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“But I live alone.” Kate smiled cheerfully. “And whatever pain reliever you gave me should keep me drunk for at least the next couple of years, so I should be fine.”

The doctor exchanged glances with Ben and grinned at her. “Sorry, Kate. It won’t last a couple of years. By tomorrow, you’ll be sober and groaning.”

She wasn’t sure how it happened, but an hour or so later, Kate was ensconced at Bright Sky. Maggie Hylton-Wise, in her scariest voice, had brooked no opposition.

* * *

K
ATE
CAME
ABRUPTLY
awake as the sun began a spectacular descent behind Wish Mountain. She wasn’t even sure how she’d gotten to the couch in Bright Sky’s living room, but she’d evidently slept the sleep of the very innocent for at least a couple of hours. “I’m so sorry. I think I’ve taken over your house and I don’t even know how long I’ve been here.”

“Sorry for what?” Maggie came with a tea tray, complete with Fiesta dishes and toast points that reminded Kate of being sick as a child. “You needed the sleep, plus that painkiller they gave you was perilously close to euthanasia.” She grinned. “I used to be a nurse, you know. It’s time for your medication, and I’ll bet you’re hungry.” She set the tray on the coffee table. “Let me help you sit up.”

“You were a nurse?”

“In a military hospital, no less. It’s how I met Jim.” Maggie got her situated and placed the tray carefully across her lap. “We were so different, or at least our plans and dreams were, but by the time he left the hospital, we knew we were going to be together one way or another. It was the beginning of a lovely life.” She stopped moving and looked through the wall of windows at the sunset. “Well, depending on how one feels about roller coasters, anyway.”

“What?” Kate knew her brain was a little fluffy—she could be sedated with an aspirin tablet—but she didn’t know what Maggie was saying.

“Up and down. Our life together was never smooth or quiet. We used to say we liked walking in Central Park because it was the only walk in the park we had. We didn’t agree on anything, didn’t like the same things, didn’t want the same things. Except each other. And we made it work.” There was pleasure in Maggie’s eyes.

Like her parents had, Kate thought, swallowing the capsule Maggie handed her, remembering shoveling snow with her mother and gardening with her father. And like Tim and Maeve McGuffey had. Their arguments had been loud and fairly frequent, but they had never outshouted the love that filled every room they ever occupied at the same time.

“Puzzle pieces,” Kate murmured. So scattered, so odd, so sharp cornered and raggedy edged.

And yet they all fit.

* * *

“Y
OU
WERE
RIGHT
, Pop.” Ben had said that to his father while Tim was still alive, and he was glad he had. But it seemed important this afternoon, with his forehead stitched at his hairline and metal splints on the ring and little fingers of his left hand, that he tell him again.

He knelt beside Tim’s grave, still blanketed with snow and the flowers Maeve brought almost daily, and flinched when his knees protested. “If I hadn’t been a doctor, I wouldn’t have been sure what to do for Kate or Jayson. I wouldn’t have known the people on the walk who fell weren’t hurt. I wouldn’t have been there when that girl lost her baby or that woman had a heart attack or to give a day to the flu shot clinic. I would have been useless the night that kid took too many pills. His friend’s going to be a doctor, too—did I tell you?”

He lowered himself to the ground, knowing he was going to regret it when he got up with wet jeans. “The knees are gone. I’ll need to get them replaced sooner rather than later and I may never ski Wish Mountain again. But I’ll give more flu shots, Pop. I’ll hold more hands of scared teenagers and maybe be in the right place at the right time for more people. You were right when you pushed me to go to medical school and I thank you for it. I do.” He picked up a rose, sniffed it and put it in the pocket of his leather jacket. “I’m going to see Kate, Pop. I’ll give her this from you and Mom.” He pushed himself to his feet, stifling a groan at the effort—his injuries were small, but he felt the repercussions of the landslide in every part of his body. “Maybe I’ll have something to tell you when I come back. Love you, Pop.”

He drove past A Day at a Time, finding the door unlocked and Debby at the desk. Jayson sat at the table with his flash cards. Dirty Sally sprawled across his lap.

“I know Kate doesn’t open weekends, but I’m going to cover for her for a few days while she heals. I came in to get familiar with the software she uses,” Debby explained. “If you’re going to see her, will you give her this? Most of them came off the answering machine, but she’s had a few calls just since I got here after church.”

She handed him a list of messages checking on Kate’s welfare. She would be touched by the show of concern. He was, too.

He took pizza with him when he went up to Bright Sky. Maggie put a couple of pieces on a turquoise plate and poured herself a glass of mulled cider before waving him toward the living area. “Go on in there. I’m going to the library to read and eat. If either of you need anything, let me know.” She kissed his cheek and left the room.

He watched her go, thinking how much she’d mellowed since he’d first met her.

“Hey, Katy,” he said, raising his voice so she could hear him from the other room, “want some pizza? I got breadsticks, too, and I think there’s enough garlic on them to make us equally unattractive to be around. It will guarantee us time alone if that’s what we want.”

“Sure do,” she called. “Should I come in there? I’m slow, but I can get there.”

“Nope. I’m coming there.”

Two trips later, they faced each other across the coffee table, pizza, breadsticks and tumblers of cider between them. Ben cleared his throat. “I have something to say first.”

“Oh.” She set down her plate with a long-suffering sigh. “Could you hurry? I really am hungry.” She gestured slightly with her injured arm. “Don’t forget I’m an invalid. I need food and to have my own way.”

“I’ll give it my best shot.” He took her hands in his. “That couple of minutes on the mountain this morning felt like the longest twelve hours of my life.”

“I noticed that, too,” she observed, “although I did think if my whole life was rushing before my eyes, I hadn’t lived long enough. It wasn’t very exciting.” She grinned at him and he reached to tug at the hair that framed her face.

“Are you ready to listen now? I’ve practiced this little speech all the way up the mountain.”

“Okay, I’ll listen. But you really do need to hurry. The pizza will get cold.”

He took a deep breath. “It was long enough to remind me that I love you more than anything in my life, short woman, and I want to spend the rest of it with you. I don’t care where we live, if we get married or live in sin, or if we have one kid, six kids, or no kids at all. I’m a doctor and I’m a good one, but I can do that anywhere.” He stopped and took a deep breath, holding her gaze. “You were right, what you said before—I didn’t love you enough back then. But now I do. I do. Come on, Katy. What do you say?”

She blinked, then her eyes welled up. “I’d love to have kids,” she said after a moment. “But Jayson has taught me I don’t have to have them to use the mom part of me. If we have them or adopt them, that’s great. If we don’t, we’ll still be a family. We’ll still have him, and we’ll still be Penny and Dan’s kids’ godparents and super-aunt and super-uncle to a whole flock of nieces and nephews.” Her chin wobbled dangerously and tears slipped down her cheeks. “I learned this summer that being friends with you is a precious thing, tall guy. I cherish that friendship. But there’s more. I love you to the mountaintops and back and that’s where my passion is, I’m afraid. For the rest of our lives.” She sat up straight, firming her chin and mopping away her tears. “And if that means living in Boston, I can. Sally, too, though she probably won’t like it very much.”

“Well, then.” He went around to sit beside her, to take her in his arms as if he just might never let her go. “We can’t have a mad cat, so we should probably just stay in Fionnegan.” He remembered the list of messages he’d brought and pulled it out of his pocket. “Besides, I don’t know how we’d explain to all these people that you just up and left.”

EPILOGUE

S
OMETIMES
, K
ATE
THOUGHT
, it was downright scary how the puzzle pieces went together.

She and Ben were married at Bright Sky with all their friends and family in attendance. Mr. Hayes and Max spent all of the Friday afternoon and Saturday morning before Christmas clearing snow so people would have places to park. Kate and every friend she had had decorated Christmas trees in the house from Thanksgiving afternoon on. They wore all the clothes from Morgan and Jon’s wedding plus some, since Kate had a few more bridesmaids and Jayson needed an Irish tie and a new shirt to be a groomsman.

“I think,” Maggie said, the morning of the wedding, “since so many of your clothes are here for this wedding, Kate, you and Ben should just move in here instead of taking them back home.”

Kate laughed, flipping pancakes. “And what happens when you sell it?”

“Well, I thought that’s what I’d do. Ben and Sally and I have agreed on a price, so it’s all up to you.”

The spatula hit the sink with a resounding clang. “Really?
Really?
”

“Really.”

That had been just the beginning of a glorious wedding day.

Kate’s parents and sister and brother-in-law had arrived shortly after breakfast. When their flight from Nashville had been canceled, they’d all loaded up in a rented minivan and driven to Vermont. Sarah had brought her own bridesmaid’s dress—which clashed excellently with the others—and Chris had been hustled into a spare black shirt and Irish tie.

Dylan had rushed into the kitchen and made coffee for the reception before Kate’s mother could.

Mark and Nerissa had arrived with their family and Nerissa had offered to give away the groom. Patrick had said if anyone was giving him away, it was going to be his brothers, because they’d been trying to do just that for years. Maeve had told them all to behave.

The afternoon sun had shone through the windows of Bright Sky on the ceremony. Dylan had married them. Laughter and a few “ahs” had filled the room throughout the ceremony. Then Tim McGuffey’s sons and daughter all sang “Tura Lura Lura” and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

He would have loved it.

That had been three years ago today. The marriage puzzle kept getting bigger and its pieces crazier, but the fit was wonderful.

Debby and Jayson had moved into Kate’s quarters at A Day at a Time and Debby had eventually taken over the management of the business. Kate worked there sometimes, but only when she was needed and only a day or two at a time.

Because the next time Bill Joe’s mother became overwhelmed, the little boy moved into the room with the stained glass window. It was Jayson’s room when he stayed there, but he liked sharing with the foster kids that came and went at Bright Sky.

Penny had offered to bake Ben and Kate an anniversary cake for tonight’s dinner, but Kate had wanted to do it herself. It wasn’t nearly as pretty as “Penny’s Good Stuff” would have been, but it wasn’t bad, either.

Ben came to stand beside Kate at the kitchen windows, watching with her as the three teenage boys they’d adopted snowboarded down the side of the mountain. Brothers from Dylan’s former church who’d lost their parents had become the newest set of McGuffey brothers with very little bureaucratic interference. They had been endless trouble ever since, as well as a delight to their parents and extended family.

Kate moaned once in a while that she thought a little girl would be a really nice and quiet addition to the family, but the boys just laughed at her. They knew Kate thought quietness was overrated. Ben and his brothers also told them girls were high maintenance and they hogged bathrooms, a comment that prompted much eye-rolling from Morgan and Kate.

“Happy anniversary, wife.” Ben handed her a bag from the new kitchen store that had opened on Alcott Street.

“Ah.” She opened the paper sack to take out the dish towel.

He bought her one every year. This year’s, made from the cotton she favored, had stick figures like the ones Jayson drew embroidered across one end. The figures all danced, with little green shamrocks between them in the design.

“Thank you. I love it.” She held the towel up, counting the stick figures. She counted again and laughed softly to herself. Only Ben would miscount the number of members in his own family.

“Nerissa called.” Ben’s arms came around Kate from behind and she settled into him, feeling the completeness that only came when he entered the room. “A patient of Mark’s is terminally ill and has a four-year-old grandchild she can’t take care of. There’s no other family. We were the first people they thought of.” He kissed the side of her face. “What do you say?”

“A four-year-old. Jayson will love that. He and the boys will ruin him immediately.” She laughed, turning to kiss him.

“Oh, I didn’t tell you the best part.” He chuckled. “It’s a girl, short woman.”

And all the pieces went together.

* * * * *

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