LITMIR.BIZ

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looked up at him in question.

      J.C. patted her back. “Actually, we just stopped to drop off samples of a new medication for your mother.”

      “Do you have time for tea?” Maddie asked, not a bit of the anger he remembered anywhere in sight.

      He glanced down at his niece. She didn’t look averse to the idea. “I guess so. Thanks.”

      “Mom’s in the living room,” Maddie explained, leading the way from the small entry hall. She glanced at Chrissy. “In a house this old, they used to call the front room a parlor, but ours isn’t the elegant sort.”

      Looking intrigued, Chrissy listened quietly.

      “Mom? Dr. Mueller stopped by to have tea.”

      Lillian sat in a faded green rocker recliner. Seeing her guests, she brightened. “I love meeting new people!”

      “This is Dr. Mueller’s niece, Chrissy,” Maddie began.

      Lillian clapped her hands together. “Oh, my! You look an awful lot like my Maddie when she was your age.” She patted the chair next to hers. “Come. Sit.”

      Chrissy’s normal reluctance dimmed and she crossed the room. “I thought you knew my uncle James.”

      Lillian smiled. “Perhaps I do. You’ll have to tell me all about him.”

      Chrissy looked at him, then turned back to Lillian.

      “He’s a doctor. And he’s real busy.”

      J.C. flinched.

      “I imagine you stay busy with school.” Lillian’s gaze landed on the ever-present backpack. “Just like my Maddie, always did her homework straightaway.”

      Chrissy stroked the pink bag and halfheartedly shrugged. “Sometimes.”

      Lillian’s eyes glinted with mischief. “Sometimes we baked cookies first or built a playhouse.”

      “You built a playhouse?” Chrissy asked in wonder as Lillian dug into the purse that was always at her side.

      Lillian produced a roll of Life Savers and offered them to Chrissy. “Sure did. My father thought a girl should know how to use a hammer and a saw. He liked to make things with his hands, so he taught me in his workshop.”

      Chrissy swallowed. “My dad did, too.”

      Lillian patted her knee. “Sounds like we had wonderful fathers.”

       Strange. It was as though somehow Lillian sensed Chrissy’s father was gone, as well.

      J.C. heard a whistle from the other side of the house. No doubt the teakettle. Considering, he watched his niece, saw that her attention was entirely focused on Lillian. Pivoting, he followed the sound of the fading whistle to the kitchen. A carpet runner covered the oak floor in the long hall; it also muffled the sound of his footsteps.

      He paused beneath the arched opening to the kitchen. Maddie was scurrying around the room, pushing strawberry-blond hair off her forehead with one hand, reaching for a tray with the other. Seeing that it was perched on one of the higher shelves, he quickened his pace. “Let me get that for you.”

      Whirling around at the sound of his voice, she looked completely, totally, utterly flustered.

      “Guess I need to stop doing that. Coming up from behind, surprising you.”

      Her throat worked and her blue-gray eyes looked chastened. “I feel terrible about how I reacted the other day. It’s just that Mom’s gotten so fragile, and …” Moisture gathered in her eyes and she quickly wiped it away. “I’m so afraid that the next stroke …” Again her throat worked, but she pushed past the emotion. “I know she needs these tests—”

      J.C. lightly clasped her arm. “Being a caregiver is the most stressful job I can imagine. Do you have enough help?”

      “Help?” Maddie nodded. “Samantha relieves me so that I have some extra time when I run errands, but she has her own family to take care of. Neighbors and people from church sit with Mom, too, when they can.”

      He’d reread the file and knew that Lillian was widowed. With no siblings, did that mean that Maddie was the sole caregiver? “It’s important that you have time for yourself.”

      She laughed, a mirthless sound. “Hmm.”

      Spotting the cups on the table, he took her elbow, guiding her to the table. “Let’s sit for a few minutes.”

      “But your niece—”

      “Is taken by your mother. Best Chrissy’s acted in a while. Tea smells good.”

      Distracted, Maddie glanced at the tabletop. “It’s probably the vanilla you’re smelling.”

      J.C. sat in the chair next to hers. “Who else helps you take care of Lillian?”

      “Just me.”

      J.C. knew that endless caregiving could suck the life from a person. And Lillian had required home care for nearly a decade. “Have you lost some of your relief help?”

      “Never had any.” Picking up the sugar, she offered it to him.

      “But when do you have time for yourself?”

      She lifted the porcelain strainers from their cups. “I don’t think of it like that. This is my life, my choice. It’s hard for other people to understand.”

      “What about before Lillian’s strokes? You must have had plans.”

      An indecipherable emotion flashed in her now bluish eyes and then disappeared. Had her eyes changed color? Or was it a trick of the light?

      “That’s the thing about the future,” Maddie replied calmly. “It can always change. So far, mine has.”

      Since J.C. had witnessed that she wasn’t always a serene earth muffin, he sipped his tea, wondering exactly who the real Maddie was. “This is unusual. Don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything quite like it.”

      “The tea’s my own blend,” she explained.

      “How did you come to make your own tea recipe?”

      She chuckled, some of her weariness disappearing. “Not just one recipe. I blend all sorts of teas.”

      “Same question, then. How did you start making your own tea?”

      “I’ve always been fascinated by spices. I can remember my grandfather telling me about the original spice routes from Asia and I could imagine all the smells, the excitement of the markets. So my mother let me collect spices and we’d make up recipes to use them in. Then one day I decided to add some fresh nutmeg to my tea.” Her cheeks flushed as her enthusiasm grew. “Mom always made drinking tea an event—using the good cups, all the accessories. Anyway, Mom bought every kind of loose tea leaf she could find so I could experiment. For a time our kitchen looked like a cross between an English farmhouse and a laboratory. After college I planned to open a shop where I could sell all my blends.” She leaned forward, her eyes dreamy. “And I’d serve fresh, hot tea on round bistro tables covered with white linen tablecloths. Oh, and little pastries, maybe sandwiches. Make it a place people want to linger … to come back to.”

      “The tea shop your mother said should be smack dab in the middle of Main Street?”

      “Oh, yes.”

      “Did you ever get a shop set up?”

      Maddie shook her head. “I was investigating small business loans when Mom had her first stroke, the major one. Luckily, I’d graduated from U.T. by then.”

      “Have you considered starting the business? Using part of the profits to hire someone to stay with your mother while you’re working?”

      “Our funds aren’t

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