It wasn’t fair. All summer, while Luke had worked at the fishing lodge for her grandfather, they’d been close. He said he didn’t care that she was four years younger. He’d told her all his dreams for the future, kissed her like she meant something to him, made love to her in their secret place in the forest. Though it had been the first time for them both, they’d soon overcome their initial awkwardness and learned where to touch and how to please. It had been a magical summer.
But now it was September, and the magic was over.
Maggie was back in school, and she’d heard Luke was working at a restaurant in Minnewasta. A love of cooking was something they shared. Someday, he’d promised, he’d own a restaurant and she’d be his head chef.
The tears flowed harder. He’d lied to her about that, too.
When she’d received a crumpled note from Luke earlier in the day, delivered by one of his bosses’ kids, relief and excitement had overwhelmed her. He asked her to meet him at the football field behind the bleachers during afternoon recess. As soon as the bell rang, Maggie ran across the school yard. She hadn’t seen Luke in almost two weeks, not since Grampa Bill had caught them together in one of the outbuildings. He’d fired Luke on the spot and told him to get off his property. It had been agony not to see him. And she’d been afraid he blamed her for losing his job and getting him into trouble.
When she arrived at the bleachers, Luke was there. But he wasn’t alone. He was locked in a passionate embrace with Cheryl Bradley. Cheryl was as mean as she was pretty. Maggie had confided to Luke about how Cheryl’s nasty comments about her dead parents had hurt her. The shock and betrayal of seeing him kissing her made Maggie sick to her stomach.
“Luke! What are you doing?”
He’d casually hung his arm around Cheryl’s shoulders, his eyes cold and hard as he stared at her. An involuntary shiver crawled up Maggie’s spine. Luke had never looked at her with such disdain before. Such disgust.
“I’m leaving town,” he said flatly. “Don’t do something stupid like try to follow me.”
“You’re leaving? Where are you going?”
“Someplace far from here.”
“But you’ll be back, right? You said you’d wait for me, and we’d go away together. You said—”
“Forget it! You’re a kid. I don’t want you! Leave me the hell alone. Go home and play with your dolls.”
With that, he’d grabbed Cheryl’s hand and pulled her away. Cheryl glanced over her shoulder with a smirk full of smug triumph.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. She tuned out Ms. Carter in math class last period, too shocked to make sense of anything she said. Now, all she could do was cry.
She must have done something to make Luke fall out of love with her.
She’d go crazy if she didn’t know. She had to find out what went wrong. She had to talk to Luke and make him explain. Maybe she could make things right and he’d take her with him.
Maggie clamoured off the bed and pulled a beat-up suitcase from underneath. She could hitchhike back to town and go to Abby’s house. Abby was Luke’s mother, the only person who’d known about their relationship. Abby had been her mother’s best friend, and Maggie trusted her.
She pulled her waist-length hair into a low ponytail and haphazardly stuffed her things into the suitcase. Praying her most prized possession survived the journey, she hastily folded the delicate crystal unicorn Luke had given her inside a couple of T-shirts and stuck it amongst some other clothes where she hoped it would be protected. She hesitated over Mr. Jingles and then, with one last hug, she set the Teddy bear back on her bed. Time to put away childish things.
If she hurried, she could catch Luke before he left town. It didn’t matter that he’d broken her heart when she’d found him kissing Cheryl. It had to be a mistake. Maybe if she’d been able to tell him how much she loved him, he wouldn’t have done this. She wished it wasn’t so hard for her to say the words, but if she caught up with him, she could tell him now. She’d make him see they belonged together.
A little voice in her head screamed she was wrong, that he’d betrayed her and taken advantage of her innocence. No eighteen-year-old boy on the brink of manhood would want a girl of fourteen. And if he really loved her, he wouldn’t be kissing Cheryl Bradley. She shoved the voice away and snapped the suitcase shut.
“Maggie, open up!” The doorknob rattled as her grandmother tried to open it.
“Go away!”
“Maggie, please. I know you’re upset, but letting that boy go is for the best. Your mother would want what was best for you.”
Rage poured through Maggie at Grandma Dorothy’s words. If Grampa hadn’t fired Luke and forbade him from seeing her again, he wouldn’t be leaving her now. “How do you know what my mother would have wanted? She’s been dead for twelve years!”
“Margaret Catherine! Watch your smart mouth!”
The doorknob rattled again and then gave way as Grandma pushed the door open. Like everything else in the fishing lodge, the lock was old and broken.
She eyed the suitcase. “What are you doing?”
“I’m leaving. I can’t stay in this place a minute longer. I hate it, and I hate you!”
Grandma pointed her finger at her. “You’re exactly like your mother! Headstrong and stubborn. And look where it got her! If she’d listened to me, he wouldn’t have killed her!”
“He didn’t kill her! It was an accident. Abby said—”
“Oh, Abby said!” Grandma Dorothy spat the words.
“She said it had to be an accident. Daddy loved Mommy too much to ever hurt her!”
“How does Abby know anything? Was she there? Did she see your father and mother out on the lake that day? If she had, she would have seen how he grabbed that oar and split open her head.”
The death of her parents – murder/suicide, the police said – occurred a few months past her first birthday. Maggie had imagined the horrible image in her dreams a thousand times, but this was too much. She covered her ears with her hands and turned away. “I don’t have to listen to you anymore. I won’t!”
Grandma grabbed her arm and twisted her around. “You have to listen before you make a mistake as big as the one your mother made. I know you’re going to try meeting up with that boy, but he’s gone, and he won’t be coming back. Good riddance!”
“Luke will wait for me. I know he will. He loves me and I love him. You can’t keep us apart.”
“I won’t let you make the same mistake Miranda made. She tried to run away from her problems but in the end, they killed her. I won’t let that happen to you.”
Tears of anger and frustration and grief ran down Maggie’s face. “No! Let me go!”
“You think he loves you? He was only using you.” Grandma tightened her hold. “You’re lucky he’s gone. He would have ruined your life like that man ruined your mother’s life.”
Maggie struggled to free herself from Grandma’s strong grip. She beat her fist against her shoulder. “Let me go! Luke loves me. I know he does. I hate you! I hate you!”
“You are so like your father, it breaks my heart!”
Grandma Dorothy’s grip on her arm abruptly loosened, and she staggered backward. Her face turned a funny greyish color and she clutched her stomach as if she was going to be sick. “She wouldn’t listen to me. She wouldn’t give him up.”
Maggie seized the opportunity to grab her suitcase from the bed. “I’m leaving and I’m never coming back!”
Grandma clutched the bedpost. “She should have listened to me. She never listened to me. Oh, Miranda, my darling girl. Why didn’t you listen to me?”
She slumped to the floor.
Maggie stared at her, fear making her immobile. “Grandma? Grandma, what’s wrong?”
Grandma Dorothy’s breath came out in ragged puffs. She struggled to lift her head. “I’m begging you, Maggie, don’t run away. Don’t make the same mistakes she did.”
Maggie dropped her suitcase a
nd slid to her knees beside her grandmother. Anger and love mixed with fear as she reached out her hand to touch her arm. “What’s wrong? Should I get Grampa?”
Grandma Dorothy grabbed a handful of Maggie’s T-shirt, her eyes pleading. “He was no good for her, but she said she loved him. She couldn’t give him up. And it killed her.”
“Who couldn’t she give up, Grandma? Who did she love?”
“Your father.”
“I don’t understand, Grandma. If she loved Daddy, why did she run away? Why would he kill her?”
Grandma Dorothy’s body went limp. Maggie stared at her, unable to move. She knew Grandma had a heart condition. She took some kind of pills for it. She shouldn’t have argued with her, upset her like that. This was her fault.
Oh, my God. I’ve killed her.
She uncurled Grandma Dorothy’s fingers from her T-shirt and stumbled away from her body. Tears of guilt crashed down her cheeks as she ran out of the lodge and raced to Grampa’s shed.
You’re exactly like your mother. The words taunted her, even as they confused her.
Nothing Grandma said made any sense. What had she meant? What had her mother done?
Anger welled up in her chest. This was all Luke’s fault. He’d abandoned her when she needed him most, and she never wanted to see him again.
CHAPTER ONE
Ten Years Later
Dammit, she knew better. Some chef she was.
Water boiled bubbled over the top of the pot and flooded her new stove’s pristine surface. The pot was too small for the amount of pasta Maggie wanted to cook, but the bigger pot was already in use and she figured she could get away with it, just this once.
Wrong again, Maggie.
She turned off the gas burner and yelped in pain as water splashed up and scalded her bare arm.
Damn, that hurt, but it served her right for being so careless and for thinking she could cut corners in the kitchen. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Suddenly, a man was standing next to her at the stove, sliding a heavy lid over the pot and pushing it onto a back burner. She’d been too distracted to notice his arrival in her kitchen, but now as she looked up into his face, her heart jumped into her throat. Though she hadn’t seen him in ten years, she remembered every angle of his face, every golden speckle in his grey-green eyes, every wave in his dark hair.
“Luke.”
The old resentment burned in her chest, surprising her with its intensity. She thought she’d put it behind her. Put him behind her.
Without a word, he steered her to the sink, turned on the cold water and pushed her arm beneath the stream. The water immediately soothed her scalded skin.
“Keep your arm under the cold water till the pain goes away.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
The corner of his mouth turned up in the way her teenage self had always found sexy. Now, as a grown woman, it only made her angry.
“I’m here to apply for the job, but I wanted to talk to you first.”
Maggie’s mind went blank. She couldn’t think with him looking at her, touching her. She could barely breathe. She hated that he still had that affect on her. “What job?”
“The job as your hotel and restaurant manager.”
Her sister Harper and brother-in-law Ethan had been searching for someone experienced in the hotel business to handle the job. With the renovation of the fishing lodge Maggie and her sisters had inherited from their grandfather nearing completion, they needed help running the new and improved Solace Lake Lodge. Years ago, Luke’s mother Abby told her he’d gone out to California to work in a hotel, but Maggie didn’t know the specifics. She had avoided talking to Abby since she moved back to the lodge.
“I’ve been working at a boutique hotel in the Napa Valley for the last eight years. I manage the hotel and restaurant, and I oversee the wines we serve. I’ve taken special training in pairing California wines with food.”
Maggie turned off the water and dried her arm on her apron. As soon as her skin dried the burn stung again, but she ignored it. “That’s a very nice resume, but what I want to know is why you’re back in Minnesota. Tired of all the sunshine, are you?”
“My mother is sick. Her doctors say she’d dying.”
She stared at him in shock as guilt washed over her like a tsunami. Abby had asked to see her. Her sisters had visited and told her Abby asked for her repeatedly. But she’d been too childishly angry to go. After her grandmother’s death, Abby had been her friend and confidant. She’d helped her through sadness and loneliness, and moments when Harper forgot she was her sister and not her mother. Abby had been her only connection to Luke and even though she resented the way he’d left her, she still craved news of him.
But then Abby married Reese and moved away. The abandonment had devastated Maggie. Someone was always leaving her.
And now she was losing Abby again.
“She’s sick? How long…?” She couldn’t finish the question.
“When the doctors discovered breast cancer, she had a double mastectomy, but it had already spread to her lungs. Her doctors say she’s terminal, that she has less than six months, but I don’t accept that diagnosis.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve done some research, talked to cancer specialists. I’m trying to get her to continue treatment with a new doctor. I need to be here to help her. That’s why I’m applying for this job on a temporary basis.”
“Temporary?”
“I’ve taken a leave of absence, but I can’t afford not to work. I’ll go back to California when…when Mom has stabilized.”
“But what about Reese? He’s devoted to Abby. Surely, he’s done everything possible for her.”
“Reese is a good man, but he’s accepted what the doctors here have told them about my mother’s health. I think we need another opinion from someone who isn’t going to give up on her.”
Luke turned away on a deep breath. His pain reached out and touched her like a living thing. He’d always been close to his mother. Years ago, Abby had told her how Luke had been conceived during a brief affair she’d had in her twenties. She’d said she couldn’t regret the affair because it had given her Luke, and he was the light of her life. It had been the two of them against the world—three counting her mother. They’d lived with Abby’s widowed mother Phyllis in the small town of Minnewasta all through Luke’s childhood and adolescence.
“Before I have my interview with your sister, I needed to talk to you. We have a history, and the way I left you…wasn’t fair. If my being here is awkward for you, or makes you uncomfortable, I won’t apply for the job.”
She snapped to attention at his words. Abby needed Luke right now, and Luke needed to be with his mother. Her petty concerns meant nothing. “Don’t be ridiculous. That was years ago and we were kids, or at least I was. Whatever happened back then doesn’t matter anymore. Abby’s care is all that matters now.”
He nodded, but a look of anguish marred his handsome features. “Yeah. That’s all that matters.”
An hour later, Maggie heard voices in the lodge’s main entry as Harper and Ethan walked Luke to the front door. She stood behind the staircase where she could listen unobserved.
“How soon can you start?” Harper asked.
“I can start right away, but I want you to phone my references before you make any decisions,” Luke said. “Don’t give me the job because you feel sorry for me.”
“Luke, please. Let us help.”
“I’m serious, Harper. I want you to know for certain that I can do this job for you. I want to be an asset to the lodge while I’m here.”
That was the Luke she remembered, the boy with so much pride and so determined to go his own way.
Without her, as it turned out. She closed her eyes, pushing down the anger and pain. She hated that his rejection mattered even now.
“We’ll phone your employer in California if that’s what you want,” Ethan said. “I’ll call
you as soon as we’ve done that.”
“Thank you. I appreciate your kindness.”
They said their goodbyes, and Maggie heard the front door open and close. She ventured out of her hiding spot. “So, you’re going to hire Luke?” she asked.
“Probably.” Ethan put his arm around Harper’s shoulders. Her sister leaned against her husband, looking as if she was about to cry. “I’ll call his employer as a courtesy to him, but if the information on his resume is true, he’s exactly what the lodge needs right now.”
“Why didn’t you tell me Luke was coming for an interview? I didn’t even know he was back in Minnesota.” Seeing him so unexpectedly had been a shock, one she’d wished she could have prepared for.
“We didn’t know. He phoned shortly before showing up here. He said he’d seen our ad on an internet job site.” Harper dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “I can’t believe Abby’s doctors say she’s terminal. She’s never given any indication how sick she was.”
“Luke said he’s trying to convince her to see a new doctor and try another treatment.” Maggie prayed this doctor could perform a miracle.
“Reese never said a word,” Ethan said. “He must be going out of his mind. I know I would.”
He pulled Harper into his arms and held her close, murmuring something in her ear. Maggie retreated back into the kitchen to give them privacy. Harper and Ethan shared a close, loving bond. Her sister had all but given up on the idea of finding love, but then Ethan swept into her life and changed everything for her.
No one deserved to be happy more than Harper. But sometimes, especially now that her other sister Scarlet was about to marry, Maggie wondered if that kind of happiness would always elude her.
To purchase “Truth and Solace”, or any of Jana Richards’ novels, please go to www.janarichards.com/books.html.
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