“I’ll walk you out, Anna.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” she said.

“I told Aunt Hypatia that I would see you out,” Reeves insisted, taking her by her arm.

When they made their way into the foyer, he took both her hands in his.

“Thank you for caring about my daughter,” he said, his molten gaze holding hers. “Thank you especially for spending time with her. It’s made a difference.”

Anna nodded.

Reeves then tucked one of her hands into the curve of his arm and stepped toward the front door.

He looked at her, his smile matching hers. For one heartstopping moment their gazes held, and she actually wondered…He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead before dropping her hand and stepping back.

He opened the front door, and she stumbled through it. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

He waited until she walked over to her car before closing the door behind her. Anna stood in the dark, staring up at the big silent house.

It was perhaps the best moment of her life.

ARLENE JAMES

says, “Camp meetings, mission work and church attendance permeate my Oklahoma childhood memories. It was a golden time, which sustains me yet. However, only as a young, widowed mother did I truly begin growing in my personal relationship with the Lord. Through adversity, He has blessed me in countless ways, one of which is a second marriage so loving and romantic it still feels like courtship!”

The author of seventy novels, Arlene James now resides outside of Dallas, Texas, with her husband. Her need to write is greater than ever, a fact that frankly amazes her, as she’s been at it since the eighth grade! She loves to hear from readers and can be reached via her Web site at www.arlenejames.com.

Anna Meets Her Match
Arlene James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

—Romans 8:1

I am often asked why, after all these years,

I continue to write romance.

The answer is very simple.

I’ve been happily married for all this time to the same increasingly wonderful man.

No wife has ever been more blessed in her husband, and no husband has ever given his wife more inspiration!

Thank you, sweetheart.

DAR

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Questions for Discussion

Chapter One

“Da-a-a-dy!” Gilli’s muffled voice called from the backseat of the silver sedan as Reeves Leland lifted the last of the suitcases from the trunk. “Out!” Gilli demanded, rattling the disabled door handle.

He had parked the car beneath the porte cochere on the west side of the massive antebellum mansion known as Chatam House, where he and his daughter had come seeking sanctuary. “In a minute, Gilli,” he said, closing the trunk lid.

Since turning three six months earlier, his daughter had grown increasingly difficult, as if he didn’t have enough problems. He thought of the letter that he’d recently received from his ex-wife. The divorce had been final for nearly a year, but she had suddenly decided that he hadn’t treated her fairly in the settlement. He shook his head, more pressing concerns crowding his mind. The most immediate had to do with housing.

Honeybees had driven him and his daughter out of their home. Honeybees!

Pausing in stunned contemplation Reeves felt the gray chill of an early February breeze permeate the camel-tan wool of his tailored overcoat. It rattled the dried leaves of the enormous magnolia tree on the west lawn like old bones, adding to the strangeness of the morning.

Father in heaven, I’m so confused, he thought. Honeybees?

Whatever God was doing in his life, he knew that he need not worry about his welcome here. He hadn’t even called ahead, so certain was he of that welcome, and he gave himself a moment now to bask in that certainty, his gaze wandering over stately fluted columns, white-painted stone walls and graceful redbrick steps leading to the deep porch and the vibrant yellow, paneled side door with its so proper black framing. Terra-cotta pots flanked this side entry. In the springtime, he knew, flowers would spill over their edges, presenting a colorful welcome that would echo throughout the fifteen-acre estate.

Reeves had always loved this grand old house. The picturesque antebellum mansion and its grounds belonged to his aunts, the Chatam triplets, elder sisters of his mother. None of the aunties had ever married, but they were the first ones of whom Reeves had thought when the full weight of his situation had become clear to him.

“Da-a-dy!” Gilli bellowed.

“I’m coming. Hold on.”

He took one step toward the side of the car before the sound of tires on gravel at the front of the house halted him. Turning away from his impatient daughter, he trudged to the corner of the building. A battered, foreign-made coupe pulled up at the front of the mansion. Reeves stared in appreciation at the slender blonde in dark clothing who hopped out. Lithe and energetic, with a cap of soft, wispy hair, she moved with unconscious grace. As if sensing his regard, she looked up, and shock reverberated through him. Recognizing Anna Miranda Burdett, his old childhood nemesis, Reeves frowned.

Well, that was all this day needed. Back during their school days she had done everything in her power to make his life miserable, which was why they hadn’t spoken in years, though her grandmother Tansy was a friend of his aunties. Her pranks were legendary, and he’d once had the dubious honor of being her favorite target. She’d made a travesty of his senior year, his young male pride taking a regular beating at her hands. Given his current problems, he had no patience for dealing with Anna Miranda today.

He comforted himself with the thought that she was most likely just picking up her grandmother. He couldn’t imagine any other reason why she would be here at Chatam House. Hopefully, they would depart before he met with his aunts.

“Da-a-a-dy!”

He turned back toward his daughter, his footsteps crunching in the gravel as he hurried over to let her out of the car.

“I want out!” she complained, sliding down to the ground, her caramel-blond curls mingling with the fake fur on the hood of her pink nylon coat. She looked up at him, an accusing expression on her face.

A perfect combination of her mother and himself, with his rust-brown eyes and dimpled chin and Marissa’s hair and winged brows, Gilli looked like every father’s dream child. Unfortunately, this child whom he had wanted so much seemed terribly unhappy with him. Whatever was he going to do without Nanny?

Gilli bolted across the gravel toward the porch.

“Watch it!” he barked. Even before the warning left his mouth, she skidded and, predictably, tumbled down.

She fell to her knees, howling. Reeves reached her in two long strides and was lifting her to her feet when that yellow door opened, revealing the concerned countenance of Chester Worth. Sturdy, pale and balding, Chester and his wife, Hilda, along with her sister Carol, had served as household staff for the Chatam sisters for more than two decades. Wearing nothing more than a cardigan sweater over a plain white shirt, suspenders and slacks, Chester stepped out into the February cold, his bushy brows drawn together over his half-glasses.

Gilli’s wails shut off abruptly. “H’lo, Chester,” she greeted brightly.

“Miss Gilli, Mister Reeves, good to see y’all. Can I help?”

Reeves tugged Gilli forward, saying to Chester, “Could you get Gilli to the kitchen and ask Hilda to give her some lunch while I bring in the luggage?”

“Luggage, you say?” Chester asked, taking Gilli by the hand.

“We’ve come for a stay,” Reeves replied, adding wearily, “It’s been quite a morning, Chester.”

“We got bees,” Gilli announced, “lots and lots.”

“I’ll explain after I’ve seen the aunties,” Reeves went on. “Where are they?”

“All three are in the front parlor, Mr. Reeves,” Chester answered. “You just leave those bags and go let them know you’re here. I’ll take care of everything soon as Miss Gilli’s settled. The east suite should do nicely. Bees, is it?”

“Lots and lots,” Gilli confirmed.

“Thank you, Chester. I’ll leave the bags inside the door.”

Reeves returned to the rear of the car as the older man coaxed Gilli away. He carried the luggage into the small side entry then removed his overcoat, folding it over one arm. Smoothing his dark brown suit jacket, he headed off down a long narrow hallway, past the kitchen, butler’s pantry and family parlor, toward the center of the house.

The scents of lemony furniture polish and gingerbread sparred with the musty odor of antique upholstery and the mellow perfume of aged rosewood, all familiar, all welcome and calming. Running through this house as a child with his cousins, Reeves had considered it his personal playground and more home than whichever parent’s house he’d currently been living in. It had always been his one true sanctuary.

Feeling lighter than he had for some time, Reeves paused at the intersection of the “back” hall and the so-called “west” hall that flanked the magnificent curving staircase, which anchored the grand foyer at the front of the house. He lifted his eyes toward the high, pale blue ceiling, where faded feathers wafted among faint, billowy clouds framed by ornate crown moldings, and prayed silently.

It’s good to be here, Lord. Maybe that’s why You’ve allowed us to be driven from our own home. You seem to have deemed Chatam House a shelter for me in times of deepest trouble, so this must be Your way of taking care of me and Gilli. The aunties are a good influence on her, and I thank You for them and this big old house. I trust that You’ll have a new nanny prepared for us by the time we go back to our place.

Wincing, he realized that he had just betrayed reluctance to be at his own home alone with his own daughter. Abruptly he felt the millstone of failure about his neck.

Forgive me for my failings, Lord, he prayed, and please, please make me a better father. Amen.

Turning right, Reeves walked past the formal dining room and study on one side and the quaint cloak and “withdrawing rooms” on the other, to the formal front entry, where he left his coat draped over the curved banister at the bottom of the stairs. The “east” hall, which flanked the other side of the staircase, would have taken him past the cloak and restrooms again, as well as the library and ballroom. Both of the latter received a surprising amount of use because of the many charities and clubs in which the aunties were involved. The spacious front parlor, however, was definitely the busiest room in the house. Reeves headed there, unsurprised to find the doors wide open.

He heard the aunties’ voices, Hypatia’s well-modulated drawl, followed by Magnolia’s gruffer reply and Odelia’s twitter. Just the sound of them made him smile. He paid no attention to the words themselves. Pausing to take a look inside, he swept his gaze over groupings of antique furniture, pots of well-tended plants and a wealth of bric-a-brac. Seeing none but the aunties, he relaxed and strode into the room.

Three identical pairs of light, amber-brown eyes turned his way at once. That was pretty much where the similarities ended for the casual observer, although those sweetly rounded faces, from the delicate brows, aristocratic noses, prim mouths and gently cleft chins, were very nearly interchangeable.

Hypatia, as usual, appeared the epitome of Southern gentility in her neat lilac suit with her silver hair curled into a sleek figure-eight chignon at the nape of her neck and pearls at her throat. Magnolia, on the other hand, wore a drab shirtwaist dress decades out of style beneath an oversized cardigan sweater that had undoubtedly belonged to Grandpa Hub, dead these past ten years. Her steel-gray braid hung down her back, and she wore rundown slippers rather than the rubber boots she preferred for puttering around the flowerbeds and hothouse. Lovingly referred to as “Aunt Mags” by her many nieces and nephews, she hid a tender heart beneath a gruff, mannish manner.

Odelia, affectionately but all too aptly known as Auntie Od, was all ruffles and gathers and eye-popping prints, her white hair curling softly about her ears, which currently sported enamel daisies the size of teacups. Auntie Od was known for her outlandish earrings and her sweetness. The latter imbued both her smile and her eyes as her gaze lit on the newcomer.

“Reeves!”

He could not help laughing at her delight, a patent condition for the old dear.

“Hello, Aunt Odelia.” Going at once to kiss her temple, he held out a hand to Mags, who sat beside her sister on the prized Chesterfield settee that Grandma Augusta had brought back from her honeymoon trip to London back in 1932.

“Surprised to see you here this time of day,” Mags stated.

Swiveling, Reeves bussed her forehead, bemused by the strength of her grip on his fingers. “Honeybees,” he offered succinctly.

“What about them, dear?” Hypatia inquired calmly from her seat in the high-backed Victorian armchair facing the door through which he had entered. Its twin sat facing her, with its back to that door.

He leaned across the piecrust table to kiss her cool cheek, Mags still squeezing his hand. “They’ve invaded my attic.”

He quickly gave them the details, how the nanny had phoned in a panic that morning, shrieking that she and Gilli were under attack by “killer bees.” Racing home from his job as vice president of a national shipping company, he had found both of them locked into the nanny’s car in the drive. Inside the house, a dozen or more honeybees had buzzed angrily. Nanny had climbed up on a stool to investigate a stain on the kitchen ceiling. Hearing a strange hum, she’d poked at it. Something sticky had plopped onto the counter, and bees had swarmed through the newly formed hole in the Sheetrock.

Reeves had called an exterminator, who had refused even to come out. Instead, he’d been referred to a local “bee handler,” who had arrived outfitted head-to-toe in strange gear to tell him more than he’d ever wanted to know about the habits of the Texas honeybee. A quick inspection had revealed that thousands, perhaps millions, of the tiny creatures had infested his attic. It was going to take days to remove them all, and then his entire ceiling, which was saturated with honey, all of the insulation and much of the supporting structure of his roof would have to be torn out and replaced.

“Oh, my!” Odelia exclaimed, gasping. “The bees must have frightened Gilli.”

He spared her a smile before turning back to Hypatia, the undisputed authority at Chatam House. “Hardly. She wanted to know if she could keep them as pets.” Gilli had been begging for a pet since her birthday, but he didn’t have time to take care of a pet and so had staunchly refused.

“What can we do?” Hypatia asked, as pragmatic as ever.

“What you always do,” he told her, smiling. “Provide sanctuary. I’m afraid we’re moving in on you.”

“Well, of course, you are,” she said with a satisfied smile.

“It could be weeks,” he warned, “months, even.”

She waved that away with one elegant motion of her hand. She knew as well as he did that checking into a hotel with a three-year-old as rambunctious as Gilli would have been sure disaster, but he’d have chosen that option before moving in with his father, second stepmother and their daughter, his baby sister, who would soon turn four.

“There is another problem,” he went on. “Nanny quit. She’d been complaining that Gilli was too much for her.” Actually, she’d been complaining that he did not spend enough time with Gilli, but he was a single father with a demanding job. Besides, he paid a generous salary. “I guess the bees were the final straw. She just walked out.”

“That seems to be a habit where you’re concerned,” drawled an unexpected voice. “Women walking out.”

Reeves whirled to find a familiar figure in slim jeans and a brown turtleneck sweater slouching in the chair opposite Hypatia. A piquant face topped with a wispy fringe of medium gold bangs beamed a cheeky grin at him. His spirits dropped like a stone in a well, even as a new realization shook him. This was not the Anna Miranda of old. This Anna Miranda was a startlingly attractive version, as attractive in her way as Marissa was in hers. Oh, no, this was not the same old brat. This was worse. Much worse.

“Hello, Stick,” Anna Miranda said. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

“I’m so sorry, dear,” Hypatia cooed. “We forgot our manners in all the excitement. Reeves, you know Anna Miranda.”

Reeves frowned as if he’d just discovered the keys to his beloved first car glued to his locker door. Again. Anna smiled, remembering how she’d punished him for refusing her a ride in that car. Foolishly, she’d pined for his attention from the day that she’d first met him right here in this house soon after his parents had divorced. Even at ten, he’d had no use for an unhappy rebellious girl, especially one four years younger, and she had punished him for it, all the way through her freshman and his senior year in high school. While she’d agonized through her unrequited crush, he had pierced her hardened heart with his disdain. High school hadn’t been the same after he’d graduated. Despite his coolness, she had felt oddly abandoned.

In the twelve or thirteen years since, she had caught numerous glimpses of Reeves Leland around town. Buffalo Creek simply wasn’t a big enough town that they could miss each other forever. Besides, they were members of the same church, though she confined her participation to substituting occasionally in the children’s Sunday school. In all those years, they had never exchanged so much as a word, and suddenly, sitting here in his aunts’ parlor, she hadn’t been able to bear it a moment longer.

Reeves put on a thin smile, greeting her with a flat version of the name his much younger self had often chanted in a provoking, exasperated singsong. “Anna Miranda.”

Irrational hurt flashed through her, and she did the first thing that came to mind. She stuck out her tongue. He shook his head.

“Still the brat, I see.”

The superior tone evoked an all too familiar urge in her. To counter it, she grinned and crossed her legs, wagging a booted foot. “Better that than a humorless stick-in-the-mud, if you ask me.”

“Has anyone ever?” he retorted. “Asked your opinion, I mean.”

His response stinging, she let her gaze drop away nonchalantly, but Reeves had always been able to read her to a certain extent.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

Before Anna had to say anything, Odelia chirped in with a reply to Reeves’s tacky question. “Why, yes, of course,” Odelia declared gaily, waving a lace hanky she’d produced from somewhere. “We were just asking Anna Miranda’s opinion on the announcements for the spring scholarship auction. Weren’t we, sisters?”

“Invitations,” Hypatia corrected pointedly. “An announcement implies that we are compelling attendance rather than soliciting it.”

Anna’s mouth quirked up at one corner. As if the Chatam triplets did not command Buffalo Creek society, such society as a city of thirty thousand residents could provide, anyway. With Dallas just forty-five miles to the north, Buffalo Creek’s once great cotton center had disappeared, reducing the city to little more than a bedroom community of the greater Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. Yet, the city retained enough of its unique culture to bear pride in it, and as a daughter of the area’s wealthiest family Hypatia Chatam, while personally one of the humblest individuals Anna had ever known, bore that community pride especially well.

“This spring,” Hypatia said with a slight tilt of her head, “instead of holding the dinner and auction at the college, as in years past, we are opening the house instead.”

This seemed no surprise to Reeves. “Ah.”

Everyone knew that Buffalo Creek Bible College, or BCBC, was one of his aunts’ favorite charities. Every spring, they underwrote a dinner and silent auction to raise scholarship funds. This year the event was to acquire a somewhat higher tone, moving from the drafty library hall at BCBC to the Chatam House ballroom. In keeping with the intended elegance of the occasion, they had contacted the only privately owned print shop in town for help with the necessary printed paper goods. Anna just happened to work at the print shop. Given her grandmother’s friendship with the Chatam triplets, they had requested that Anna call upon them. Her boss Dennis had grudgingly allowed it.

“Anna Miranda is helping us figure out what we need printed,” Mags explained. “You know, invitations, menus, advertisements…”

“Oh, and bid sheets,” Hypatia said to Anna Miranda, one slender, manicured forefinger popping up.

Anna Miranda sat forward, asking, “Have you thought of printed napkins and coasters? Those might add a nice touch.”

“Hmm.” Hypatia tapped the cleft in her Chatam chin.

Reeves looked at Anna Miranda. “What are you, a paper salesman, er, person?”

She tried to fry him with her glare. “I am a graphic artist, for your information.”

“Huh.” He said it as if he couldn’t believe she had an ounce of talent for anything.

“We’ll go with linen napkins,” Hypatia decided, sending Reeves a quelling look.

He bowed his head, a tiny muscle flexing in the hollow of his jaw.

“Magnolia, remember to tell Hilda to speak to the caterer about the linens, will you, dear?” Hypatia went on.

“If I don’t do it now I’ll just forget,” Magnolia complained, heaving herself up off the settee. She patted Reeves affectionately on the shoulder, reaching far up to do so, as she lumbered from the room. Suddenly Anna felt conspicuously out of place in the midst of this loving family.

“I should be going, too,” she said, clutching her leather-bound notebook as she rose. “If I’m not back in the shop soon, Dennis will think I’m goofing off.”

Hypatia stood, a study in dignity and grace. She smiled warmly at Anna Miranda. Reeves stepped away, taking up a spot in front of the plastered fireplace on the far wall where even now a modern gas jet sponsored a cheery, warming flame.

“I’ll see you out,” Hypatia said to Anna, and they moved toward the foyer. “Thank you for coming by. The college press is just too busy to accommodate us this year.”

“Well, their loss is our gain,” Anna replied cheerfully. “I should have some estimates for you soon. Say, have you thought about creating a logo design for the fund-raiser? I could come up with something unique for it.”

“What a lovely idea,” Hypatia said, nodding as they strolled side by side toward the front door. “I’ll discuss that with my sisters.”

“Great.”

Anna picked up her coat from the long, narrow, marble-topped table occupying one wall of the opulent foyer and shrugged into it. She glanced back toward the parlor and caught sight of Reeves. Frowning thoughtfully, he seemed very alone in that moment. Instantly Anna regretted that crack about women abandoning him.

As usual, she’d spoken without thinking, purely from pique because he’d so effectively ignored her to that point. It was as if they were teenagers again, so when he’d made that remark about the nanny walking out, Anna had put that together with what she’d heard about his ex simply hopping onto the back of a motorcycle and splitting town with her boyfriend. Now Anna wished she hadn’t thrown that up to him. Now that the harm was done.

Reeves leaned a shoulder against the mantle, watching as Hypatia waved farewell to Anna Miranda. He didn’t like what was happening here, didn’t trust Anna Miranda to give this matter the attention and importance that it deserved. In fact, he wouldn’t put it past her to turn this into some huge joke at his aunts’ expense. He still smarted inwardly from that opening salvo, but while she could make cracks about him all she wanted, he would not put up with her wielding her malicious sense of humor against his beloved aunties. He decided to stop in at the print shop and have a private chat with her.

“Lovely. Just lovely,” Odelia said from the settee, snagging his attention. “What color is it, do you think?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Antique gold. Yes, that’s it. Antique gold.” She made a swirling motion around her plump face with the lace hanky. “I wish I could wear mine that short.”

Reeves felt at a loss, but then he often did with Auntie Od. Adding Anna Miranda to the mix hadn’t helped. He walked toward the settee. “What about antique gold?”

The hanky swirled again. “Anna Miranda’s hair. Wouldn’t you say that perfectly describes the color of Anna Miranda’s hair?”

Antique gold. Yes, he supposed that did describe the color of Anna Miranda’s short, lustrous hair. It used to be lighter, he recalled, the brassy color of newly minted gold. She’d worn it cropped at chin length as a girl. Now it seemed darker, richer, as if burnished with age, and the style seemed at once wistful and sophisticated.

Unfortunately, while she’d changed on the outside—in some rather interesting ways, he admitted—she appeared not to have done so on the inside. She seemed to be the same cheeky brat who had tried to make his life one long joke. Reeves’s thoughtful gaze went back to the foyer door, through which Hypatia returned just that instant.

“She’s so very lovely,” Odelia prattled on, “and such a sweet girl, too, no matter what Tansy says.”

“Tansy would do better to say less all around, I think,” Hypatia remarked, “but then we are not to judge.” She lowered herself into her chair once more and smiled up at Reeves. “Honeybees,” she said. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

He shrugged. “According to the bee handler, we humans and the true killer bees coming up from the south are driving the poor honeybees out of their natural habitat, so they’re adapting by invading every quiet, sheltered space they can find, including attics, hollow walls, even abandoned cars.”

The sisters traded looks. Odelia said what they were both thinking.

“We should have Chester check out the house.”

“I think, according to what the bee handler told me, the attics here would be too high for them,” Reeves assured her.

“We’ll have Chester check, just to be sure,” Hypatia decided.

A crash sounded from the depths of the great old house, followed by a familiar wail, distant and faint but audible. Reeves sighed. “I’ll start looking for another nanny tomorrow.”

Hypatia smiled sympathetically. “It’s all right, dear. I’m sure we’ll manage until you’re ready to go back to your own home.”

Reeves closed his eyes with relief. Finding another nanny was one difficult, time-consuming chore he would gladly put on the back burner for now. He had enough to contend with. He wondered if he should contact his lawyer about Marissa. Just then Mags trundled into the room, huffing for breath.

“No harm done, but Gilli’s not apt to calm down until you go to her.”

Nodding grimly, Reeves strode from the room and headed for the kitchen. The sobs grew louder with every step, but it was a sound Reeves knew only too well. Not hurt and not frightened, rather they were demanding sobs, willful sobs, angry sobs and as hopeless as any tears could ever be. Deep down, even Gilli knew that he could do nothing. He could not make Marissa love them. He could not mend their broken family.

God help us both, he prayed. But perhaps He already had, honeybees and all.

The sanctuary of Chatam House, along with the wise, loving support of the aunties, was the best thing that had happened to them in more than a year. Pray God that it would be enough to help them, finally, find their way

“Poor Reeves,” Odelia said as his hurried footsteps faded.

“Poor Gilli,” Mags snorted. “That boy is deaf, dumb and blind where she’s concerned, though he means well, I’m sure.”

“Yes, of course,” Hypatia said, her gaze seeing back through the years. “Reeves always means well, but how could he know what to do with Gilli? Children learn by example, and while I love our baby sister, Dorinda hasn’t always done best by her oldest two. And that says nothing of their father.”

“Melinda has done well,” Odelia pointed out, referring to Reeves’s one full sibling. He had five half siblings, including twin sisters and a brother, all younger than him.

“True,” Hypatia acknowledged, “but I wonder if Melinda’s happy marriage hasn’t made Reeves’s divorce more difficult for him. He’s a man of faith, though, and he loves his daughter. He’ll learn to deal with Gilli eventually.”

Mags arched an eyebrow. “What that man needs is someone to help him understand what Gilli’s going through and how to handle her.”

“If anyone can understand Gilli, it’s Anna Miranda,” Odelia gushed.

Hypatia’s eyes widened. “You’re exactly right about that, dear.” She tapped the small cleft in her chin. Everyone in the family had one to some degree, but Hypatia wasn’t thinking of that now. She was thinking of Anna Miranda’s childhood. “I believe,” she said, eyes narrowing, “that Anna Miranda is going to be even more help to us than we’d assumed and in more ways than we’d realized.”

Mags sat up straight, both brows rising. After a moment, she slowly grinned. Odelia, however, frowned in puzzlement.

“Do you think she’ll volunteer for one of the committees?” Odelia asked.

“Oh, I think her talents are best used with the printing,” Hypatia mused. “She’s suggested that the fund-raiser should have its own unique logo, and I concur, but designing it will probably require a good deal of her time. After all, we have to pick just the right design.”

“Exactly the right design,” Magnolia agreed.

“Yes,” Hypatia went on, smiling broadly, “I do think that best suits our needs.”

“Ours,” Magnolia purred suggestively, “and Reeves’s.”

“And Gilli’s!” Odelia added brightly, finally seeing the wisdom of this decision.

Hypatia smiled. How perfect was the timing of God and how mysterious His ways. Honeybees, indeed.

Chapter Two

The back door of the shop had barely closed behind Anna before her boss’s voice assaulted her ear. “Took you long enough!”

Dropping her notebook on the front counter, she turned toward his open office door. “I’ll skip lunch to make up for the time.”

She’d been late to work that morning. It happened all too frequently, despite her best efforts, and Dennis despised tardiness. He rose from behind his desk and stalked around it, his big belly leading the way. Looking down his nose at her, his sandy brown mustache quivered with suppressed anger. Her coworker Howard gave her a pitying shake of his graying head before turning back to his task. Dragging up a smile, Anna faced her employer with more aplomb than she truly felt, but that was the story of her life. She had made an art of putting up the careless, heedless front while inwardly cringing.

“They want a lot of stuff,” she told him cheerfully, “and they’re interested in a special logo, something unique to the fund-raiser. I’ll just draw up some designs and get together some estimates.”

“They better be good,” Dennis warned.

“Of course,” she quipped. “Good is my middle name. Isn’t that why you keep me around?”

“Miranda is your middle name,” he pointed out, shaking his head in confusion.

Howard sent her a chiding look. He was right. Dennis was the most sadly humorless man she’d ever known. All attempts at levity were lost on him.

The chime that signaled the opening of the front door sounded. Smile in place, Anna turned to greet a potential customer, only to freeze. Correction. Dennis was the second most humorless man she’d ever known.

“Well, if it isn’t Reeves Leland.” Twice in an hour’s time. Some day this was turning out to be. She bucked up her smile and tossed off a flippant line. “Playing errand boy for your aunties?”

“Something like that.” Reeves opened the front of his tan wool overcoat, revealing the expensive suit that clearly marked him as executive material.

Howard shook his head and turned away, as if to say she’d blundered again. Anna admired Howard. Despite his thickset build, he appeared fit for a man nearing sixty. He and his wife were devoted to one another and led quiet, settled lives, the sort that Anna could never seem to manage. Her parents had died just months after her birth in a drug-fueled automobile accident, leaving her to the oppressive care of her grandmother. Anna had rebelled early against Tansy’s overbearing control, and at twenty-six, she continued to do so.

“Can I help you?” Dennis asked Reeves, elbowing Anna out of the way as he bellied up to the counter.

Reeves barely glanced at the big, blustery man. “Thank you, no. I need to speak to Anna Miranda. About my aunts and the BCBC fund-raiser.”

Trembling inwardly, Anna pulled out her most professional demeanor. Reeves Leland had come to speak with her, and she couldn’t imagine that was good. Please, God, she prayed silently, don’t let him be here to cancel the order. Dennis would blame her for certain. She waved toward her desk around the corner. Whatever Reeves wanted, it was best dealt with in private.

“Take a seat.”

She tucked her notepad under one arm and followed. Reeves glanced around at the illustrations pinned to the walls, his expression just shy of forbidding. Be still my foolish heart, she thought. But it was no joke. To her disgust, Reeves Leland, with his sinewy strength, cleft chin and dark hair, still had the power to send her pulse racing.

Dropping her notebook on the desk, Anna parked her hands at her waist and cut to the chase. “What’s up?”

Reeves just looked at her before folding himself down onto the thinly padded steel-framed chair beside her utilitarian desk. He made himself comfortable, stretching out his long legs and crossing his ankles. All righty then. She’d play. Pulling out her armless chair, she turned it sideways and sat down, facing him.

“Okay. First guess. You’re going to pay the print costs for the fund-raiser. Sky’s the limit, right? Oh, joy,” she deadpanned, waving her hands. “My job’s secure.”

“Is that what you’re trying to do,” he asked, “secure your job at my aunt’s expense?”

She blinked at that. “Hey. They called us. I didn’t call them.”

Reeves folded his hands over his belt buckle, appearing to relax. “Okay, so maybe you didn’t solicit their business, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a secret agenda.”

“Like what?”

“You tell me.”

Suddenly angry, she snapped her fingers. “I never could pull anything over on you, could I, Stick? After all these years I’ve finally found a way to get you back for not asking me to the homecoming dance.”

Ack! Had she said that out loud? It wasn’t as if she’d ever actually expected him to ask her to the homecoming dance. But she’d hoped. Oh, how she’d hoped. Not that he’d believe it. He smiled thinly and sat forward, one forearm braced against the corner of her desk.

“I’m warning you, Anna Miranda,” he rumbled in a low voice. “You better not make my aunts the object of one of your pranks.”

Pranks? Anna goggled. She hadn’t pulled a prank in years, since high school, at least. She’d been much too busy trying to feed and house herself.

“And to think,” she hissed, “that I was feeling sorry for that crack I made. I heard about your wife, how she took off, and I felt bad about saying women made a habit of leaving you. Now I’m thinking maybe they got it right.”

The color drained from his face. For an instant, raw pain dulled his copper-brown gaze, and once more regret slammed her. “Reeves, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“My aunts,” he said in a strangled voice, climbing to his feet. “I’m watching you, Anna Miranda Burdett. If you hurt or disappoint them…” Shaking his head, he started to turn away.

Desperate to convince him of her sincere regret, she reached for his arm. They jerked apart as if zapped by electricity.

“Never,” she vowed, gazing up at him repentantly, her tingling hand clenched at her side. “I would never hurt your aunts. They’ve always been kind to me. I have the greatest respect for them, and I’ll give them my very best work. You have my word.”

“I haven’t always found your word trustworthy,” he reminded her quietly, “like the day you swore you hadn’t seen my keys.”

Anna flushed. “Oh, that.”

What was it with men and their precious cars? She’d been fourteen, for pity’s sake, just a kid caught in the throes of an unrequited crush. She wasn’t about to apologize for something that had happened twelve years ago.

Reeves nodded sharply. “Yeah, that.” After staring at her for several seconds, he whirled and strode away.

Anna slumped against her chair, feeling more alone than usual, though why that should be the case, she couldn’t say. She’d always been alone, after all. Obviously, that was how God intended her to be. But at least she could show Reeves Leland that he was wrong about some things. She did have talent, and she wasn’t afraid to use it.

As she’d promised Reeves, she would give the Chatams her very best effort, if for no other reason than to secure her job. She’d only been here a few months. After a long string of pointless, temporary positions, she’d finally found work that she enjoyed, even if the boss was difficult. She would hate to lose that, especially since her grandmother expected her to. Also because she had to pay the rent.

The tiny one-bedroom apartment where she had lived since the age of eighteen in no way compared to the two-story, gingerbread-Victorian house where she had grown up, but Anna would crawl across glass on a daily basis to keep from moving back in with Tansy. She would do worse, she realized suddenly, to raise Reeves Leland’s poor opinion of her, and that’s exactly what she feared she would do. Worse.

Nevertheless, for the remainder of the week, she concentrated on showing up for work early and giving the BCBC job her best. She contacted the university and got permission to incorporate their insignia into her designs, then she experimented with fonts, illustrations and document styles until she had a handful of satisfactory possibilities to offer for consideration, along with detailed estimates for those items already discussed. She was ready by midmorning on the following Monday to meet with Reeve’s aunts once again. Dennis elected to make the call informing them of that. Afterward, he told her that she had a four o’ clock appointment at Chatam House. She blinked as Dennis shook a finger in her face.

“And don’t think you’re going to cut out at five o’clock, either. You stay until those old ladies are satisfied, or I’ll wash my hands of you!”

“Be easier to wash me out of your hair,” Anna quipped, eyeing the thin strands covering his poor crown. The instant the words were out, she wished them back. Dennis literally snarled at her until she muttered, “Sorry. Won’t let you down. Promise.”

Dennis turned away, leaving Anna to ponder whether Reeves would be there or if he would, as in years past, go out of his way to avoid her. He’d said he would be watching, but she didn’t take that literally, especially as he’d shown such a marked disdain for her company. It shouldn’t have bothered her so much—she had made a career, after all, of earning disapproval, especially that of her grandmother—but Reeves Leland’s attitude had always wounded her. Only when she was tweaking that handsome, aristocratic nose of his had he deigned to look her way. Even then, he had only seen “the brat.” Apparently that was all he saw now, too.

What hurt most was that he had always seemed unfailingly polite and kind to everyone else. Indeed, Reeves Leland had a reputation for being a fine Christian man, which was why the town had been so shocked when his wife had left him.

Pushing him out of mind, she concentrated instead on getting through the day. Howard, the dear, made sure that she got away from the office in plenty of time for her appointment. In fact, when she pulled up in front of Chatam House the dashboard clock of her old car told her that she had nearly ten minutes to spare.

Gathering her materials, she stepped out into the cold February air, tucking her chin into the rainbow-striped muffler wound about her throat inside the collar of her bright orange corduroy coat. The instant she straightened a whirling dervish came out of nowhere and knocked her on her behind. Anna instinctively put out a hand and grabbed hold. Simultaneously Carol Petty, one of the Chatams’ household staff, huffed into view, her dark slacks and bulky sweater dusted with white powder, her light brown hair slipping free of the clasp at her nape. While Carol gasped for breath, the little tornado who had knocked Anna down screeched.

“Gilli Leland, stop it!” Carol scolded, stomping forward across the deep gravel to take hold of the girl. “You are going to have a bath, and that’s that.”

Anna hauled herself to her feet and picked up her portfolio, thankful she’d had the foresight to zip it closed as that was not always the case. Dusting off her jeans, she turned to take in the girl who had flattened her.

So this was Reeves Leland’s daughter. Pretty little thing, with all that curly hair, provided one disregarded the wailing and white powder. What was that stuff covering her anyway? Talcum? Chancing a sniff, Anna leaned forward, only to draw back in surprise. The kid had coated herself in flour. Hopefully, no one planned to pan fry her, though given Carol’s exasperation, Anna wouldn’t have been surprised.

“I wanna make cookies!” the girl sobbed.

“Hilda is saving the cookies until you get cleaned up,” Carol told the distraught child. She cast an apologetic look at Anna. “I’m sorry, Miss Burdett. A mishap in the kitchen. The misses are expecting you.”

“Uh-huh, and Mr. Leland?” Anna glanced around, expecting Reeves to arrive at any moment to take his wayward offspring in hand.

Carol shook her head. “He’s not in from work yet.” Glancing at Gilli, she muttered, “Works too much, if you ask me.”

“Hmm. Well. I’ll, uh, just ring the bell, I guess.”

“If you don’t mind,” Carol said, dragging Gilli back the way they had come.

Gilli stopped howling long enough to glance back at Anna, who impulsively stuck out her tongue and crossed her eyes. Gilli first looked surprised, but then she giggled, causing Carol to pause and look down at her. Grinning, Anna climbed the shallow brick steps and rang the bell. Odelia let her in, swinging black onyx chandeliers from her earlobes and chattering gaily about how excited they all were to see her designs.

Excited they might have been, but see her designs they did not. Neither were they interested in her estimates. Instead, Hypatia presented her with a “more complete list,” of the items they would be needing: place cards, menu cards, table assignment cards, letterheads, donation forms, receipts, a spiral-bound auction catalog, name tags, item tags, signs…The list seemed endless.

While Anna tried to take in the expanding size of the order, the sisters chatted about their various ideas for the final logo design, all three at the same time. Anna mentally tossed everything she’d done to this point and quickly jotted down ideas as the sisters shot them to her. At one point she put her hand to her hair, just trying to take it all in. Hypatia reached over then to lay her manicured hand on Anna’s shoulder.

“How would it be,” Hypatia asked, “if you worked up designs for each of us?”

“Using your individual ideas, you mean?” Anna raised a mental eyebrow at Miss Magnolia’s “nature” theme, Miss Odelia’s “lace and satin” and Miss Hypatia’s “biblical” motif. “I can do that.” Along with a new idea of her own, she decided, suddenly picturing the fluted, Roman Doric columns of Chatam House topped with an elegant swag of flowers intertwined with the BCBC emblem, which itself contained a Bible.

“You just let us know when you’re ready to meet again,” Mags said. “We’ll have the teapot simmering.”

“That’s very nice of you,” Anna returned, a thought occurring. “So you’ll be wanting me to continue coming here?”

“Is there a problem with that?” Hypatia asked.

“No, no. Not so far as I’m concerned. Dennis may not always go for it, though.”

Hypatia just smiled. “Oh, he seems perfectly willing to indulge three old ladies who like their creature comforts too well.”

Anna laughed. “Well, I certainly can’t argue that the print shop compares in any way to Chatam House.”

“What does?” a smooth male voiced asked.

Anna looked up as Reeves strolled into the room, dispensing kisses and smiles on everyone but her. At last, he turned a cool nod in her direction. “Anna Miranda.”

Anna grit her teeth. She hated her full name. Hated it. Sometimes the chants of children’s voices rang in her dreams. Anna Miranda the brat. Anna Miranda the brat…

She couldn’t blame them really. They’d had parents and siblings, and she had resented that fact greatly. Of course, as children do, they had picked up on her envy. Accordingly, they had sneered, and she had made their lives miserable in every way she could imagine. Eventually she’d learned to channel her animosity into jokes, earning herself a few friends and the designation of class clown. Reeves had never thought her the least bit funny, though. She faced him and returned his greeting in kind.

“Reeves Kyle.”

He lifted an eyebrow before turning his back on her. “More printing?” he asked his aunts.

Anna bit her tongue, literally.

While the aunts gushed about everything they had discussed, Anna secured her notes, reminding herself that this was business between her and the Chatam sisters. Reeves’s opinion did not matter, and she had been foolish to think for a moment that it did. Or that it might ever change.

“Aunt Hypatia,” Reeves asked, having listened carefully for some minutes, “are you certain that this printer is the right one for the job?”

He’d thought about it a lot. Actually, to be completely honest with himself, he’d thought about Anna Miranda, almost constantly. For some reason, he couldn’t seem to get her off his mind. He kept picturing her contrite face as she’d made her apology last week, and somehow he now felt in the wrong.

She’d always done that to him. She made his life miserable and one way or another he always felt to blame. How did she do that, and why did she have to turn up again after all these years? What was God trying to tell him? That his life could be worse? That was exactly what he was trying to avoid and not just for himself. Having seen the print shop and knowing his aunts’ expansive plans, Reeves truly felt that they would be better off taking their business elsewhere. Yet, because of one thing or another—primarily the complaining e-mails he’d been receiving daily from Marissa—he’d put off making the argument until now.

Hypatia smiled her serene smile, the one that could make a troubled ten-year-old feel that all might actually one day be right with his world, and answered him. “Absolutely certain. Why do you ask, dear?”

Why? Because he didn’t trust Anna Miranda. No matter what she said, there would surely be a shocking message buried in a letterhead or something else inappropriate. His aunts had always defended her, however, telling him that he didn’t understand her situation. The opposite seemed true to him. At least she hadn’t shuttled back and forth between her warring parents throughout her childhood as he had, never quite belonging either place. Maybe her grandmother, Tansy, was a bit difficult and not the warmest person, but at least she’d provided Anna Miranda with a stable home.

“A larger shop would be better able to handle a job this size,” he argued, “and with Dallas just up the road—”

“In other words, you think our shop will do shoddy work,” Anna interrupted hotly. “Or is it just my abilities that you doubt?”

Reeves clenched his jaw. He had studiously avoided making eye contact with her, but now he leveled a stare at her face. “I didn’t say that. I just don’t want my aunts to be embarrassed. This scholarship fund is important to them.”

Odelia laughed, her pendulous earrings wriggling. “Oh, sweetie,” she chuckled. “We’re embarrassed all the time.”

“Not that Anna Miranda has or would embarrass us,” Mags put in quickly.

“Anna Miranda is a very gifted artist, Reeves,” Hypatia told him, “and she’s a very dear girl.”

Very dear? Not the Anna Miranda he remembered. And no girl, either, he thought, not anymore. How, he wondered, did she manage to appear so casually polished and smirk at the same time? She looked…womanly, innately female, right down to that twisted little smile.

“Besides,” Anna Miranda said, “there are a surprising number of items needed, but not so many copies of each that a larger printer would find it worthwhile.”

Reeves opened his mouth to argue with that, but just then Gilli came sliding into the room in her stocking feet, her hair wet, her T-shirt and pants twisted.

“Daddy, I had a aksident and Carol made me take a bath!” she complained.

Automatically, he demanded, “What did you do?”

Mags and Auntie Od reached out to Gilli, clucking and quickly righting her clothes, while Hypatia explained that they’d had a little incident involving homemade cookies and an open bag of flour. Groaning inwardly, Reeves folded his arms.

“And just how did that bag of flour tip over, Gilli?”

Poking out her bottom lip, Gilli shrugged. “I don’t know.”

He doubted that, but she just stood there staring up at him with those wide eyes. Anna cleared her throat. Suddenly mortified that she, of all people, should witness this, Reeves made a snap decision. His daughter would not lack discipline as Anna Miranda evidently had. He would not have a brat of his own.

“Go to your room, Gilli,” he ordered, “and do not come out again until you’re called down for dinner.” Wailing, Gilli tore out of the parlor. Avoiding all gazes, especially Anna’s, Reeves said, “I apologize. I’ll make sure she’s in her room, then I think I’ll go out for a run.”

“We’ll keep an eye on her,” Magnolia offered gently.

“Try to enjoy your run, dear,” Ophelia told him, pity in her voice.

Some days his runs were all he did enjoy. Casting around a wan smile, Reeves strode out after his daughter. Tonight, he desperately wanted to run away from his troubles. Of late, those troubles all seemed female in nature. First Marissa had reminded him that she held joint custody of their daughter in a veiled attempted to make him renegotiate their divorce settlement. Then he returned to his one sanctuary to find Anna Miranda there and Gilli upsetting the household. All together, it was enough to add miles to his regular routine.

Of all his problems, however, Anna Miranda was the one he couldn’t get off his mind. She had once seemed intent on making his life miserable, and now she was at it again. He knew, as he had known even way back in school, that the best way to deal with her was to ignore her. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem able to do it now, which made no sense at all.

Then again, what in his life did?

The aunts exchanged worried glances as they settled for evening prayers.

Odelia pulled her hot pink robe tighter as she snuggled into the corner of the well-used sofa. Several dozen pink foam curlers covered her head. “It’s too bad Reeves had to work this evening,” she commented sadly. “Gilli missed him.”

Reeves had returned from his run with only enough time to hurriedly shower before sliding into his seat at the dinner table. After the meal, he’d spent the evening in his room on his laptop, while Gilli played glumly in the shared private sitting room of the aunties’ suite. Grumpy and sullen, the child had whined and fussed until Reeves had come and taken her off to bed. It had become painfully obvious that Reeves avoided the child, which was why she acted out.

“Remind you of anyone?” Hypatia asked from her chair beside the fireplace.

“Just Anna Miranda,” Mags said, dropping down beside Odelia.

“Oh, but Tansy didn’t ignore Anna Miranda,” Odelia protested.

Mags snorted. “She criticized her daylight to dark, you mean.”

“Do you remember that time Tansy scolded little Anna Miranda for plucking roses off her front bushes?” Odelia asked with a giggle.

Hypatia nodded, a smile tugging at her lips. “As I recall, Anna Miranda used a pair of sewing scissors to snip off every one of Tansy’s prized blossoms. The result was a bumper crop the next year.”

All three chuckled, but then Mags sobered. “If anyone can understand Gilli, it is Anna Miranda,” she insisted.

“Well, it’s certainly not Reeves,” Hypatia said with a sigh. “I’ve tried speaking to him about it myself a time or two, but he always seems so hurt by the slightest criticism.” They all knew who was responsible for that. Marissa had destroyed Reeves’s hard-won self-esteem. “I suppose we must simply pray that God will somehow reach him.”

Was it possible, she wondered silently, that Anna Miranda might be God’s tool in this? Might she be the one to help Reeves stop hiding his heart and learn how to deal with his little girl? It occurred to her suddenly that their Heavenly Father might have something more in mind than they had yet considered.

“Oh, sisters,” she said, her eyes wide, “I fear we’ve been going about this all wrong. Think about it. What Reeves and Gilli really need is a wife and mother.”

“Someone to understand Gilli,” Magnolia murmured, comprehension beginning to glow in her eyes, “and someone to lighten Reeves’s heavy spirit.”

“Someone like Anna Miranda!” Odelia chirped.

Hypatia smiled, praising God in her heart, for He always had more in mind for His children than they themselves sometimes dared to dream. And if in this case He didn’t, well, it wouldn’t hurt to pray about the matter, would it?

Chapter Three

Sitting at her usual table in the little coffee shop across from the BCBC campus, Anna huddled over her steaming mug and yawned, trying to shake the cobwebs from her mind. She’d worked late into the night, prompted by a phone call from her grandmother, who had only just learned from some committee member that Anna was handling the BCBC fund-raiser account. As usual, Tansy had displayed no faith whatsoever in Anna’s abilities, lecturing her on the importance of the assignment and her responsibilities to her employer and the cause. Anna had hung up on her, not an uncommon occurrence, and set to work. Now she had two good reasons for wanting to do her best. To her surprise, the first appeared at her elbow.

“Hard night?”

She looked up at the handsome face of Reeves Leland, handsome but somewhat haggard despite being cleanly shaved. “I could ask the same of you.”

“Or you could just ask me to sit down.”

She looked around, saw that the other tables were full and nodded. He sprawled across the chair with a sigh, hanging an elbow on the edge of the tabletop.

“I haven’t seen you in here before.”

He slugged back coffee from the disposable cup in his hand, wincing at the heat. “I usually wait and get my caffeine at the office, but this morning I need a little extra fortification just to get there. Figured I might as well order a hot roll while I was at it.” He glanced at the counter. “Does it usually take this long?”

“Mornings are busy,” she said. “So why the extra fortification?”

He grimaced. “I worked all night, and Gilli was on a tear this morning.” He shook his head and sucked up more brew.

“Well, that makes two of us,” she said, “working late, that is.” He lifted an eyebrow. “What? You don’t think I ever put in long hours?”

“Did I say that?”

“You didn’t have to.” She cut her gaze away, muttering, “And here I thought you’d come to cry peace.”

He straightened in his chair and set his cup on the table, folding his arms behind it. “I think that’s a very good idea, actually.” She shot him a startled, wary glance, and he lifted a hand in a gesture of openness. “It wasn’t what I had in mind when I was looking around for an empty seat, but now that you mention it…” He rolled his shoulders beneath his overcoat. “I don’t see why we should be enemies over stuff that happened ages ago.”

Recalling some of that “stuff,” Anna grinned. “That’s very generous of you, Stick. You mean you forgive me for busting up your baseball bat?”

His forehead furrowed. “How did you do that? I’ve always wondered.”

“Nothing to it. I just carried it down to the tracks and waited for a train to come by, then tossed the pieces back in your yard.”

He shook his head, one corner of his mouth curling up. “Guess we should’ve let you play, huh? I almost did, but the other guys never would’ve let me forget it.”

“I didn’t think about that.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

She stuck her tongue out at him, and he laughed, his eyes crinkling up around the edges. “There’s that brat again.”

It was perhaps the first time he’d ever actually laughed at her. Picking at her napkin, she tried not to read too much into it, but she couldn’t help asking, “So, you ever going to forgive me for gluing your car keys to your locker door?”

“Not a chance.” He wagged a finger at her. “Do you have any idea what that cost? I had to replace the ignition module to get a working key for the car, not to mention the locker door.”

She jerked up onto the edge of her seat. “They made you replace the locker door?”

He suddenly seemed uncomfortable. “They didn’t make me exactly.”

“But you did it anyway,” she surmised, shocked. “You must have because they didn’t make me do it.” She’d sat in two weeks of detention, but nothing had been said about financial reparation.

For several seconds Reeves sat very still. Then he tilted his head slightly and confessed, “It wouldn’t have hurt me to give you a ride that day. I never figured you’d walk all the way to school in the rain. I just thought your grandmother would take you.”

“She wasn’t there that morning,” Anna told him, “one of her committee meetings or something.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. She instantly took pity on him, saying, “Look, it’s not your fault. I could have called someone else, but after you said no, I was so mad I just struck out on foot. Later, when you dropped your keys, well, I couldn’t resist.”

He shook his head, saying softly, “Kids do stupid things.”

“Yeah, well, I think I probably did more than my fair share.”

He looked up from beneath the crag of his brow. “I think you probably did, too.”

She tried for outrage but wound up spluttering laughter. He joined in, and it was perhaps the first moment of real camaraderie they’d ever shared.

“So,” she asked, making small talk, “what were you up all night working on?”

“Aw, we’ve got this big negotiation with a new fuel provider. I was putting together the figures, trying to estimate their costs and our—” He broke off suddenly, his eyes going wide. “The figures!” He smacked himself in the forehead with the heel of his palm. “They’re in my laptop, which I left at the house! Oh, man.” On his feet before he’d finished speaking, he started for the door.

“What about your roll?”

“Uh, you eat it. I’ve gotta run. Sorry. I’ll, uh, be seeing you.”

“Right. Later. Maybe,” she said, her voice waning as he rushed out the door.

After a moment she turned back to contemplate the coffee in her mug, wondering what had just happened. Had she and Reeves Leland actually taken a step toward putting the past behind them? If so, then what else might be possible?

She was afraid even to contemplate the answer to that question.

Irritated, Reeves quietly let himself into the house via the front entry hall. He never left his laptop behind, but he’d just been so frazzled this morning. If only Gilli hadn’t awakened in the same petulant mood that she’d gone to sleep in, he might not have forgotten the thing. Sneaking about made him cringe, but he took care to walk softly just the same. The last thing he wanted was for Gilli to see him and pitch another fit for him to stay home—as if he could! He had almost passed by the open door of the front parlor when the sound of his own name brought him to an abrupt halt.

“Reeves is perfect!”

Well, that was nice to hear, but what followed knocked the breath out of him.

“He’s perfect for Anna Miranda! I can’t believe I didn’t think of this earlier.”

“Now, Tansy,” Aunt Hypatia said, an edge to her voice that none of her nephews or nieces would dare to ignore, “don’t get carried away. It’s just a thought, a matter for prayer. Odelia was simply mentioning a possibility in passing, one she would have done better to keep to herself, obviously.”

“There must be something I can do,” Tansy went on, ignoring Hypatia. “Anna never has more than a few dates with a fellow. If I leave it to her, she’ll never marry.”

Reeves had his doubts about that. Plenty of men were bound to be interested in a woman as attractive and clever as Anna Miranda. Just not him. True, he’d seen a different side of her this morning, a compelling side, but she had demonstrated that the brat was ready and willing to reemerge at a moment’s notice, and he had no intention of dealing with that. Best to nip the idiotic notion in the bud right now. Sucking in a deep breath, he strode through the doorway.

Hypatia winced as Odelia exclaimed with innocent delight. “Reeves! We were just talking about you.” Red enamel hoops a good two inches wide dangled from her earlobes.

“So I heard.”

Mags asked warily, “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

Reeves gave her a frown. “Yes, and I would be if I hadn’t left my laptop in my room.” He settled a narrow look on Tansy Burdett, adding, “Fortunately.”

“Reeves, dear,” Hypatia began apologetically, “please don’t think—”

“No, no,” Tansy interrupted, getting to her feet. “Do think about it. You need a wife. My granddaughter needs a husband.”

Reeling from that pronouncement, Reeves watched as she drew herself up to her full height, which must have been all of five feet, including the tall thick heels of her brown pumps and the helmet-like perfection of her chin-length, pale yellow hair. Slight and angular, with sharp features and faded blue eyes, she wore a white cotton blouse and a straight skirt beneath a boxy jacket.

“And that’s all there is to it?” he scoffed, incredulous.

Lifting her chin, Tansy met him eye to eye and proclaimed, “You’re a good Christian man with a sound head on your shoulders, despite the mistake you made the first time around. Besides, Anna Miranda’s always had a thing for you.”

Now that was absurd. Anna Miranda had a thing for him, all right. He’d always been her favorite target, a butt for jokes, a subject for pranks, an object of ridicule.

“I have no intention of marrying again,” Reeves said to Tansy, exasperated, “and certainly not to—” He couldn’t even say it. Anna Miranda Burdett and him? Instead, he turned on his aunties, focusing on Hypatia. “Surely you do not believe that she…we…. Tell me you haven’t been matchmaking.”

“Now, Reeves,” Hypatia said calmly, “it was nothing more than idle chatter. We merely agreed to pray about it, that’s all.”

“Pray as you like, Aunt Hypatia,” he grit out, “but leave my private life to me!” He hadn’t meant to raise his voice, but he had done just that, which was why he winced and said, “Sorry.”

“No offense taken, dear,” Hypatia remarked meekly. “It’s just that we’re so concerned for you and Gilli.”

“She needs a mother, dear,” Odelia put in.

“She has a mother,” he snapped, knowing that in Marissa’s case it was little more than a title, despite the allusions and veiled threats of late.

Marissa continued to complain of financial difficulty, and lately she’d started mentioning that she missed Gilli. For their daughter’s sake, he wished that were so, but he knew better. Marissa had no more desire to see Gilli than she’d had to give birth to her. He regretted offering her joint custody now, but at the time he’d hoped she would actually use it to be part of their daughter’s life, not browbeat him for money.

And they thought they could convince him to marry again!

All three of the aunties bowed their heads in contrition. Tansy merely flattened her mouth and tugged at the hem of her jacket, sharp chin aloft, before dropping back down into her chair with a huff.

Reeves pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closed, and counted to ten before carefully saying, “Look, I appreciate your concern, but I don’t want any more talk about matchmaking, not with Anna Miranda, not with anyone. Is that clear?” The aunts gave him nods and wan smiles. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he managed, “I have to get to the office.” Turning on his heel, he swiftly left the room and headed for the stairs.

Behind him, he heard Odelia say, “Poor Reeves.”

“No more matchmaking talk,” Hypatia instructed quickly.

Poor Reeves. How pathetic. The thought of the aunties meddling in his life both shocked and hurt, but he knew that he really had no one to blame except himself. He had mucked it all up. Sighing, he hurried up the stairs, intent on getting that laptop and out of the house before anything else could happen to delay him.

But he could not get over the thought of Anna Miranda and him as a couple.

Wherever would the aunts get such a preposterous idea? Anna Miranda Burdett and him! He wondered how long it would be before he could get that ridiculous notion out of his head.

Anna’s determination to show Reeves that his aunts were right to trust her with this project only grew after their meeting in the coffee shop. That resolve turned a couple days of work into four, but excitement gripped her as she waited at the sunny yellow, black-framed door at the front of the enormous house late that next Friday afternoon. Chester Worth, the Chatam’s long-time driver and houseman, opened it for her.

“Miss Anna, come on in here out of the cold.”

“Thank you, Chester.” She held a soft spot for Chester, who had never in her memory referred to her as anything but Miss Anna. “I called ahead. The Chatams should be expecting me.”

“They surely are. Miss Hypatia and Miss Odelia are in the parlor, and Miss Magnolia will join y’all shortly. I’ll bring in the tea soon as she shows up.”

Anna smiled. “I’ll let the others know.”

Chester went on his way, and Anna walked into the spacious, elegant front parlor. Odelia hopped up and hurried forward to hug her, chains of orange crystals hanging from her earlobes. She wore a long, multi-colored, gathered skirt with a melon pink blouse, wide black belt and purple vest. Hypatia, in contrast, looked the picture of prim wealth in a tailored, moss-green pantsuit and pearls. She, too, rose and came to meet Anna with a smile and handclasp.

They were still exchanging greetings when Mags trundled into the room, smelling of loam and flowers. She seemed to own only one dress, or else they all looked alike. This one she wore with a pair of brown slacks, a moth-eaten gray cardigan and red-rimmed black galoshes. Anna managed not to laugh. Mags beamed back at her and plopped down on the settee.

Anna quickly extracted three copies of four designs from her portfolio, passing them to the sisters. They were still exclaiming over her nature design when Chester arrived with the tea tray. A quarter-hour later, they sat balancing delicate, steaming Limoges teacups on matching saucers while Anna explained the second design to them. Odelia, predictably, gushed, but Mags screwed up her face at the ribbons and lace, while Hypatia made the sort of nice comments that one made when complimenting a beaming bride in a particularly heinous gown. She was obviously better pleased with the “biblical” design that followed.

Finally, Anna introduced the fourth rendering. “This,” she said neutrally, “is something of a combination of the other three in what I like to think of as the definitive Chatam House spirit.”

The effect was immediate, gasps, clattering of cups and saucers, oohs of pleasure.

“Anna Miranda,” Hypatia exclaimed, holding out the sheet to gaze at it, “this is…”

“Gorgeous!” Odelia finished for her.

Mags actually sniffed. “Those are magnolias in the swag, aren’t they?”

“Seemed apt,” Anna told her with a fond, pleased smile.

Hypatia placed the sheet of paper reverently atop the piecrust tea table and folded her hands. “Well, I think it’s obvious—”

Suddenly Odelia interjected herself. “Oh, but the romantic one is so…romantic.”

Mags sat up straight. “What are you talking about?”

“Now, I know you prefer the nature one,” Odelia cut in, “but this is an important decision. It needs time.” Ophelia tapped the little watch pendant pinned to her blouse and waved obliquely toward the door.

Mags stared at her for a moment then her eyebrows shot up. “But he said—”

“Talk,” Odelia interrupted hurriedly. “No more talk. E-except about the design.”

Mags blinked at that then she cleared her throat. “Ah. Well, it’s just that m-my idea is the best. Uh, the way Anna Miranda has designed it, that is.”

“Now, sisters,” Hypatia began sternly, but once more Odelia charged in.

“You don’t agree that we should talk about the designs a little more?”

Hypatia seemed uncomfortable. She actually fidgeted, shifting her trim weight side to side. Anna sat fascinated, not at all certain what was going on but entranced by the sisterly byplay. She said not a word as Odelia and Magnolia entered into a spirited debate of their individual preferences.

Some minutes later, Chester entered to remove the tea tray. Bending over it, he looked straight at Odelia and announced, “Mr. Reeves is home.”

With that, he straightened and exited the room. Odelia popped up and scuttled after him as far as the doorway. At the same time, footsteps could be heard in the back of the central hallway. Odelia produced a lace-edged hanky, which she began waving.

“Yoo-hoo! Reeves, dear! Can you help us please?”

Several heartbeats passed, during which the only sound was that of Hypatia softly moaning. Finally, Reeves said, “Of course.”

Anna twisted in her chair and leaned over the arm to watch Odelia grasp his elbow and pull him bodily into the parlor.

“We just can’t decide,” she trilled, tugging him forward. “Anna Miranda’s done such a marvelous job for us, but we just can’t agree. Give us your opinion, won’t you?”

She hauled him over to the table, where Magnolia laid out the four options for him. Reeves slid a hooded glance at Anna before quickly bending over the table. Anna held her breath. After a moment, he turned a look in her direction, surprised appreciation in his copper-brown eyes.

“These are quite good.”

She managed a blasé nod and a dry, “Thanks.”

He went back to the designs, tapping the fourth with the tip of one forefinger. “This one’s the best.”

Anna stifled a crow of delight.

“Well,” Hypatia said, sounding relieved, “that’s that.”

Odelia jerked, all but physically throwing herself back into the fray. “Oh, but…what about the staff?”

“The staff?” Mags echoed.

“They ought to have a say in this. We’ll be depending on them, after all, to keep everything running smoothly the night of the auction.”

“Odelia,” Hypatia said wearily, pressing her fingertips to her temples.

Undetered, Odelia began gathering up the designs. “I know, we’ll take these back to the kitchen.” She nudged her sisters to their feet. “We’ll each make our case, and see what Chester, Hilda and Carol have to say. That seems fair, doesn’t it?”

Hypatia sighed and sent an apologetic look to Reeves, who lifted a hand to the back of his neck. Absolutely no one, including Anna, was surprised when Odelia turned to him and instructed, “Now, Reeves, dear, you’ll entertain Anna Miranda for us for a few minutes, won’t you?” She began pushing and shooing her sisters from the room. “So rude to leave her sitting here on her own, you know.”

Anna watched the whole thing in bemused fascination, especially the part where Odelia winked at Reeves then pinched her thumb and forefinger together and drew them across her lips in a zipping motion.

“Yeah, thanks for that,” he said wryly.

Anna waited until their footsteps receded before favoring him with a direct look, her elbows braced against the arms of the chair. “What on earth is that about?”

“Don’t ask,” he grumbled, sliding his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “Just let this be a lesson to you. Be very, very exact when dealing with my aunts.”

“They can be a little…scattered.”

He snorted. “That’s one word for it.”

“Actually, I think they’re very sweet.”

“Well, of course, they’re sweet!” he exclaimed. “That’s half the problem.”

“What problem?” she shot back, stung. “I wasn’t aware there was a problem, unless having to give your opinion has strained your brain.”

“Ha-ha. Very funny. I hope you didn’t pull a muscle coming up with that one.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake!” Anna shot to her feet and sidestepped the table. Why did he have to be so difficult, anyway? She thought they’d gotten past this.

Just then, Anna caught a muffled roaring sound, followed swiftly by a shrill, elongated scream. The next instant, Gilli burst into the room, wailing like a police siren, and shot across the floor on, of all things, roller skates, the cheap plastic sort that strapped over the soles of the shoes. She headed straight for the antique Empire breakfront in the corner. Reeves leapt forward to snatch up a priceless Tiffany lamp, while Anna lunged with outstretched arms for Gilli.

The pair of them went down in a tangle of limbs. Fortunately, they missed the tall Federal table in the center of the floor and the enormous flower arrangement atop it. A small elbow landed in Anna’s midsection, knocking the air out of her in a painful rush. For one long moment, all was silent and still. Then a sigh gusted forth, and Reeve’s handsome head, paired up nicely with a stained glass lampshade, appeared above her.

“And so,” he muttered, “goes my life.”

Anna laughed. The look on his face, the droll tone of his voice, the memory of Gilli’s flailing arms as she flew across the floor, even the collision that had Anna on her back—again—gazing up at his resigned, hangdog expression, it all suddenly seemed like something out of an old slapstick comedy. Oh, how little he appreciated that, but his frowns merely made her laugh that much harder. It had been a long time since she’d had this much fun. Too long. She pushed up onto her elbows, Gilli sprawled all over her, and as was too often the case, said the first thing that came to mind.

“You know something, Stick? I’ve missed you.”

He couldn’t have looked more appalled if she’d decorated him with her lunch, but that didn’t change a thing. She had missed him. She had missed him every single day since he’d graduated from high school, and some part of her always would.

She had missed him.

The idea warmed, shocked and alarmed Reeves all at the same time. He recognized the glow in the corner of his heart with disgust. Was he so desperate to be loved that even an offhanded quip from a girl who had all but tortured him could produce such a reaction? Or was it Tansy and the aunties who had put that into his mind?

Groaning, he decided that God must be punishing him. That had to be the case. Yet, had Solomon not written that the Lord disciplines those He loves?

But does it have to be her, Lord? he asked in silent prayer. Isn’t Gilli enough?

Horrified that he’d thought of his own child as punishment, Reeves reached down a hand to help as Gilli began struggling up onto her knees. It was Anna Miranda’s hand that found his, however, and with his other still clutching the Tiffany lamp, he had little choice but to haul her up. She came to her feet with a little hop and a cheeky smile. Gilli collapsed upon the hardwood floor and began to wail as if she’d broken all four limbs.

Tamping down his impatience with such melodrama, Reeves turned to set aside the lamp so he could help his daughter up, but when he turned back, she was already on her feet, thanks to Anna Miranda. Gilli abruptly yanked away from her, and threw herself at Reeves with a cry of outrage, her skates slipping and sliding as she clamped her arms around his thighs. Reeves sent an embarrassed look at Anna Miranda before grasping Gilli by the shoulders and holding her far enough away that he could look down into her face. He saw more petulance there than pain or fear.

“Cut it out,” he ordered over the din of phony sobs.

“I fell down!” she defended hotly.

The last tenuous thread of Reeves’s patience snapped. “I said to cut it out!” he roared. As he rarely raised his voice to her, Gilli was shocked into frozen silence.

Not so Anna Miranda, who brought her hands to her slender hips and snapped, “You cut it out. It’s all your own fault, you know.”

Exasperated, Reeves glared at her. “My fault? I didn’t come flying in here on skates.”

“No, but you might have taught her to skate properly before this,” Anna reasoned.

Gilli immediately seized on that notion. “Yes, Daddy! Teach me! Please, please!”

He ignored her, focusing on the one who’d opened this can of worms. “And how am I supposed to do that?” he demanded. “Look at her. She’s not old enough for that.”

“I am!” Gilli insisted, her tears suddenly dried.

“Of course she is,” Anna Miranda agreed, folding her arms.

“I think I know my daughter better than you do, thank you very much. Besides, I don’t even own a pair of skates myself, let alone all the necessary safety equipment for the two of us.”

“So get some,” Anna Miranda retorted.

“I got skates!” Gilli interjected desperately. “Real skates. My mama brought them at Christmas.”

“Sent them,” Reeves corrected distractedly. “She sent you a pair of roller skates, but they’re too big for you.” Gilli had waited with breathless anticipation for her mother to arrive for Christmas as Marissa had promised during her one visit some six months ago, but all that had arrived was a crumpled card and a pair of roller skates with hard pink-and-purple plastic boots two sizes too large.

“They’re not too big!” Gilli insisted. “And I’m old. I am!”

Reeves pinched the bridge of his nose. “Gilli, I’m not going to argue about this. All I need is you flailing around here on skates. You’ll break a leg. Or worse.”

“All the more reason to teach her,” Anna Miranda insisted.

It was the last straw for Reeves. Lifting Gilli by her upper arms, he sat her in a nearby Victorian lyre-back chair and began stripping off the cheap demi-skates, which consisted of nothing more than rollers attached to a platform that belted to shoes with fasteners. He’d thought to placate her with them when she’d discovered that she couldn’t wear the “real” skates that her mother had sent, but he hadn’t realized she could get the demi ones on by herself, which was why he hadn’t refused when she’d insisted on bringing both pairs with her to Chatam House.

“When you become a parent,” he told Anna Miranda coldly, “maybe your opinion will matter.”

“You know what your problem is, Stick?” she shot back. “Your problem is that you were never a child.”

Straightening, he whirled. “That’s rich coming from someone who has obviously never grown up!”

“And who never wants to, if growing up means achieving pure stupidity.”

“Stupid would be teaching my daughter to do something so dangerous as skating!”

“As opposed to letting her teach herself, I suppose.”

“As opposed to dropping these in the nearest trash can!” he yelled, holding up the skates by their plastic straps.

Gilli threw herself off the chair and pelted from the room, yowling her outrage at the top of her lungs. Reeves sighed, slumping dejectedly. Wow, he’d handled that well. Once more, he’d let the brat get to him, and he didn’t mean his daughter. What was it about Anna Miranda Burdett that turned him into a crude adolescent? And why could he never hit the right note with his daughter?

Father, forgive me, he prayed, squeezing his eyes shut. I fail at every turn, and I’m as tired of me as You must be. In the name of Christ Jesus, please help me do better!

He sucked in a deep breath and grated out an apology. “I didn’t mean to shout.”

“Well, you sure do plenty of it” was Anna Miranda’s droll reply. She glared at him from behind folded arms.

Suddenly, Reeves craved a run with every fiber of his being. Maybe some exercise and a long, private talk with God would give him the serenity and clarity to deal with this latest insanity. Loosening his tie, he said to Anna Miranda in what he felt was a very reasonable tone, “Please tell my aunts that I’ve gone for a run before dinner.”

Some seconds ticked by before she reluctantly nodded. Reeves headed for his room and the numb exhaustion of a hard run in the February cold, more heartsick than angry now and helpless to do a thing about any of it.

Intellectually, he knew that Gilli’s behavior had to do with her mother’s abandonment. Marissa hadn’t even said goodbye to Gilli before she’d slammed out of the house and run down the drive to jump onto the back of her boyfriend’s motorcycle, which made her recent communication all the more absurd. Marissa had been a pitiful mother, but Gilli couldn’t know that. All she knew was that her mother had walked out, and she seemed to blame him. It hurt far more than he would ever let on. In fact, nothing in his life had ever made Reeves feel like such a failure as Gilli’s resentment of him, which was undoubtedly why he had been so rude to Anna Miranda just now. For some reason, it embarrassed him to have her know in how little regard his own daughter held him.

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