LITMIR.BIZ

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needed some more George Winston.”

      Reaching into her pocket, Mary Jane asked, “What do I owe you?”

      “Nothing,” Ellie replied, brushing it off. “Just don’t make me listen to any more of Bob Will’s Texas swing band stuff. I prefer horns to fiddles and steel guitars.”

      “Thanks, El—”

      Mary Jane smiled warmly again, and Ellie got all the payment she needed.

      “I can’t believe you remembered I wanted this. You’re the best.”

      Embarrassed, Ellie shook her head. “What I am is hungry.”

      Mary Jane grinned. “Be right back.” And then she was off, pouring coffee, delivering heavy plates of food, spreading her cheery smile all over the room. Sitting back, watching her friend, Ellie counted her blessings.

      She was taking the last bite of an incredibly delicious omelette when Shelby Lord, the diner’s owner and Lana’s triplet sister, suddenly appeared from the back room with a young blond woman at her side. Spotting Ellie, Shelby made a beeline for her table, stranger in tow.

      “Ellie! I’m glad you’re here,” Shelby said. “I want you to meet Sara. She’s going to be waitressing here starting this afternoon.”

      The blonde looked to be about Ellie’s age, but there didn’t seem to be twenty-five years of life lurking in her blue eyes. Rather, her gaze appeared almost vacant, though intelligent. If such a contrast were possible.

      Shelby put a supportive arm around Sara’s back, drawing her forward.

      “Sara’s suffering from amnesia,” Shelby said softly. Motioning for Sara to take the chair across from Ellie, Shelby pulled up a third chair for herself.

      “I don’t think it’s necessary for everyone to know,” she continued, “but I thought you should.”

      Instantly filled with compassion, Ellie took in the other woman’s soft features. “You don’t remember anything?” she asked. She couldn’t imagine something so horrible. To have no control at all.

      Sara shook her head. “A policeman found me in an alley, and I had no idea how I came to be there. He took me to a women’s shelter.”

      “How frightening.”

      Sara smiled sadly. “It was. I remember waking up, but I had no idea where I was. I only know that it was really dark. And my head hurt.”

      Horrified, Ellie leaned forward. “You’d been attacked?”

      “We don’t know.” Sara shrugged nonchalantly, but her eyes told a different story. Filled with fear, they testified to the seriousness of her predicament. “The shelter sent me to a free clinic to get checked over, and they couldn’t find anything wrong, other than the bump on my head. It had been bleeding, and I had a bit of a concussion, but nothing serious.”

      “And they couldn’t tell how that bump came to be there?” Ellie was a stickler for details. She was never satisfied until she had all the answers. And this woman, with her sweet smile, looked like she deserved some answers.

      “I could have been attacked, I suppose, but it’s just as likely that I fell, or that something fell on me.”

      “She had nothing on her when she wandered into the shelter,” Shelby added. “No purse, no jewelry, nothing.”

      Experiencing the woman’s pain almost as though it were her own, Ellie couldn’t let go. “So what are you going to do?”

      “Work here, be patient, hope my memory comes back soon.” Sara’s tone implied there was little else she could do.

      “Did you check, the missing persons’ reports?”

      “Yeah,” Sara’s eyes clouded. “Apparently no one has reported me missing, at least not in Austin.”

      “What about the papers?” Ellie asked.

      “The police have no way of knowing how far back to check,” Shelby said, reaching over to give Sara’s hand a quick squeeze. “They’ve gone back a couple of weeks from the time of her appearance, and found nothing.”

      As she sat there, Ellie put herself in Sara’s shoes. And suddenly the problems she’d been having with the press seemed almost a blessing. At least she had a life to report about.

      “Where are you going to stay?” Ellie asked, as Mary Jane dropped off another diet cola and was gone.

      “Mrs. Parker’s Inn,” Sara replied, her features more relaxed. “I’ve already seen the room—it’s quite nice, actually, and the house is cozy. I just needed to make certain I had a job before I moved in.”

      Ellie was familiar with the boarding house. It was comfortable and within walking distance of the diner.

      “Speaking of which, we better let you go get settled in so you can be back this afternoon,” Shelby said, standing.

      Sara scrambled to her feet, as well, including both Ellie and Shelby with her genuine smile. “I’ll see you later, then. Nice to meet you, Ellie.” And she was gone.

      As Ellie walked back to the clinic and the mounds of work waiting for her there, she couldn’t get Sara out of her mind or her heart. In losing her memory, Sara had in essence lost her life, lost everything that mattered.

      After the previous night with Cody, Ellie couldn’t help wondering if she’d lost touch with things that mattered in her life, as well.

      Except my goals, she reminded herself as she applied herself to the day’s work. She would be the best damn administrator Maitland Maternity had ever seen. Her goals might have changed through the years, but having them had always sustained her. They’d given her a reason to get up in the morning, led her to every success she’d ever had. She couldn’t forget that.

      JANELLE MAITLAND WAS NOT a patient woman. And she’d been waiting every day for thirty years to claim what was hers. Looking in the cracked mirror of the seedy hotel room in this nameless little dirt-hole Texas town, she felt the unwelcome pressure of frustrated tears behind her eyes. She was a pretty woman, she thought. Her long dark hair and brown eyes screamed privilege. It wasn’t right that she had to suffer for her father’s weaknesses. She wasn’t the one who’d decided to leave the family clan, to squander her life and her share of the family fortune in Las Vegas. She’d had no choice in the way he’d forced her to grow up.

      But she wasn’t a kid anymore. Her father was dead, which had turned out to be a really good thing. She had choices now, and she was damn well tired of waiting to exercise them. Why did everything have to take so long? She’d been waiting for Petey to get back from his makeover at the hairdresser’s for over an hour. She was hungry. She wanted lunch.

      And not some damn take-out lunch, either. She was a Maitland. She deserved better.

      ELLIE HEARD THE COMMOTION in the hallway before she actually saw them. She’d been poring over needle codes and standards, planning to upgrade the kind they’d been using at the clinic for more than ten years, when the first shrill “No!” reached her ears. Followed quickly by a babyish “Da-ee! Up!”

      Before she could go to investigate, the sounds came closer, and three bodies materialized in her doorway. Sloan, carrying two of the loveliest baby girls she’d ever seen. Or attempting to carry them. Baby girl on the right apparently didn’t want to share her daddy’s arms and was attempting to push baby girl on the left back down to the floor.

      “No!” the baby on the right screamed again. “Isha, down.”

      To which the toddler on the left let fly with her rendition of “Up! Da-ee, up!”

      “Ariel, Alisha, stop this instant.” Sloan’s voice could have carried a bit more conviction. He smiled apologetically at Ellie before taking a seat in front of her desk and settling the twins, still squabbling, one on each knee.

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