LITMIR.BIZ

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      Doug laughed. “Oh, my sweetheart, I wish being the mayor of Crystal Creek gave me enough power to wave a magic wand and fix everybody’s troubles.”

      “Maybe the magic lady will fix everything,” Moira suggested.

      “What magic lady?”

      “You know.” Moira glared at him impatiently. “The magic lady who drives around in her big car and looks at everything.”

      “Oh, no. Not that again,” Doug said with a mock groan.

      “Tell me about her, right from the start,” Moira commanded.

      Her uncle sighed. By now he was weary of the story he’d made up to entertain his nieces, but the children still loved to hear it.

      “Well, I saw her again this past week, lovey,” he said, squinting at the horizon.

      “What did she look like?” Moira asked. “What was she doing?”

      “She was a woman as lovely as a picture, Moira, in a big yellow Mercedes with California license plates. Doing the very same thing she’s been doing for months—driving around very slowly and looking at our town.”

      “And from the very first time you saw her, you knew…” Moira prompted.

      “I knew that huge changes were coming for Crystal Creek,” he said obediently.

      “But will the changes make Mummy stop crying at night?”

      Doug’s smile faded, and he hugged the child closer. “Your mother’s problems are separate from the troubles of our town, my darling. But perhaps the magic lady will work everything out at the same time.”

      Moira wriggled from his grasp and stood erect, staring at the carousel with narrowed eyes. “I don’t believe in the magic lady anymore,” she said. “Nobody’s seen her except you. I think you just made her up to have a story for Robin and me.”

      Doug thought about the big yellow car he’d first seen a few months ago, gliding silently past the hotel in the autumn sunlight.

      And the beautiful dark-haired woman who sat at the wheel of the Mercedes, piloting her golden vehicle through the streets and avenues of Crystal Creek.

      She’d looked around at his town with such intent, concentrated interest. And when she turned away, her profile was as finely sculpted as Waterford crystal.

      “No,” he told the child, falling into a soft brogue as he remembered. “I didna imagine her, my lassie.”

      “And she’ll make everything better?”

      “Ah, yes,” Doug said with a hearty optimism he didn’t feel. “One day soon our princess will reveal her plan, and we will all be verra, verra glad to hear it.”

      “You’re crazy, Uncle Doug.” Moira scrambled from his embrace and picked up her brush again. But she seemed a little reassured, and her face wasn’t quite as tense.

      Doug grinned and followed her down the steps to replace the lid on his bucket of stain.

      “Let’s go back for our scones and tea,” he said. “You bring the paint cans and brush, and I’ll carry that lumping great sister of yours.”

      While Moira collected the supplies, Doug lifted the sleeping Robin into his arms, still warmly wrapped in the denim jacket. They started up the street toward the Crystal Creek Hotel, a bright little procession in the silent winter afternoon, Doug making a conscious effort to slow his long strides so Moira could keep up.

      “Do you like it better here than in Scotland?” she asked, trotting along at his side.

      “Much better,” Doug said briefly, glancing down at the child. “And how about you?”

      “It rains all the time in Scotland. And the cities aren’t clean like this.”

      “Exactly right, my pet.” Doug grinned at his niece. “The weather is generally a lot better in Texas, even if it does get far too hot in the summer for any sane man to enjoy.”

      “But do you ever get homesick for Scotland?” Moira asked.

      He thought it over. “Sometimes, but not for long. And you know what? As soon as I go back for a visit, I remember why I’m so fond of Texas.”

      “Mummy and Robin and I have never gone back there for a visit,” Moira said.

      “You girls and your mother only arrived a year ago,” Doug said. “And Mummy’s afraid that if you went home—” He fell abruptly silent, but Moira picked up on what he’d been about to say.

      “She’s afraid they wouldn’t let us come back,” the child said. “That’s why Mummy cries at night, isn’t it? Because we might have to leave Texas.”

      “Citizenship issues are too big a problem for a wee girl like you to worry about,” Doug said. “You mustn’t let it bother you, Moira.”

      “But why won’t they let us stay?”

      “The immigration laws are very strict,” he said. “Even more strict than when I moved here six years ago. Your mother brought you over to visit me, and then decided she wanted to stay. But the government still thinks you’re all just visiting.”

      Moira’s small face grew pale. “So Mummy and Robin and I will have to leave here and go back to Scotland?”

      “Not if we can help it,” Doug said. “I’m still trying to get things fixed up.”

      “I don’t want to go back there,” Moira said gloomily.

      Doug gave her a thoughtful glance. “But in Scotland you lived in a fine big house, and here your Mummy just has a little cottage.”

      “I hated that big house,” Moira said with passion. “Every one of us hated it. The bedrooms were cold all the time.”

      “I suppose they were.” Doug thought about the stately old home that his sister, Rose, had inherited from their mother. “A lovely place, that house, but not exactly cozy.”

      “So what do you like the best about Texas?” Moira asked.

      He thought it over. “The fact that Rory McLeod’s not here.” he said at last.

      “Do you hate him, Uncle Doug?”

      Doug shook his head, thinking about his mother’s second husband.

      Stephen Evans, his father, had been a cultured, soft-spoken man, and much loved. But Stephen had died when Doug was nine and Rose was little more than a baby, leaving their mother a valuable whiskey distillery in the Scottish Lowlands.

      A few years later she’d married McLeod, a hulking, overbearing foreman at the plant who’d soon insinuated himself into his wife’s inheritance. After college Doug had also gone to work in the family business, mostly to protect his mother’s property.

      But his stepfather had always been a hard man to endure…

      “No,” he said at last. “I don’t hate anybody, Pumpkin. But I’m just as happy to have an ocean between me and Rory McLeod.”

      In fact, Doug had come to Texas six years earlier to set up a distributorship in the Hill Country for the family business. But his heart had no longer been in the work. The spring before his trip to America, their gentle mother had succumbed to breast cancer, and except for Rose and the girls, Doug had nothing holding him to Scotland anymore.

      Something about the town of Crystal Creek had drawn him with passionate, irresistible force. Doug stayed a whole month longer than necessary, and afterward he went home only long enough to sell his share of the business, pack his belongings and begin the long battle to obtain a green card.

      Now Doug owned the Crystal Creek Hotel, was mayor of the town, ran the real estate office and served as a stockbroker for local investors. Sometimes he felt as if his

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