  “I haven’t told Auntie Lynn or Beth about him yet, so pinkie-swear you’ll keep it to yourself if you run into either of them.”

  “Sure.” She held up her finger and wiggled it in the air in front of the screen so Carrie could see it. Not that she had any contact with Lynn at this point anyway. “Jeez. I didn’t realize how late it was. I need to sleep. Talk to you soon, okay?” She didn’t want to discuss Lynn with Carrie or whether she’d been in contact with her. That would prompt a conversation she wasn’t up to having tonight.

  “Sounds good.” Carrie ended the call.

  If Carrie’s romance went in the right direction and became serious, which it sounded like it might, Maggie would be pulled into situations where she’d be confronted with her own feelings soon enough. Until now, she’d blocked any thoughts of Lynn Monroe out of her mind. If she hadn’t, she would’ve needed serious therapy or developed a monumental drinking problem.

  On occasion, Carrie had volunteered information about her aunts, but Maggie hadn’t asked about Lynn’s life over the past few years. As it was, when she did mention Lynn and Beth, depression set in for days until she could again convince herself that leaving Baltimore for medical school in Boston was the best scenario for all of them. She couldn’t have handled being on the outside of Lynn’s life looking in and wanting to be fully involved in it.

  Recently, Carrie had casually let the information about Lynn and Beth’s divorce slip, a small bit of knowledge Carrie would never have given her willingly. Maggie’s heart had pounded at the thought of a second chance, but then Carrie had apparently realized her slip of the tongue and mentioned that the divorce had happened almost three years ago. That fact had nearly killed her. All this time and Lynn hadn’t made a single phone call to let her know she was free. The feelings they’d shared were definitely not one-sided. Why hadn’t Lynn contacted her and told her about the divorce herself?

  The next time she saw Lynn she could very well come away with her heart shattered again, but she would have to take that risk if the opportunity presented itself. It wouldn’t happen today or tomorrow, but in the upcoming months, she’d make it a point to see Lynn. Otherwise Maggie would never get her out of her system. And even then, she might not succeed.

  When Carrie had taken Maggie to her home in Baltimore for the first time, Maggie had been ridiculously nervous. She didn’t have much family of her own—only her mother since her father had died a few years before—and from what Carrie had told her, Maggie’s relationship with her mother wasn’t near as close as the one Carrie had with her aunts. It had taken Maggie quite a while to even tell Carrie about what she’d dealt with since she’d lost her father. Thoughts of how welcoming Lynn had been filled her head as she closed her eyes, too sleepy to keep them open any longer.

  “Hi, Aunt Lynn. I brought someone home with me this weekend.” Carrie and Maggie wandered through the house.

  “I’m out here in the garden,” someone shouted from the backyard.

  Carrie pulled the sliding screen door open and stepped outside, and Maggie followed her.

  “Well, don’t just stand there. Come on out and help me carry some of these tomatoes inside.” Carrie’s aunt glanced up, and Maggie’s stomach catapulted into a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree somersault. The woman was absolutely beautiful. “Bring your friend too. I’ve got enough to fill both your shirts.”

  Carrie pulled the bottom of her T-shirt out, making a fabric bucket for the tomatoes, and the gorgeous woman loaded them in. “You’re full.”

  “You’re next.” Carrie turned and walked back to the house, while Maggie just stood and stared. Carrie’s aunt had curly, dark hair pulled back and twisted up into a clip, and her vibrant green eyes twinkled in the sunlight when she looked up.

  “Well, come here, honey.”

  Maggie moved closer and pulled her blue, cap-sleeve cotton shirt out for her to place the tomatoes in.

  “You don’t have to use your shirt.” She handed her a few tomatoes. “But you can help me carry in the rest.”

  Maggie smiled but couldn’t speak. She’d never been so tongue-tied.

  “As you heard, my name’s Lynn. What’s yours?”

  “Maggie,” she finally choked out.

  “You go to school with Carrie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you from out of town?”

  “No.” Another one-word answer. Jesus, Maggie! Form a sentence, will you! “I’m from Baltimore, just across town.”

  “When Carrie decided to go to college at Johns Hopkins, we were thrilled she’d be able to come home when she wants to.” Lynn gathered up the rest of the tomatoes and started to go inside.

  “She loves coming here, and I can see why.” Maggie stopped talking, and then decided she’d better finish the sentence. “You’re so…I mean, it’s so beautiful here.” So beautiful.

  “Well, thank you.” Lynn pulled open the screen door and stepped inside. “Carrie, you should bring Maggie home with you more often.” She put the tomatoes on the counter next to the fresh cucumbers and squash.

  Maggie followed and did the same. Over the next few hours, Lynn kept the conversation going, making her feel so at ease that, when it was time, Maggie didn’t want to leave. The woman seemed genuinely interested in her life. She wasn’t only beautiful, but she was also warm and compassionate.

  The alarm jolted Maggie out of her dream, and she bolted u
p in bed, trying to figure out where she was. The back of her neck heated as her anxiety kicked in full force. The dream had been so real she’d been catapulted back in time. Living in the same town as Lynn, the only woman she’d never been able to get out of her heart, was going to be difficult. Since she’d arrived, the medical career in which she’d driven herself to succeed no longer filled her dreams. A past she’d never regretted now governed them, but she was determined to keep it exactly where it had been while she was in Boston, far away from her thoughts.

  Chapter Three

  Lynn looked around the floor and smiled. She loved being a nurse. It was now, more than anything else, her reason for living. The children she saw daily brought joy into her life, especially when they were able to go home with their parents feeling better than when they’d arrived. At one point in her life she hadn’t thought she’d get this far. It had come to a complete stop when her older sister, Alice, couldn’t handle the pressure of being a parent and went missing in action.

  Carrie had been a regular visitor at Lynn and her wife Beth’s home, frequently staying with them on weekends while Alice proceeded to live her own life. Alice was only sixteen when she’d had Carrie, which had been a life-altering event, considering she’d only just finished her sophomore year in high school. Their parents had begged her to keep the child, told her she could live with them as long as she wanted, and swore they’d help with her upbringing. But Lynn and her sister had both been born to aging parents, and raising a child had been too much for all of them.

  Carrie had been ten years old when Lynn received the text from Alice, who’d dropped Carrie off for the weekend, only for good that time. Alice didn’t intend to come back. Lynn had put her full-time education schedule on hold, and Carrie had become her number-one priority. Even though Beth was older and had already finished her residency, none of it had been easy. Lynn had worked part-time at a pediatrics practice, handling immunizations and well-baby visits while she finished the bulk of classes for her graduate degree by taking weekend and night classes. She’d grown close to a few of the doctors in the practice and formed several friendships during that time.