LITMIR.BIZ

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parents had been nothing but encouraging and supportive from the start, telling her there wasn’t anything she couldn’t do or become if she set her mind to it.

      And then, just like that, her world had come crashing down all around her.

      Right before she was to leave for her first semester at college, her father had had a heart attack. For a while it was touch and go and the doctors weren’t sure if he would pull through. There was no way she could leave him or her mother at a time like that.

      And even when her father began to come around, she found more than a ton of reasons that kept her right where she was. Between concern over her father’s health and trying to keep up her mother’s morale—not to mention because her parents needed the income to pay for her father’s medical bills—there was no way she could find the time to go away to school. Her family needed her too much and she’d refused to leave them high and dry.

      Though they always had part-time help at the Superette, there was really no one else to keep things going. Math had always been her mother’s undoing.

      So Julia had stayed on, putting her dream on hold—which sounded a good deal better to her than saying that she was giving up her dream—and doing what needed to be done.

      Looking back now, that almost seemed like a lifetime ago to her.

      With time, her father, Jack, had improved somewhat, although he was never again the hale-and-hearty man he’d been before the heart attack. And eventually, she’d seen the color come back into her mother’s face to the point that Annie Tierney no longer looked as if she was auditioning for the part of a ghost.

      As for herself, she’d gone from being a carefree, whimsical young girl to being a practical, pragmatic young woman with the weight of the world occasionally on her shoulders.

      But she managed. She always managed.

      Those years had also seen her married and then divorced, neither of which happened with a great deal of emotion or fanfare. Marrying Neal Baxter, a local boy who had just returned to Horseback Hollow to practice law after getting his degree, seemed like the right thing to do at the time. She and Neal were friends and Julia had honestly believed that having a friend to go through life with was a smart thing to do.

      But a few years into the marriage, a marriage that seemed to be built on little more than mutual respect and a whole lot of boredom, she and Neal came to the conclusion that they really liked one another far too much to be trapped in something that promised no joy to either of them.

      So an uncontested, amicable divorce settlement was quickly and quietly reached. They each came away with whatever they had brought into the marriage.

      It was a case of no harm, no foul, except that Julia had learned that dreaming about things you couldn’t have—such as a passionate marriage—really did hurt.

      After that, the store became her haven, her home base. It was the one thing she could always depend on to be there. After a time her job became so ingrained she went about her day’s work routine practically on autopilot.

      Before unlocking the door, she first prepared the store for customers. Produce was put out and carefully arranged in the appropriate bins. The breads, pastries and especially the doughnuts were baked fresh every morning—she saw to that even though it meant she had to get up extremely early to get the goodies to the store in time to arrange the display. It was her one creative outlet and she looked forward to the scents of sugar and butter in her kitchen each morning.

      Aside from that, there were always a hundred different little details to see to and Julia kept a running checklist in her head at all times, making sure she hadn’t forgotten anything.

      She did all this by herself and even, at times, found the solitude of the store comforting at that hour.

      So when she saw her mother in the store, Julia was more than a little surprised. Her mother was sweeping the aisles, a chore Julia normally took care of just before opening, a full hour before she normally came in. Annie always arrived after having made breakfast for her husband.

      Judging by her presence—not to mention the look on her mother’s face—something was definitely up.

      Julia approached the problem—because there had to be a problem—slowly by asking, “Mom, what are you doing here?”

      Looking far from her normally sunny self, Annie answered, “It’s my store. I work here. Or have you forgotten?”

      “I know you work here, Mom,” Julia said patiently, “but you don’t come in until after eight. Everything okay with Dad?” she asked, suddenly concerned.

      Julia realized that was the only thing that would make her mother break with her regular routine. Her mother was nothing if not a creature of habit. It was Annie who had taught her that a regular routine would give her life structure.

      And she had been right.

      If it hadn’t been for her routine, Julia was certain that the act of setting her goals and dreams aside would have crushed her spirit so badly she wouldn’t have been able to function and come through for her parents the way she had. She had taken everything over, becoming what her mother was quick to point out was not just her right hand, but her left one, as well.

      Julia owed that to a well-instilled sense of structure, not to mention to a very keen sense of family loyalty.

      “Your father,” Annie said, answering her question, “is the same as he was yesterday and, God willing, the same as he will be tomorrow. Well, but not perfect.” She paused to smile at her daughter. “But then, no man is ever perfect.”

      It was a familiar mantra that her mother had uttered more than a handful of times.

      What was different this time was the sadness around the edges of her smile. And the deeper sadness she could see in her mother’s eyes.

      Taking the straw broom out of her mother’s hands, Julia leaned it against the closest wall. She then took both of her mother’s hands in hers and said, “Mom, if your face was hanging down any lower, you wouldn’t need that broom to sweep up all that imaginary dust you always see on the floor. You could use your chin. Now come clean. What’s wrong?”

      Annie took a breath, apparently struggling to find the right words.

      “It’s you.”

      Julia stared at her mother. Whatever she’d expected to hear, it wasn’t that.

      “Me?” she cried incredulously.

      Her mother’s answer had succeeded in stunning her. How could she possibly be responsible for that look of utter devastation on her mother’s remarkably unlined face? Hadn’t she all but lived and breathed family and the business for twelve years now, leaving aside her own hopes and dreams?

      In her view, that would have been cause for her mother to celebrate, not look as if someone precious to her had just died.

      “Mom, how can you say that? What more can I do? I’m almost knocking myself out every day to make sure the store stays open and running,” Julia pointed out.

      Her mother shook her head, her expression telling her that she just didn’t understand. “That’s just it, Julia. You shouldn’t have to be knocking yourself out. This is the time of your life that you should look back on fondly when you get to be my age. You shouldn’t be forced to feel like you worked your life away.”

      “But I don’t feel that way, Mom,” Julia protested with feeling. Granted, there were times when she felt as if she did nothing but work, but for the most part, she did fine running the grocery store—not to mention putting out her baked goods in a little area that was set aside for the shopper who required a cup of coffee and a pastry to jump-start their morning.

      Rather than look relieved, her mother looked as if she was growing agitated for her.

      “Well, if you don’t, you should,” her mother insisted. “You should be resentful that your

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