LITMIR.BIZ

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      She kept busy for the remainder of her vacation and spent New Year’s Eve by herself, with only a brief telephone call to her father for company. They didn’t mention Powell.

      Barrie stopped by on New Year’s Day, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and trying not to look interested in Dawson’s visit to Antonia’s father’s house. It was always the same, though. Whenever Antonia went to Wyoming, Barrie would wait patiently until her friend said something about Dawson. Then she pretended that she wasn’t interested and changed the subject.

      But this time, she didn’t. She searched Antonia’s eyes. “Does he…look well?” she asked.

      “He’s fine,” Antonia replied honestly. “He’s quit smoking, so that’s good news.”

      “Did he mention the widow?”

      Antonia smiled sympathetically and shook her head. “He doesn’t have much to do with women, Barrie. In fact, Dad says they call him ‘the iceman’ around Bighorn. They’re still looking for a woman who can thaw him out.”

      “Dawson?” Barrie burst out. “But he’s always had women hanging on him…!”

      “Not these days. Apparently all he’s interested in is making money.”

      Barrie looked shocked. “Since when?”

      “I don’t know. For the past few years at least,” Antonia replied, frowning. “He’s your stepbrother. You’d know more about that than I would. Wouldn’t you?”

      Barrie averted her eyes. “I don’t see him. I don’t go home.”

      “Yes, I know, but you must hear about him….”

      “Only from you,” the other woman said stiffly. “I don’t…we don’t have any mutual friends.”

      “Doesn’t he ever come to see you?”

      Barrie went pale. “He wouldn’t.” She bit off the words and forced a smile to her face. “We’re poison to each other, didn’t you know?” She looked at her watch. “I’m going to a dance. Want to come?”

      Antonia shook her head. “Not me. I’m too tired. I’ll see you back at work.”

      “Sure. You look worse than you did when you left. Did you see Powell?”

      Antonia flinched.

      “Sorry,” came the instant reply. “Listen, don’t tell me anything about Dawson even if I beg, and I swear I won’t mention Powell again, okay? I’m really sorry. I suppose we both have wounds too raw to expose. See you!”

      Barrie left, and Antonia quickly found something to do, so that she wouldn’t have to think any more about Powell.

      But, oh, it was hard. He’d literally jilted her the day before the wedding. The invitations had been sent out, the church booked, the minister ready to officiate at the ceremony. Antonia had a dress from Neiman Marcus, a heavenly creation that George had helped her buy—which had become part of the fiasco when she admitted it to Powell. And then, out of the blue, Sally had dropped her bombshell. She’d told Powell that George Rutherford was Antonia’s sugar daddy and he was paying for her body. Everyone in Bighorn knew it. They probably did, Sally had worked hard enough spreading the rumor. The gossip alone was enough to send Powell crazy. He’d turned on Antonia in a rage and canceled the wedding. She didn’t like remembering the things he’d said to her.

      Some of the guests didn’t get notified in time and came to the church, expecting a wedding. Antonia had had to face them and tell them the sad news. She had been publicly humiliated, and then there was the scandal that involved poor George. He’d had to move back to Sheridan, to the headquarters ranch of the Rutherford chain. It had been a shame, because the Rutherford Bighorn Ranch had been his favorite. He’d escaped a lot of the censure and spared Antonia some of it, especially when he exiled himself to France. But Antonia and her father and mother got the whole measure of local outrage. Denial did no good, because how could she defend herself against knowing glances and haughty treatment? The gossip had hurt her mother most, leaving her virtually isolated from most of the people who knew her. She’d had a mild heart attack from the treatment of her only child as a social outcast. Ironically that had seemed to bring some people to their senses, and the pressure had been eased a bit. But Antonia had left town very quickly, to spare her mother any more torment, taking her broken heart with her.

      Perhaps if Powell had thought it through, if the wedding hadn’t been so near, the ending might have been different. He’d always been quick-tempered and impulsive. He hated being talked about. Antonia knew that at least three people had talked to him about the rumors, and one of them was the very minister who was to marry them. Later, Antonia had discovered that they were all friends of Sally and her family.

      To be fair to Powell, he’d had more than his share of public scandal. His father had been a hopeless gambler who lost everything his mother slaved at housekeeping jobs to provide. In the end he’d killed himself when he incurred a debt he knew he’d never be able to repay. Powell had watched his mother be torn apart by the gossip, and eventually her heart wore out and she simply didn’t wake up one morning.

      Antonia had comforted Powell. She’d gone to the funeral home with him and held his hand all through the ordeal of giving up the mother he’d loved. Perhaps grief had challenged his reason, because although he’d hidden it well, the loss had destroyed something in him. He’d never quite recovered from it, and Sally had been behind the scenes, offering even more comfort when Antonia wasn’t around. Susceptible to her soft voice, perhaps he’d listened when he shouldn’t have. But in the end, he’d believed Sally, and he’d married her. He’d never said he loved Antonia, and it had been just after they’d become engaged that Powell had managed several loans, on the strength of her father’s excellent references, to get the property he’d inherited out of hock. He was just beginning to make it pay when he’d called off the wedding.

      The pain was like a knife. She’d loved Powell more than her own life. She’d been devastated by his defection. The only consolation she’d had was that she’d put him off physically until after the wedding. Perhaps that had hurt him most, thinking that she was sleeping with poor old George when she wouldn’t go to bed with him. Who knew? She couldn’t go back and do things differently. She could only go forward. But the future looked much more bleak than the past.

      She went back to work in the new year, apparently rested and unworried. But the doctor’s appointment was still looming at the end of her first week after she started teaching.

      She didn’t expect them to find anything. She was run-down and tired all the time, and she’d lost a lot of weight. Probably she needed vitamins or iron tablets or something. When the doctor ordered a blood test, a complete blood count, she went along to the lab and sat patiently while they worked her in and took blood for testing. Then she went home with no particular intuition about what was about to happen.

      It was early Monday morning when she had a call at work from the doctor’s office. They asked her to come in immediately.

      She was too frightened to ask why. She left her class to the sympathetic vice principal and went right over to Dr. Claridge’s office.

      They didn’t make her wait, either. She was hustled right in, no appointment, no nothing.

      He got up when she entered his office and shook hands. “Sit down, Antonia. I’ve got the lab results from your blood test. We have to make some quick decisions.”

      “Quick…?” Her heart was beating wildly. She could barely breathe. She was aware of her cold hands gripping her purse like a life raft. “What sort of decisions?”

      He leaned forward, his forearms on his legs. “Antonia, we’ve known each other for several years. This isn’t an easy thing to tell someone.” He grimaced. “My dear, you’ve got leukemia.”

      She stared at him without comprehension. Leukemia. Wasn’t that cancer? Wasn’t it…fatal?

      Her

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