This was insane, I thought.

Sitting in a cold car—a rusty station wagon, no less—listening to songs from my high school years with the same yearning in my heart that I’d felt then. “Abby,” I whispered into the icy air, “you picked a great time to have a midlife crisis.”

I drove home, hauled the packages into the house and went into the living room.

Natalie looked up from her magazine. “Ma, the kids keep asking me when you’re going to decorate for Christmas. As their grandmother, and since it is your house, it’s your responsibility.”

You know that saying “I saw red”? Well, it’s true. I saw red. And we’re not talking twinkling lights here.

I remembered a story I’d heard. If a man could go on strike against his wife for lack of affection, why couldn’t a woman go on strike against her family for lack of cooperation?

“As of this moment, all of you are on your own. I. Am. On. Strike.”

Nikki Rivers

When she was twelve years old, Nikki Rivers knew she wanted to be a writer. Unfortunately, due to many forks in the road of life, she didn’t start writing seriously until several decades later. She considers herself an observer in life, and often warns family and friends that anything they say or do could end up on the pages of a novel. She lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with her husband—and best friend—Ron, and her feisty cairn terrier, Sir Hairy Scruffles. Her daughter Jennifer—friend, critic, shopping accomplice and constant source of grist for the mill—lives just down the street.

Nikki loves to hear from her readers. E-mail her at nikkiriverswrites@yahoo.com.

The Christmas Strike
Nikki Rivers

www.millsandboon.co.uk

From the Author

Dear Reader,

Ah, the holidays. Don’t you just love them? I do. Really. At the first sign of winter I’m all set to jingle the bells and put out the gumdrop tree I inherited from my grandmother. But who among us, if we’re totally honest, hasn’t at one time or another thought of chucking it all in. Let someone else hang the tinsel and wrap the presents for a change!

One of the pleasures of being a writer is that you get to create people who do the things you only occasionally dream about. Abby Blake is just such a character. She is an everywoman who discovers that her dreams haven’t yet completely died. I hope how Abby sets out to reclaim herself and accidentally winds up in Paris will make you laugh during even the worst of the holiday chaos.

But this Christmas, I also wanted to bring you the kind of hero who is a guilty pleasure for us all. The alpha male. Cole Hudson—and Paris—are my Christmas gifts to you!

Happy holidays to you all, and may you all soar in the New Year! After all, if you hang on to your dreams, anything is possible.

Nikki Rivers

This book is dedicated to my mother, Shirley Olsen,

who always knew how to make

the holidays special—no matter what.

I’d also like to thank Dane Jenning, president of

Tandava Aviation, who was so generous in sharing

his time and his expertise in private aviation for

the research for this book.

And a special thanks to my sister, Judy, for teaching

me the right way to do tequila shots!

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 1

I pulled up the hood of my baby-blue parka as I hurried down Main Street on my way to Dempsey’s Diner. It was unseasonably cold even for a waning December afternoon in Willow Creek, Wisconsin. The weatherman on the radio that morning had forecast snow. The steely sky above me and the wetness of the wind on my face made me think he’d gotten it right for a change. I waved at Ivan Mueller as I passed Mueller the Jeweler. While hanging a Christmas wreath in the window, he paused long enough to wave back. The entire downtown—all two blocks of it—was decked out for the holiday, which was only two weeks away. My own Christmas spirit was woefully lacking this year, making me almost resent the festive candy cane wreath on the door at the diner.

Just as I reached for the knob on the diner’s front door, it was pushed open from inside, nearly knocking me off my feet. A gaggle of teenagers spilled onto the sidewalk, laughing and hooting. I smiled slightly at their antics. I’d been young once myself—I think.

They hadn’t bothered to hold the door for me, so I pulled it open and went inside. The aroma of freshly brewing coffee and frying donuts embraced me right down to my chilled bones.

“Will you look at this?” Joanne Dempsey demanded as she shook her head at the mound of salt on the counter in front of her. “I bet those rotten kids that were just in here loosened every damned salt shaker in the place.”

I shook my head. “Remember when we used to do that?”

“If that’s your polite way of telling me that paybacks are a bitch, forget it. It is not lost on me that I am now the Old Mrs. Dempsey down at the diner that the kids from junior high get to harass for the price of a Coke.”

I slid into one of the booths by the window and shrugged out of my parka. “Trust me, you’re nothing like your mother-in-law was.”

“Maybe not to you, since you’re now a middle-aged curmudgeon, too. But to those young hoodlums—”

“You know,” I interrupted, “using those kinds of words isn’t helping the image.”

“What kinds of words?” Iris Johnson asked as she entered the diner along with a burst of arctic air. “I hope I didn’t miss anything vulgar,” she said as she teetered over to the booth on four-inch heeled boots.

“Jo just called me a middle-aged curmudgeon,” I told her.

Iris, glaring at Jo, slipped off her full-length white fake fur, revealing tight black leather jeans and a gold metallic ruffled shirt, and tossed the coat toward the empty booth nearby. “Fifty-two is not middle-aged,” she emphatically insisted as she sat down across from me. “And what the hell is a curmudgeon? It sounds like something from The Wizard of Oz.”

“Those are Munchkins,” I corrected. Iris never had any kids.

“My mother-in-law, may she rest in peace,” Jo explained, “was a curmudgeon.”

Iris shrugged. “If you mean old bitch, say old bitch.” She lit a cigarette and we both glared at her. She, as usual, ignored us. “It’s true that you can be bitchy, Jo, honey, but you’re certainly not an old bitch. We are,” she said before pausing to blow smoke toward the hammered tin ceiling, “the same age.”

“Thank you,” Jo said.

“She’s upset because some kids loosened the tops on the salt shakers,” I explained.

“We used to do that,” Iris said.

“Exactly,” Jo exclaimed as she came over with three mugs, a carafe of coffee and a basket of hot donuts. “The postpubescent are now doing to me what we used to do to Mike’s mother. In other words, I’ve crossed over to the other side. Next thing you know they’ll be throwing snowballs at me hoping I fall on my ass.”

Iris took another drag then put the cigarette out. Her current program to quit smoking involved taking only two drags per cigarette. It was costing her a small fortune. The nicotine withdrawal wasn’t helping her mood, either. “Keep those donuts away from me,” she griped as she waved off the basket Jo was holding out to her. “I had a hard enough time zipping these jeans this morning.”

Jo pulled the basket closer to our side of the booth and we both dug in with gusto.

“Look,” Iris complained, “having coffee with you two every Friday afternoon is supposed to cheer me up. Get a clue. This conversation isn’t doing it. And the sight of you two scarfing down donuts like it’s the day before Armageddon isn’t helping.” She sighed. “Neither is the fact that that guy I met in Milwaukee last weekend still hasn’t called.”

Jo and I made sympathetic noises, but we couldn’t relate. Jo had been married to Mike Dempsey, her high school sweetheart, since the age of nineteen and even though I’d been widowed for over twenty years, I’d never put myself back on the market. When you have lived in a town of less than five thousand people nearly all your life, you pretty much know why every eligible man is still eligible. The reason was never good. Which is why Iris had started fishing in a bigger pond.

She examined her nails, then started to play with the ends of her hair—auburn this week. Iris was a huge fan of the current resurgence of big hair. As owner of Iris’s House of Beauty, she had half the women in town looking like they should be living in Texas. Luckily, I wore my graying blond hair too short for one of her makeovers. It didn’t keep her from trying to talk me into it, though. So far, Jo, who still wore her brown hair like she had in high school—short bob with full bangs—had also resisted.

Mike came out of the kitchen with a rack of clean glasses and noisily set them on the counter. “You taking another break?” he asked.

“Friday afternoon coffee klatch, remember?”

“You know, you can be replaced,” Mike quipped.

“I’d like to see you try,” Jo shot back.

It was their usual banter. Mike, who was still built like the linebacker he’d been in high school and still had that mop of wavy brown hair and a pair of dimples that could kill, was crazy about Jo and we all knew it, even when he gave her a hard time.

“You know,” Mike said, “I just saw something on the news about a man who went on strike against his wife because she wasn’t giving him enough affection.”

We all laughed.

“Go ahead, laugh. But I’m serious, ladies. It was on CNN.”

“Don’t worry, Mike, I’ve got you penciled in for some affection later tonight,” Jo assured him.

He shook his head. “Not good enough. I want indelible ink or nothing.”

Jo smiled. “You got it, babe. Now get back in that kitchen and start frying some more donuts before the after-work crowd gets here.”

He gave her a look. “Boy, that better be a lot of affection I’m gonna get.”

Mike disappeared into the kitchen and I thought about how lucky Jo was not to have to sleep alone at night.

“Look at that,” Iris said as she jerked her chin toward the window. “Old man Kilbourn at the drugstore has been putting those same decorations in his windows since the Beatles made their first record.” She sighed. “Nothing ever changes in this town. How the hell did the three of us end up back here?”

Although it was a question one of us asked periodically, no one really ever bothered to answer. We each had our reasons. Certainly, none of us had intended to live out our lives here. As far as we were concerned the whole point of growing up in Willow Creek was to get out of Willow Creek. My two much older siblings, a brother and sister, had moved to the west coast long before I’d graduated from high school. I’d made my escape at the age of nineteen when I’d moved to Milwaukee and enrolled in night courses in accounting while working as a secretary during the day at an accounting firm. That was where I’d met my husband, Charlie.

Nat and Gwen were babies and Charlie and I were looking for our first house when my father became terminally ill. I moved back to Willow Creek with the kids to help my mother take care of my father. Charlie came down on weekends. After my father died, it was clear my aging mother could no longer live alone. We didn’t want to have just a weekend marriage, so Charlie moved into my mother’s house with me and the kids, and opened an accounting office in Willow Creek. Neither of us considered the move a permanent one, though. We figured it was only a matter of time before we’d pick up our lives in the city where we’d left off.

Then came the car accident and in the blink of an eye, I became the Widow of Willow Creek. With two toddlers tugging at my jeans and an increasingly needy mother to take care of, I closed Charlie’s office and opened a bookkeeping and tax preparation service that I ran out of the house. By the time my mother had passed on, the girls were entering their teens with social lives of their own and I figured I was meant to be born, live and die in Willow Creek.

I looked at my watch. “I’ve got to keep an eye on the time.”

“Fetching the grandkids from school again today?” Jo asked.

I nodded. “Natalie picked up an extra half shift out at the Mega-mart. They can use the money.”

“Jeremy find anything yet?”

I sighed, refilled my mug and grabbed another donut. “My son-in-law has taken root on the sofa,” I said with my mouth full. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to start watering him soon.”

“Must be in the depression stage,” Iris said. “Unemployment can put you through the same five stages as grief, you know.”

Jo and I looked at each other, then back at Iris.

“Something you read in Vogue?” Jo asked with sweet sarcasm and a batting of her mascara-less lashes.

Iris shook her hair back. “I read other things, too, you know.” She sniffed. “Anyway, it’s only common sense. You put a virile guy like Jeremy out of work and give him nothing to do and he’s bound to start struggling with his ego.”

“Believe me,” I said dryly as I sipped my coffee, “I’ve given Jeremy plenty to do. Nice little list that looks as fresh as the day I gave it to him.”

“See? Another symptom of depression is an inability to take action,” Iris pointed out. “It’s like you become frozen. Jeremy could even be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I read just the other day—”

Iris was a magazine junkie. While you waited your turn at Iris’s House of Beauty, you could read everything from Psychology Today and Herbal Monthly to Vogue and Cosmo. She claimed that since she could use the subscriptions as a business expense that ordering so many was just her way of sticking it to the government, but Jo and I knew she was addicted.

“All I want to know about a breakdown,” I said as I struggled back into my parka, “is when is it going to be my turn to have one? I wouldn’t mind lying on the sofa and watching old movies all day long in my pajamas.” I slid out of the booth and headed for the door.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Jo called. “We haven’t decided on what the Prisoners of Willow Creek Enrichment Society is doing tomorrow. This is our Saturday, you know.”

Iris groaned. “I’ve got a great idea. Let’s sleep.”

Jo gave her a look of reproach. We’d formed the Prisoners Enrichment Society several years ago when it became clear that none of us was likely to escape Willow Creek a second time. We may be stuck in Willow Creek but we didn’t plan on becoming stagnant.

“Okay, okay.” Iris gave in under Jo’s look. “Just let’s not go bowling again.”

“If this snow keeps up, why don’t we plan on a hike along the creek?” I suggested. “It’ll be gorgeous.”

“It’ll be cold,” Iris said.

“Besides, Iris doesn’t own a pair of boots with heels under three inches,” Jo pointed out. “Why don’t we drive over to that new ceramics shop near Lake Geneva? They’re having an introductory class. For ten bucks you get to paint your own latte cup.”

“Yippeee,” Iris drawled sarcastically as she lit another cigarette.

“That reminds me,” I asked Jo, “how’s the cappuccino war going?”

Jo was currently working on Mike to buy a cappuccino maker. She had dreams of turning the diner into a café. She felt it would give the town a little dash. We were in an area about halfway between Milwaukee and Chicago and surrounded by towns that had become weekend spots for the upper middle class from both cities. Willow Creek had remained just a small town while many of the neighboring ones had become favorites of tourists looking for a bucolic, small town experience but who didn’t want to travel far from home.

Many in Willow Creek saw the town’s anonymity as a victory and were happy with less intrusion from the outside world. Jo wasn’t one of them. She was constantly battling with Mike to turn the diner into the kind of place that would pull in business from tourists. But I had a feeling that if she ever won we would all miss the geometric-patterned gray Formica countertops, the red fake-leather-covered booths and the old fashioned soda fountain behind the curved counter with its chrome and red stools that spun in place. We’d all been coming here since Mike’s parents were probably younger than we were now—unsettling thought that that was. Most of the girls in town had done a stint as a waitress at Dempsey’s. That’s how Jo first fell in love with Mike.

“Mike still thinks the diner, like his mother, is perfect,” Jo said. “He says why tamper with success. Which is exactly what his mother always said. But, frankly, with all three kids in college, we could use a little more success.” She took a moment to make sure Mike was out of earshot. “I’m sneaking a pasta dish on the menu next week,” she whispered. “And he doesn’t know it yet, but I’m thinking about putting our Christmas club money into a new sign out on the highway.”

“The assault begins,” Iris pronounced.

“I don’t care who wins,” I said, “as long as you don’t switch coffee suppliers or take the donuts off the menu.”

The diner only offered one kind of donut—a plain cake one—but they were made fresh several times daily. The outsides were always just slightly crunchy while the insides were so tender they melted in your mouth. Nearly the entire town was addicted to them.

“So,” I said as I zipped up my parka, “ceramics class tomorrow?”

We both looked at Iris. She took a second drag on the new cigarette then stamped it out in the black plastic ashtray in front of her.

“I can hardly wait,” she said.

Face it, I wasn’t exactly enthralled with the idea of painting flowers on a latte cup, either. But at least it would get me out of the house on a Saturday.

When we first formed the Prisoner’s Enrichment Society, we’d had loftier goals than ceramics or bowling in mind. We’d even planned a trip to Europe once. Went so far as to get our passports. Then my daughter Natalie found out she was pregnant with her second child on the same day Jeremy got laid off from the auto plant two towns over. Suddenly my Europe fund had other, more important places to go. The farthest the Society had ever taken us was a weekend trip to Chicago two years ago. But at least we hadn’t given up completely.

It was snowing lightly when I left the diner. Dark enough, in fact, on this December afternoon for the Christmas lights hanging from lampposts along Main Street to already be lit. I tried to muster up some Christmas spirit at the sight. Who knows? Maybe the snowfall put Jeremy in the mood and he’d gotten off the sofa long enough to put up our outdoor Christmas lights like he’d been promising to do since the day after Thanksgiving.

Luckily, the wind was at my back as I walked the few blocks to my car. I yanked open the door of my slightly rusting station wagon, wincing at the screech, and slid behind the wheel while I sent a silent wish into the frosty air that the wagon would start on the first try. It didn’t. I resisted the urge to pump the gas and tried again. The engine caught and I smiled and patted the dashboard. “Good girl. Now just get us to the grade school then home and I’ll tuck you in for the rest of the night.”

I drove over to the school, contemplating what to fix for dinner. Natalie, my twenty-nine-year-old daughter, and her husband, Jeremy, had moved in nearly four months ago when Jeremy’s unemployment ran out and the bank foreclosed on their house, but I still wasn’t used to planning family meals again. I’d grown accustomed to just grabbing a bowl of cereal or heating up some soup. Now meals were a big, noisy, messy deal again. Not that I didn’t love my grandkids. I loved them like crazy even when they made me crazy.

I pulled up behind a row of cars in front of the elementary school and waited. As usual, eight-year-old Tyler, dark haired and green eyed with a wrestler’s body like his father’s, was the first one to reach the car. “Shotgun!” he yelled while ten-year-old Matt, tall, lanky and sandy haired like his grandfather, tried to shove him out of the way.

“Knock it off, Matt,” I said.

“No fair,” Matt grumbled. “Tyler got shotgun yesterday.”

“You’re right. Tyler, get in the back, it’s Matty’s turn to ride up front.”

“Aww—” Tyler groused as he gave in.

“Where’s your sister?” I asked, craning my neck to get a look at the steady stream of kids coming out of the school.

“Probably giggling with those two morons she hangs around with,” said Matt.

I was just about to send one of the boys to look for her when Ashley broke from the pack and started skipping toward the car, her long blunt-cut auburn hair swinging from beneath her winter hat.

“Hi, Grandma,” she said as she got into the backseat. She threw her arms around my neck from behind and gave me a kiss on the cheek. She was the only one of my grandchildren who still showed me affection in public.

“Get on your own side of the car,” Tyler yelled.

“Dork,” Ashley said with all the indignity a six-year-old can muster.

“Ha! Dork? That the best you can do, loser?”

No doubt about it, Ashley sometimes had a tough time being the only girl.

“Hey,” she squealed, “stop elbowing me!”

Matt turned around and threw his cap at Ashley. “Quit screaming in my ear, weirdo.”

I stuck two fingers in my mouth and whistled. That got their attention. “The next one of you who says anything nasty or pokes, prods, elbows or otherwise harasses anyone gets to do the dishes tonight. All. By. Themselves.”

There were moans of varying degrees, but the dishes deterrent never failed. The three of them settled down. I turned on the radio, perpetually set on an oldies station, and everyone started singing along to “Sweet Caroline.” By the time we got home, we were mutilating the lyrics to “Brown Eyed Girl.”

Home was still the two-story Victorian with a wraparound porch in perpetual need of painting that had once belonged to my parents. I had just gotten around to the idea of selling it when Nat and Jeremy lost their house almost four months ago. What could I do? They needed a roof over their heads and I was still the mom, a role that no longer suited me as much as it used to. I was the grandmother. I was supposed to get to do the fun things with my grandchildren. Instead, I’d become the one who wiped up the spilled milk and broke up the fights.

The kids tumbled out of the car while I checked for any sign of Christmas light activity on the bare branches of the barberry bushes lining the front porch. Not one string was strung. I didn’t see any of the electric candles I’d asked him to put in the front windows, either.

I followed the kids up the stairs and into the house where they kicked off boots and parkas and threw them in the direction of the cobbler’s bench lining one side of the entrance hall. There was a sweatshirt thrown over the banister of the open staircase and a basket full of clean laundry sitting on the bottom step.

The living room was to the left of the entrance hall, while the dining room was to the right. The big family-style kitchen was behind the dining room.

The kids, as usual, clattered through the dining room to the kitchen to raid the cookie jar. I followed to make sure none of them took more than two cookies—homemade oatmeal that Natalie cleverly laced with wheat germ and sunflower seeds—poured milk and got them seated at the table with their homework. Then I headed back to the living room.

Sure enough, Jeremy was still in his flannel pajama pants and an old football jersey, slumped on one of the two matching sofas, his bare feet up on the coffee table between them, his eyes glazed over from watching too much daytime television.

“Jeremy, we need to talk,” I said.

“I’ve already applied every place I can think of, Abby,” he said dully without taking his eyes off the television.

“I know that and that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about anyway.”

His eyes drifted toward mine.

“I just think that maybe it’d be better if you got dressed every day and did something around here. Even just one thing. That’s all I ask, Jeremy. ’Cause I think you’re slipping into a depression.”

This brought his spine upright. “Oh, I can just guess who the topic of conversation was down at the diner this afternoon. I’ll hang the damn Christmas lights, okay?”

“That would be a start—”

His jaw worked, but I’d known him since he was thirteen and first started hanging around on my living room sofa. He was the boy who had cried when he’d lost a wrestling match in high school. The boy who had looked at Natalie with such love in his eyes as she’d walked down the aisle toward him when she was already three months pregnant with Matt. Jeremy could work his jaw all he wanted. It wasn’t about to make me back off.

“—but that’s not what I really wanted to talk to you about.”

He looked wary but defiant and I saw my grandson Tyler in his face. How could I not love this man, even if I sometimes felt like sending the sofas out to be reupholstered just to see what he’d do?

“So, what do you want to talk to me about?” he asked.

“Ma—come on—what were you thinking?” Natalie demanded when she got home from work a few hours later.

“It’s just that my business is going well, I could use the help and it would provide a little security for you and the kids. Since the two of you have been married, Jeremy has been laid off four times. Aren’t you sick of worrying about layoffs and plant closings? Can’t you see how each time it happens, Jeremy finds it harder to deal with?”

“Of course I can see that, Ma. That’s one of the reasons I’m pissed that you talked to him without discussing it with me first. It’s bad enough Jeremy has to depend on his mother-in-law for a roof over his head right now. How do you think he’d feel if you were his boss, too?”

I leaned against the kitchen sink and watched the kids out in the backyard tumbling around in the snow in the glow of the back porch light. A good four inches had already fallen. It didn’t seem to be hurting Jeremy’s manliness to not be out there shoveling snow. I wisely decided to keep that observation to myself.

“So, I’ll sell him part of the business. For heaven’s sake,” I said in exasperation, “the point is, he’d be making money while in training and you wouldn’t have to worry about layoffs and plant closings ever again.”

My daughter Natalie, as usual, looked both sullen and beautiful. Her long sandy hair was tangled, her pale skin was bare of makeup so the sprinkling of freckles on her nose showed. She was as tall as me—five foot ten—but finer boned, leaner, less bosomy. She really took after her father more than me in looks. Of my two daughters, she had always been the more openly rebellious one. Her three kids had come so quickly that Nat still had some growing up to do. But she had a big heart and, in her own way, she was a terrific mother. But, as far as I was concerned, she was still too stubborn for her own good.

“Yeah, Ma, every out-of-work guy wants to be trained by his mother-in-law.”

“Don’t you think you’re being a tad overprotective here?” I pointed out while I picked up a wooden spoon and went to stir the pot of chili on the stove. “He’s got a family to help support.”

“Ma—I do not want to talk about this now, okay?” Nat said through tightened lips. “Jeremy is upstairs taking a nap but he could be down any minute. I’d like to get through dinner without a scene for a change, if you don’t mind.”

I bit my tongue so hard to keep the words down that I was surprised I wasn’t on my way to bleeding to death. I’d had enough scenes in the past months to last me a lifetime. I wasn’t sure which was worse: listening to Jeremy and Natalie fight or listening to them have makeup sex. No wonder the man needed so many naps.

The three kids came tumbling in, cheeks rosy from the cold, trailing snow, spilling milk and getting more chili on the table than in their mouths.

I loved them. I did. But afterwards, as I stood in the middle of the ruins of dinner on the big, square oak table and looked at the puddles of melted snow on the parquet wood floor, I couldn’t help but ask myself isn’t there someplace else I’m supposed to be?

When had this new restlessness started? Was it after Nat and her brood moved in or had it been there all along? And if this wasn’t where I was supposed to be, then where did I belong?

I got out the mop and told myself to get real. I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Where I’d chosen to be. Life wasn’t so bad. So Nat and Jeremy had had to move in for a while. It was happening all over the country. The boomerang generation, they called it. It’d only been a little over three months. And surely having the grandchildren here would rekindle my Christmas spirit eventually, wouldn’t it? Of course it would. Besides, things could always be worse. At least Gwen wasn’t coming home for Christmas this year.

Not that I didn’t love my oldest daughter, Gwen. I loved my daughters equally. Enjoyed being with them equally. I even fought with and was irritated by them pretty much equally. They were only a little over a year apart, but they were as different as peanut butter and steak: both of them delicious, but I’d prefer not to eat them at the same meal.

Nat and Gwen didn’t share the sisterly bond that I imagined I would have shared with my sister if she hadn’t been so much older than me. Basically, my daughters bonded by bickering. It was going to be a relief not to have that added to the cacophony that had become my auditory life. The bonus was, I didn’t even have to feel guilty that Gwen wouldn’t be here. Her husband, David, was taking her on a holiday cruise. Everyone was winning as far as I was concerned.

I’d always known that Gwen was the kind of girl who would grow up to marry the kind of man who could afford to take her on holiday cruises. Not to mention buy her just about anything she wanted. Gwen had lived her life toward that goal since she’d first discovered that she was not only smart but pretty, a phenomenon that had occurred to her around the age of twelve. Cheerleader. Prom Queen. Scholarships to good schools. A career in the city in banking that led to the kind of social life that got her invited to the right parties where she’d meet a man like David Hudson, an architect who was already making a name for himself at the age of thirty-five.

On paper, thirty-year-old Gwen read like the kind of young woman a mother never had to worry about. Yet I worried just as much about Gwen as I did about Nat. They were just different worries. For instance, I sometimes worried that Gwen loved her husband’s money and family connections more than she loved her husband.

David came from a family of old banking money, although both he and his father were architects. I didn’t know much about architecture, but even I had heard of Cole Hudson. I’d met him only once—at Gwen’s wedding in Chicago last spring. Once was enough as far as I was concerned. He was one of those arrogant, larger-than-life types. Full of himself. Very different from David, who was kind and sweet and loving—and easily wrapped around Gwen’s finger. I couldn’t imagine Cole Hudson letting any woman wrap so much as a strand of his hair around her finger.

There was a sudden crash from the living room and Ashley squealed, “Give that back to me!” Then, “Mom!” I sighed. One thing I’d never have to worry about was Gwen moving back in. I was pretty sure she’d jump from its balcony before she’d give up the high-rise condo near Chicago’s Loop—unless, of course, she’d be giving it up for a mansion on Lake Michigan.

I was finishing up the dishes while the kids were in the living room with Nat, who was checking over their homework before letting them watch TV, when I heard a plaintive voice behind me say, “Mother?”

I spun around. Gwen stood there with a look of such raw pain on her face that my heart immediately opened to her. “Honey,” I said as I moved toward her, “what is it?”

“My marriage is over, Mother. I’ve left David and come home for good.”

CHAPTER 2

Through the kind of sobbing that turns into hiccups, Gwen told me that she’d just found out that David never loved her.

“He doesn’t want to be with me, Mom,” she wailed as I took her into my arms.

“Baby, I’m sure David loves you. He’s always loved you,” I said.

She shook her head vigorously. “No. I just fit some kind of ideal that he wanted in a wife. It’s not me he loves. It’s his work. I was just—just arm candy!”

A tiny pinprick of guilt poked at me. I’d so recently wondered the same thing about Gwen’s feelings toward David and now here she was, my brokenhearted daughter, feeling loved only for her facade.

“Oh, my God. What happened?” Natalie said from the doorway.

“David doesn’t love me,” Gwen blubbered.

Natalie shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her jeans as she came all the way into the room. “Oh, come on. We all know David is nuts about you.”

Gwen sobbed more. “I don’t think he’s ever really loved me.”

Compassion was one of Natalie’s more endearing qualities, but she didn’t usually waste it on her sister. Now it warmed my heart to see Nat take her hand out of her pocket to smooth Gwen’s long, expensively maintained, blond hair back from her face. “Come on. Tell us what happened.”

“I just feel so betrayed,” she said in a shaky voice.

Over her sister’s head, Natalie mouthed the question affair?

I shrugged, but, given how crazy David had always been about Gwen, I thought it highly unlikely and I wasn’t going to ask. Not now, anyway.

Natalie had no such compunction. “Did he cheat on you?” she asked.

The question brought Gwen’s head up with a jerk. “What? Of course not. Why would he cheat on me?”

“Then what happened, for heaven’s sake?” I asked, starting to lose patience.

Nat stepped closer to Gwen and put her arm around her shoulders. I hadn’t seen them present anything like a united front since they’d both campaigned to skip school to go to a rock concert in Chicago when they’d been sixteen and seventeen.

Gwen, always the more delicate looking of the two, was only five six to Nat’s five ten. She easily leaned her head on Nat’s shoulder and gave a long, shaky sigh. “He—” she sniffed “—he canceled our cruise!” she finished with a wail.

Nat leaped away from her like she was going for the long jump in the Olympics.

“What?” she bellowed.

“He canceled our Christmas cruise because of some project that’s in trouble. He’s so selfish. That’s all he thinks about is work. I spent months shopping for just the right clothes and then he—”

“Wait just a minute,” Nat demanded, putting her fisted hands on her hips. “You’re pulling this scene because your cruise was canceled?”

“You don’t understand. We haven’t been on a trip since our honeymoon in Hawaii last spring.”

“Aw—that’s real rough,” Natalie said, her compassion morphing quickly into ridicule. “Boo-hoo.”

“Nat,” I warned.

“You don’t know what it’s been like,” Gwen shrieked, totally undeterred by her sister’s mocking. “He works all the time. We haven’t even been out to dinner in over a week.”

“Oh, really,” Nat said as she cocked her hip out aggressively and crossed her arms over her chest. She’d been taking the same stance since she was just a toddler. Right after Charlie was killed, the smart-ass started to sprout out of her like someone had fed her liquid fertilizer. “My heart bleeds. Too bad Jeremy’s unemployment ran out or we could take you to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal.”

Gwen abruptly stopped crying. “I simply will not take this kind of attitude from you,” Gwen said with all the dignity of a royal. “Not when you’re taking advantage of Mother the way you are.”

Natalie shifted her weight to the other hip. “Excuse me?”

“She’s practically ready for retirement and your whole family is living off of her,” Gwen told her.

Ready for retirement? I was fifty-two. There was still time. I could still buy a pair of leather jeans and go out and get a life.

“Mom invited us to move in—and we pay our own way as much as possible,” Nat said. “It’s not Jeremy’s fault he’s out of work, you know.”

I could see that Gwen was winding up for a retort that would wound. It was time for some mommy intervention.

“Okay, girls, enough!” I yelled. “Everybody has problems. And everyone’s problems are important—if only to themselves. So let’s show each other a little respect.”

Natalie looked even more sullen, as she always did when she knew I’d hit the mark. Gwen sniffed and started crying silently. The phrase award-winning performance did come to mind. But still, she’d just left her husband. Being self-absorbed didn’t mean you were protected from pain.

“Gwen, honey,” I gently asked her, “are you sure this is what you want?”

“What she wants is for David to come running up here and beg her to come back to him,” Nat said. “Oh, and maybe buy her another hunk of expensive jewelry.”

“Natalie,” I said sternly, even though I knew there might be more than a kernel of truth in that statement. “Please.”

“You can be such a bitch,” Gwen said before she blew her nose loudly into a big wad of tissues she’d pulled from her Dooney & Bourke handbag.

“Look, I’m stuck here living under Ma’s roof again, trying to hold it together with three kids and an out-of-work husband. And you’ve got the nerve to come in here crying because David had to cancel your cruise? Give me a break.”

Maybe Natalie was saying all the things to her sister that I wish I had the guts to say but I was too busy thinking about Nat’s choice of the word stuck. Is that how she felt living with me? I knew it wasn’t an ideal situation, but still the word stuck—well, it hurt, damn it.

“Mother, are you just going to stand there and let her talk to me that way?” Gwen demanded.

Right now I wasn’t sure what was upsetting me the most. Gwen’s self-absorption or Natalie’s anger. I searched for the right words to say. “You know, Gwen, Nat’s going through a hard time right now,” I began.

Gwen dashed tears from her cheeks with an angry swipe of her hand. “Like I’m not? At least she knows where her husband is.”

There was a burp from the doorway. We all looked up. Jeremy stood there, bleary-eyed, scratching his stomach with one hand and brushing his hair back with the other. “Did I miss dinner?” he croaked in a sleep-roughened voice.

“Oh, good,” Gwen said, recovering rather quickly from her last outburst. “I’m glad you’re here. I need help with my bags. If you’ll follow me—”

“You bet, princess,” Jeremy said as he rolled his eyes at us before following her.

“Look at that,” Nat muttered. “She’s taking over already.”

“Nat, come on. Gwen is hurting.”

“I’ll tell you what Gwen is doing. She’s finding a new way to make Christmas all about her. Like the time she had the chicken pox. Or the time she broke up with that guy she thought she was so in love with. She spent the entire holiday season crying her eyes out and refusing to eat. By the time Christmas break was over, she had a new boyfriend and claimed she’d never been so in love in her life. She does this kind of stuff on holidays, Ma. Haven’t you noticed?”

Did she? I knew Gwen could be manipulative and maybe just a touch narcissistic. But chicken pox? “Nat, I don’t think even Gwen could will herself to get the chicken pox.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Nat said as she headed for the front hall. Seconds later she yelled, “Hey, Ma! You gotta come and see this!”

There turned out to be ten pieces of luggage. All matched. Pink crocodile. It made quite an impressive pile in the hallway. I was a little impressed to see Jeremy actually breaking a sweat for a change, too, as he hauled it all in.

“Last one,” he said as he rolled in a suitcase big enough to hold a drum set.

“Mother, which room will be mine?” Gwen asked.

“Well, the only room free is the guest room off the kitchen.”

“That’ll never do,” Gwen said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “It’s barely big enough for my clothes.”

“Well, you’re not getting our room,” Natalie said.

I totally agreed. It would really be starting off on the wrong foot to kick Nat and Jeremy out of the second largest bedroom in the house to give it to Gwen. And we certainly couldn’t have any of the children sleeping downstairs by themselves. So that left—

Me.

“I’ll take the guest room, Gwen. You can have my room.”

Gwen took it like it was her due. “Jeremy?” she said, then picked up the smallest case and started up the stairs.

“If she offers me a tip,” Jeremy muttered, “I’ll kick her in her bony ass.”

“Let’s all help with the luggage,” I hastened to suggest, grabbing a suitcase and starting up before anyone could argue with me.

Later that night, as I lay in the narrow single bed in what my mother had always referred to as the maid’s room even though we’d never had a maid, I could hear Nat and Gwen bickering over the bathroom and, just like that, fifteen years peeled back. It was worse than déjà vu. I mean, I was actually going through it for the second time. But I had been younger the first time, I said to myself as I rolled over and pulled a pillow over my head.

I was feeling a little used and abused. And a whole lot sorry for myself. So Nat felt stuck. How did she think I felt? Did she think this was the life I’d planned to be living when I reached my present age? And Gwen was acting like a child throwing a tantrum. And even though I felt like kicking her in her bony ass myself, I had to be supportive, didn’t I? Wasn’t that part of the deal that came with motherhood?

Frankly, I wasn’t feeling all that supportive of either of my daughters right now. I’d been a widow already by the time I was Gwen’s age. At least she still had a husband who would eventually take her on a cruise. And Nat had Jeremy and the kids. I flopped onto my back again and tossed the pillow aside. The problem was, I wasn’t supposed to be alone in this bed mulling over all this stuff by myself. Charlie was supposed to be here with me. To talk to. To hold me if I cried. To laugh with me over the absurdity of life. Was the restlessness I’d been feeling just a newly resurrected anger at the injustice of it all?

Charlie, always a careful driver, had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’d been on his way home to us from a conference in Green Bay when a semi had gone over the center line. It had happened too fast for Charlie to even react, the police had told me. I could hear the words like they were said just yesterday. “It’s likely he never knew what hit him, ma’am,” the cop had assured me.

Well, I knew what had hit me. Widowhood. Single motherhood. It was as if my life as me, Abby, had just stopped. By now, at the age of fifty-two, I’d thought I’d have Abby back again. But as I listened to the girls still squabbling overhead I knew that my time wasn’t arriving anytime soon. In fact, I was pretty sure the train hadn’t even left the station yet.

“Look,” I said the next morning after listening to my daughters complain about the house having only one bathroom, “we’re just going to have to start making a schedule for the bathroom in the morning and at night.”

“We were here first,” Natalie said tightly. “Let her go to a hotel. She can afford it.”

“That’s not fair! My marriage is crumbling and you want me to go to a hotel? Why shouldn’t Mother be here for me, too?”

“Yeah, your marriage is crumbling because your husband put off a trip to the Bahamas to make another million. Excuse me while I don’t cry.”

“You are such a bitch!”

“Hey—little pitchers,” Nat said sternly as she nodded toward her trio of minors. They were watching the sisters with their mouths dropped open nearly to the table.

Suddenly, Ashley jumped from her chair and ran up to me to clutch my leg. “Why are they yelling?” she whispered as she peered anxiously up at me. “Do Mommy and Auntie Gwen hate each other?”

I smoothed her hair back from her little concerned face. “Do you hate your brothers when you yell at them?”

Ashley solemnly shook her head. “Not really.”

“Then I guess your mommy and your auntie are just acting like children.”

“Would it kill anyone to try to see my side of things, here?” Gwen demanded before she flounced out of the room.

By now the kitchen table was a mess of cereal, spilled milk and whatever other chaos grade school children can cause in a kitchen on a Saturday morning. I went over to the sink and turned on the faucet, waiting for the water in the old pipes to get hot. The kids must have sensed more trouble brewing because they soon drifted off to wreak havoc in the living room.

I shot Nat a look. “You know, you’re not helping matters any.”

She had the grace to look shamefaced, something that always raised patches of bright red on her pale cheeks. “I’m sorry. I guess it’s just that after losing your house it’s a little hard to have sympathy for someone who has to postpone a cruise.”

I put my arm around her shoulders. “Honey, I know. But this is still real to her. She feels let down by her husband. She feels—”

“Abandoned,” Natalie finished for me. “I know. But she’s not the only one who lost her father, you know.”

I squeezed her shoulder. “We all deal with things differently, Nat.” Was now the time to reminded her of her overprotective-ness of Jeremy? Probably not, I decided.

“Mother?”

Gwen had quietly come back into the kitchen. In her long rose-sprigged flannel nightgown with matching robe, her hair in a tangled mess and her eyes red from crying, she looked so much like the girl she’d once been. So when she asked in a small, plaintive voice, “Would you make me some pancakes?” I, naturally, said yes.

She smiled weakly. “I’ll have them in my room.”

“Oh, brother,” said Natalie.

“So you’re late for the Prisoners of Willow Creek Enrichment Society outing because you were serving your daughter pancakes in bed?” Iris asked. “Your thirty-year-old daughter, I might add.”

I grimaced. “You might, but I wish you wouldn’t.”

Iris dipped the tip of her brush in pink paint. “Aren’t we supposed to be escaping our bondage?”

“Yes, of course—”

“Well, I’m seeing you pretty tethered to the ground, honey,” Iris said.

“Well, what am I supposed to do?”

“Kick them out on their asses and tell them to grow up?” Iris suggested tenderly.

“It’s just not that easy,” I whined.

“Oh, don’t pay any attention to her,” Jo said. “She’s never had kids.”

“Making me the smartest woman at this table,” Iris stated.

We’d driven an hour in the snow to sit in the back room of an overheated ceramics shop and paint designs on large coffee cups. I was starting to think that none of the women at this table were very smart.

“This is a stupid way to spend a Saturday,” I blurted out.

Some women at the advanced class’s table who were working on painting little elves swung their heads our way, their faces registering disapproval.

“You trying to get us beat up or something?” Jo hissed.

“They do look a little hard-core,” Iris said.

I started to giggle at the thought of hard-core ceramic junkies. More disapproving looks came our way. I wasn’t sure if it was our conversation or the fact that none of us was wearing a sweatshirt with a barnyard animal, a snowman or sprigs of holly on it.

“Why do I get the feeling,” Jo said out of the corner of her mouth, “that we’re about to get kicked out of here?”

“Just as long as we don’t have to serve detention,” I said.

Iris threw down her paintbrush. “Let’s get the hell out of here. I want a margarita.”

There was a small gasp from a chubby woman at the next table, who was wearing a sweatshirt that featured a row of geese, each with a red ribbon tied in a bow at its throat.

“What’s the matter, lady, would you rather have a rum and Coke?”

“Well, I never—” the woman said.

“Yeah, I’m betting you haven’t,” Iris quipped.

“I think now is the time to leave,” Jo said.

I didn’t argue.

Amid much giggling, we left our half-finished latte mugs where they were, went up front, paid what we owed and headed back to Willow Creek and the only Mexican restaurant in the area.

I ordered a regular margarita on the rocks, no salt, Jo ordered a blended strawberry one and Iris, skipping the niceties, ordered a double shot of tequila.

We were as different as our drink orders—Jo, Iris and I. Always had been.

Jo, the tomboy and the first of us to date, had been on the girls’ hockey team in high school. She was the kind of girl who joined in a game of football with the guys at the park on Saturday afternoons, thus getting to know all the jocks and giving her the inside dating edge. Iris’s high school claim to fame was getting caught smoking in the girls’ room more often than any other girl of the graduating class of 1972. I was the studious, practical one. The one on the debating team. The one who usually followed all the rules.

The unlikely friendship had started when we’d all refused to dissect a frog in freshman biology. We’d all gotten detention as punishment for our stand on animal cruelty. Although I’ve secretly always felt that with Iris, it was more of a stand against the smell of formaldehyde. Jo and I, clearly out of our element, had glued ourselves to Iris, who was more than familiar with the drill and who was friends with nearly every scary boy in the detention room. Afterwards, we’d walked home in the dark together—it had been late fall and the smell of burning leaves had been in the air—griping about the unfairness of the world. We’d been best friends ever since.

“These chips are stale,” Iris complained as she threw a half-eaten one back into the complimentary basket.

“The chips are always stale,” Jo pointed out. “It’s their way of getting you to order something.”

“You guys want to split the fajitas?”

Jo and I agreed and we put in the order when our drinks were delivered.

Iris licked the back of her hand, sprinkled salt on it, licked again, threw back the double shot, then sucked a wedge of lime. This ritual never failed to fascinate Jo and me. We watched in admiration as we sat there sipping our gentile margaritas.

“You know,” Iris said as she licked salt from her lips, “if the Prisoners Society doesn’t start getting more exciting, we’re going to need to form a society against the damned society.”

Jo sighed. “Okay, so the ceramics didn’t work out. So sue me.”

“Maybe we should start planning another trip to Europe,” Iris suggested, “while our passports are still good.”

Jo shook her head. “I’m saving every dime I can get my hands on for the diner so when I get Mike to see things my way, I’ll be ready.”

“Fat chance I’m going anywhere soon, either,” I put in. “I’ve got a full house. I bet they’re all waiting at home right now wondering what’s for dinner.”

“Damn,” Iris said, “how can you stand it? That’s the main reason I’ve never wanted to get married, you know. The idea of being needed all the time like that—” She gave an exaggerated shiver of distaste.

I’d never really considered the concept of not being needed. What would that feel like? Right now I thought it would probably feel pretty damn good. But it might have just been the margarita.

“I’m starting to get depressed,” Iris muttered. “I think it’s time we did our ritualistic toast thingy again.”

We’d started the toast—really a promise to each other—the year we’d had to cancel the trip to Europe. There was no clear anniversary date for the ritual. We generally hauled it out whenever any of us was having a bad time. It was a way of reminding ourselves that things were still possible.

Iris signaled our server for another round. When it came, we raised our various concoctions and clinked our mismatched glasses and repeated the promise. If one of us ever made it to Europe, we would toast the others out loud so at least our names would have been said there. If it was Rome, it would be wine. And if it was Paris, champagne, of course. Italy and France were the two countries we all agreed that we wanted to see.

“Hey, why don’t you come up to Milwaukee with me next weekend?” Iris suggested after she’d finished her tequila ritual. “That guy I met last time finally called me. We’re going dancing at a club downtown. I’m sure he’s got a friend we could double with.”

Jo groaned. “Milwaukee just doesn’t sound as exotic as Rome.”

Iris sniffed and straightened her shoulders. “Well, we don’t all have a still semihunky husband to cuddle up to on Friday night.”

“Sorry,” Jo said.

Iris turned to me. “How about it?”

“No way,” I said emphatically.

“Hey, you had fun that one time you came with me.”

Fun wasn’t what I’d call it. Okay, maybe at the time it had seemed like an adventure. But afterwards I just worried about whether I’d caught anything or if I was going to turn into a slut. That was over five years ago. I haven’t had sex since. And I had no intention of having it again anytime soon.

“You’re forgetting how paranoid I got afterwards,” I said.

Iris made a face. “That’s right. Forget it. I couldn’t go through that again. Guess you’ll have to find some other way to blow off steam.”

Our fajitas came and we got busy divvying up the tortillas and sizzling platters of meat and vegetables. A guy in cowboy boots slid from his stool at the bar and ambled over to the jukebox.

“Oh, oh,” Jo said, “I’m feeling some Patsy Cline comin’ on.”

But it wasn’t Patsy Cline that came out after he’d stuck in his dollar.

“Hey, wasn’t that our junior prom theme?” Iris asked as a song by the pop group Bread began to play.

But I was already there. I couldn’t even see the face of the boy I went with or remember the color of the dress. But the same feeling I’d had then washed over me now. Excitement. Possibilities. A world at our feet.

I should have known after the evening’s infamous punch incident that things weren’t going to turn out as I’d planned.

I’d learned that the only thing you could really count on was getting old. Sure, fifty-two isn’t old. But it’s a lot older than forty-two, which is a lot older than thirty-two, which is a lot older than twenty-two. What if you didn’t feel that old inside though? Lately I’d been wondering if my insides were keeping pace with my outsides. Like sometimes, inside, I’m still twenty-two. And then I pass a mirror or a plate-glass window and am shocked at the person looking back at me. Not that I look all that bad. My skin is still decent, although, like I said, those laugh lines are getting deeper. My hair is still more blond than silver. I weigh only a few pounds more than I did when I married Charlie. But I sure didn’t look like the kind of woman who had something bubbling inside of me, still waiting to break free. And I sure didn’t look like the kid I was feeling like right now, half buzzed from a couple of margaritas and the beat of a song that, until this moment, I’d forgotten all about.

When I got home that night, sure enough, the first question I got asked was what was for supper. It was nearly seven o’clock and it hadn’t occurred to any of the other adults in the house to fix something.

“I’ve already eaten,” I said.

They all looked shocked.

“But what about us?” Ashley asked.

I squatted down in front of her. “You know what, Ash? Your mom knows how to cook, too. Don’t you remember?”

Ashley nodded enthusiastically. “She makes the best tuna casserole.”

“Oh, yum,” Gwen commented from where she was half reclined on one of the sofas. “Why don’t we just open a can of SPAM?”

“Yes. Why don’t you?” I suggested. “I’ve got some work to do.”

I refused to look back to see what kind of impact my statement had on them. I just kept walking until I’d crossed the living room and opened the door to my office, careful to shut it quietly behind me.

My office was in a small second parlor off the back of the living room. It had a bow window that looked out onto the backyard and an old oak desk and chair I’d found at an estate sale and refinished. There were two small upholstered chairs for clients, a wall lined with file cabinets and an oval braided rug on the floor. I didn’t want to be too cutesy—after all I did people’s tax returns, kept their books, made out payrolls for some of the small businesses around town—so I’d replaced my mother’s lace curtains with miniblinds and the needlepoint on the walls with pieces done by regional artists.

Numbers were one of the things that had saved my sanity after Charlie had been killed. I’d had to focus on something. And we’d needed money. Charlie’s business had barely begun. He’d left me with more bills than anything. I knew that part of the reason that Gwen was so self-absorbed and Natalie was so defiant was because there had never seemed to be enough of me to go around when they’d needed me the most. I’d never claimed to be the perfect mother. But I’d given what I could. Done as much as I could. And I have ever since.

I sat down in my desk chair and leaned back. I felt drained. As if soon there wouldn’t be anything left to give.

There was the sound of a skirmish outside my office door. Matt and Tyler, fighting again. I started to stand up but forced myself to sit. There were three adults out there. They could handle it. I looked nervously at the door. Couldn’t they?

I turned on my computer and logged in to Ivan Mueller’s account. Ivan insisted on keeping old-fashioned ledgers with handwritten entries. So once a month, I stopped by his jewelry store, picked up his ledgers and transferred everything into a spreadsheet on my computer. I hoped that the familiar comfort of the numbers would keep my butt in the chair.

I didn’t leave my office that night until I was fairly certain, from the sound of things, that everyone had gone to bed for the night. Then I crept into the kitchen, grabbed a hunk of cheese from the refrigerator to stave off hunger pangs and went to bed in the maid’s room.

Believe me, the irony of the name my mother had dubbed it all those years ago was not lost on me.

The next day, I had become Gwen’s personal maid, spending a good portion of my time fielding phone messages between her and David.

“Did you tell her what I said?” he asked me anxiously during our latest chat.

“Yes, David. I told her exactly what you said. That you were sorry and were going to make it up to her.”

“What was her reaction?”

Was I really supposed to tell him that she’d opened up the latest copy of Vanity Fair and hadn’t said a word? “She’s upset, David. Why don’t you just let it go for today?”

It was his sixth call and I was, frankly, worn out. Gwen refused to take her husband’s calls but as soon as I hung up the phone she’d call me from her bedroom upstairs, wanting to know what he’d said. I’d been up and down the stairs so many times I was getting jet lag.

“All right.” The poor guy sounded both defeated and deflated. “If you’re sure that’s what she wants.”

I assured him it was, told him to hang in there and hung up.

“Mother!”

It was uncanny how Gwen always knew the minute I hung up the phone. I ran up the stairs and arrived at her room, breathless.

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him to give up for the day.”

She sat up straighter in bed. “What? You mean you told him to stop calling?”

I leaned against the door jam. “Basically, yeah. I mean, you don’t want to speak to him anyway. So what’s the point in his continuing to call?”

“But how can I make him suffer if he doesn’t keep calling so I can refuse to speak to him?”

“Gwen, he’s suffering enough already. And if that’s what this is about—”

She shrank back into the covers and got a pouty look on her face. “No—of course not. I’m just not happy with him. Not like I thought I’d be.”

“Life sucks sometimes, baby. What can I say?”

She slid her gaze in my direction, then immediately looked away. “You could say that I deserve to be happy.”

I walked from the door frame to sit at the foot of the bed, patting her ankle over the covers. “Of course you deserve to be happy, Gwen. But maybe you need to adjust what your idea of happiness is.”

“Oh, I should have known you’d take his side,” she said, rolling so that her back was to me.

I raised my eyes to the ceiling and asked the floral wallpaper border to give me the strength to resist the urge to tell her she was acting like a baby. The room was still decorated with the blue-and-white striped wallpaper I’d hung when Charlie and I had taken over the room after my mother’s death. The same white tieback curtains hung at the windows.

“I’m not taking sides,” I said. “But I think taking David’s calls would be the…ah…mature thing to do, don’t you?”

Her back still to me, she shook her head. “Why should I be mature when he’s not living up to his promises?”

“But he made promises to clients, too, Gwen. Maybe it’d be easier for you to understand if you went back to work.”

She sat up straight in bed. “Has David said anything? Did he tell you that he thinks I quit my job too soon?”

“No, of course not. It’s just that, if you don’t have enough to do, maybe—”

“But I’d have enough to do if David had time for me!”

“Baby, it’s hard to build up a business and a reputation. You’ve got to try to be understanding—to think of what it will mean for your future.”

“Oh—so when I’m too old to look fabulous in a bikini that’s when he’ll have the time to take me on a cruise?”

Yes, Nat had been the rebellious one, but Gwen had been the demanding one. The one who wanted everything right now. She seemed only capable of seeing any situation for how it affected her. I shook my head. How could I have raised two such different daughters?

I sighed. “Are you coming down for dinner?”

“I’d rather just have a tray in my room if you don’t mind.”

I decided the extra trips up and down the stairs were worth not having her at the same table with Natalie. I wasn’t sure there were enough antacids in the entire town to take care of the indigestion that might cause.

By Monday I couldn’t wait to take Ivan Mueller’s ledgers back to him. After which I planned to drive out to the discount store on the highway and get some Christmas shopping done. It was the last thing I felt like doing. My holiday spirit was still limping along like a wounded animal. But it would keep me out of the house long enough for Gwen to maybe answer one of David’s calls herself. Maybe if they talked—really talked—David would get through to her. I certainly hadn’t had any luck so far.

Ivan was his usual affable self.

“There’s my beauty of a bookkeeper,” he said when he looked up at the sound of the bell above the door. “And how was your weekend?”

“I’ve had better,” I answered ruefully.

He put his palm to his chest. “No! You are unhappy about something during this happy time of year?”

Ivan had come to the United States in the late forties. He didn’t really have an accent, but he had a courtly way of speaking that was very old world. He was short and still wore suits he’d probably had custom made in the early fifties—pin-stripes and lapels a little too wide, but the fabric excellent. He wore rimless glasses and kept his thinning hair in place with something oily. Probably the same product he’d used when he bought the suits.

He had exquisite taste in jewelry, much of it he’d designed himself. Most Willow Creek couples had exchanged their vows over Ivan’s rings. I couldn’t really afford to be a customer but he regularly gave me earrings for Christmas. And I treasured every pair.

“My kids are going through a rough time, Ivan. Things ain’t pretty at my house.”

“I am sorry to hear this. I have just the thing that will cheer you up,” he said. “Made for a special customer. Wait until you see.”

I watched him toddle off to the back room then started to gaze at the cases of jewelry. Maybe I’d skip the discount store and just get each of the girls a pendant or something this year. Ivan had some beautiful ones. But Gwen already had better than anything I could afford and Natalie wasn’t much into jewelry. Not the real thing, anyway. She’d find the cash more useful.

Ivan returned shuffling along, with a long, narrow black velvet case in his hand. He motioned me over to the counter and opened the case. I’ve never considered myself a diamond kind of gal. They didn’t fit into my lifestyle, nor could I afford them. But when Ivan revealed the gorgeous diamond-and-gold bracelet reclining inside, I experienced the same feeling I had when I’d heard that song on the jukebox. Possibilities or maybe dreams that hadn’t quite died—something that had only been a shadow of a notion up until now—still trying to break free inside of me.

“You like?” Ivan asked.

“It’s—well, it’s just the most beautiful bracelet I’ve ever seen.”

“Here. You try it on,” he said.

“No, I couldn’t—well, maybe—”

He was already clipping it around my wrist.

“Those are perfectly matched brilliant-cut rounds. Oh—” he shook his head slowly, importantly “—very, very difficult to find stones that match so perfectly at this size. Set in eighteen karat gold. And you see how the clasp is made up of rubies and sapphires? The very best of everything.”

The best of everything. What would that be like, I wondered. To have the best of everything?

There was a time when I thought I’d had it all. A husband I loved who adored me. Two beautiful, healthy little girls. A life as shiny as the diamonds twinkling on my wrist. This would have been our thirty-second Christmas together. I smiled softly—and a little sadly. By now, Charlie would have been able to afford to buy me something from Ivan for Christmas. Something I’d wear when we went out on New Year’s Eve.

I held my arm out. The bracelet draped just right. But my nails—what a mess. It would be a travesty for a woman like me to own a bracelet like this. There was a time I’d taken better care of my hands—when Charlie had been here to hold them.

I took off the bracelet and handed it back to Ivan. “I’m sure your customer’s wife will be very happy with it.”

When I left the jewelry store I kept thinking about the shape my cuticles were in. How shameful they’d looked next to that bracelet. Iris’s House of Beauty was across the street. It had been years since I’d had a manicure.

“Hey, kid,” Iris said. “Did you come in here to sell raffle tickets or something?”

I laughed. “No—I actually thought about treating myself to a manicure.”

Her eyes widened. “What’s the occasion?”

“I was feeling nostalgic.”

Iris looked puzzled. “Nostalgic for a manicure?”

“Something like that. Can you fit me in?”

“You better believe it. I’ve been trying to get my hands on your cuticles for years. Why don’t you let me highlight your hair today, too? And maybe shape your brows.”

“Don’t push it. Just be happy I’m getting a manicure.”

“Honey, I’d jump for joy if these boots weren’t killing my feet.”

The place was buzzing with gossip, as usual. Iris had three stylists and a manicurist working for her and they relished regaling the customers with details about their various love lives, diets and favorite soap operas. If anyone had gained weight in town, was on the verge of bankruptcy or divorce, this was the place you heard about it first.

It was, “Girl, did you see those hips in those boot-cut leggings?” or “They say the balance on her MasterCard has more digits than her phone number.” I’d always felt a tiny bit uncomfortable with it all. Probably another reason I tended to avoid the place. Plus, I wasn’t fond of having so many mirror images of myself to look at and be judged. I didn’t need any reminders that my chin was getting slacker and my laugh lines were turning into crow’s feet.

Sally, the manicurist, had graduated a year ahead of me so we knew each other only slightly. Still, I got every detail about her brilliant grandchildren.

“I told my son, you’d better start saving your money. The oldest is going to wind up in one of those expensive Ivy League schools out east—you mark my words.”

I assured her I would.

She leaned closer. “Say, is it true what they say about Mary Stillman?”

I had no idea who Mary Stillman was, but Sally gave me the complete picture on what was being said about her, anyway.

An hour and a few dozen confidential tidbits later, I walked out with a set of fake nail tips elongating my fingers. I’d given in to Sally’s choice of polish—a purplish red that looked even more garish out in the cold afternoon. And now I was really running late. I had two more clients to drop in on and I still wanted to start my Christmas shopping.

As did everyone else in the county, apparently. When I finally got there, the discount store was packed. I lost a fingernail nabbing the last of the most popular video game of the year off the shelf for Matt and I’d hovered near a woman who was deciding over a sweater that I knew would be perfect for Natalie. When she put it back down and looked away, I swooped in like a hawk on a field mouse. Before I got into line at the checkout counter, on impulse I turned down the music aisle and started to search. There it was—our prom theme—on a compilation disk of seventies soft rock. I dropped it into my cart.

The checkout lines were long. By the time I made it back to the car, I was exhausted, but I wrestled with the frustrating CD packaging anyway, losing another nail tip in the process. I wanted to hear that song again. Now.

I sat in the parking lot, puffs of my warm breath visible in the cold car, and listened to the song. Twice. I felt like I wanted to cry. Was it for the loss of the girl who’d danced with such hope in her heart? Was it for the woman who I was supposed to have become who’d never quite materialized?

God, this was insane, I thought. Sitting in a cold car—a rusty station wagon no less—listening to love songs from my high school years.

I popped the CD out of the player. It immediately switched to a radio station playing all Christmas music. I bit the bottom of my lip and shook my head. “Abby,” I whispered into the icy air, “you picked a great time to have a midlife crisis.”

I drove home, hauled the packages into the house, stowed them in the front hall closet and went into the living room.

“Well, it’s about time,” Gwen said from the sofa. “I’m starving.”

Natalie looked up from her magazine. “I’m starving, too. And, Ma, the kids keep asking me when you’re going to decorate for Christmas.”

“Yeah, don’t you usually have a tree by now, Mother? By the way,” Gwen added, a secret little smile on her face, “David called seven times today. I think your answering machine is almost full.”

The kids suddenly ran down the stairs, squealing, and Nat shushed them. “Daddy’s napping.”

You know that saying I saw red? Well, it’s true. I saw red. And we’re not talking festive lights here. I think it was the red of my blood boiling up to my eyeballs.

“What does Daddy have to nap for?” I asked testily. “He’s not working. And he’s certainly not doing anything around here.”

Natalie got up and quickly glanced at the stairs. “Ma—shh, he’ll hear you.”

“Nat, I think Jeremy already knows he’s not working. And he sure as hell knows he’s not doing anything around here.”

She cocked her hip. “What the hell has gotten into you?”

“That’s another thing. Will you please watch your mouth? You gripe if anyone else uses bad language in front of the kids but you’re the worst of all.”

Gwen, wearing yet another expensive nightgown and robe ensemble, snickered from the sofa.

I swung around to face her. “And you. You’re a grown woman. Isn’t it time you got dressed and started doing something around here, too? Like maybe, for instance, making dinner?”

From the look on her face you’d think I’d asked her to sign up for boot camp.

Nat gave a short laugh. “Princess Gwen doesn’t cook, Ma. She orders.”

“Then what about you? You can’t make a damn box of macaroni and cheese for your kids?”

As if they’d been cued from offstage, the kids came running through the living room again.

“Grandma! When can we get a Christmas tree?”

“Do you know where my skates are?”

“Can I have a sleepover this weekend?”

“Aren’t you going to put stuff up outside this year, Grandma?”

“You know what,” I said as I eyed the other adults in the room, “I think you’d better start asking your parents those questions—or Auntie Gwen—because as of right now, Grandma is on strike.”

“What?” Both Nat and Gwen asked in unison.

“I am going on strike,” I enunciated clearly. It wasn’t something I’d planned to say. But while my blood boiled, the story Mike had told us on Friday at the diner bubbled up with it. If a man could go on strike against his wife for lack of affection, why couldn’t a woman go on strike against her family for lack of cooperation? “As of this moment, all of you are on your own. For meals. For laundry. For Christmas.”

There was a collective gasp.

“That’s right,” I reiterated. “No tree. No decorations. No cookies. I. Am. On. Strike.”

I crossed the hall, passed through the dining room, went through to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator, poured cereal into a bowl, added milk, grabbed a spoon and took it into the maid’s room where I sat in my mother’s old rocking chair and dined on Special K and silence.

Except the cereal lasted longer than the silence. Soon the kitchen just outside my door erupted into the noise of six hungry people who weren’t even sure where the butter was kept. I listened to them as I crunched, willing myself not to go to their rescue. One question kept running over and over again in my brain. When a woman finally decides that her time has come, where the hell is she supposed to spend it?

CHAPTER 3

By the second day of my strike I knew I was in trouble. It was going to be impossible to keep from crossing the picket line if I stayed under the same roof as the rest of my family. For one thing, the maid’s room was far from soundproof. I could hear the chaos going on around me as I rocked in my mother’s old rocking chair, trying to talk myself into staying put.

Mealtimes were the worst. I tried to secrete myself in my office before anyone showed up looking for food. But I was forced to be an auditory witness to breakfast for two days in a row now because I’d overslept. It was like listening to a bad sitcom without the picture. I kept wondering why I didn’t just go out there and make them all some damned eggs. Although maybe Natalie got some of her defiance from me because, ultimately, I refused to budge, unpleasant as it was.

My family needed to learn a lesson and I needed—what did I need? Space, certainly. Although the confines of the tiny room weren’t exactly what I had in mind. I needed to not be taken for granted. And, above all, I needed to not be needed for a change. To just be. Peace and quiet. Ah, what a luxury that would be I thought just as the doorbell rang.

I was on strike so I didn’t make a move to answer it.

It kept ringing.

I kept rocking.

Finally, whoever it was started to bang on the front door. Where was everybody? I looked at the alarm clock on the small table next to the bed. It was already after nine in the morning so the kids were probably in school. Nat was probably working an early shift or running to the store for a few more gallons of peanut butter. That still left Jeremy and Gwen. Gwen was undoubtedly up in her room waiting for me to come to my senses and show up with a tray of food and some sympathy. And if Jeremy wasn’t slumped on the sofa, he had his head in the refrigerator. One of them would eventually act, wouldn’t they?

The pounding went on.

“All right, all right,” I yelled. “I’m coming!”

I didn’t run into anyone while I made my way to the front hall. Someone could be upstairs yet I’d never know it because of the racket our visitor was making on the front porch.

I flung the front door open, but when I saw who was standing on the other side of it I wished I’d stayed in the maid’s room where I belonged.

“Where the hell is my daughter-in-law?” Cole Hudson demanded as he swept past me without waiting to be asked in.

“Beats me,” I said, as I waved at Ernie, the cab driver, waiting in the town’s only cab idling at the curb. “Did you ask Ernie to wait?” I asked as I shut the door. “Because he’s the only cab in town and—”

“Good God, how can anyone live somewhere that has only one taxi? And the closest damn airport is two towns away.”

“For some reason, inexplicable as it may seem, Mr. Hudson, Willow Creek doesn’t attract a lot of men who fly their own jets,” I said, then turned to head back to my room.

He stepped in front of me before I made it halfway through the dining room.

“You don’t know where your own daughter is?” he demanded.

I’d forgotten how hard his face could look. All etched lines and sharp angles. He had silver hair that fell to nearly his shoulders and light gray eyes beneath uncannily black eyebrows. He was taller than me, but not by much. He probably stood six feet or so. I could practically look right into those stormy eyes.

“She’s a grown woman, Mr. Hudson. She comes and goes as she pleases. Besides, I’m on strike. I’m no longer responsible for knowing where anyone in this family is.”

His frown grew even deeper. “On strike?” His voice rumbled with incredulity. “I thought you were self-employed.”

“Oh, it’s not my clients I’m striking against. It’s my family.”

His gray eyes shot to the ceiling. “Heaven help me, I’m dealing with another one of the Blake women.” He looked me in the eye. “Tell me, are you all crazy?”

I felt my natural instinct to protect start to rev up but I eased off the pedal. I wasn’t going to get in the middle of this. I was on strike.

“My daughter’s room is upstairs. First door on the right. You might find her there.” I shrugged. “You might not.”

I stepped neatly around him and passed through the dining room and kitchen then went into the maid’s room and shut the door. I heard his footsteps on the stairs and I peered up at the ceiling. I won’t say I wasn’t curious to know what was going on up there. I was. But I wasn’t going to break my strike to find out.

As it turns out, I didn’t have to. Moments later, the door to my room burst open.

“Mother,” Gwen demanded, “how could you let that man come up to my room?”

“I’m on strike,” I reminded her.

She stared at me. “Well, I’m not going back to Chicago and nobody is going to make me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said.

She stared at me some more. “I mean it.”

“So do I. Now please shut the door on your way out.”

I half expected her to stamp her foot like Scarlett O’Hara. She settled for slamming the door.

I could hear them talking, though the conversation was muffled. They must have gone into the living room. Then there were footsteps running upstairs—probably Gwen’s—and the slamming of another door—probably Gwen’s.

I couldn’t help it. I smiled at the situation. Cole Hudson was an intimidating man but I was pretty sure he’d gotten nowhere with Gwen. This was the girl who had won the title of Miss Willow Creek two years in a row and graduated valedictorian of her class. Riding on floats in parades all over the county and giving a speech before practically the whole town hadn’t even caused a flutter in her toned tummy. Nothing—or no one—ever intimidated Gwen.

The door to my bedroom opened again.

Cole Hudson glared down at me. “So you find this amusing, do you?”

“Ever heard of knocking, Mr. Hudson?”

“Would you have let me in?”

“No.”

“Well, then,” he said, his light gray eyes boring into me, “let’s not play games. I need your help. For some inexplicable reason my son is in love with that woman up there—” he thrust his cleft chin at the ceiling “—and he wants her back.”

“And you think I could help…how?”

“By intervening, of course. By convincing her that the right thing to do is to go back to Chicago.”

“And how do I know that’s the right thing for her to do? She told me she’s unhappy with David.”

His face hardened. “She was happy enough until he had to cancel that blasted cruise!” he bellowed. “She’s acting like a spoiled brat.”

That brought me to my feet. His assessment fit how Gwen was acting as well as the expensive clothes she wore. But no one was going to get away with calling my daughter a spoiled brat. Except for me, of course.

“Mr. Hudson, if my daughter says she’s unhappy, then she’s unhappy. And I am not about to do anything that would result in her making the choice to go back to a man that she’s unhappy with.”

He scowled and started to pace—unsatisfactorily, I’m sure, given the length of the room. As it was, the energy of his anger only seemed to make the room smaller. I was feeling slightly claustrophobic.

“Do you have any idea what David is dealing with in Chicago?” he demanded. “He’s in the middle of the biggest project of his career so far and it’s in crisis. There are dozens of men whose jobs depend on the decisions he makes right now. He doesn’t have time for this foolishness.”

“Then why is he calling here seven times a day?”

He stopped his pacing and glared at me again. “Because my son is foolish in the ways of romance, like a lot of men of his generation.”

“You’re calling your son a fool?”

“When it comes to love, yes. Obviously he doesn’t use his head.”

“For love, Mr. Hudson, some of us use our hearts.”

He made an angry sound of dismissal. “Spare me, please.”

We were obviously getting nowhere. “Look,” I told him, “even if I wanted to help you, I couldn’t. Because I’m on—”

“Strike,” he finished for me with a click of his large white teeth. “I see that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

I could feel the heat rise on my cheeks. Oh, I wanted to give him a piece of my mind, all right. Instead, I returned to the rocking chair and started, once again, to rock. I was pretty sure that Cole Hudson wasn’t used to being ignored. And I was right.

“Damn it! You’re even more infuriating to deal with than your daughter is,” he proclaimed before stalking off and shutting the door behind him with a resounding thunk.

I heard his purposeful steps upstairs followed by the not-so-muffled voice of Gwen suggesting he go back to Chicago and tell David to come himself if he wanted her back so badly.

Back to Chicago. The phrase rang in my head with the echo of a bell.

Chicago.

Why not? Chicago, I told myself, would be a great place to carry out my strike. I didn’t have a lot of money to spend on myself, but I had enough room left on my emergency credit card for a few nights in a reasonably priced hotel and transportation would be free, courtesy of Cole Hudson—even if he didn’t know it yet.

I scurried out to the hall closet, trying to ignore what was going on upstairs. It sounded like Gwen was winning. I grabbed my suitcase and quietly hurried back to the maid’s room. I threw the suitcase on the bed and started to fill it. My choice of clothing wasn’t much since most of my wardrobe, what there was of it, was still upstairs. I threw in jeans, T-shirts, a couple of sweaters, some plaid flannel pajamas with matching robe. I’d be walking around Chicago by myself for a few days. What did it matter what I wore? Maybe I’d see a matinee performance of a play, have a massage, order some room service. A few days of solitude. A few days of not being needed. A few days to just be Abby again.

Okay, Abby in sneakers, but I wasn’t going to risk going to my bedroom to get anything and giving Gwen a chance to talk me out of what I was going to do. I’d simply jump into Cole’s taxi with him and off I’d go—traveling light and not very far, but traveling, nonetheless.

I had finished packing and was scribbling a note, telling my family I’d be spending the rest of my strike in Chicago, when I heard the front door slam. I grabbed my parka, purse and suitcase, but by the time I got out to the front porch all I could see of Cole Hudson was the tail end of Ernie’s taxi.

I looked at the house. No. I couldn’t go back in. Now was the time. And the opportunity was here, it had just gotten a little bit of a head start, that was all. I didn’t see Jeremy’s truck anywhere, meaning only Gwen was in the house. I’d have to make a run for the garage. I was afraid that all anyone would have to do was to try to talk me out of it. I was sure I’d cave like a soufflé after someone slammed the oven door.

Suitcase in hand, I hotfooted it from the house, thankful now that I hadn’t much to pack. I winced when I pushed the button to open the old wooden garage door. It had always been loud. Now it seemed as if it screamed. I tossed my suitcase into the station wagon, then eased the door shut. I knew Gwen would hear as soon as I started the car. Face it, the wagon’s muffler had been damaged goods for a while now. But I figured that once I was down the short driveway, I was as good as gone.

I can’t even explain what it felt like as I drove away from the house and headed in the same direction Cole’s taxi had taken. I grinned. Yes, I could, I thought. It feels like I’ve escaped.

I tamped down the guilt at the same time I pressed harder on the gas pedal. There was no way Cole Hudson was taking off in his plane without me.

I averaged ten miles over the speed limit but even so, as I pulled into the small airport, Ernie was already pulling out. I rolled down my window and waved him to a stop.

“Which plane is Hudson’s?” I asked.

“That one,” he pointed. “Over there.”

I followed his outstretched finger. The plane was sleek and white, accented with black-and-silver stripes. As elegant as its owner—and just as powerful looking.

“Thanks, Ernie,” I yelled, not taking my eyes off of the plane.

Was I really going to do this?

Yes, I was, my heartbeat answered.

I parked, got out of the car, grabbed my suitcase and started to run. For the first time I appreciated the Louis Vuitton pilot’s case that Gwen had given me years ago when Jo, Iris and I had started planning our trip to Europe. Its wheels had no problem at all keeping up with me. I was running into the wind and yesterday’s snowfall was blowing around hard enough to sting my face. But I felt alive. Freedom was ringing! And, okay, it wasn’t Rome or Paris. It was Chicago. The point was, it wasn’t Willow Creek. I was making a symbolic stand—and not just for myself. For all of us—Iris, Jo and me. I’d go to one of the best restaurants that would let me in wearing jeans and sneakers and toast the others just like we’d always promised we would if one of us ever left again.

Too bad I’d have to put up with Cole Hudson’s company to do it. But Chicago was only about thirty minutes away by air. And a man like Cole Hudson was sure to have a driver waiting for him at the airport so I’d get a free ride into the city, too.

He hadn’t started the engines yet when I reached the plane. He hadn’t even taken up the stairs or shut the door. My luck was holding.

“Anyone home?” I yelled.

“Good God! What are you doing here?”

I spun around to find him coming toward me, his leather flight jacket plastered to his chest by the wind, his long silver hair streaming back from his rock hard face. I ran to meet him.

“I came to hitch a ride,” I said with all the confidence and pluck I could muster. Surely, he wouldn’t turn down pluck. And confidence he’d respect.

“Sorry, Ms. Blake. I don’t take on hitchhikers.”

I gave him my most winning smile. The pluck was fairly oozing out of me. “Come on. I need to get out of here. You’re leaving. It’s serendipity.”

“Forget it,” he grumbled as he kept walking.

I hurried to keep pace. “I’ll sit in the back and be really, really quiet,” I yelled over the wind.

“No!” he yelled back.

“Oh, stop being so argumentative. All I’m asking is to fly along with you. You’re going to Chicago anyway. You’re using the fuel. You’re depreciating the plane—or whatever it is planes do. You might as well have a passenger on board. In fact, it’s practically your patriotic duty to have a passenger on board.”

He stopped walking and turned to stare at me, those dark brows lowered over his gray eyes. I was pretty sure he was going to say no again, so I kept talking. “Just one way, that’s all you have to take me. And then I’ll be out of your hair and won’t bother you again.”

Finally, he spoke. “One way, you say?”

I nodded with the energy of one of those bobble-headed dogs in the back windows of cars. “I’ll worry about how to get back once I get there. Just take me with you—please.”

Was that a gleam I saw in his eye? Was he going to change his mind? I thought for a moment that he might even smile.

“All right,” he said. “As long as the deal is for one way only.”

“Well, you’re not likely to be flying into Willow Creek again anytime soon, are you?”

“Heaven forbid,” he grumbled.

“Then you’ll take me with you?”

He stood back and held out his arm toward the stairs. “After you,” he said.

The cockpit was to the right. It looked complicated and technical and interesting. I’d never known anyone who could fly a plane before. I started for the cockpit, fully intending to experience whatever I could.

“Turn left,” Cole Hudson ordered from behind me.

I was flooded with disappointment. “There are two seats up there and—”

“Ms. Blake, I agreed to take you with me. I didn’t agree to be your traveling companion. I prefer to fly solo and you did promise to sit in the back and be silent.”

“Fine,” I said shortly. “I’m sure it’ll be more pleasant that way, anyway.”

“Wise choice. Now sit down and strap yourself in. I’m behind schedule already.”

There were four chairs covered in black leather and a black leather sofa with small round tables at their sides. All were bolted to the floor. It was practically a flying living room. I sat down on one of the chairs. Nothing like flying business class, let me tell you. I sank into glove-like leather and discovered that the seat swiveled a full three hundred and sixty degrees. While I twirled, I noticed what looked like a small wet bar between the cockpit and the cabin. I hopped out of my seat to investigate. By the time I got there, Cole was blocking my way. His jacket smelled like worn, expensive leather.

“I thought I told you to buckle in,” he boomed.

“You haven’t even turned this thing on yet,” I pointed out. “I was just snooping. Looking for something to drink.”

His frown deepened. “This isn’t silence, Ms. Blake.”

I put my hands on my hips. “Look, you spoke to me first. I was merely being polite. Frankly, I’m also thirsty.”

He stepped aside. “Help yourself, by all means. Then kindly buckle in.”

I opened my mouth to say something and he put his finger to his lips.

“Shh.”

“Grouch,” I muttered to his back as he returned to the cockpit.

I opened the little refrigerator and found, among other things, small bottles of champagne. I grinned. Might as well start toasting the other members of the Prisoners of Willow Creek Enrichment Society in flight. After all, I was pretty sure that I was the first of us to ever fly in a private jet.

“Would you mind taking your seat back there,” Cole growled from the cockpit.

I quickly grabbed a bottle of champagne, located a crystal flute in a cabinet above the refrigerator then hightailed it back to my seat, strapping myself in for takeoff.

I could hear the crackle of the plane’s radio and the rumble of Cole’s voice, but not what he was saying. It was so unfair that I had to sit here, away from the action. It was akin to wasting the experience. Maybe after we were airborne and Cole was busy flying the plane I could sneak into the cockpit and grab the second seat before he noticed.

Finally, he started the engines. The louder they got, the harder my heart pumped. It was excitement, not fear. I had no way of knowing, but my guess was that Cole Hudson was an excellent pilot. He didn’t get to be a famous architect by being the kind of man who settled for mediocre in anything.

I swiveled my seat around as we started to taxi down the runway. “Goodbye, Willow Creek,” I whispered as we moved faster and faster. Then suddenly the plane gave a slight jerk and we were up and climbing.

And climbing.

It seemed to go on forever. I tried to relax and not white-knuckle the armrests. Breathe, I told myself. Every journey has to have a takeoff. When I felt calm enough to look out the window, it was as if we were traveling through cotton candy. Then the view cleared to a gorgeous blue and I was staring down on a floor of fluffy clouds.

Eventually, we leveled off. I popped the cork from the champagne bottle and filled the flute to the brim.

“To Jo and Iris,” I whispered, as I raised my glass. Maybe I was escaping for only a short while, but I was doing it on a private jet while drinking the most expensive thing I’d ever tasted. I drained my glass and poured myself another.

I woke up with a jolt. It took a few seconds for me to get my bearings. Oh, right. Private plane flown by famous architect. I scanned the view. We were descending. I must have slept all the way to Chicago. I stretched and grinned as I swiveled my chair full circle. So far, no signs of the city.

In fact, there wasn’t a sign of much of anything at all. And why was it so dark? We’d only been flying for thirty minutes, hadn’t we?

I could see a control tower ahead but unless we were a lot higher than I thought we were, it didn’t look very tall or imposing. And the runways, outlined by blue lights, didn’t look very long. Still, the control tower seemed to be the tallest thing around. Everything, including the terminal, looked flat and low—and dark. We couldn’t possibly be landing anywhere in Illinois. Where were the golden arches? The billboards? The neon of a gazillion franchises that lined every airport I’d ever seen?

With one final, gentle bounce, the plane landed. I unbuckled my seat belt and worked my way up to the front while the plane was still taxiing in.

I practically fell into the cockpit. “Where are we?”

Cole Hudson jerked his head around. “You should still be seated,” he said curtly.

He gave me a look of annoyance when I bumped his knee as I struggled to land in the copilot’s seat.

“That’s not what I meant,” he said before setting his mouth in a grim line.

“I know. But I’d like to see where I’m going, if you don’t mind. This doesn’t look like Chicago. Why is it so dark? How long have I been sleeping?”

“I’d say you’ve been sleeping for at least three hours.”

“Three hours! Where are we?”

The grim line of his mouth morphed into a small smile. “Welcome to Goose Bay, Labrador, Ms. Blake.”

I gasped. “Labrador? As in Canada?”

He glanced my way. “Someone did well in geography.”

“What are we doing here?”

“Refueling.”

Okay, refueling. That made sense. Sort of. “And then are you flying back to Chicago?” I asked hopefully.

“No, Ms. Blake. Then I’m flying to Iceland, where I will land and refuel once again.”

“And then back to Chicago?”

He looked at me, one of his dark eyebrows raised. “You think we’re out for a Sunday drive, Ms. Blake? I didn’t just burn up thirty-six hundred pounds of fuel to turn around and fly right back.”

The plane came to a stop and I heard the engines shutting down. Funny how I felt my stomach drop about the same time.

“After Iceland—then where are you going?”

“Paris,” he said without looking at me.

I watched him flipping switches.

“But what about Chicago?” I asked.

He finally looked at me. “I never said I was going to Chicago, Ms. Blake,” he said with exaggerated pleasantness.

I remembered the twinkle in his eye just before he gave in to me. “Why you—you did this on purpose, didn’t you?” I accused. “You knew I thought you were flying right back to Chicago!”

He didn’t quite allow himself to smile. “I promised you one way, and one way you got.”

“But what am I supposed to do in Goose Bay, Labrador?”

“You can get yourself a placard and an indelible marker, Ms. Blake, and picket, for all I care.”

He had to lean close to me to get out of his seat. I was right behind him.

The wind hit me as soon as I reached the door. I struggled against it all the way down the stairs. The cold was biting. In Willow Creek, the cold just nipped. Goose Bay had gotten a head start on us in the snow department, too. There seemed to be several feet of it on the ground.

My face and ears were freezing by the time I caught up with him. I grabbed his arm.

“You don’t think you’re just going to leave me here, do you?”

“You’ll be able to get a plane home,” he said, then started walking again.

Openmouthed, I stared after him. I was going to have to use up my emergency credit card funds to fly back to Willow Creek from Labrador? No. Life couldn’t be that cruel. But, apparently, Cole Hudson could.

“You can’t do this,” I yelled as I ran to catch up to him.

“Yes, I can,” he affirmed as he kept to his stride. “You wanted to get away, well, Goose Bay is certainly away. Beautiful country up here. You’ll love it. You could ski. Play a little ice hockey.”

If I tried to argue with him much more out here, my nose was going to freeze and fall off. While he headed to what must be the service area, I headed for the terminal, hoping for something hot to drink.

Ah, civilization, I thought, as I spotted a small café. Inside, I ordered coffee. When it came I cradled the cup in my hands close enough to my face to melt some of the frost. I took a sip and it nearly scorched my throat, but the flood of warmth when the coffee hit my belly began to revive me. And the more I revived, the angrier I got.

Okay, so I hadn’t wanted to spend my strike rocking in the maid’s room. That didn’t mean I wanted to spend it freezing my nose off. And what a letdown it was going to be to the Prisoner’s of Willow Creek Enrichment Society to hear that I never made it to a place that had neon, never mind anything like the bright lights of Chicago. The thought of Cole Hudson tricking me into coming here, then abandoning me on his way to Paris was—

I sat up straight.

Paris.

I smiled. Paris was the perfect place to carry out my strike—not to mention one of the cities I’d always wanted to visit. I’d come this far, why not go all the way?

I looked up in time to see Cole enter the café with two other men in similar leather jackets. They sat down at a table, already engrossed in conversation. I didn’t care. I had a message to deliver and I wasn’t going to wait.

“When the new plant is built,” one of the men was saying as I approached, “I might have to add to my fleet.”

“It’s going to get busier around here, that’s for sure,” said the other.

“I can help you find the planes,” Cole offered. “I’ve got a connection with—”

“Excuse me,” I said.

All three men looked up. Only one of them groaned.

“Guys, meet my human baggage, Ms. Blake.”

The two men stood and introduced themselves as Dane and Oscar. Dane was gray haired, handsome and distinguished looking while Oscar looked rougher, more the outdoorsy type. They both offered their hands.

“Nice to see some gentlemen around here,” I said as I shook them.

“If you don’t mind,” Cole said, “we’re in the middle of a conversation.”

“No, I don’t mind. I did want to tell you that I’ll be flying to Paris with you.”

I started to turn to go, figuring a hasty exit might avoid the argument I was sure was coming. But he stood up and grabbed my arm.

“When pigs fly,” he intoned—a Shakespearean actor spouting clichés.

“Why not? Don’t you think you owe it to me after playing this lousy trick?”

“I’ve already made arrangements for Dane to fly you to Chicago tomorrow morning. I think that makes us even.”

“But why won’t you let me go along? What’s the difference? I’ll sit in the back and be quiet—”

“We already know you’re incapable of that,” he snapped. “Even when you went to sleep you snored!”

Swell, I thought. I guess it went with the parka and sneakers. At least I hadn’t been in the cockpit where I might have drooled all over his thousand dollar jacket. Thus, I wasn’t embarrassed enough to give up my idea.

“You’re just being stubborn for no reason at all. You’re going to Paris anyway, and—”

“Let me make this perfectly clear to you, Ms. Blake. As soon as they’re done refueling my plane I’m flying out of here with the hope that I never have to lay eyes on any of the Blake women ever again. Understood?”

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