LITMIR.BIZ

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forgiveness tugged at her heart.

      “Don’t be fooled,” she warned herself, as she grabbed the crutches he’d left propped against a fender, then jogged to the porch where Thane, hugging Becca tight, waited until she opened the door. He carried Becca inside.

      Barkley’s back end was wiggling crazily, and he, on his three good legs, trotted through the closing door a minute before Maggie snagged the handle and walked inside too. “Traitor,” she said to the dog, and old Barkley didn’t even have the decency to look abashed. “Fine watchdog you turned out to be.”

      Once inside, she motioned toward the hallway. “She should go right to bed…” Maggie began to instruct, but Thane was already hauling Becca in the right direction.

      Still toting the damned crutches, Maggie marched into the bedroom and watched Thane place her daughter on the single bed tucked into the corner of the chaos Becca unhappily called home. She thawed a little as she saw how tenderly he laid Becca on the old quilt, but she reminded herself that whatever Thane was doing, it was all an act. He was here with a purpose, and it had something to do with Mary Theresa.

      Mary Theresa.

      Dread assailed Maggie once again.

      Where was she? What was that horrible, painful plea she’d heard earlier? Had Mary Theresa tried to contact her, or had it all been in her head, a great blip in the universe, a coincidence that she’d heard from her sister after months of silence?

      Goose bumps rose on her arms as she stacked the crutches in a corner near the bookcase, then opened a wicker chest and pulled out a couple of extra pillows which she used to prop up Becca’s foot. As if sensing mother and daughter should be alone, Thane winked at Becca, whistled to the dog, and slipped out of the room.

      “Can I get you anything?” Maggie asked, pulling on the edges of the antique quilt that she’d bought at an estate sale years before. On the table, Becca’s lava lamp was glowing an undulating blue.

      “Nah.” Becca’s eyes were beginning to close. Posters of teen idols adorned the walls, and the scatter rugs on the floor were covered with makeup, CDs, magazines and stuffed animals left over from her younger years.

      “Not even some hot cocoa?” Maggie hovered over the bed. She was caught between wanting to push the wet strands of hair from her daughter’s eyes and knowing it was best to leave her alone. She had a tendency to over-mother. Becca hated it. “Or I’ve got some of that stew—it’s a little burned, but…”

      Rolling her eyes, Becca sighed loudly. “I said I didn’t want anything.”

      Maggie got the message. “Look, I was just trying to help, okay? I’ll get the ice pack and bring it back. If you need anything else, just let me know.”

      Becca didn’t respond, and Maggie held her tongue rather than lash out. Lately she and her daughter had been involved in some kind of struggle she didn’t understand. Of course Becca blamed her for uprooting her in the middle of her last year of junior high and bringing her to some “gawd-awful middle-of-nowhere place where only losers lived.” Well, too bad. Moving here was just what the doctor ordered. At least in Maggie’s opinion.

      Mentally counting to ten, and then on to twenty when she hadn’t cooled off, she walked briskly out of Becca’s room, down the short hallway to the kitchen where she found a Ziploc bag and some hand towels. Ancient pipes creaked as she turned on the hot water, waited and waited until it was steaming. Grabbing a hammer from the odds-and-ends drawer, she placed ice cubes in a plastic bag and beat them into tiny shards.

      Thane, with the old shepherd on his heels, had walked outside again and returned with an armload of firewood. The shoulders of his jacket were dark with melting snow, his hair wet as well. She tried not to notice and continued whacking at the bag of ice.

      “Jesus Christ, Maggie, it’s dead already.” He dropped the firewood into a basket near the hearth.

      “Very funny.” She wasn’t amused and slammed the plastic bag with the hammer one more time for good measure. As he opened the damper and stacked kindling over a hefty backlog, she dumped the crushed ice into the pack and carried it, along with the warm washcloths down the hallway. Becca’s face was turned toward the wall and she was feigning sleep, even going so far as pretending to snore.

      “This might be a little cold,” Maggie said, undeterred by her daughter’s act. Gently, she placed the ice bag on Becca’s leg.

      “Ouch.” Becca jumped. Her eyes shot open. “Can’t you just leave me alone?”

      “The doctor said that—”

      “I don’t care. I don’t want that, okay?”

      “No. It’s not okay, Rebecca,” Maggie said, reverting to her daughter’s given name as she always did when she was angry. “Leave it on. And here are some cloths to clean up with.” She left the warm, wet rags on a paper bag on the nightstand.

      “God, Mom, give me a break, will ya?”

      “Just do what the doctor said, okay?”

      “Yeah. Yeah.” Becca closed her eyes again, and Maggie, rather than be drawn into an argument that neither one of them would win, straightened and turned out the light. Her head was beginning to pound in earnest. Drawing a deep breath, she headed to the living room to face Thane.

      The old saying that if it wasn’t one thing, it was another certainly seemed to be raging tonight.

      In the living room, the fire was crackling. Golden light played on the old pine walls, making them seem even more yellow than before, and the scent of burning wood filled the small rooms.

      In the few months she’d been here, Maggie had come to love this little cottage nestled at the foot of these craggy northern Idaho hills. A part of her realized that she’d run away from her problems, that eventually they would catch up with her, but for now, she felt safe and secure thousands of miles from L.A. Safe from the accusations. Safe from the pain and guilt that sometimes stole into this private place and hid, deep in the shadows, ready to attack her when she least expected it.

      Thane, hands in his back pockets, hitched his chin toward the hallway. “How’d it go?”

      “The same as always. I’m an ogre of a mother, can’t possibly understand her, and she’s just a poor victim.” The minute the words were out, she cringed. Just because her nerves were frayed, she didn’t need to be bad-mouthing her only child, the reason she found a way to get up each and every morning. “Sorry. That’s not what I meant. She’s in a lot of pain, and she’s trying to sleep.”

      “And giving you a bad time?”

      She bristled inwardly. It was one thing for her to complain about Becca, another thing entirely for an outsider to make a deprecating comment. “It goes with the territory. I can handle it.”

      “Can you?” He didn’t seem convinced, but she ignored the silent questions in his eyes and walked to the telephone. By rote, she dialed Mary Theresa’s number and again was connected with the answering machine. Her stomach clenched when she heard her sister’s recording. She drummed her fingers on the receiver. At the tone, she said, “Hi, M.T., it’s Maggie again.” Leaning a hip against the small table where the phone rested, she bit the corner of her lip and glanced up at Thane, who was watching her every movement. As she turned her back for a bit of privacy, she said, “Look, Mary Theresa, I know I called earlier, but I’m worried. Call me back as soon as you get in, okay?” She rattled off her telephone number again, then slowly hung up, her fingers lingering on the receiver as if she expected the phone to jangle at any second.

      “She’s not gonna call back.”

      Facing him again, Maggie said, “She will.” She has to. Maggie couldn’t comprehend, wouldn’t give a second’s thought to the horrid idea that something had happened to her sister. “It might be a while, but she’ll call.” She wasn’t going to think of the other alternative and opened a cupboard to pull down a can of coffee. Shaking the grounds

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