by Mary Leo
“Yes, but how did—”
“It’s a small world we travel in. I’ll double whatever they’ve said they’ll pay you if you’ll consider coming to work for me. I don’t know if you’ve heard the rumors, but let me clarify what’s actually going on. I’m in the process of opening my own marketing firm. I’ll have an office in Los Angeles and one in San Francisco, and perhaps one more once we get going. I don’t know exactly where yet. I’d like you to head the office in Los Angeles. You’re my top pick, but I do have other potential candidates on my list.”
She bent over, pulled a black folder out of her purse and handed it to Maggie, who was now trembling on the inside. She reminded herself to breathe as she gazed over at Scout. She seemed transfixed by Allison.
“You’ll find all the information you’ll need, including a list of clients who have already signed with us, and a cash prospectus of investors along with the financing I have secured. There’s also a job description for you, and a very generous compensation and bonus package based on time worked and client satisfaction.”
“And when would I have to give you my answer? I hadn’t considered working in L.A. What part?”
“Brentwood. I was able to get exactly the look I wanted for that office. I’m sure once you see it, you’ll agree that it’s an amazing location. Plus, I’m offering you a very generous moving package, with a year’s lease on an apartment just a few blocks away. Our first year will be critical and I don’t want you having to commute through L.A. traffic. I’m sure you’re familiar with the kind of time a person has to put in to make a new company work, so I’ll need your full attention.”
“I understand,” Maggie said while trying desperately to take it all in. She placed the sleek-looking file on the table and noticed that Scout kept rubbing her eyes. Her little face was wet with tears. “Scout, honey, what’s wrong?”
“I want my daddy,” she said between sobs.
“Sure, sweetheart.” Maggie turned to Allison. “Excuse me.”
She stood and went over to Scout to give her a reassuring hug, but Scout shrugged her away.
Allison stood. “Can I do anything? Get her anything?” She turned to Scout. “Don’t you feel well? I bet it’s your tummy. Am I right?”
Scout let out a mournful wail. Then she caught her ragged breath and said, “I don’t like you. You’re not smart. You’re stupid. You’re a stupid lady and I hate you. Go away! Go away and never come back.”
“Scout,” Maggie admonished, completely surprised by Scout’s mean outburst.
She reached for Scout, but she jumped off the chair before Maggie could catch her and ran out the front door, with Suzie barking at her heels.
“I’m so sorry,” Maggie told Allison. “I don’t know what happened. That’s so unlike her. She’s usually the sweetest girl ever.”
Allison slid her purse over her shoulder. “Children are pretty straightforward. She obviously didn’t like something I said. I guess Mr. Granger was right about that little spitfire. She’ll make a great businesswoman someday.”
But Maggie was too upset to focus on anything else Allison might have to say. “Sure,” she replied.
“I think I should leave now while you tend to family matters. But please know that I would like an answer within twenty-four hours, and you would need to get started at that office fairly quickly. The sooner the better. We already have a client who wants to meet next week.”
Maggie heard what she said, but the offer didn’t seem to matter given the current circumstances. What mattered was that Scout had run off crying. There was no telling where she’d gone or how upset she might be.
“I’ll call you tomorrow with my answer. Right now I have to find Scout.” Maggie was already heading for the front door as she spoke.
Maggie turned back to Allison once she was there. “Thank you so much for the generous offer. It’s an incredible opportunity.”
“Yes, it is,” Allison said with total confidence. “I hope you take that into consideration when you’re thinking about accepting.”
She and Maggie stepped into the sunlight, Maggie in a man’s T-shirt and two-day worn jeans, and Allison in her designer black business suit and heels.
They shook hands, then Allison turned toward her gray E-Class Mercedes, stepping gently so her heels wouldn’t sink into the soft earth.
That’s when Maggie once again became acutely aware of her own footwear: cowboy boots, scuffed and caked with mud.
* * *
BLAKE HAD JUST gotten into his truck and fired up the ignition when he noticed Scout in his rearview mirror tearing up the road behind him with Suzie by her side.
“What the heck?”
He cut the engine, popped open the door and jumped out, just as his daughter came running into his arms, sobbing. “Oh, Daddy.”
Blake picked her up, leaned on the cab of his truck, stroked her back and waited until she pulled herself together. When she could breathe again, he said, “What’s wrong, sweetpea? Did you hurt yourself? Are you okay?”
He could feel her little head bob up and down. “So, you’re okay?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“You want to tell me what’s wrong?”
She slowly shook her head.
“Okay. I was just on my way to town. Want to come with me?”
She nodded and said, “Can Suzie come?”
“She sure can. Anything you want.”
Twenty minutes later he was paying for three doughnuts with extra sprinkles, a large coffee with heavy cream, and a hot chocolate with extra marshmallows at Holey Rollers.
“Rough morning, Doc?” Amanda asked from behind the counter as she gave him his change.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” he told her as he shoved the change in his pocket. He was not about to share his personal life with a teenager.
“So, like, I heard Allison Bennett was up at your place looking for Maggie. Wow, that’s like the best thing ever. Allison Bennett is my all-time idol. Is she Maggie’s friend or what, Doc?”
“Maggie’s never met her before.” He walked to his table but Amanda was not about to leave him alone. She grabbed the doughnut plates and followed close behind.
“Then what did she want? She came in here for a coffee and I about died right there behind the bear claws. She ordered a skinny-latte with soy. No wonder. Did you get a look at her? She can’t weigh more than a hundred pounds soaking wet. I bet she eats nothing but health food, and jogs every day for about two hours. No doughnuts for her and…”
Amanda wouldn’t stop talking, even after she put the plates on the table. “What I wouldn’t give to work for someone like Allison Bennett.”
Scout’s face lit up. “You can take Maggie’s job. Then she won’t have to leave Briggs and move to L.A. I don’t like L.A. But you might.”
“Maggie got a job offer from Allison Bennett?”
Scout took a big bite out of her doughnut as she swung her feet under the table. She nodded up at Amanda as she chewed.
“That is, like, so cool! Oh, wait a minute.” She turned to him. “Not cool, right?”
“Amanda, I—”
“That’s why you two are in here eating doughnuts. Oh, Doc, I’m, like, so sorry. I didn’t even think about you and Maggie and—can I get you anything else, Doc? A jelly doughnut with sprinkles, maybe? Or how about a bear claw? On the house.”
“Thanks. I’m fine. It’s a great opportunity for Maggie, and I wish her all the best.”
&
nbsp; Amanda backed away. “Sure, Doc. All the best.”
The thing was, Blake had listened to pretty much everything that Allison Bennett had offered Maggie as he stood on the other side of the doorway between the kitchen and hallway. He’d left to get cleaned up right when they were getting into the details of the offer. He didn’t want to listen anymore. Had he known Scout was going to react that way, he would never have allowed her to be in the same room.
As it was now, he realized he hadn’t been a good father. He’d thought of his own desires instead of how Maggie’s going, especially to L.A., would affect his daughter.
He was over that. He had to think of Scout first. Last night would have to be shoved aside. The way he figured it, Maggie hadn’t really meant it when she’d answered “me, too” to his blabbing that he loved her. It was her temperature rising that forced her into agreeing with something she had no use for.
Who was he kidding? He could no more keep Maggie from the city than he could teach a bird to jog. And from the look on Maggie’s face when she talked about Allison Bennett, he’d probably have better luck with the bird.
He was just about to take a big mouthful of his doughnut when Scout said, “Daddy, I promise when I grow up I won’t ever move to L.A.”
Blake put the doughnut back down on the plate. “Oh, Scout, is that what this is all about?”
She nodded. “You loved Mommy until she moved to L.A. And you love Maggie and that mean lady wants her to move to L.A. And you love me. But if I move to L.A. you won’t love me anymore, too, just like Mommy and Maggie. So, I’m not ever moving to L.A. Maybe California ’cause that’s where Disneyland is, but never L.A.”
She took a huge bite of her doughnut and multicolored sprinkles stuck to her lips, rolled down her chin, and got caught in her curly hair.
Blake’s heart broke wide open. He went over to her and squatted next to her chair to look into her sweet blue eyes. “Scout, I want you to listen to me, okay?”
She nodded, looking all serious even though candy sprinkles were stuck to her little cheeks.
“I could never, ever stop loving you no matter where you live or where you go or what you do. I’m your daddy, and I’ll always be your daddy. I didn’t stop loving your mommy just because she lives away from us. Part of me will always love your mommy because she gave me you. Your mommy and me just couldn’t live together anymore, that’s all. But it had nothing to do with her wanting to live in L.A. It had a lot to do with me wanting to live right here with Dodge and Colt and Travis and the boys. Do you understand?”
She thought for a while, then she said, “But what about Maggie? You love Maggie, don’t you?” Her eyes welled up again.
He took a deep breath and let it out. He had to be honest with his daughter. “Yes, Scout, I do.”
“I love her, too, Daddy, and I don’t want her to go away. Can’t you stop her, Daddy?”
Great big tears rolled down her cheeks and stuck to the sprinkles. Blake picked her up and carried her outside. He caught Amanda and just about everyone else in the bakery watching him. He was sure they all heard what he’d told Scout.
When they were outside in the crisp September weather he knelt down and stood her in front of him, gently moving the snarl of curls off her face and brushing off the sprinkles. She studied him with such a sad little face that he wanted to cry, as well.
“Baby, I can’t keep Maggie here if she doesn’t want to stay. None of us can. It’s going to be hard for all of us to let her go, but living in the country isn’t what she wants for her life. She likes living in the city, it’s easier for her. She enjoys going to her job every day, running things and making decisions. People depend on Maggie, and she gets to wear all her nice clothes and high heels, and we have to respect that even if it means we have to watch her go.”
“But I don’t want her to go, Daddy.”
“We can’t always have what we want, sweetpea. You know that. And that’s why we have to make it easy for Maggie to decide. You and me. Because we love Maggie, we have to pretend like it’s okay for her to leave. That she doesn’t have to worry about us, because we’ll be fine without her. The job will make Maggie happy, Scout. And you want her to be happy, don’t you?”
She nodded, and wiped a tear away with the back of her hand.
“Can you help me to make it easy for Maggie? Allison Bennett has offered Maggie an important job and I know she wants to take it, but she’s conflicted because of us.”
“What does confl…conflicted mean?”
“She doesn’t know what she should do.”
“She should stay.”
He tilted his head and gave her a look, hoping she would finally get it. She said, “Maggie should go with the mean lady so she can be happy.”
“That’s my girl.” He gave her a tight hug.
“Can we go back and finish our doughnuts now? Our drinks are getting cold and I don’t like cold hot chocolate. It tastes funny.”
Blake stood and took her hand as she skipped her way toward Holey Rollers. He wished he could get over this as quickly as Scout seemed to, but he knew losing Maggie wasn’t going to be that easy.
Chapter Fifteen
“I can’t find her anywhere,” Maggie told Dodge while they stood in front of the beautiful chestnut-colored horse Maggie had seen Colt riding the previous morning. Dodge had spent the past half hour brushing the horse while she frantically searched for Scout.
“She’s around. Don’t go gettin’ all worked up,” he told her. “That child never strays too far. Suzie won’t let her.”
“Dodge, I’ve looked everywhere, even under the beds, and I can’t find her or the dog. Shouldn’t we call the police or something? You don’t understand. She ran out of the house crying. She hates me or she hates Allison. I couldn’t really tell. But that doesn’t matter. How can you just keep brushing that horse? It’s been more than an hour. We need to do something.”
Maggie stomped her foot and the horse whinnied. Dodge stopped brushing and turned to Maggie. “You’re gonna cause sweet Jezebel, here, to get all riled up. Calm down, Maggie. There ain’t no cause to be worryin’ none before we know all the facts.”
Dodge ushered Maggie out of the stall, then closed the gate behind them.
“Time is of the essence with a missing child.”
Dodge chuckled. “She ain’t missin’, she just ain’t been found yet.”
“I can’t handle this. I’m going to call the police.”
“Don’t have no police in Briggs. Only got a sheriff and he’s down in the next county. Take him near an hour to drive all the way up here, and by then I suspect Scout’ll turn up. He won’t like ruinin’ his day over somethin’ that ain’t real.”
“Dodge, listen to me. Scout is missing.”
He pushed his hat back on his head. “It seems to me like there’s two kinds of missin’. One is when you put something somewhere and you can’t remember where that somewhere is, or you think something or someone should be where you think they should be, but they’re really somewhere’s else. Which is it?”
Maggie was baffled by his logic. “The second one, I guess.”
“Don’t you know?”
She wanted to scream. Her voice moved up an octave. “Okay. She’s not missing, she’s gone.”
“That makes more sense. Gone where?”
“I—I can’t do this anymore. I’m going in the house and calling the sheriff.”
“Okay, but isn’t that B
lake drivin’ on up toward the house?” He pointed behind her.
Maggie swung around and sure enough, Blake’s truck was pulling up to the front of the house. She watched as he parked and two seconds later Maggie could see two little feet clad in pink cowboy boots hit the blacktop. Her heart leaped up to her throat. She was never so happy to see someone in her entire life. Emotion overtook her as she ran toward Scout, Suzy and Blake.
When she came up close, she swooped Scout up in her arms and gave her a tight hug. “I didn’t know where you were. I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“Of course I’m okay. Daddy took me to Holey Rollers and we ate a bunch of doughnuts with sprinkles. We brought some home. You want one?” She held up a white bag.
“No. Thanks,” Maggie told her and put her back down on the ground. Scout instantly ran over to Dodge, yelling about bringing home doughnuts while waving the bag in the air. Suzie and Mush joined in the ruckus and greeted each other with barks and sniffs.
Maggie stood stock-still, staring at Blake. A mixture of anger and relief pulsed through her veins.
Blake said, “Sorry if you were worried. I didn’t know you were looking for—”
But Maggie couldn’t hold it in any longer. She lashed out. “I looked everywhere for her. I thought something horrible happened. I can’t believe you took her and didn’t tell anyone. How could you do that?”
He stepped toward her. “First off, you need to take a deep breath and relax.”
“I can’t relax. That was the most important moment of my life and I couldn’t even enjoy it or finish talking to Allison Bennett because Scout decided to throw some sort of fit and run out of the house. Do you even know how embarrassing that was for me? Not to mention that I couldn’t find her and Dodge kept talking in circles. And you had her the entire time. Would it have killed you to call me?”
