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Historical Society meets. Everyone stops messing around and waits patiently and quietly until she comes in. Every time she does the same thing—slams that massive purse of hers down on the table, gives her hair a primp and flops into the chair.”
    “According to my father, she started out with a tiny purse back before she had me and it’s gotten bigger over the years. We all thought that when all of us moved out and it was just her and Dad again, it would get smaller.” He shook his head. “But I swear she needs the car just to cart the purse around.”
    Maggie burst out laughing. “She came to my house you know—to apologize for you.”
    “She’s the ultimate meddler but her heart is in the right place.”
    “Hey, don’t complain, you could have Cecelia Wright as your mother.” She winced as it came out, more bitter than she expected. “Oh god, never mind, that just sounded awful.”
    -35-

    Lauren Dane
    “How about this? Why don’t you let me take you to dinner tonight and you can tell me the whole story?”
    Her eyebrow went up and a smile played at the corner of her mouth.
    If she’d been watching herself from a distance she wouldn’t even had suspected her stomach had just run riot with butterflies and she had a mental picture of herself doing the somersault of joy.
    “Hmm, well, I’d love to do dinner but I’ll skip the whole my-mother-doesn’t-understand-me story.”
    “How about a movie afterwards?”
    “Okay.” Okay? Yeah, soooo casual. She snickered mentally.
    “I’ll pick you up at say, seven? Do you like Italian? We could go to Vincent’s and then, um, I’ve seen the action flick at the Orpheum but there’s a double feature at the drive-in, would that be all right?”
    “Are you trying to get me to make out with you at the drive in, Shane Chase?” Apparently, aliens had taken over her body. Flirty aliens with nerves of steel. She hoped they’d stay until he left or she’d die on the spot.
    He turned pink and laughed. “You’ve caught me!” He gave her a grin, white teeth making him look a bit wolfish. “But of course you know I’m a total gentleman now that I took that civility class you recommended.” She threw back her head and laughed at that. “Okay. I live on the corner of Fourth and Magnolia.” She stood up. “I need to finish my errands. It was nice sharing a cup of coffee and this nine thousand calorie cinnamon roll with you. I’ll see you tonight.” He walked with her to the sidewalk and they each headed opposite ways. She hoped the smile he had on was half as big as hers.
    Still, she continued to grin like a fool back at home and mixing the bread. She was pretty impressed with the way she’d held it together and stopped herself from jumping up and down squealing with delight.
    Her good mood held on until she noticed that she had some messages. Playing them back, a sick feeling replaced her happiness.
    -36-

    Giving Chase
    There were six from Alex. And he’d already called twice before she left the house to start with. Each message she listened to got more intense. The way his voice had started off calm and friendly but turned into something like a sharp snarl on the last message sent a cold chill down her spine.
    Especially the part where he ordered her to call him immediately and chided her for being gone without letting him know her whereabouts.
    It had to end. She’d decided that the night before but she wanted to do it face to face. Freaked as she was, she didn’t want to stop seeing him via voicemail, that seemed cruel. Picking up the phone with trembling hands, Maggie called him back but ended up leaving a message that she wanted to talk to him.
    She ran the loaves of bread over to the retirement home. She sucked it up and stopped by her parents’ house and Janie’s as well. Best to just get that out of the way. As it happened, she had enough of an emotional high from her afternoon and upcoming date that the visits weren’t too bad and she escaped