A Ring for Rosie. Maggie Wells

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СКАЧАТЬ head pop up and his eyes narrow as he glared into the mirror. “You kicked her?” he demanded.

      Rosie turned back and saw Jeffie blanch at the sharp edge in his father’s voice. He shrank into his booster seat, then whispered a plaintive, “No,” almost inaudibly.

      Eager to set the record straight and protect the shyer, more sensitive Jeff from his cocksure brother and father, she tapped her memory banks for the facts as they’d been relayed in the original version. “No, Hunter kicked Elise,” she clarified. She swiveled in her seat until she could look Jeff square in the eye. “Jeff told Hunter to stop pushing her, didn’t you?”

      “Yes,” he lisped.

      James blinked, then blushed as he glanced somewhere in the direction of Rosie’s handbag. “Oh. Right. Good job, man.” He turned to look at the slowly unfurling boy.

      Conversation resumed, but this time Jamie took the controls. A typical firstborn, he often seemed more assured of his place in the world—if one could say so about a boy barely past his fourth birthday.

      Her job as moderator temporarily on hold, Rosie gave Jeff a reassuring wink, then settled back into her seat. A sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach anchored her there. She angled her head enough to appear as if she was gazing out the passenger window. But she was aware of James’s every movement. Oh, no. Heaven forbid she cease her constant vigilance. What if this was the moment he chose to finally open his eyes and realize she was everything right and good for him. And the boys. If, by some minor miracle the phenomenon was to occur, she couldn’t chance missing a second of it.

      The traffic gods were kind them, the dirty bastards. If pressed, Rosie would swear they’d been forced to stop at only one of the seventeen stoplights between the office and her apartment building. But Rosie didn’t swear on anything.

      He hooked a right onto the quiet residential street between Milwaukee and Western avenues. The properties ran the gamut from rundown to completely refurbished, but the majority fell somewhere between. The building where Rosie lived was a quiet, semi-gentrified three-story walk-up popular with the nursing staff from nearby Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center. The narrow courtyard featured two bare-branched buckthorn trees, an assortment of ill-trimmed evergreens, and a concrete sidewalk stretched in spokes to five separate entrances.

      James pulled to a stop beside two snow-banked vehicles and shifted the car into park. Looking anywhere but directly at her, he nodded to the white-draped lumps at the curb. “I guess we know who takes public transportation around here.”

      The corner of her mouth twitched. She knew the owners of both vehicles. Only an act of God to get them out of their prized parking spots any time before a spring thaw. “Yeah. They both work at the Academy of the Sacred Heart. No bus pass needed.”

      “No vehicle needed. Why do they bother?”

      Irked that he showed an ardent interest in her neighbors’ commuting habits but couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge the kiss they shared minutes before, she gathered her purse and tote. “I often ask myself the same question.” She cringed at the waspish sting in her tone but refused to apologize for it. “Goodnight, James.”

      Reaching for the door handle, she turned and blew kisses to the twins. “Buenas noches, mis queridos. Se bueno.” She stepped out into the bracing cold.

      “Buennochas!” they called back, flinging exuberant kisses her way. She gave James a tight smile. Seconds before the door closed, she heard Jeffie ask, “Aren’cha gonna kiss Rosie good night?”

      Rosie didn’t wait around to hear James’s answer. Ducking her head, she lifted a hand in farewell, darted between the parked vehicles, and bounded as gracefully as she could onto the shoveled sidewalk. Two quick toots of the horn signaled the Harper men’s departure. Pulling her keys from her coat pocket, she fingered the master for the security door as she quickstepped to the courtyard’s innermost entrance.

      Of course James wasn’t going to kiss her good night. Silly Jeffie. She bit her lip as she slid the key into the lock. Of all the Trident kids, Jeff Harper was the one with the tightest grip on her heart. Perhaps because they were kindred spirits. Quiet, but not truly shy. Watchful. Maybe somewhat wary. But steadfast. Oh, so steadfast.

      Plunging into the overheated foyer, Rosie fell back against the door and waited until she heard the reassuring click of the old-fashioned latch. Sometimes, particularly in extreme weather, the old door warped and stuck, leaving the six units served by the single stairwell vulnerable to access by outsiders.

      She stood there, grasping her handbag to her stomach as she waited for the warm air to thaw her lungs. Yes, she and Jeffie were two of a kind. Perfectly nice people—the kind everyone likes to have around, but most invite as an afterthought. The type who hung back hoping to be noticed and appreciated for who they were. If only by one person.

      But James seemed determined to remain oblivious. If he were to notice her—notice her in the way she wanted to be noticed—he would have long ago. The kiss was a fluke. An anomaly. A freak accident.

      Pushing away from the door, she started the long trudge up the steps to her third-floor apartment.

      He hadn’t meant to kiss her. The expression on his face when he pulled away said so as plain as day. A few years ago, she might have ignored the look of stunned panic, but she was older and much wiser in the ways of James Harper now to fool herself.

      Tomorrow morning they would be right back to business as usual. They’d been here before. There’d been a handful of lingering hugs, one rambling, drunken “I love you, man” speech given at her graduation party, and too many accidental boob brushings over the years for her to expect anything more.

      Huffing, she stopped on the landing outside her apartment door and stared at the faded old lettering marking unit 2B. Swallowing hard, she forced herself to dismiss the notion of her apartment number as a sign. They were not meant to be.

      “Ten bucks says he pretends he never kissed me.”

      As always, she spoke the words aloud to seal the deal in her brain. And as reinforcement to the truth. She and James were not to be. The following morning, he’d come into the office and act as if nothing was out of the ordinary. And because she loved him beyond any scrap of reason or good sense, she’d let him.

      And the collection at Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering would be ten dollars richer the following Sunday.

      Satisfied with the bargain, Rosie let herself into her apartment. She locked the door behind her and dropped her purse, hat, gloves, and coat to the floor in a heap. Blinking rapidly, she toed off her rubber-treaded boots, then padded her way to the sofa. She’d give them precisely ten minutes this time, she decided as she situated herself in her favorite spot with her favorite throw pillow cradled in her lap. After all, there was an actual kiss involved this time. Exhaling loudly, she hiccupped on a sob, then let the tears she’d been swallowing for the last fifteen minutes roll.

      * * * *

      He fucked up. He’d fucked up big.

      James’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. He pointed the car northeast, heading away from the biggest mistake he’d made in years, and for the safety of his Edgewater home. Rocking impatiently in his seat, he tuned out the chatter and bickering coming from the back seat in favor of talking to himself.

      “Carp, carp, carp,” he whispered almost inaudibly, instinctively using the toddler-friendly СКАЧАТЬ