by Diana Palmer
“It doesn’t matter. Maybe we needed to clear the air.”
“I’m not sure we cleared anything.” He drew back and looked down at her sad face. He touched her swollen mouth tenderly, and he looked repentant. “In the old days, I never hurt you deliberately,” he said quietly. “I’ve changed, haven’t I, Annie?”
“We’ve both changed. We’ve grown older.”
“But not wiser, in my case. I’m still leading with my chin.” He pushed a few wisps of blond hair away from her mouth. “Why did you come home? Was it because of me?”
She couldn’t tell him that. “My father hasn’t been well,” she said, evading a direct answer. “He needs me. I never realized how much until Christmas.”
“I see.”
She looked up into his black eyes with grief already building in her face.
“What’s wrong?” he asked gently. “Can’t you tell me?”
She forced a smile. “I’m tired. That’s all, I’m just tired.” She reached up and smoothed her hand slowly over his lean cheek. “I have to go inside.” On an impulse, she stood on tiptoe. “Powell…would you kiss me, just once…the way you used to?” she asked huskily, her gray eyes pleading with him.
It was an odd request, but the stormy evening had robbed him of the ability to reason properly. He didn’t answer. He bent, nuzzling her face, searching for her lips, and he kissed her as he had on their very first date, so long ago. His mouth was warm and searching and cautious, as if he didn’t want to frighten her. She reached up to him and held him close. For a few precious seconds, there was no dreaded future, no painful past. She melted into the length of him, moaning softly when she felt the immediate response of his body to hers. He half lifted her against him, and his mouth became demanding, insistent, intimate. She gave what he asked, holding him close. For this moment, he belonged to her and she loved him so…!
An eternity later, she drew gently away without looking at him, pulling her arms from around his neck. The scent of his cologne was in her nostrils, the taste of him was in her mouth. She hoped that she could remember this moment, at the end.
She managed a smile as she stood on shaky legs. “Thanks,” she said huskily. She stared up at him as if she wanted to memorize his face. In fact, she did.
He scowled. “I took you out because I wanted to talk to you,” he said heavily.
“We talked,” she replied, moving back. “Even if nothing got settled. There are too many scars, Powell. We can’t go back. But I won’t hurt Maggie, even if it means leaving the job, okay?”
“You don’t have to go that far,” he snapped.
She just smiled. “It will come to that,” she replied. “She’s got the upper hand, you see, and she knows it. It doesn’t matter,” she added absently as she stared at him. “In the long run, it doesn’t matter at all. Maybe it’s even for the best.” She took a long, slow breath, drinking in the sight of him. “Goodbye, Powell. I’m glad you’ve been so successful. You’ve got everything you ever wanted. Be happy.”
She turned and went into the house. She hadn’t thanked him for the coffee. But, then, he probably didn’t expect it. She was glad that her father was watching a television program intently, because when she called good-night, he didn’t ask how it had gone. It saved her the pain of telling him. It spared her his pity when he saw the tears she couldn’t stem.
Powell’s step was slow and leaden as he went into his house. He was drained of emotion, tired and disheartened. Always he’d hoped that one day he and Antonia would find their way back together again, but he couldn’t seem to get past the bitterness, and she’d closed doors tonight. She’d kissed him as if she were saying goodbye. Probably she had been. She didn’t like Maggie, and that wouldn’t change. Maggie didn’t like her, either. Sally was gone, but she’d left a barrier between them in the person of one small belligerent girl. He couldn’t get to Antonia because Maggie stood in the way. It was a sad thought, when he’d realized tonight how much Antonia still meant to him.
Surprisingly he found his daughter sitting on the bottom step of the staircase in her school clothes, waiting for him when he walked into his house.
“What are you doing up? Where’s Mrs. Bates?” he asked.
She shrugged. “She had to go home. She said I’d be okay since you weren’t supposed to be gone long.” She studied his face with narrowed, resentful eyes. “Did you tell Miss Hayes that she’d better be nice to me from now on?”
He frowned. “How did you know I took Miss Hayes out?”
“Mrs. Bates said you did.” She glared harder. “She said Miss Hayes was sweet, but she’s not. She’s mean to me. I told her that you hated her. I told her that you wanted her to go away and never come back. You did say that, Daddy, you know you did.”
He felt frozen inside. No wonder Antonia had been so hostile, so suspicious! “When did you tell Miss Hayes that?” he demanded.
“Last week.” Her lower lip protruded. “I want her to go away, too. I hate her!”
“Why?” he asked.
“She’s so stupid,” she muttered. “She goes all gooey when Julie brings her flowers and plays up to her. She doesn’t even know that Julie’s just doing it so she can be teacher’s pet. Julie doesn’t even come over to play with me anymore, she’s too busy drawing pictures for Miss Hayes!”
The resentment in his daughter’s face was a revelation. He remembered Sally being that way about Antonia. When they’d first been married, she’d been scathing about Antonia going to college and getting a job as a teacher. Sally hadn’t wanted to go away to school. She’d wanted to marry Powell. She’d said that Antonia had laughed about his calling off the wedding and saying that she’d marry George who was richer anyway…lies, all lies!
“I want you to do your homework from now on,” Powell told the child. “And stop behaving badly in class.”
“I do not behave badly! And I did my homework! I did!”
He wiped a hand over his brow. Maggie was a disagreeable child. He bought her things, but he couldn’t bear to spend any time around her. She always made him feel guilty.
“Did she tell you I wasn’t behaving?” she demanded.
“Oh, what does it matter what she said?” He glared at her angrily, watching the way she backed up when he looked at her. “You’ll toe the line or else.”
He stormed off, thoroughly disgusted. He didn’t think how the impulsive outburst might hurt a sensitive child who carefully hid her sensitivity from the cold adults around her. All her belligerence was nothing more than a mask she wore to keep people from seeing how much they could hurt her. But now, the mask was down. She stared up after her father with blue eyes brimming with tears, her small fists clenched at her sides.
“Daddy,” she whispered to herself, “why don’t you love me? Why can’t you love me? I’m not bad. I’m not bad, Daddy!”
But he didn’t hear her. And when she went to bed, her head was full of wicked Miss Hayes and ways to make her sorry for the way her daddy had just treated her.
Chapter Seven
The class had a test the following Monday. Maggie didn’t answer a single question on it. As usual, she sat with her arms folded and smiled haughtily at Antonia. When Antonia stopped beside her desk and asked if she wasn’t going to try to answer any of the questions, things came to a head.
“I don’t have to,” she told Antonia. “You can’t make me, either.”
Antonia promptly took Maggie to the principal’s office and decided to let Powell carry through with his threat to get her fired. It no longer mattered very much. She was tired of the memories and the future, and she was no closer to an answer about her own dilemma. Part of her wanted to take the chance that drastic therapy might save her. Another part was scared to death of it.
“I’m sorry,” she said when Mrs. Jameson came out into the waiting room, “but Maggie refuses to do the test I’m giving the class. I thought perhaps if you explained the seriousness of the situation to her…”
Th
is was Maggie’s best chance, and she took it at once. “She hates me!” Maggie cried piteously, pointing at Antonia. “She said I was just like my mommy and that she hated me!” She actually sobbed. Real tears welled in her blue eyes.
Antonia’s face went red. “I said no such thing, and you know it!” she said huskily.
“Yes, you did,” Maggie lied. “Mrs. Jameson, she said that she was going to fail me and there was nothing I could do about it. She hates me ’cause my daddy married my mommy instead of her!”
Antonia leaned against the door facing for support, staring at the child with eyes that were full of disbelief. The attack was so unexpected that she had no defense for it. Had Powell been merciless enough to tell the child that? Had he been that angry?
“Antonia, surely this isn’t true,” Mrs. Jameson began hesitantly.
“No, it’s not true,” Antonia said in a stilted tone. “I don’t know who’s been saying such things to her, but it wasn’t me.”
“My daddy told me,” Maggie lied. Actually she’d overheard Mrs. Bates telling that to one of her friends last night on the telephone. It had given Maggie a trump card that she was playing for all it was worth.
Antonia felt the blow all the way to her heart. She’d known that Powell was angry, but she hadn’t realized that he was heartless enough to tell Maggie such a painful truth, knowing that she’d use it as a weapon against her despised teacher. And it was a devastating remark to make in the school office. One of the mothers was in there to pick up a sick child, and the two secretaries were watching with wide, eager eyes. What Maggie had just said would be all over town by nightfall. Another scandal. Another humiliation.
“She’s awful to me,” Maggie continued, letting tears fall from her eyes. It wasn’t hard to cry; all she had to do was think about how her father hated her. Choking, she pointed at Antonia. “She says she can be as mean to me as she wants to, because nobody will believe me when I tell on her! I’m scared of her! You won’t let her hit me, will you, Mrs. Jameson?” she added, going close to the older woman to look up at her helplessly. “She said she was going to hit me!” she wailed.
Mrs. Jameson had been wavering. But Maggie’s eyes were overflowing with tears and she wasn’t a hard enough woman to ignore them. She opened her office door. “Go inside and sit down, please, dear,” she said. “Don’t cry, now, it will be all right. No one will hurt you.”
The little girl sniffed back more tears and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. “Yes, ma’am,” she said, keeping her eyes down so that Antonia wouldn’t see the triumph in them. Now you’ll have to go away, she thought gleefully, and Mrs. Donalds will come back.
She closed the door behind her. Antonia just stared at Mrs. Jameson.
“Antonia, she’s never been that upset,” Mrs. Jameson said reluctantly. “I’ve never seen her cry. I think she’s really afraid of you.”
Hearing the indecision in the other woman’s voice, Antonia knew what she was thinking. She’d heard all the old gossip, and she didn’t know Antonia well. She was afraid of Powell’s influence. And Maggie had cried. It didn’t take a mind reader to figure the outcome. Antonia knew she was beaten. It was as if fate had taken a hand here, forcing her to go back to Arizona. Perhaps it was for the best, anyway. She couldn’t have told her father the truth. It would have been too cruel, and very soon now her health was going to break. She couldn’t be a burden on the man she loved most.
She met the older woman’s eyes tiredly. “It’s just as well,” she said gently. “I wouldn’t have been able to work much longer, anyway.”
“I don’t understand,” Mrs. Jameson said, frowning.
She only smiled. She would understand one day. “I’ll save you the trouble of firing me. I quit. I hope you’ll release me without proper notice, and I’ll forfeit my pay in lieu of it,” she said. “Maybe she was right,” she said, nodding toward the office. “Maybe I could have been kinder to her. I’ll clear out my desk and leave at once, if you can have someone take over my class.”
She turned and walked out of the office, leaving a sad principal staring after her.
When Maggie came back to the classroom, after a long talk with Mrs. Jameson and then lunch, Miss Hayes was no longer there. Julie was crying quietly while the assistant principal put the homework assignment on the board.
Julie glared at Maggie for the rest of the day, and she even refused to speak to her until they left the building to catch the bus home.
“Miss Hayes left,” Julie accused. “It was because of you, wasn’t it? I heard Mr. Tarleton say they fired her!”
Maggie’s face flushed. “Well, of course you liked her, teacher’s pet! But she was mean to me!” Maggie snapped. “I hated her. I’m glad she’s gone!”
“She was so kind,” Julie sobbed. “You lied!”
Maggie went even redder. “She deserved it! She would have failed me!”
“She should have!” Julie said angrily. “You lazy, hateful girl!”
“Well, I don’t like you, either,” Maggie yelled at her. “You’re a kiss-up, that’s all you are! Mrs. Donalds doesn’t like you, she likes me, and she’s coming back!”
“She’s having a baby, and she isn’t coming back!” Julie raged at her.
“Why did Miss Hayes have to leave?” one of the boys muttered as he and his two friends joined them at the bus queue.
“Because Maggie told lies about her and she got fired!” Julie said.
“Miss Hayes got fired? You little brat!” the boy, Jake, said to Maggie, and pushed her roughly when the bus started loading. “She was the best teacher we ever had!”
“She wasn’t, either!” Maggie said defensively. She hadn’t realized that people were going to know that she got Miss Hayes fired, or that the teacher had been so well liked by her class.
“You got her fired because she didn’t like you,” Jake persisted, holding up the line. “Well, they ought to fire the whole school, then, because nobody likes you! You’re ugly and stupid and you look like a boy!”
Maggie didn’t say a word. She ignored him and the others and got on the bus, but she sat alone. Nobody spoke to her. Everybody glared and whispered. She huddled in her seat, trying not to look at Jake. She was crazy about him, and he hated her, too. It was a good thing that nobody knew how she felt.
At least, Miss Hayes was gone, she thought victoriously. That was one good thing that had come out of the horrible day.
Antonia had to tell her father that she’d lost her job and she was leaving town again. It was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do.
“That brat!” he raged. He went to the telephone. “Well, she’s not getting away with those lies. I’ll call Powell and we’ll make her tell the truth!”
Antonia put her hand over his on the receiver and held it in place. She coaxed him back into his easy chair and she sat on the very edge of the sofa with her hands clenched together.
“Powell believes her,” she said firmly. “He has no reason not to. Apparently she doesn’t tell lies as a rule. He won’t believe you any more than he believed me. He’ll side with Maggie and nothing will change. Nothing at all.”
“Oh, that child,” Ben Hayes said through his teeth.
She smoothed down her skirt. “I disliked her and it showed. That wasn’t her fault. Anyway, Dad, it doesn’t matter. I’ll still come back and visit and you can come and see me. It won’t be so bad. Really.”
“I’d only just got you home again,” he said heavily.
“And maybe I’ll come back one day,” she replied, smiling. She’d spared him the truth, at least. She hugged him. “I’ll leave in the morning. It’s best if I don’t drag it out.”
“What will they do about a teacher?” he demanded.
“They’ll hire the next person on their list,” she said simply. “It isn’t as if I’m not expendable.”
“You are to me.”
She kissed him. “And you are to me. Now, I’d better go pack.”
She phoned
Barrie that night and was invited to share her apartment for the time being. She didn’t tell Barrie what was wrong. That could wait.
She said goodbye to her father, climbed into her car and drove off toward Arizona. He’d wanted her to take the bus, but she wanted to be alone. She had plenty of thinking to do. She had to cope with her fears. It was time for that hard decision that she might already have put off for too long.
Back in Arizona, Barrie fed her cake and coffee and then waited patiently for the reason behind her best friend’s return.
When Antonia told her about Powell’s daughter’s lies, she was livid.
Barrie bit her lower lip, a nervous habit that sometimes left them raw. “I could shake them both,” she said curtly. “You’re so thin, Annie, so worn. Maybe it’s for the best that you came back here. You look worse than ever.”
“I’ll perk up now that I’m back. I need to see about my job, if they’ve got something open.”
“Your replacement, Miss Garland, was offered a job in industry at three times the pay and she left without notice,” Barrie told her. “I expect they’d love you to replace her. There aren’t many people who’ll work as hard as we do for the pay.”
That made Antonia smile. “Absolutely. That’s a bit of luck at last! I’ll phone first thing tomorrow.”
“It’s good to have you back,” Barrie said. “I’ve really missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too. Have you heard from Dawson…Barrie!”
Barrie had bitten right through her lip.
Antonia handed her a tissue. “You have to stop doing that,” she said, glad to be talking about something less somber than her sudden departure from Bighorn.
“I do try, you know.” She dabbed at the spot of blood and then stared miserably at her friend. “Dawson came to see me. We had an argument.”
“About what?”
Barrie clammed up.
“All right, I won’t pry. You don’t mind if I stay here? Really?”