Looking For You All My Life Part 143

ance about your relations.h.i.+p."

222Melody Carlson

"He needs rea.s.surance? Good grief, what about me? I'm

not even sure we still even have a relations.h.i.+p. And now he's

going to be gone for the better part of a week." Maggie

groaned. "And by the time he gets back, it'll be almost

Christmas-and Barry and Rebecca will be here by then.

Then we have the wedding to prepare for. Why, I'll be lucky

if I can have a conversation with him sometime next year."

Audrey laughed. "You may be a little overdramatic about

the whole thing. And by the way, don't you think we should

invite Jed and Leah to join us for Christmas too? Who else

do they have? And, of course, Michael is staying here..."

She brightened. "Yes. Of course, you're right, Mom. The

voice of reason wins out again.

"And don't you think we should be getting a Christmas

--tree up soon?"

"Right. Now that Spence is out of his cast, maybe we can

cut one down ourselves. I've heard that you can get a permit

to cut them right out of the woods. Can you imagine? We'll

be just like a real wilderness family." Suddenly Maggie rec-

ognized that the excitement of preparing for the holidays

was returning to her-something she hadn't felt since Phil's

death. "I just hope I can find where we put all our Christmas

decorations. They may be buried beneath a pile of other

boxes out in the barn, but we can dig them out."

"That's my girl," cheered Audrey. "That's the spirit."

Maggie smiled. "I guess I was kind of down, wasn't I?

Well, the cookies and pep talk were good medicine, Mom."

"Sometimes, back in my counseling days, I wanted to

give cookies to my patients, but I was afraid it wouldn't look

very professional."

"I don't know. Just think, you could have hung out a sign

that said 'counseling and cookies' and made a fortune," sug-

gested Maggie.

"You know, you could be on to something with that

idea."

Looking for You All My Life223

Then Maggie told her all about Gavin's new idea to

develop the property just north of them as a way to oppose

Pine Mountain Estates.

"And how do you feel about getting a ready-made com-

munity like that?" asked her mother.

"Okay, I guess. At least I'll have the a.s.surance that it'll be

done right. And Clyde said I could sit on the board if I like,

and that way I'd have a say about things. I do sort of miss

having neighbors. Not that they'd be all that 'close-barely

within walking distance really."

"My, for a sleepy little town, how quickly things change

around here."

"We're all keeping quiet about this idea, at least for the