Free The Three Miss Margarets by Louise Shaffer Page B

blanket and set out the schoolbooks. She heard footsteps behind her. She turned and Lottie was there.
    “Momma never would have let me go away to high school,” Lottie said.
    Maggie felt tears start to sting at her eyes. She blinked them back, terrified of scaring Lottie again. “Maybe we could have convinced her.”
    Lottie shook her head. “She doesn’t understand. She can’t.”
    “Maybe you don’t have to have a diploma to go to college. Maybe there’s some kind of test you could take. You’re so smart—”
    But Lottie was shaking her head. “Maggie, I’ve got something to tell you. I’m going to marry James.”
    The words were out before Maggie could stop them. “You can’t. You’re only sixteen.”
    “I’m going to have a baby.”
    There was no way to stop the tears now. But Lottie smiled at her.
    “It’s okay, Maggie. I won’t turn out like Momma. Work hard in college.” Then she ran off into the night.
             
    T HE SWEET SMELLS OF BAKING —cocoa, sugar, and butter—filled the house. Trusting her nose more than the kitchen timer, which still had minutes to go, Maggie went into the kitchen and opened the stove. The cake layers had risen nicely, with no cracks; the sides had pulled away from the pans. She knew they were done, but just to be sure she stuck them with a broom straw, which came out clean. She pulled the pans out and put them on cake racks to cool. Later she’d make the frosting, take a piece to Lottie at the nursing home, and tell her what had happened last night. Lottie wasn’t going to hear about it from anyone but her.

Chapter Six
    W
HEN SHE WOKE UP , it took Laurel about thirty seconds to realize that the pillow next to hers was empty. And it took another two or three seconds to tell herself that that was just fine. In fact, it was the way she wanted it. One reason why she gladly worked the weekend shift at the
Gazette
was because she had a built-in excuse for getting rid of the occasional Friday night date who wanted to hang around on Saturday morning. Clearly, today that was not going to be a problem.
    Still, as she looked at the blanket pulled up neatly on the empty side of the bed, she remembered a morning when she was a kid and had awakened to find her mother had taken off with the latest man who was going to rescue them. Laurel had known by the time she was five or six that none of them ever would.
    She banished the memory instantly. No need to start thinking about abandonment because a guy who was passing through town and would never see her again had laughed at her jokes. Even if he was a hotshot writer who worked for magazines she inhaled when she could get her hands on them. And even if he had wrapped his body around hers when he slept.
    She hauled herself out of bed and padded barefoot toward the bathroom. She was moving slow, but that was to be expected after the amount of beer she’d put away. If she drank about a gallon of water and swallowed an aspirin or two along with some caffeine pills, she could probably fend off the headache that threatened to take over the top part of her head. She was firmly convinced it was the caffeine that did the trick. She looked down and saw that her toenail was turning blue. But it didn’t hurt, so all in all she was in better shape than she deserved to be.
    Then she swore loudly. Because she remembered that her car was still in the Sportsman’s Grill parking lot. Josh Wolf Eyes had left her high and dry without a way to get to work. Cursing all men, not for the first time in her life, she went into the bathroom.
             
    She was in the shower when she heard the police siren. It was a shocking sound in Charles Valley; she could count on one hand the number of times she’d heard it before. Ed and the boys must have something really big going on. It was followed a few seconds later by what had to be a voice talking on a bullhorn. She couldn’t make out the words, but it was definitely coming from the