by Diana Palmer
She returned his kisses until sheer exhaustion drained her of strength and she lay against his chest, holding on for support.
“You’re still very weak,” he remarked. He lifted her gently and carried her to the bed. “I’ll have Ida bring lunch up here. Dr. Claridge said you’d need time in bed and you’re going to get it now that we’re home.”
“Bully,” she teased softly.
He chuckled, bending over her. “Only when I need to be.” He kissed her softly.
Maggie, passing the door, heard him laugh, saw the happiness he was sharing with Antonia, and felt more alone than she ever had in her young life. She walked on, going down the stairs and into the kitchen.
“Mind you don’t track mud in here,” Ida Bates muttered. “I just mopped.”
Maggie didn’t speak. She walked out the door and closed it behind her.
Antonia had her lunch on a tray with Powell. It was so different now, being with him, loving him openly, watching the coldness leave him. He was like a different man.
But she worried about Maggie. That evening when Ida brought another tray, this time a single one because Powell had to go out, she asked about Maggie.
“I don’t know where she is,” Ida said, surprised. “She went out before lunch and never came back.”
“But aren’t you concerned?” Antonia asked sharply. “She’s only nine!”
“Little monkey goes where she pleases, always has. She’s probably out in the barn. New calf out there. She likes little things. She won’t go far. She’s got no place to go.”
That sounded so heartless. She winced.
“You eat all that up, now. Do you good to have some hot food inside you.” Ida smiled and went out, leaving the door open. “Call if you need me!”
Antonia couldn’t enjoy her meal. She was worried, even if nobody else was.
She got up and searched in her suitcases for a pair of jeans, socks, sneakers and a sweatshirt. She put them on and eased down the stairs, through the living room and out the front door. The barn was to the side of the house, a good little walk down a dirt road. She didn’t think about how tired she was. She was worried about Maggie. It was late afternoon, and growing dark. The child had been out all day.
The barn door was ajar. She eased inside it and looked around the spacious, shadowy confines until her eyes became accustomed to the dimness. The aisle was wide and covered in wheat straw. She walked past one stall and another until she found a calf and a small child together in the very last one.
“You didn’t have anything to eat,” she said.
Maggie was shocked. She stared up at the woman she’d caused so much trouble for and felt sick to her stomach. Nobody else cared if she starved. It was ironic that her worst enemy was concerned about her.
Her big blue eyes stared helplessly up at Antonia.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Antonia persisted.
Maggie shrugged. “I had a candy bar,” she said, avoiding those soft gray eyes.
Antonia came into the stall and settled down beside the calf in the soft, clean hay. She touched the calf’s soft nose and smiled. “Their noses are so soft, aren’t they?” she asked. “When I was a little girl, I used to wish I had a pet, but my mother was allergic to fur, so we couldn’t have a dog or cat.”
Maggie fidgeted. “We don’t have dogs and cats. Mrs. Bates says animals are dirty.”
“Not if they’re groomed.”
Maggie shrugged again.
Antonia smoothed the calf’s forehead. “Do you like cattle?”
Maggie watched her warily. Then she nodded. “I know all about Herefords and black Angus. That’s what my daddy raises. I know about birth weights and weight gain ratios and stuff.”
Antonia’s eyebrows arched. “Really? Does he know?”
Maggie’s eyes fell. “It wouldn’t matter. He hates me on account of I’m like my mother.”
Antonia was surprised that the child was that perceptive. “But your mother did have wonderful qualities,” Antonia said. “When we were in school, she was my best friend.”
Maggie stared at her. “She married my daddy instead of you.”
Antonia’s hand stilled on the calf. “Yes. She told a lie, Maggie,” she explained. “Because she loved your daddy very much.”
“She didn’t like me,” Maggie said dully. “She used to hit me when he wasn’t home and say it was my fault that she was unhappy.”
“Maggie, it wasn’t your fault,” Antonia said firmly.
Maggie’s blue eyes met hers. “Nobody wants me here,” she said stiffly. “Now that you’re here, Daddy will make me go away!”
“Over my dead body,” Antonia said shortly.
The child sat there like a little statue, as if she didn’t believe what she’d heard. “You don’t like me.”
“You’re Powell’s little girl,” she replied. “I love him very much. How could I possibly hate someone who’s part of him?”
For the first time, the fear in the child’s eyes was visible. “You don’t want to make me go away?”
“Certainly not,” Antonia said.
She nibbled on her lower lip. “They don’t want me here,” she muttered, nodding her head curtly toward the house. “Daddy goes off and leaves me all the time, and she,” she added in a wounded tone, “hates having to stay with me. It was better when I could stay with Julie, but she hates me, too, on account of I got you fired.”
Antonia’s heart went out to the child. She wondered if in all her life any adult had taken the time to sit down and really talk to her. Perhaps Mrs. Donalds had, and that was why Maggie missed her so much.
“You’re very young to try to understand this,” she told Maggie slowly. “But inadvertently it was because I lost my job that I went back to the doctor and discovered that I didn’t have cancer. Your dad made me go to the doctor,” she added with a reflective smile. “He came after me when I left. If he hadn’t, I don’t know what might have happened to me. Things seem fated sometimes, to me,” she added thoughtfully. “You know, as if they’re meant to happen. We blame people for playing their part in the scheme of things, and we shouldn’t. Life is a test, Maggie. We have obstacles to overcome, to make us stronger.” She hesitated. “Is any of this making sense to you?”
“You mean God tests us,” the child said softly.
Antonia smiled. “Yes. Does your dad take you to church?”
She shrugged and looked away. “He doesn’t take me anywhere.”
And it hurt, Antonia thought, because she was beginning to understand just how much this child was enduring. “I like going to church,” she said. “My grandparents helped build the Methodist Church where I went when I was little. Would you…” She hesitated, not wanting to lose ground by rushing the child.
Maggie turned her head and looked at her. “Would I…?” she prompted softly.
“Would you like to go to church with me sometimes?”
The change the question made in that sullen face was remarkable. It softened, brightened, with interest. “Just you and me?” she asked.
“At first. Your dad might come with us, eventually.”
She hesitated, toying with a piece of wheat straw. “You aren’t mad at me anymore?” she asked.
Antonia shook her head.
“He won’t mind?”
She smiled. “No.”
“Well…” She shifted and then she frowned, glancing up at the woman with sad eyes. “Well, I would like to,” she said. “But I can’t.”
“Can’t? Why not?”
Maggie’s shoulders hunched forward. “I don’t got a dress.”
Tears stung Antonia’s gray eyes. Hadn’t Powell noticed? Hadn’t anybody noticed?
“Oh, my dear,” she said huskily, grimacing.
The note in her voice got the child’s attention. She saw the glitter of tears in the woman’s eyes and felt terrible.
“Antonia!”
The deep voice echoed through the barn. Powell saw them together a
nd strode forward.
“What the hell are you doing out of bed?” he demanded, lifting her to her feet with firm hands. He saw the tears and his face hardened as he turned to the child on her knees by the calf. “She’s crying. What did you say to her?” he demanded.
“Powell, no!” She put her hand across his lips. “No! She didn’t make me cry!”
“You’re defending her!”
“Maggie,” Antonia said gently, “you tell your dad what you just told me. Don’t be afraid,” she added firmly. “Tell him.”
Maggie gave him a belligerent glare. “I don’t got a dress,” she said accusingly.
“Don’t have a dress,” Antonia corrected her belatedly.
“I don’t have a dress,” Maggie said obligingly.
“So?” he asked.
“I want to take her to church with me. She doesn’t have anything to wear,” Antonia told him.
He looked down at his daughter with dawning realization. “You haven’t got a dress?”
“No, I don’t!” Maggie returned.
He let out a heavy breath. “My God.”
“Tomorrow after school you and I are going shopping,” Antonia told the child.
“You and me?” Maggie asked.
“Yes.”
Powell stared from one of them to the other with open curiosity. Maggie got to her feet and brushed herself off. She looked up at Antonia warily. “I read this fairy tale about a woman who married a man with two little kids and she took them off and lost them in the forest.”
Antonia chuckled. “I couldn’t lose you, Maggie,” she told the child. “Julie told me that you could track like a hunter.”
“She did?”
“Who taught you how to track?” Powell demanded.
Maggie glared at him. “Nobody. I read it in a Boy Scout manual. Jake loaned me his.”
“Why didn’t you ask your dad to buy you one of your own?” she asked the child.
Maggie glared at him again. “He wouldn’t,” she said. “He brings me dolls.”
Antonia’s eyebrows lifted. She looked at Powell curiously. “Dolls?”
“She’s a girl, isn’t she?” he demanded belligerently.
“I hate dolls,” Maggie muttered. “I like books.”
“Yes, I noticed,” Antonia said.
Powell felt like an idiot. “You never said,” he muttered at his daughter.
She moved a little closer to Antonia. “You never asked,” she replied. She brushed at the filthy sweatshirt where wheat straw was sticking to it.
“You look like a rag doll,” Powell said. “You need a bath and a change of clothes.”
“I don’t got no more clothes,” she said miserably. “Mrs. Bates said she wouldn’t wash them because I got them too dirty to get clean.”
“What?”
“She threw away my last pair of blue jeans,” Maggie continued, “and this is the only sweatshirt I got left.”
“Oh, Maggie,” Antonia said heavily. “Maggie, why didn’t you tell her you didn’t have any other clothes?”
“Because she won’t listen,” the child said. “Nobody listens!” She looked at her father with his own scowl. “When I grow up, I’m going to leave home and never come back! And when I have little kids, I’m going to love them!”
Powell was at a complete loss for words. He couldn’t even manage to speak.
“Go and have a bath,” Antonia told the child gently. “Have you a gown and robe?”
“I got pajamas. I hid them or she’d have throwed them away, too,” she added mutinously.
“Then put them on. I’ll bring up your supper.”
Powell started to speak, but she put her hand over his mouth again.
“Go ahead, Maggie,” she urged the child.
Maggie nodded and with another majestic glare at her father, she stalked off down the aisle.
“Oh, she’s yours, all right,” Antonia mused when she’d gone out of the barn and they were alone. “Same scowl, same impatient attitude, same temper, same glare…”
He felt uncomfortable. “I didn’t know she didn’t have any damned clothes,” he said.
“Now you do. I’m going to take her shopping to buy new ones.”
“You aren’t in any shape to go shopping or to carry trays of food,” he muttered. “I’ll do it.”
“You’ll take her shopping?” she asked with mischief twinkling in her gray eyes.
“I can take a kid to a dress shop,” he said belligerently.
“I’m sure you can,” she agreed. “It’s just the shock of having you volunteer to do it, that’s all.”
“I’m not volunteering,” he said. “I’m protecting you.”
She brightened. “Was that why? You sweet man, you.”
She reached up and kissed him softly, lingeringly, on his hard mouth. He only resisted for a split second. Then he lifted her clear off the ground, and kissed her with muted hunger, careful not to make any more demands on her than she was ready for. He turned and carried her down the aisle, smiling at her warmly between kisses.
Mrs. Bates was standing in the middle of the floor looking perplexed when they walked in, although she smiled at the sight of the boss with his wife in his arms.
“Carrying her over the threshold?” she teased Powell.
“Sparing her tired legs,” he corrected. “Did Maggie go through here?”
“Indeed she did,” Mrs. Bates said with a rueful smile. “I’m a wicked witch because I threw away the only clothes she had and now she has to go shopping for more.”
“That’s about the size of it,” he agreed, smiling at Antonia.
“I didn’t know,” Mrs. Bates said.
“Neither did I,” replied Powell.
They both looked at Antonia.
“I’m a schoolteacher,” she reminded them. “I’m used to children.”
“I guess I don’t know anything,” Powell said with a heavy sigh.
“You’ll learn.”
“How about taking a tray up to Maggie?” Powell asked Mrs. Bates.
“It’s the least I can do,” the older woman said sheepishly. “I’ll never live that down. But you can’t imagine the shape those jeans were in. And the sweatshirts!”
“I’m taking her shopping tomorrow after school,” Powell said. “We’ll get some new stuff for her to wear out.”
Mrs. Bates was fascinated. In all the years she’d worked here, Powell Long hadn’t taken his daughter anywhere if she wasn’t in trouble.
“I know,” he said, reading the look accurately. “But there has to be a first step.”
Mrs. Bates nodded. “I guess so. For both of us.”
Antonia just smiled. Progress at last!
Powell felt out of place in the children’s boutique. The saleslady was very helpful, but Maggie didn’t know what to get and neither did he.
They looked at each other helplessly.
“Well, what do you want to buy?” he demanded.
She glared at him. “I don’t know!”
“If I could suggest some things.” The saleslady intervened diplomatically.
Powell left her to it. He couldn’t imagine that clothes were going to do much for his sullen child, but Antonia had insisted that it would make a difference if he went with her. So far, he didn’t see any difference.
But when the child went into the dressing room with the saleslady and reappeared five minutes later, he stared at her as if he didn’t recognize her.
She was wearing a ruffled pink dress with lace at the throat, a short-skirted little thing with white leggings and patent leather shoes. Her hair was neatly brushed and a frilly ribbon sat at a jaunty angle in it beside her ear.
“Maggie?” he asked, just to be sure.
The look on her dad’s face was like a miracle. He seemed surprised by the way she looked. In fact, he smiled. She smiled back. And the change the expression made in her little face was staggering.
For the first time, he saw himself in the chil
d. The eyes were the wrong color, but they were the same shape as his own. Her nose was going to be straight like his—well, like his used to be before he got it broken in a fight. Her mouth was thin and wide like his, her cheekbones high.
Sally had lied about this, too, about Maggie not being his. He’d never been so certain of anything.
He lifted an ironic eyebrow. “Well, well, from ugly duckling to swan,” he mused. “You look pretty.”
Maggie’s heart swelled. Her blue eyes sparkled. Her lips drew up and all at once she laughed, a gurgle of sound that hit Powell right in the heart. He had never heard her laugh. The impact of it went right through him and he seemed to see down the years with eyes full of sorrow and regret. This child had never had a chance at happiness. He’d subconsciously blamed her for Sally’s betrayal, for the loss of Antonia. He’d never been a proper father to her in all her life. He wondered if it was going to be too late to start now.
The laughter had changed Maggie’s whole appearance. He laughed at the difference.
“Hell,” he said under his breath. “How about something blue, to match her eyes?” he asked the saleslady. “And some colorful jeans, not those old dark blue things she’s been wearing.”
“Yes, sir,” the saleslady said enthusiastically.
Maggie pirouetted in front of the full-length mirror, surprised to see that she didn’t look the way she usually did. The dress made her almost pretty. She wondered if Jake would ever get to see her in it, and her eyes brightened even more. Now that Antonia was back, maybe everyone would stop hating her.
But Antonia was sick, and she wouldn’t be teaching. And that was still Maggie’s fault.
“What’s the matter?” Powell asked gently. He went down on one knee in front of the child, frowning. “What’s wrong?”
Maggie was surprised that he was concerned, that he’d even noticed her sudden sadness. He didn’t, usually.