that would profit the majority. She glanced at her desk cal-
endar, surprised to see that the month was nearly half over,
with less than two weeks until Christmas! Well, hopefully TS
Development wouldn't be able to accomplish too much
before the end of the year. Maybe by that time, if all went
well, Gavin would get the go-ahead from his developer
friend, Stan Williams, and the competition would quickly be
set into motion. Gavin had mentioned just this morning that
he planned to spend much of the day researching county per-
mits and some necessary land use information that Stan had
asked him about. He wanted to get everything in place just
as soon as possible. The hardest thing, she thought, would
be for them to keep this wonderful possibility under their
hats.
"Excuse me, Maggie," called Abigail's voice on the
-intercom. "Barbara Harris is here hoping to see you. She said Looking for YouAllMy Life245
she didn't have an appointment and doesn't want to disturb
you, but-"
"It's not a problem at all. I'll be right there," answered
Maggie, thinking she could use a friendly face just now. She
went out to the reception area and handed Abigail the peti-
tion she'd just received from Buckie and Kate. "Will you
make a couple copies of this, please, and give one to Scott?"
Then she greeted Barbara and led her into her office. "It's so
nice to see you again, Barbara. Have a seat and tell me how
you're doing."
Barbara sat down and removed her soft leather gloves.
Then she rubbed her hands together and smiled as if she
were keeping some delicious secret to herself. "Well, I just
don't know quite where to begin, my dear."
Having no idea what she was referring to, Maggie just
shrugged. "Well, why don't you just start at the beginning?"
"All right, I will. You see, I went to Galloway's Deli for
one of those wonderful raisin scones that Rosa bakes fresh
every morning. And I happened to mention to her that I was
sorry to have missed going to church yesterday. Between you
and me, because Michael wasn't preaching, I didn't much
feel like going. I know that's not very good of me, but it's the
truth. Anyway, Rosa told me that it was the last service
they'd be having up at Jed's beautiful mountain cabin, and
why, that just made me feel so very, very sad. I've never been
a churchgoing person, but something about being up there,
well, that, combined with Michael's eloquent sermons, just
seemed very special to me somehow.. so, anyway-" She
stopped abruptly and looked at Maggie. "Goodness, dear, I
hope I'm not keeping you from anything important."
Maggie shook her head, feeling slightly confused. "On
the contrary, you've really aroused my curiosity. Please, con-
tinue your tale."
"So, I asked Rosa where the church would be meeting in