LITMIR.BIZ

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done everything possible to avoid the subject so that her mother wouldn’t be upset.

      “I wouldn’t say Powell was happy,” Ben continued, unabashed. “He’s never home, and we never see him out with Sally in public. In fact, we never see Sally much at all. If she’s happy, she doesn’t let it show.” He studied his daughter’s pale, rigid face. “She called here one day before Easter and asked for your address. Did she write to you?”

      “She wrote me.”

      “Well?” he prompted, curious.

      “I returned the letter without opening it,” Antonia said tightly, even paler now. She looked down at her shoes. “It’s ancient history.”

      “She might have wanted to apologize,” Jessica ventured.

      Antonia sighed. “Some things go beyond apologies,” she said quietly. “I loved him, you know,” she added with a faint smile. “But he never loved me. If he did, he didn’t say so in all the time we went together. He believed everything Sally told him. He just told me what he thought of me, called off the wedding and walked away. I had to leave. It hurt too much to stay.” She could picture in her mind that long, straight back, the rigid set of his dark head. The pain had been terrible. It still was.

      “As if George was that sort of man,” Jessica said wearily. “He’s the kindest man in the world, and he adores you.”

      “Not the sort to play around with young girls,” Ben agreed. “Idiots, people who could believe that about him. I know that’s why he moved out of the country, to spare us any more gossip.”

      “Since he and I are both gone, there’s not much to gossip about,” Antonia said pointedly. She smiled. “I’m working hard on my grades. I want George to be proud of me.”

      “He will be. And we already are,” Jessica said warmly.

      “Well, it serves Powell Long right that he ended up with that selfish little madam,” Ben persisted irritably. “He thinks he’s going to get rich by building up that cattle ranch, but he’s just a dreamer,” Ben scoffed. “His father was a gambler, and his mother was a doormat. Imagine him thinking he’s got enough sense to make money with cattle!”

      “He does seem to be making strides,” his wife said gently. “He just bought a late-model truck, and they say a string of ranches up in Montana have given him a contract to supply them with seed bulls. You remember, Ben, when his big purebred Angus bull was in the paper, it won some national award.”

      “One bull doesn’t make an empire,” Ben scoffed.

      Antonia felt the words all the way to her heart. Powell had told her his dreams, and they’d planned that ranch together, discussed having the best Angus bulls in the territory…

      “Could we not…talk about him, please?” Antonia asked finally. She forced a smile. “It still stings a little.”

      “Of course it does. We’re sorry,” Jessica said, her voice soft now. “Can you come home for Christmas?”

      “I’ll try. I really will.”

      She had one small suitcase. She carried it out to the car and hugged her mother one last time before she climbed in beside her father for the short ride to the bus depot downtown.

      It was morning, but still sweltering hot. She got out of the car and picked up her suitcase as she waited on the sidewalk for her father to get her ticket from the office inside the little grocery store. There was a line. She’d just turned her attention back to the street when her eyes froze on an approaching pedestrian; a cold, quiet ghost from the past.

      He was just as lean and dark as she remembered him. The suit was better than the ones he’d worn when they were dating, and he looked thinner. But it was the same Powell Long.

      She’d lost everything to him except her pride. She still had it, and she forced her gray eyes up to his as he walked down the sidewalk with that slow, elegant stride that was particularly his own. She wouldn’t let him see how badly his distrust had hurt her, even now.

      His expression gave away nothing that he was feeling. He paused when he reached her, glancing at the suitcase.

      “Well, well,” he drawled, watching her face. “I heard you were here. The chicken came home to roost, did she?”

      “I’m not here to stay,” she replied coolly. “I’ve been to visit my parents. I’m on my way to Arizona, back to college.”

      “By bus?” he taunted. “Couldn’t your sugar daddy afford a plane ticket? Or did he leave you high and dry when he hightailed it to France?”

      She kicked him right in the shin. It wasn’t premeditated, and he looked as shocked as she did when he bent to rub the painful spot where her shoe had landed.

      “I wish I’d been wearing steel-toed combat boots like one of the girls in my dorm,” she said hotly. “And if you ever so much as speak to me again, Powell Long, I’ll break your leg the next time!”

      She brushed past him and went into the depot.

      Her father had just paid for the ticket when his attention was captured by the scene outside the depot. He started outside, but Antonia pushed him back into the building.

      “We can wait for the bus in here, Dad,” she said, her face still red and hot with anger.

      He glanced past her to where Powell had straightened to send a speaking look toward the depot.

      “Well, he seems to have learned to control that hot temper, at least. A year ago, he’d have been in here, right through the window,” Ben Hayes remarked coldly. “I hope you crippled him.”

      She managed a wan smile. “No such luck. You can’t wound something that ornery.”

      Powell had started back down the street, his back stiff with outrage.

      “I hope Sally asks him how he hurt his leg,” Antonia said under her breath.

      “Here, girl, the bus is coming.” He shepherded her outside, grateful that the ticket agent hadn’t been paying attention and that none of the other passengers seemed interested in the byplay out the window. All they needed was some more gossip.

      Antonia hugged her father before she climbed aboard. She wanted to look down the street, to see if Powell was limping. But even though the windows were dark, she wouldn’t risk having him catch her watching him. She closed her eyes as the bus pulled away from the depot and spent the rest of the journey trying to forget the pain of seeing Powell Long again.

      Chapter One

      “That’s very good, Martin, but you’ve left out something, haven’t you?” Antonia prompted gently. She smiled, too, because Martin was very shy even for a nine-year-old and she didn’t want to embarrass him in front of her other fourth graders. “The secret weapon the Greeks used in battle…a military formation?”

      “Secret weapon,” he murmured to himself. Then his dark eyes lit up and he grinned. “The phalanx!” he said at once.

      “Yes,” she replied. “Very good!”

      He beamed, glancing smugly at his worst enemy in the second row over, who was hoping Martin would miss the question and looked very depressed indeed that he hadn’t.

      Antonia glanced at her watch. It was almost time to dismiss class for the day, and the week. Odd, she thought, how loose that watch was on her wrist.

      “It’s time to start putting things away,” she told her students. “Jack, will you erase the board for me, please? And, Mary, please close the windows.”

      They rushed to obey, because they liked Miss Hayes. Mary glanced at her with a smile. Miss Hayes smiled back. She wasn’t as pretty as Miss Bell down the hall, and she dressed in a very backward sort of way, always wearing suits or pantsuits, not miniskirts and frilly blouses.

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