The Newcomer

“Me?”

“What’s the story of your childhood? Did you grow up in California?”

She shook her head. “Terry and I were raised on a farm in Ohio. We didn’t move to California until we were adults.”

“I see. And what took you from Ohio to the Golden Coast?”

She thought about the question. “Well, mainly the fact that we had a patron who sponsored our college education out there. Like you, we’d lost both our parents by the time we reached our late teens.”

“I’m sorry,” he said with genuine sympathy. “That’s a hard road, I know.”

“But our situation was the opposite of yours,” Maggie said. “Our mother died of ovarian cancer when I was seven and Terry was five. Our father did such a wonderful job of raising us on his own,” she added with a fond, faraway smile. “He worked all day on the farm, and then at night he was a mother to us as well, doing laundry and packing school lunches.”

“I never knew what it was to have a loving father,” Doug said. “I can’t even remember mine.”

“Daddy was our hero. And then when we were in our mid-teens and his life was starting to get a little easier, he was killed in a tractor accident on the farm.” Her eyes stung with unshed tears. “It was just a careless mistake,” she said, swallowing hard. “He took a shortcut up an incline behind the barn, and the tractor flipped over on him. He was pinned there all alone for most of the day. By the time we got home from school and found him, it was too late.”

“I’m so sorry, Maggie.”

Doug covered her hand with his own and waited for her to compose herself.

“Do you look like him?” he asked, clearly trying to set her at ease again. “You and your brother are not at all alike.”

Maggie hesitated, surprised by how easy it was to talk with this man. These were topics she almost never spoke about, even with people she’d known for a long time.

“Actually,” she said, “I was adopted. My birth mother was a high-school girl from Cincinnati. She was sixteen years old, an honor student and a talented musician. When she got pregnant, her family forced her to carry the baby to term.”

“And that baby was you,” he said, his voice rough with emotion.

“Yes, it was me.”

He released her hand, and she was almost sorry. Again she marveled at how comfortable she felt, wrapped in this semilit intimacy with a man she barely knew, talking about the most emotional parts of her life.

“My adoptive parents wanted a baby for years before I came along,” she said in a low voice. “They made me feel so loved and wanted. It was part of the family history, how they got the call about the baby and they were so excited, packing up the little clothes they’d been saving all that time, and driving to Cincinnati to get me. I was nine days old when they took me home.”

Doug smiled, his face so warm and tender that Maggie had to fight the urge to reach out and lay a hand on his cheek.

“So what about your brother?” he asked. “Was he adopted, too?”

Maggie laughed and shook her head. “No, it was one of those classic cases. They’d been married ten years when they got me, and never been able to conceive. But a little over a year after I arrived, my mother got pregnant. They were so happy. Terry and I have been good pals all our lives.”

“So you had a nice childhood, happy and loved on a farm in Ohio.”

“Yes,” she said. “I really did.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I like to think about you growing up like that.”

The physical attraction between them had grown almost palpable. Maggie was afraid that if she stayed with him any longer, he’d invite her to his room and she wouldn’t be able to resist.

And that would be a huge mistake, something she certainly couldn’t afford at this point.

“Well,” she said with false brightness, “thanks for the drink and the nice conversation, Doug. It’s getting late, and I’d better head upstairs.”

He didn’t press, though his eyes burned a deeper green as he watched her get to her feet.

“Good night,” he said courteously. “I’ll see you in the morning. Do you think we can do some more work on those computer programs?”

“I should be free in the morning,” she said.

“That’s great.” He raised his glass in a quiet salute. “Until then, Maggie.”

Her knees felt suddenly weak. As she headed for the door, every part of her body was conscious of him watching her leave.

MAGGIE WAS UP early the next morning, drying her hair in the bathroom. A knock sounded on the door and she padded through the sitting room in her terry-cloth robe to admit a skinny young man in blue overalls, carrying a metal tool kit and a big spool of wire.

Dundee pressed by the man’s legs, then stepped daintily into the room and looked around with a proprietary air.

“Phone jacks and new lines,” the young man said curtly, moving past Maggie into the room. “Doug said you could tell me where they should go.”

“Phone jacks!” Terry said in delight.

He sat at the round table in the sitting room, where he squinted at the flip-up screen of his laptop.

“This is great. Maggie, your Scotsman is a man of his word.”

“Hey, I’m buying this technology with hours and hours of my time.” Maggie watched as the young man crawled around on the floor and tapped the wide oak baseboards with a hammer.

“And you’re loving every minute of it,” Terry told her. “There’s nothing you enjoy better than playing with computer software. Especially,” he added in a teasing undertone, “when there’s information you want.”

Maggie frowned at him, then turned to the phone technician. “We’ll want an outlet over there,” she said, pointing, “for our fax machine, and another one here by the table. And one in each bedroom under the window, if you can manage it. I think that would be the logical place, don’t you?”

“Okay.” The man popped a stick of gum into his mouth. “So where should I start?”

“In the other bedroom.” Maggie indicated Terry’s room. “I’ll be dressed in a minute, and then you can work anywhere you like.”

She hurried back into her own room, put on jeans, a white cotton shirt and moccasins, and dabbed on a bit of makeup.

Before she was finished she heard more arrivals in the sitting room, followed by the whir of equipment and the high-pitched voices of children.

Maggie pulled her hair back into a ponytail, pinned it on top of her head and went out to find Rose Murdoch, in khaki shorts and flowered apron, running a vacuum cleaner around the sitting room, followed by Moira, who plied a feather duster on every exposed surface.

Robin was there as well, squatting next to the phone technician. She had apparently been given the task of helping him, because she held a screwdriver and a couple of drill bits, and looked rigid and solemn with responsibility.

Terry had given up his work to move aside heavy pieces of furniture for Rose to run her vacuum underneath.

Normally her brother hated being interrupted when he was writing, but today he seemed calm in the midst of the uproar.

After they moved the couch back in place, Rose ran a hand over her forehead and gave Terry a shy, grateful smile. He beamed down at her so warmly that Maggie was a little startled.