LITMIR.BIZ

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consider it,” Maggie agreed, though she had no intention of doing anything of the kind. She just wasn’t in the mood for another argument, and Becca seemed more angry than hurt. Thank God.

      “Who’s he?” Becca asked, holding her arm over her eyes, shading her brow as she wrinkled her nose and stared up at Thane, who was dismounting and reaching into the saddlebag.

      “He’s—” How could she explain? And why? “He’s a friend,” she said, her tongue tripping on the lie. She glanced over her shoulder at the source of her daughter’s confusion, and for a split second her throat caught at the sight of him. A tall man holding the reins of his horse, he cut an imposing figure. Wide shoulders pulled at the seams of his jacket, and yet his hips and waist were lean enough that his worn jeans hung low on his hips. He wore his sensuality as if he didn’t know it existed.

      Not that she cared. Not anymore. “Becca, this is Thane Walker.”

      “Oh.” Her gaze thinned on him. “Thane? Weren’t you—?”

      “Your aunt’s husband,” he cut in. “A long time ago. Nice meeting you.” He handed Maggie a blanket.

      “Yeah, right. Me too,” she said, but there wasn’t a ring of sincerity in her words.

      “Let’s take a look at you,” Maggie said. Ignoring Thane, she placed the blanket over Becca’s shoulders, then gently touched her ankle.

      “Ouch. Watch it.” Becca drew in a swift, whistling breath as an owl hooted softly from one of the lodgepole pines that towered high above them. “Jesus, Mom.”

      “Just trying to help.”

      “By killing me?” Becca accused.

      Maggie rocked back on her heels and told herself that Becca’s bad mood was good news. If she was angry, she wasn’t injured all that badly. “I’m not trying to hurt you, honey.”

      “Yeah, yeah. I know.” Becca offered a faltering smile that fell away as quickly as it appeared.

      Thane leaned down and squatted next to mother and daughter. Pinning Becca with his steady gaze, he asked, “Think you can ride?”

      Becca, expression wary, nodded slowly as she sized him up. “Probably.”

      “Good.” Balancing on one knee, he instructed her to sling an arm around his neck. As she did, he reached under her legs with one arm and clasped the other around her back. “Hang on.” As if she weighed nothing, he lifted Becca off the ground and carried her, wrapped in the blanket, to the pinto. There was a part of Maggie that didn’t want anything to do with Thane Walker, that objected to his touching her daughter, a part of him that made her nervous as hell, but she bit her tongue and reminded herself that, even if he was here for some ulterior motive, he had helped her locate Becca. And that, as they said, was worth something.

      More gently than Maggie thought him capable of, he helped Becca onto the pinto’s back. She let out a yelp as she settled into the saddle, sucked in her breath. Barkley, hidden in the shadows, snarled, and the horses shifted nervously.

      “Okay?” Thane asked, once she was astride.

      “I…I think so.” But she was pale as death.

      “Good. Hold on to the saddle horn.” He placed her hands over the leather knob. “And let me know if you get woozy. I don’t want you falling off.”

      “I won’t.” Bravely she tossed her hair from her eyes.

      “Becca, are you sure you can handle this?” Maggie asked.

      “Have to.” She stiffened her thin shoulders.

      Thane patted the pinto’s thick neck, but looked up at Maggie’s daughter. “Let me know when you need to rest.”

      “I will,” Becca promised.

      “I’ll hold you to it.” Using the pale beam of his flashlight as his guide, Thane started leading the pinto down the hill. Astride the buckskin, Maggie followed slowly behind and sent up a thankful prayer that her daughter was safe.

      It didn’t matter that Thane Walker was involved.

      Or so she tried to convince herself.

      “She’ll live.” The doctor, a petite woman in a lab coat three sizes too large and a name tag that read “Penny Cranston, M.D.,” gazed at Maggie over the tops of half glasses that threatened to slide off her short, straight nose. “The ankle’s sprained, but not too badly and I looked at the X-rays. Nothing broken that I can see. However, just to be on the side of caution, I’ll send them to a specialist in case I missed something.”

      “Thanks.” Maggie was relieved. She’d driven over an hour to an all-night clinic in Lewiston only to discover that Becca, though bruised and scraped, her pride wounded as badly as anything else, would be fine. In the glare of the overhead fluorescent lights, Becca looked small and pale, her eyes wide, the scratches on her skin red but not deep. The dirt had been washed from her face and hands, and, all in all, aside from the knot turning blue around her ankle, she seemed fine.

      “Now.” Dr. Cranston trained her eyes on her patient again. “You need to use crutches for a few days, maybe a week or two, until you’re out of pain. I’ll give you a prescription for the first couple of days, and I want you to rest, elevate the foot, and ice it for twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”

      “So, no school, right?” Becca asked eagerly.

      “Wellll…I think you can make it back to class. Maybe not for a couple of days, but then I think you’ll be able to go back.” She winked at Becca, who rolled her eyes theatrically and, with Maggie’s help, hobbled back to the old Jeep, another source of irritation to Becca, who didn’t understand why they had to trade in a perfectly good BMW for a dilapidated, rugged vehicle with four-wheel drive and a dented right fender. But then Becca didn’t understand about an expensive lease as opposed to a vehicle that, though battered, was paid for.

      Once they were in the Jeep, Becca leaned her bucket seat back as far as possible and closed her eyes. “Why is that Thane guy at our house?” she asked, as Maggie wheeled out of the parking lot and headed east. It was nearly midnight, and clouds had crept in, covering the stars and moon. As the lights of Lewiston faded behind them, the darkness of the night seemed to close in.

      Maggie fiddled with the radio, found a country-and-western station, and recognized a Garth Brooks tune. “He’s here because there’s a problem with Aunt Mary,” Maggie said, hedging a bit until she knew for certain what had happened to Mary Theresa.

      “You mean Marquise,” Becca clarified, her voice taking on a snotty edge.

      “I still think of her as Mary Theresa. Always will.”

      “She changed her name years ago.” Without lifting her head, Becca turned and faced her mother. “The least you could do is respect it.”

      Becca wasn’t going to bait her into this argument. “Old habits are hard to break.”

      “Not if you try, Mom.”

      “Forget it.”

      “So what’s wrong with Marquise?”

      “I don’t know,” Maggie admitted truthfully. She shifted down for a sharp corner and spied a set of taillights winking on the ribbon of road far ahead. “She’s missing.”

      “So? Sometimes she just takes off.”

      “I know.” Maggie should have taken solace in the fact that her sister was flighty and had, in the past, disappeared for a few days. But this time was different. This time the police were involved. And Thane Walker, Mary Theresa’s first husband, was waiting for Maggie at her house. “No one seems to know where she is. No one.”

      “Don’t blame her. Lots of famous people need to get away.”

      “That’s true.”

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