AllFreeNovel
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Some women loved shopping. Maggie loathed it. The thought of doing it all again, and in an unfamiliar place like Aspen, almost made her slide back under the covers. “What am I supposed to wear to go and buy new clothes?”
“Rosie is coming by in a minute with some things she hopes will fit. She and Dan have a meeting with the florist this morning, so Catherine has offered to take you shopping and out for lunch.”
“Catherine? Are you coming, too?”
He gave a half smile. “I’m not invited. Apparently, it’s a girls’ trip.”
This day was getting worse by the minute. She wasn’t a girl. She hadn’t been a girl for a few decades. And shopping with someone as poised and elegant as Catherine was going to do very little for her fragile self-esteem. “What are you going to do?”
“Dan’s uncle is taking me on a snowmobile around some of the trails that lead from Snowfall Lodge into the forest.”
“How come you get to do the fun stuff? Can we swap? A snowmobile ride sounds so much more fun than shopping.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Even with your current headache?”
She imagined bumping over frozen ground. “Maybe not. But shopping doesn’t go well with a headache, either.” But she couldn’t think of an excuse. And she did need clothes. “I suppose I can’t get out of it?”
“Why would you want to? It’s the perfect excuse to spend time with Dan’s mother before the wedding.”
“Seriously? I thought y
ou said you knew me.”
He frowned. “I do know you.”
“Then how do you not know that the last thing I want to do is meet Dan’s mother when I’m hungover and without clothes?”
“The hangover will pass, and we’re going to lend you clothes.”
“Clothes I won’t look good in.”
“Well—” he floundered. “As long as they fit, I’m sure you’ll look fine. And since when did you need clothes for confidence?”
“Since my daughter’s mother-in-law turned out to be this super successful, slim, elegant, perfect person.” Somehow her thoughts came out of her mouth. “And if you truly knew me then you’d know I’m intimidated by successful people! How do you not know that, Nick? How do you not know?”
She rarely saw Nick lost for words, but he was lost for words now.
“But—” He raked his fingers through his hair. “You’re a successful person, Mags.”
“Me? How am I successful? I don’t run my own business. I’m not a world-renowned university professor. I haven’t rebuilt my life from the ground up having lost my husband. I haven’t re-evaluated my life after a minor trauma, let alone a major one. I’m not a doctor like Katie, or a student at Harvard like Rosie. I—I don’t know what I am. I’m someone who trundles along, wiping dust off the same surfaces, sitting at the same desk I’ve sat in for most of my working life, doing the same job that frankly anyone could do. And I’m not even thin.” As she hurled that final sentence into the air she saw a wild look of panic appear in Nick’s eyes. He had the look of a man who suddenly realized he was holding an unstable, volatile substance.
“I happen to like the way you look.”
“We’re getting divorced, Nick. So you can’t like it that much.” She flopped back against the pillows and then wished she hadn’t opted for a movement so violent. Or a conversation like this one. She was never drinking again. “Forget it. Forget I said anything.”
He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “Not easy to forget.”
“Well, try. And now if you’d leave me alone, I’d like to take a shower.”
He didn’t move. “You’re saying you’re intimidated by Dan’s mother?”
“Goodbye, Nick.”
“But you haven’t met her. She’s a human being, probably struggling like the rest of us.”
Maggie sat up. “You don’t get it, do you? I’m the type of woman that makes someone like Catherine Reynolds roll her eyes.”
“Why would she roll her eyes?”
