Maggie's Dad Read Online Free

for her mother’s funeral less than a year ago. Townspeople had come by the house to bring food for every meal, and to pay their respects. Antonia’s mother had been well-loved in the community. Friends sent cartloads of the flowers she’d loved so much.
    The day of the funeral had dawned bright and sunny, making silver lights in the light snow covering, and Antonia thought how her mother had loved spring. She wouldn’t see another one now. Her heart, always fragile, had finally given out. At least, it had been a quick death. She’d died at the stove, in the very act of putting a cake into the oven.
    The service was brief but poignant, and afterward Antonia and her father had gone home. The house was empty. Dawson Rutherford had stopped to offer George’s sympathy, because George had been desperately ill, far too ill to fly across the ocean from France for the funeral. In fact, George had died less than two weeks later.
    Dawson had volunteered to drive Barrie out to the airport to catch her plane back to Arizona, because Barrie had come to the funeral, of course. Antonia had noted even in her grief how it affected Barrie just to have to ride that short distance with her stepbrother.
    Later, Antonia’s father had gone to the bank and Antonia had been halfheartedly sorting her mother’s unneeded clothes and putting them away when Mrs. Harper, who lived next door and was helping with the household chores, announced that Powell Long was at the door and wished to speak with her.
    Having just suffered the three worst days of her life, she was in no condition to face him now.
    â€œTell Mr. Long that we have nothing to say to each other,” Antonia had replied with cold pride.
    â€œGuess he knows how it feels to lose somebody, since he lost Sally a few years back,” Mrs. Harper reminded her, and then watched to see how the news would be received.
    Antonia had known about Sally’s death. She hadn’t sent flowers or a card because it had happened only three years after Antonia had fled Bighorn, and the bitterness had still been eating at her.
    â€œI’m sure he understands grief,” was all Antonia said, and waited without saying another word until Mrs. Harper got the message and left.
    She was back five minutes later with a card. “Said to give you this,” she murmured, handing the business card to Antonia, “and said you should call him if you needed any sort of help.”
    Help. She took the card and, without even looking at it, deliberately tore it into eight equal parts. She handed them back to Mrs. Harper and turned again to her clothes sorting.
    Mrs. Harper looked at the pieces of paper in her hand. “Enough said,” she murmured, and left.
    It was the last contact Antonia had had with Powell Long since her mother’s death. She knew that he’d built up his purebred Angus ranch and made a success of it. But she didn’t ask for personal information about him after that, despite the fact that he remained a bachelor. The past, as far as she was concerned, was truly dead. Now, she wondered vaguely why Powell had come to see her that day. Guilt, perhaps? Or something more? She’d never know.
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    She found a message on her answering machine and played it. Her father, as she’d feared, was suffering his usual bout of winter bronchitis and his doctor wouldn’t let him go on an airplane for fear of what it would do to his sick lungs. And he didn’t feel at all like a bus or train trip, so Antonia would have to come home for Christmas, he said, or they’d each have to spend it alone.
    She sat down heavily on the floral couch she’d purchased at a local furniture store and sighed. She didn’t want to go home. If she could have found a reasonable excuse, she wouldn’t have, either. But it would be impossible to leave her father sick and alone on the holidays. With resolution, she picked up the telephone and booked a