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Maggie
arrives at her new teaching job, planning to board with a family she’s
prepared to like. What she isn’t ready for is her landlady’s brother,
Marshall, who seems to hate her on sight. She is captivated by Ellen’s
six-year-old daughter Emma who is having identity problems facing the
arrival of a new baby in the family. When Ellen goes into labor in the
middle of a storm, Maggie must face her fears for Ellen’s sake. Along
the way, she helps a family grow closer, but what about her hopes for
the future? Can she get past the wall Marshall has set up? Does she
really have a future here amongst the people she has grown to care for?
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EXCERPT
Copyright 2014 © Sharon McGregor
Maggie Lawrence pushed a
curling tendril of dark brown hair from her face. She looked around the
empty train platform, considering her next move. The train was
strangely on time, a possibility her greeter might not have considered.
She picked up a suitcase in each hand and sat down on a bench facing the
tracks. The day was warm and sunny with a slight breeze to keep things
comfortable, a typical late August morning in a 1949 prairie town.
She had nearly dozed off in the sunshine when she heard a deep voice beside her.
“Miss Lawrence?”
She
jumped up quickly, knocking one suitcase on its side as she did. “Yes.”
It was then she looked up into a set of piercing blue eyes surrounded
by a well-tanned face that was set, maybe not in disapproval, but
certainly not in welcome.
Maggie had just barely arrived and already she was on the wrong foot. I wonder what I’ve done now? It was a question she often asked her older sister, Dora, who was usually quick to set her straight on her transgressions.
“Sorry I’m late. I had a
stop to make at the hardware store first.” At least she knew where she
ranked in priority. “Is this all?”
She nodded and he picked up the biggest case. She followed quickly with the smaller one.
“Mr. Thornhill...” she began.
“Matthews, actually,” he said. “I’m just standing in.”
She waited for an
explanation that never came. Oh, well. She gave a shrug. At least once
she got there she wouldn’t have to cope with him. She hoped the
Thornhills were more communicative.
In the parking area stood a green wagon hitched to a pair of huge black horses. A dark blue sedan sat a few yards farther. I certainly hope he belongs to the car.
He stared at her with
an expression of slight contempt. Was her fear of horses that obvious?
Maggie felt great relief as he led her to the car and pushed her cases
into the back seat. Then, seemingly as an afterthought, he opened the
passenger door for her.
After one or two
comments about the weather, which he answered monosyllabically, she gave
up and spent the rest of the ten-mile ride looking at the passing
countryside. They turned left on the highway and slowed on the gravel
road. She managed a covert sideways glance at her driver, who was
concentrating on keeping the car straight on fresh gravel.
Good-looking,
definitely. Even features, a strong, straight nose, sun wrinkles around
those striking blue eyes, and a mouth that could have been described as
generous, even though its firm set was not. She wondered what had caused
those unforgiving lines in such a young man. He couldn’t have been long
out of his twenties, perhaps not much older than her own twenty-five
years. Perhaps he’d been in the war. That would account for the care
lines.
The road was narrow and
sided by grassy ditches that now held water. There must have been a
heavy rain recently. The ditches were broken up on both sides by lanes
leading into farmyards, each fronted by a mailbox on a post. She felt a
sudden tingle and glanced to the side just in time to see her driver’s
glance slide away.
So,
Mr. Matthews might disapprove, but he was interested enough in his
passenger to give her the once-over when he thought she wasn’t looking.
They
turned a corner and he slowed at the next mailbox. The lane was blocked
by a barbed-wire fence with a gate, and he jumped out to open it. He
moved smoothly, a man whose muscles did his bidding effortlessly. At the
end of the lane, they rounded a corner and came to a stop in front of a
two-story, white farmhouse. To the right was a grey, unpainted barn.
Dotted around the yard were a garage, a couple of granaries, a
clothesline filled with white sheets, and a large woodpile. A red
tractor, hitched to a set of harrows, stood beside the garage.
This was going to be Maggie’s home for the next year.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sharon
McGregor is a Canadian author who has recently transplanted to the west
coast. She has written humour, romance and mystery for magazines such
as Sasee, Long and Short Romance, Great Mystery and Suspense Magazine
and Horizon as well as stories for the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.
When not fighting with her cat Zoey for control of the computer
keyboard, she is working at her ice cream shop or her bath and body
shop.
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