Saturday came before she knew it and Maggie found herself rushing to pack for the weekend before she was late. Her thoughts were unusually scattered and she couldn't seem to get her things together. Her current dilemma included her boots taking up too much room in her weekender bag causing her to not be able to get the zipper closed. “Aren’t you coming back tomorrow night?” JT asked, leaning on the door frame to her bedroom and watching her attempt to get her bag closed with amusement.Maggie glared at him over her shoulder. “Yes, I am, but we’re going to Mama Tried to see Morgan Wallen and I have to get.these.boots.to.fit,” she said punctuating her last words with the effort to get the teeth of the zipper close enough to catch.JT chuckled and went to her side, pushing her away from the bag with a hip. “Here let me fix it.” He reached in the bag, removed the boots and easily zipped up the case. “There, fixed.”Maggie stared at him, hands fisted on her hips. “I could have done that,”
"Get security!" he yelled, turning to the woman he had pushed past to get into the ladies' room. She started to argue with him but then took in the sight before her. "I'm on it," she said and quickly moved through the crowd. “Maggie!” he yelled, falling to his knees next to her. She was on her hands and knees on the floor near the sink. Blood was pouring down her face and her eyes weren’t focusing. He could tell she was trying to stand but couldn’t get her feet under her.“Don’t try to get up, baby,” Zane told her. He eased her back down to sit on the floor and took her face in his hands trying to see where all the blood was coming from. He knew logically that head wounds bled copiously even from a tiny cut but, his heart stuttered in his chest at the sight of her beautiful face and gentle hands covered in red.“Zane?” she asked in a confused whisper. “How did you get here? Are we in the ladies’ room?”She tried to raise her bloody hands to her head, but he caught them. “It’s ok, swe
Zane sat for a long time, holding Maggie’s hand and watching her sleep. He wanted to memorize every detail of her, her beautiful rosy skin, those plush pink lips that drove him to distraction, the way her silky chestnut locks spread out across the pillow. Her eyes were closed but he could visualize the chocolate brown orbs that changed to dark expresso when she wanted him. The unfathomable look in them when she told him she loved him. And her hands, the wonderfully small hands that were so soft but competent and graceful. Those hands that had the power to drive all his worries away and make him feel whole. He wished he could see her smile at him one more time. His eyes shone with unshed tears. He wondered if you could truly die from a broken heart. When he was sure she was sleeping soundly, he let go of her hand carefully placing it under the starched white blanket on her bed. He leaned over and let his lips brush her cheek, careful not to wake her. He took a deep breath filling his
Maggie came back to herself in pieces. She smelled bleach and some other antiseptic and wrinkled her nose. Sun was beating onto her closed eyelids and her head was throbbing. She moaned and reached a hand up to her head finding a bandage at her forehead. It slowly came back to her. She was in the hospital. Someone had attacked her at the Mama Tried. “Zane?” she asked without opening her eyes yet. “Can we shut the blinds? My head is pounding.”He didn’t answer her, but she felt a shadow fall over her face and the brightness dimmed. She carefully cracked open her eyes. She blinked a few times to bring everything into focus and saw Dani and Levi standing over her bed.“Hey, Mags, how’re you feeling? Do you need some water?” Dani said softly to her.She started to nod but then stopped abruptly when pain shot through her skull with the movement. She raised her hand to her head again. “Ow. Yes please.”Levi poured her water from a plastic pitcher next to her bed and handed a cup to Dani. S
Maggie reclined on her chaise in her room looking out her window at the hummingbirds flying around their feeder, zooming in for quick sips and zooming back out, their tiny wings nothing but a blur. She felt like her life had been like that for the last week, blurry around the edges. She resented the headaches that were her constant companions and would not allow her to sleep through the pain in her heart. Per doctor’s orders, she had not been allowed to come into the cafe even for a little while this week. She’d tried to read but that made the pain in her head worse. There wasn’t one TV program she could find that held her interest. She didn’t know how she was going to live through another week of this enforced rest. A quiet knock came from her bedroom door. “Come in,” she replied. She hoped desperately someone needed her for something. With nothing to distract her, she was slowly losing her mind. Her attention had nowhere to go except back to Zane and the events of last weekend.“He
Three months later, Maggie was back in Dani and Levi’s barn, standing under the million twinkle lights. This time, however, it was for her own wedding. It wasn’t the large Texas wedding she’d had in her little girl dreams with the fairy princess dress, a crystal tiara holding a chapel length train to her head that would billow for a mile behind her, the minimum six bridesmaids – all in blush pink, of course, the ride to the chapel in a horse drawn carriage, and the sit down dinner afterwards for at least 300, but it was so much more. Maggie’s dress was a simple, Empire waist gown à la Pride and Prejudice, with lace panels in front and back and a few sparkling crystals surrounding the low-scooped n
Dani felt icy fingers of foreboding skittering up her spine as she reached for the cold metal handle of the break room door. She shivered. Shake it off girl! Everyone’s stable, that’s the only reason you’re able to grab a few minutes! She whipped the mask off her face as she dropped into a chair. She was eight hours into her twelve-hour shift in the CCU and had been running non-stop. Her feet were throbbing, and she had an ache building behind her eyes. She smiled thankfully at her friend, Kim, who pushed a 44 oz Diet Dr. Pepper in her direction across the table. “You’re a lifesaver!” Dani said, taking a large gulp of the icy drink. Since she didn’t drink coffee, Diet Dr. Pepper was her main vice. To her ongoing dismay, the break room soda machine didn’t carry them, so she went without unless she was able to sneak downstairs to the cafeteria. “This is the first time I’ve been able to take a break all day. How did you know I’d be here dying for one right now?” Kim chuckled. “Brandon s
After Levi typed the last figures into his spreadsheet and emailed it to his assistant, he spun around in his chair to look at the view. The setting sun glinting off the neighboring metal and glass towers was dramatic, but nothing beat a sunset on the farm. Watching that large red-orange ball dip behind the barn and then the trees, the whole sky turning red then purple as a bruise until everything was left in a blue gray shadow with the moon rising above it. It made your heart swell. Despite how badly he had wanted to escape it when he was eighteen, he could now admit he did miss some aspects of the farm. He was the youngest broker at the firm and had basically given his last eight years to the company. He worked long hours and had almost completely forgone a social life. His coworkers never gave up trying to get him to go out, however. At least once a week, Mike showed up at his door at the end of their workday. Apparently, today was his lucky day.“Levi, come on. It’s Lydia’s birth