ance about your relationship."
222Melody Carlson
"He needs reassurance? Good grief, what about me? I'm
not even sure we still even have a relationship. And now he's
going to be gone for the better part of a week." Maggie
groaned. "And by the time he gets back, it'll be almost
Christmas-and Barry and Rebecca will be here by then.
Then we have the wedding to prepare for. Why, I'll be lucky
if I can have a conversation with him sometime next year."
Audrey laughed. "You may be a little overdramatic about
the whole thing. And by the way, don't you think we should
invite Jed and Leah to join us for Christmas too? Who else
do they have? And, of course, Michael is staying here..."
She brightened. "Yes. Of course, you're right, Mom. The
voice of reason wins out again.
"And don't you think we should be getting a Christmas
--tree up soon?"
"Right. Now that Spence is out of his cast, maybe we can
cut one down ourselves. I've heard that you can get a permit
to cut them right out of the woods. Can you imagine? We'll
be just like a real wilderness family." Suddenly Maggie rec-
ognized that the excitement of preparing for the holidays
was returning to her-something she hadn't felt since Phil's
death. "I just hope I can find where we put all our Christmas
decorations. They may be buried beneath a pile of other
boxes out in the barn, but we can dig them out."
"That's my girl," cheered Audrey. "That's the spirit."
Maggie smiled. "I guess I was kind of down, wasn't I?
Well, the cookies and pep talk were good medicine, Mom."
"Sometimes, back in my counseling days, I wanted to
give cookies to my patients, but I was afraid it wouldn't look
very professional."
"I don't know. Just think, you could have hung out a sign
that said 'counseling and cookies' and made a fortune," sug-
gested Maggie.
"You know, you could be on to something with that
idea."
Looking for You All My Life223
Then Maggie told her all about Gavin's new idea to
develop the property just north of them as a way to oppose
Pine Mountain Estates.
"And how do you feel about getting a ready-made com-
munity like that?" asked her mother.
"Okay, I guess. At least I'll have the assurance that it'll be
done right. And Clyde said I could sit on the board if I like,
and that way I'd have a say about things. I do sort of miss
having neighbors. Not that they'd be all that 'close-barely
within walking distance really."
"My, for a sleepy little town, how quickly things change
around here."
"We're all keeping quiet about this idea, at least for the