LITMIR.BIZ

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and her dad behind the bar, where he still helped out during busy weekend evenings. But her stepsiblings might be hanging around. “Brandon? Becca?”

      Silence. Maybe the twins were busing tables. She’d been younger than they were when she’d started busing, under the less than enthusiastic supervision of her mother. Free-spirited and fun-loving, Karen Layman hadn’t wanted to work in the grill when her in-laws retired to Arizona, but business hadn’t been good enough to warrant the expense of another full-time employee. So Callie’s mother had reluctantly filled the role of manager until the long hours, tight money and long, cold winters she hated had drained all the joy from her life and her marriage.

      At least, that was what she’d told Callie when she’d taken off to rethink her priorities three weeks after Callie’s sixteenth birthday. From then on it had been just Callie and her dad...at least until a little over a year ago when Ginger Markwood had come into the White Pine inquiring about a job. She’d found not only employment but a place in J.R.’s heart. Now she was his wife, and her two children—three, soon—called Callie’s old home their own. The realization was more disturbing than she cared to admit.

      “Hey, kids? Anyone here?” Callie called out again, moving from the kitchen into the big, high-ceilinged great room that had once been a dormitory for male guests. A huge river-rock fireplace dominated the wall to her left, twin to the one in the dining room that helped make it so inviting. The three double-hung windows covered in long, sheer panels of voile that were currently moving in the breeze faced Lake Street and also had a view of the lake, as did the window in her bedroom. What had once been six smaller private rooms bisected by a hallway leading off the wall opposite the fireplace had now become a master suite and small bathroom on the hill side and three bedrooms along the lake side. Her old room, the first on the left, was above the foyer on the main floor, the others above the dining room. When she was little, Callie had often lain in bed and listened to the muffled sounds of laughter and low conversations and the chiming of silverware against the edge of a china plate downstairs.

      The living area with its worn, overstuffed leather furniture—she remembered what a production it had been to get it up the stairs—was empty, the TV turned off. She had the place to herself. The bar was directly below her but the ceiling had been soundproofed years before, so unless there was a live band playing on the occasional Saturday night, the room was as quiet as any other home’s main living area.

      She hurried into the hallway toward the bathroom. The itching was getting worse. She didn’t carry a black doctor’s bag in this day and age but she did have a very well-equipped first-aid kit in the Jeep and she’d transferred some cortisone-based skin cream to her duffel before she came upstairs.

      A nice hot shower, clean hair, dry clothes, and relief from the itching on her feet and calves, and she’d be ready to face her new family. She opened the door of her bedroom and swung the heavy walnut panel inward. But it wasn’t her bedroom anymore. Gone were the pale pink rose-strewn sheers and matching comforter her mother had helped her pick out the year before she left. The walls were newly painted a cloudy gray, and the drapes at the windows were heavy and pleated and almost black, casting the room into shadows now that the sun had set. Her brass bed had been replaced by a futon with a blood-red throw scattered with half a dozen pillows in jewel tones. The walls were plastered with posters of dragons and gryphons, elves and sorceresses, and hard-muscled, broad-shouldered mystical warriors in armor and chain mail that oddly enough reminded Callie just a tiny bit of Zach Gibson as he’d been earlier, legs spread wide, wielding his shop vac instead of a magical sword.

      “Hey, what are you doing in my bedroom without permission?” a voice demanded. Callie gave a little yelp of surprise. Her new stepsister had come up behind Callie without her noticing and was standing in the hallway, hands on hips, her chin thrust out at a stubborn angle.

      Becca was not a pretty child. She was tall and reed thin with long, straight strawberry blond hair, freckles, and a nose that was too big and too sharp for her face. Someday she would grow out of this awkward stage and become a striking, if not classically beautiful, woman. But today, dressed in a pine-green T-shirt with the White Pine logo on the left breast pocket and khakis—the uniform of the restaurant’s waitstaff—she was just plain homely. Her expression was as belligerent as her tone of voice.

      “I’m sorry,” Callie said, shutting the door. “I...I didn’t realize you’d moved into my...into this room.”

      “The new baby’s getting my room,” Becca said. She was still scowling and Callie wasn’t able to tell if she was happy with the move or not.

      Her twin, Brandon, stuck his head around his sister’s shoulder and stared at Callie’s bedraggled appearance. “What happened to you? You’re all wet.”

      He had the same strawberry blond hair and blue-gray eyes as his sister, but the resemblance ended there. He was three inches shorter and twenty pounds heavier than his sister, with a linebacker’s build and a round baby face that would be the bane of his existence well into his thirties, Callie guessed.

      “Hi, Brandon.” She smiled, and it wasn’t quite as forced as when she’d greeted Becca. Brandon was a lot less hostile than his sister, even if she had disappointed him at Christmas by buying him a Detroit Tigers baseball jersey when his favorite team was the Cleveland Indians. Lesson learned, she’d promised herself. From now on she would consult Ginger before picking out gifts for her children. “I stopped at the clinic. There’s a broken water line in the ceiling. There’s water everywhere.”

      “We heard,” Becca said. “Zach called us. Mom and your dad are going to the clinic to help as soon as the dinner rush is over.”

      “You weren’t supposed to get here until tomorrow,” Brandon said. His blue-gray eyes were clouded with worry. “Everything was supposed to be cleaned up. You weren’t supposed to see the mess.”

      “I wish I hadn’t,” Callie said frankly. Brandon seemed to be one of those kids who always felt as if everything that went wrong around them was their fault. Another reason she found it easier to relate to him. She remembered being the same way at his age. “It was an accident. We’ll get it all squared away.” She smiled again, although she wasn’t all that confident of her own words.

      “Oh, dear, Callie? It is you.” The light, musical voice belonged to her stepmother. “Mac thought she saw you sneaking up the stairs. I sent the twins up to check, and when they didn’t return, I figured she was right.”

      “I wasn’t sneaking,” Callie said, defending herself. “Hello, Ginger.” She spread her hands. “I wasn’t too keen on being seen this way.”

      “Goodness.” Ginger took Brandon by the shoulders and moved him out of her way. Becca flattened herself against the wall, pointedly avoiding any contact with her mother’s protruding belly as Ginger moved forward to get a closer view of Callie. “What happened?” Her eyes narrowed as understanding dawned. “You’ve been to the clinic.”

      “The door was open. There were cars in the parking lot when I drove by. It seemed unusual for this late on a Saturday. I thought I should check it out.”

      “It’s lucky Zach stopped in when he did. It could have been a lot worse.”

      “He seemed to have things pretty well under control when I left.” The way he’d dismissed her offer of help still bothered her slightly, but she didn’t say anything more. It was obvious her stepmother held the man in high regard—as did her father, she reminded herself. Professional courtesy and self-preservation warned her to keep her less flattering opinion of the PA to herself.

      “Nothing’s going the way I planned it,” Ginger lamented. “Nothing’s ready for you.” She furrowed her brow, as if trying to figure out what to do next. She was a small woman, several inches shorter than Callie, with strawberry blonde hair the same shade as Becca’s but cut short and feathery, and with Brandon’s rounded face and snub nose. There were tiny laugh lines at the corners of her generous mouth and blue-gray eyes, another trait she shared with her children. She was pretty and petite and she laughed a lot. Maybe that was why her dad had fallen head over heels in love

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