Diana Palmer - Christmas On His Ranch - Maggie's Dad / Cattleman's Choice

“Tell me what to expect,” she said instead.

He was reluctant, but when she insisted, he drew in a deep breath and told her.

She sat back in her chair, pale and restless.

“You can fight it,” he persisted. “You can hold it at bay.”

“For how long?”

“Some people have been in remission for twenty-five years.”

She narrowed her eyes as she gazed at him. “But you don’t really believe I’ll have twenty-five years.”

His jaw firmed. “Antonia, medical research is progressing at a good pace. There’s always, always, the possibility that a cure will be discovered….”

She held up a hand. “I don’t want to have to decide today,” she said wearily. “I just need…a little time,” she added with a pleading smile. “Just a little time.”

He looked as if he were biting his tongue to keep from arguing with her. “All right. A little time,” he said emphatically. “I’ll look after you. Perhaps when you’ve considered the options, you’ll go ahead with the treatment, and I’ll do everything I can. But, Antonia,” he added as he stood up to show her out, “there aren’t too many miracles in this business where cancer is concerned. If you’re going to fight, don’t wait too long.”

“I won’t.”

She shook hands and left the office. She felt more at peace with herself now than she could ever remember feeling. Somehow in the course of accepting the diagnosis, she’d accepted something much more. She was stronger now. She could face whatever she had to. She was so glad she’d come home. Fate had dealt her some severe blows, but being home helped her to withstand the worst of them. She had to believe that fate would be kinder to her now that she was home.

But if fate had kind reasons for bringing her back to Bighorn, Maggie Long wasn’t one of them. The girl was unruly, troublesome and refused to do her schoolwork at all.

By the end of the week, Antonia kept her after class and showed her the zero she’d earned for her nonattempt at the spelling test. There was another one looming, because Maggie hadn’t done one word of the essay Antonia had assigned the class to write.

“If you want to repeat the fourth grade, Maggie, this is a good start,” she said coolly. “If you won’t do your schoolwork, you won’t pass.”

“Mrs. Donalds wasn’t mean like you,” the girl said snappily. “She never made us write stupid essays, and if there was a test, she always helped me study for it.”

“I have thirty-five students in this class,” Antonia heard herself saying. “Presumably you were placed in this grade because you were capable of doing the work.”

“I could do it if I wanted to,” Maggie said. “I just don’t want to. And you can’t make me, either!”

“I can fail you,” came the terse, uncompromising reply. “And I will, if you keep this up. You have one last chance to escape a second zero for the essay you haven’t done. You can do it over the weekend and turn it in Monday.”

“My daddy’s coming home today,” she said haughtily. “I’m going to tell him that you’re mean to me, and he’ll come and cuss you out, you just wait and see!”

“What will he see, Maggie?” she asked flatly. “What does it say about you if you won’t do your work?”

“I’m not lazy!”

“Then do your assignment.”

“Julie didn’t do all of her test, and you didn’t give her a zero!”

“Julie doesn’t work as fast as some of the other students. I take that into account,” Antonia explained.

“You like Julie,” she accused. “That’s why you never act mean to her! I’ll bet you wouldn’t give her a zero if she didn’t do her homework!”

“This has nothing to do with your ability to do your work,” Antonia interrupted. “And I’m not going to argue with you. Either do your homework or don’t do it. Now run along.”

Maggie gave her a furious glare. She jerked up her books and stomped out of the room, turning at the door. “You wait until I tell my daddy! He’ll get you fired!”

Antonia lifted an eyebrow. “It will take more than your father to do that, Maggie.”

The girl jerked open the door. “I hate you! I wish you’d never come here!” she yelled.

She ran down the hallway and Antonia sat back and caught her breath. The child was a holy terror. She was a little surprised that she was so unlike her mother in that one way. Sally, for all her lying, had been sweet in the fourth grade, an amiable child, not a horror like Maggie.

Sally. The name hurt. Just the name. Antonia had come home to exorcise her ghosts and she wasn’t doing a very good job of it. Maggie was making her life miserable. Perhaps Powell would interfere, at least enough to get his daughter to do her homework. She hated that it had come to this, but she hadn’t anticipated the emotions Maggie’s presence in her class had unleashed. She was sorry that she couldn’t like the child. She wondered if anyone did. She seemed little more than a sullen, resentful brat.

Powell probably adored the child and gave her everything she wanted. But she did ride the bus to and from school and more often than not, she showed up for class in torn jeans and stained sweatshirts. Was that deliberate, and didn’t her father notice that some of her things weren’t clean? Surely he had a housekeeper or someone to take care of such things.

She knew that Maggie had been staying with Julie this week, because Julie had told her so. The little redheaded Ames girl was the sweetest child Antonia had ever known, and she adored her. She really was the image of her father, who’d been in Antonia’s group of friends in school here in Bighorn. She’d told Julie that, and the child had been a minor celebrity for a day. It gave her something to be proud of, that her father and her teacher had been friends.

Maggie hadn’t liked that. She’d given Julie the cold shoulder yesterday and they weren’t speaking today. Antonia wondered at their friendship, because Julie was outgoing and generous, compassionate and kind…all the things Maggie wasn’t. Probably the child saw qualities in Julie that she didn’t have and liked her for them. But what in the world did Julie see in Maggie?

Powell Long came home from his cattle-buying trip worn out from the long hours on the plane and the hectic pace of visiting three ranches in three states in less than a week. He could have purchased his stud cattle after watching a video, and he sometimes did if he knew the seller, but he was looking over new territory for his stock additions, and he wanted to inspect the cattle in person before he made the acquisition. It was a good thing he had, because one of the ranches had forwarded a video that must have been of someone else’s cattle. When he toured the ranch, he found the stock were underfed, and some were lacking even the basic requirements for good breeding bulls.

Still, it had been a profitable trip. He’d saved several thousand dollars on seed bulls simply by going to visit the ranchers in person. Now he was home again and he didn’t want to be. His house, like his life, was full of painful memories. Here was where Sally had lived, where her daughter still lived. He couldn’t look at Maggie without seeing her mother. He bought the child expensive toys, whatever her heart desired. But he couldn’t give her love. He didn’t think he had it in him to love the product of such a painful marriage. Sally had cost him the thing he’d loved most in all the world. She’d cost him Antonia.

Maggie was sitting alone in the living room with a book. She looked up when he entered the room with eyes that avoided his almost at once.

“Did you bring me something?” she asked dully. He always did. It was just one more way of making her feel that she was important to him, but she knew better. He didn’t even know what she liked, or he wouldn’t bring her silly stuffed toys and dolls. She liked to read, but he hadn’t noticed. She also liked nature films and natural history. He never brought her those sort of things. He didn’t even know who she was.