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She wasn’t the one who’d violated the vows they’d spoken before God and their families

She wasn’t the one who couldn’t hold down a decent job for longer than six months at a stretch

She wasn’t the one who’d walked out on the fareed to support But then Brian never had been ht, it seee sweetheart and the only lover she’d ever had turned to a fire-quenching hatred After he’d left, she’d decided to iven her all the years they were ht?"

"I’m fine, sweetheart" They pulled onto the dirt road that led to Nichols’s Riding Stables

"Are you going to be in the barn with Mr Nichols when I’m finished with my lesson?"

"Ah" Maureen needed to think Thoain, other than as unavoidable "I don’t think so"

"Where do you want me to meet you?"

"I’ll be the car," Maureen told her She parked in her usual spot, and with her hands braced against the steering wheel she shter "I’m sorry I called your daddy a bastard, Karen"

"Don’t worry, Mo said that, the twelve year old climbed out of the car, slammed the door, and raced toward the barn

Thoirls wrapped their arms around each other as if it had been -lost friends, the two headed inside the barn

Maureen cli to avoid Tho duck She was prepared this tied out of her heels into her tennis shoes

She needed time and space to think about her conversation with Karen A walk Any place where she could escape Anywhere she could drown out the echo of her daughter’s voice as she repeated the word Maureen had said so often Bastard Bastard Bastard

A number of horse trails led away fro the narroinding dirt pathway

"Daer Brian hadn’t talked to his daughter in over a year, and when he’d phoned he hadn’t so iven him much of an opportunity No doubt he’d called because he was angry over her latest atteet hie with a couple of beers He’d been out of work--that was the usual excuse--but he orking now and would give her what he could in time She’d heard that countless times before and would rather he dealt directly with her attorney

Maureen didn’t want to hear his hard-luck tales They were all too familiar She’d told him coolly and unemotionally exactly what he could do with his laer

Thom had made an excuse to leave soon afterward Not that Maureen blamed him It wasn’t until he’d driven away that she’d noticed the untouched pot of coffee She wanted to explain to Thom about Brian, but it wasn’t possible to wrap it up with a pretty pink bow It was better that he not know

She enjoyed Thom’s company, but he didn’t understand what it was to have suffered through a divorce He didn’t knohat it was like to have his trust ravaged, to have his heart violated to the point that the last lingering vestige of respect had long since died

From the little he’d told her about Paula’s mother, Maureen knew they’d shared a deep and personal commitment to each other The kind her own mother and father shared now

Maureen walked as fast as her feet would go, her anger carrying her over the uneven pathway Tired and breathing heavily, she turned off the road and followed a shallow stream as it wound around a crop of bolders The stream had a peaceful effect, and she watched it for severalback to the stables

She found a good-size rock and sat there with her arms tucked around her bunched-up knees She could see herself through Karen’s young eyes, and she didn’t like the picture Yet she didn’t knohat to do to change the ie in herto change Brian She’d tried, God help her, with a zero success rate

Defeated, Maureen looked up Daylight was fast slipping away, and she needed to get back to the stables She slid off the rock and started back toward the trail, or where she last re the trail

She hesitated

This didn’t seeht way She turned and started in the opposite direction, certain she remembered that bend in the stream

Within minutes it was so dark, she couldn’t seepanic, she knew that either so and discover the way back on her own

Cupping her hands around her mouth, she called out as loudly as she could, "Is anyone out there?"

Only an eerie, unnatural silence greeted her frantic question

"Please," she whispered "Tho with Edith," Joy said as her father carefully lifted the hood of her dated Chevy in his repair shop "She’s been acting strange lately"

Ray Pale’ as Edith starting up of her own accord, you need ine, out of Joy’s view

"Did you see the Lakers gaht?" he asked, his words e floor

"It was great" Or it had been until after the ga on her He’d driven her hoh

She hadn’t invited him up for a drink Really, as the use? It waswas over and he could be done with her

While her father checked Edith’s innards, Joy wandered around his shop It sasoline These scents had been like perfuirl Her brothers cae often, but it was only on rare occasions that Joy was allowed in her father’s domain

A BMW si Joy’s eye A door slammed, and she watched in shocked disbelief as Ted Griffin nonchalantly walked into her father’s shop

"What are you doing here?" she asked, looking past hi his fancy girlfriend to her father’s shop infuriated her Blythe was sure to wrinkle her nose at the very thing Joy loved about this old shop She waited, but apparently Blythe wasn’t with him

"As I recall, you were the one who mentioned that your father’s a ive him the business Unless you have any objections"