LITMIR.BIZ

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on her from the kitchen, smelling of rosemary, onion and fresh-baked dinner rolls. “What are you eating? Soda crackers and ketchup soup? Do you have enough money?”

      “I’m fine, Mom,” she said, leaning down to kiss her mother’s powdery cheek. She caught her mother’s hand before she could slip a wad of bills into Mariah’s jeans pocket. “Really, I mean it.”

      Before long, her father would do the same, she knew. It was a point of pride that Mariah hadn’t spent the money her parents were forever mailing her or slipping into her pockets or luggage or handbag when she visited. She’d opened a mutual funds account with the money and planned to use it as a retirement gift to them.

      She gave up thumb-wrestling her mother. “Thanks,” she said on a sigh, and tucked the wad into her pocket. Her eyes scanned the room. “What’s all this?” She walked to the dining room table, which held a laptop computer, a globe and stacks of travel brochures. A half-dozen maps were tacked to the walls.

      “The nerve center of our retirement campaign,” her mother said, joining her. “Your father’s finally got the travel bug and we’re just itching to get going. We’re thinking Barbados.” She handed Mariah a thick brochure about the place.

      “But now and then I do this.” Meredith spun the globe, closed her eyes, then touched a spot. She studied where her finger had landed. “Tierra del Fuego. Hmm. That’s a new one. Then I go to the Internet and read about the country.”

      “That’s great,” she said, then turned to her father. “I’m glad to see you’re finally going to give yourself a break.”

      “What am I saving all this money for?” he said, though he didn’t seem quite as enthusiastic as her mother.

      “Now, all we need is someone to entrust with the business,” Meredith said.

      Her father looked at her lovingly. “You going to help out your old dad, Punkin?”

      “M-me. Oh, no, not me, Daddy.” She took a step backward. “I’m just here to talk to Nathan. Didn’t Mom tell you?”

      “Sure, sure,” he said, a shadow of disappointment crossing his face. “Nathan’s stubborn about this, though.”

      She’d been afraid of that. She both dreaded her visit to Nathan and couldn’t wait to see him. The whole thing made her feel schizoid. As soon as she got settled she planned to head right over to his house. Drop in unannounced, get it over with.

      “This all you brought?” her father asked, hefting her suitcase.

      “I’m not staying long, Daddy,” she said, trying not to see how sad that made him. “I can carry it upstairs just fine.”

      “Nonsense. When I’m too old to carry my daughter’s bag, they’ll have to pry my cold dead fingers from the handle.”

      Her heart ached at his words. She loved him so much. Maybe she should try to visit more….

      “I made a special batch of saguaro blossom taffy for you.”

      Ick. She’d made the mistake once of telling him she liked the stuff, just to be polite, and now he thought it was her favorite. “Great,” she said, swallowing hard. “I can’t wait to taste it.”

      Once in her bedroom, bittersweet memories bloomed, as they had each time she’d returned. The walls were the way Mariah had left them eight years ago, each a bright color—cranberry, purple, lime green, orange. It almost hurt to look. Every inch of wall space was filled with Mariah’s artwork. Abstract oils and watercolors in garish ceramic frames, charcoal sketches, etched prints, collages, even some weavings.

      She’d been so intense about everything back then. Only Nikki had understood her passion—because she shared that fascination with the mystery in ordinary objects, the magic of creating something, saying something with paint or clay or paper.

      Nikki was a great artist. Mariah was only good. Her biggest problem. She had an artistic streak, not a path or a yellow brick road to a career.

      Over the years, she’d accepted the fact that she didn’t really excel at anything. She contributed where she could for as long as she could, then moved on.

      Her bureau was filled with jewelry—much of it she’d designed herself. Scarves dangled from the mirror along with a program she’d taped there from the one-woman play she’d performed on talent night her junior year—Dishwater March.

      She usually didn’t unpack, but this trip would be longer than usual, so she opened her bureau drawer. Right on top was the black negligee she’d gotten for the honeymoon trip to Hawaii. She’d tossed it out of her bag when she and Nikki packed to leave. And now here it was in all its sex-kitten glory. Her heart squeezed tight and she shut the drawer with a bang that knocked over a ceramic picture frame.

      She picked it up. The frame, which she’d made herself, held the photo of her and Nathan that Nikki had taken just after they’d gotten engaged. In the photo, Mariah leaned into Nathan’s chest as if he were a windbreak protecting her from a storm. She looked timid and sad, with flyaway hair and frightened eyes. Her heart pinched at the sight of how insecure she looked.

      She was just lucky she’d realized her mistake in time and not married Nathan. What a disaster that would have been. She would have tried to be a suburban wife and failed miserably. Suburbia was not her, though at the time, she’d have done anything to please Nathan. Now she knew she had to be true to herself.

      The photo got suddenly blurry and she realized her eyes had filled with tears. The past always made people sad. She’d been too young to be in love. She’d simply had a crush. She’d been infatuated with Nathan’s college degree, his four years as a man on his own, his maturity and his confidence about his future.

      And the way he’d looked at her. That had been the kicker. Seeing herself reflected in his eyes, she’d felt not goofy and ditzy, but beautiful and artistic. And loved. So loved. But Nathan had probably just wanted to rescue her.

      Now he was having some identity crisis and might be about to make a terrible mistake. Maybe, this time, she could rescue him.

      2

      NATHAN’S TWO-STORY ranch home—just a block away from her parents’—was gracious and classy and very Nathan. The only thing wrong was the garish for-sale sign stuck in the middle of the perfectly trimmed rose bed. The sight made her stomach sink. His house was already for sale. If he’d gotten this far with his plan, convincing him to stay might not be easy.

      She followed the curving flagstone path to the huge door, on either side of which was a stained-glass panel featuring a hummingbird on a prickly pear cactus. Before she rang the doorbell, she became aware of an awful honking that at first she thought was a goose in great distress. After a few seconds, she realized it was a musical instrument being played badly.

      She rang the bell and the tortured fowl fell silent.

      In a second, Nathan stood in the doorway wielding the saxophone he must have been abusing. The instant he saw her, his face lit with amazement, then joy, and he gave her a smile as big as the one he’d delivered when she’d agreed to marry him.

      “Mariah? What are you…?” Abruptly, the light switched off and the smile faded. “Your mother sent you.”

      She didn’t answer. She was busy storing the memory of the joy on his face when he’d seen her.

      “My mind’s made up, but come in,” he said.

      She stepped into the entryway, which was tiled in whitewashed saltillo, with a high ceiling and a bright airy feeling. It opened into a spacious step-down living room at the far end of which a floor-to-ceiling window invited her into the backyard with its glittering pool, lacy palms and Mexican bird of paradise bushes, iridescent with feathery orange blossoms.

      “Your home is beautiful,” she said. “It’s so…” you, but that would sound

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