Christmas On His Ranch: Maggie's Dad / Cattleman's Choice

She lifted her chin and stared at the child. She passed over her and went on down the line until she reached Julie Ames. She smiled at Julie, who smiled back sweetly. She remembered Danny Ames from school, too, and his redheaded daughter was just like him. She’d have known Danny’s little girl anywhere.

She pulled out her predecessor’s lesson plan and looked over it before she took the spelling book and began making assignments.

“One other thing I’d like you to do for Friday is write a one-page essay about yourselves,” she added with a smile. “So that I can learn something about you, since I’ve come in the middle of the year instead of the first.”

Julie raised her hand. “Miss Hayes, Mrs. Donalds always assigned one of us to be class monitor when she was out of the room. Whoever she picked got to do it for a week, and then someone else did. Are you going to do that, too?”

“I think that’s a good idea, Julie. You can be our monitor for this week,” she added pleasantly.

“Thanks, Miss Hayes!” Julie said enthusiastically.

Behind her, Maggie Long glared even more. The child acted as if she hated Antonia, and for a minute, Antonia wondered if she knew about the past. But, then, how could she? She was being fanciful.

She dismissed the class at quitting time. It had been nice to have her mind occupied, not to have to think about herself. But with the end of the day came the terror again. And she still hadn’t talked to Dr. Harris.

She made an appointment to see him when she got home, smiling at her father as she told him glibly that it was only because she needed some vitamins.

Dr. Harris, however, was worried when she told him Dr. Claridge’s diagnosis.

“You shouldn’t wait,” he said flatly. “It’s always best to catch these things early. Come here, Antonia.”

He examined her neck with skilled hands, his eyes on the wall behind her. “Swollen lymph nodes, all right. You’ve lost weight?” he asked as he took her pulse.

“Yes. I’ve been working rather hard,” she said lamely.

“Sore throat?”

She hesitated and then nodded.

He let out a long sigh. “I’ll have him fax me your medical records,” he said. “There’s a specialist in Sheridan who’s done oncology,” he added. “But you should go back to Tucson, Antonia.”

“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.