“No, thank you.” Maggie was glad she could refuse. “I’m meeting my aunt. I’ll ride home with her. She works for Dr. Gordon and his sister.”
“Mrs. Hogan—Cathleen Hogan is your aunt?” His frown was both curious and pleasantly surprised.
“Yes.”
“Forgive me for not introducing myself. I’m Dr. Phillip Gordon.” He extended a hand to her. She noticed his fingers were long and almost femininely slender. “I recall now that Cathleen mentioned she had a niece living with her. I didn’t make the connection that you might be she.”
“I don’t know who I thought you were, either.” Maggie shook hands with him, feeling the strength of his fingers as she tried to remember all that Cathleen had told her about her employers. He had just turned forty, Maggie recalled. Her Aunt Cathleen had said only good things about him. Maggie was more willing to trust her aunt’s judgment than her own. She relaxed her defenses slightly.
“Why don’t you come to the house?” he invited. “I know my sister, Pamela, would like to meet you and the baby.”
Maggie hesitated only an instant before accepting. “All right, and I can let Aunt Cathleen know I’m here.”
The house was every bit as grand on the inside as it looked on the outside. All spacious and airy, decorated in bright California colors, it had cool, tile floors and plush furnishings with a scattering of antiques. There was a certain fragility in its look that spoke of a woman’s influence.
Maggie’s breath was taken away when Dr. Gordon introduced her to his sister. Despite the confinement of the wheelchair, Pamela Gordon personified all that Maggie hoped someday to attain. Her eyes were the warm gray color of her brother’s, but heavily fringed with lashes and a trace of lavender shadow on the eyelids. Her features were slender, like his, but beautifully feminine. Instead of iron-gray hair, hers was silver-blonde and elegantly styled. She was wearing a sleeveless Oriental robe with a mandarin collar, her lifeless legs hidden under the long length of the gown. Everything about her seemed the epitome of beauty and grace. If that wasn’t enough to earn Maggie’s admiration, it was sealed by the blonde woman’s entrancement over Ty.
“May I hold him?” Pamela Gordon asked in a voice that was so softly cultured. Maggie surrendered Ty to her arms. He immediately grabbed a handful of silver-blonde hair. Maggie, who had always been surprised by the strength of a baby’s grip, quickly rescued the lock of hair and freed it from his grasp before he gave it a yank.
“Maybe I’d better hold him,” she apologized.
“Oh, no, please,” Pamela protested and held him a little closer, catching the small hand before it could grasp another handful of hair. “He can pull my hair any time he wants.” She pressed a perfumed cheek close to the baby’s. “He is precious.”
“That is one thing Pamela and I have both missed in life,” Phillip explained in a quiet aside to Maggie, and watched his sister playing with the baby boy. “The joy of having children around.”
When Maggie’s aunt came in a few minutes later to say she was ready to leave, Pamela begged them to stay. “Just a little while longer—long enough to have a cold drink,” she coaxed.
“We can’t,” Maggie refused gently, but firmly. “Grandma Hogan is expecting us. I promised we’d come straight home so she could go to the nursing home early to see Grandpa.” There was a moment of resistance when she started to lift Ty out of Pamela’s arms before the woman reluctantly l
et him go.
“You will come again?” Pamela turned her eager gray eyes to Maggie, so soft and shining, like rich velvet. “And bring Ty?”
“Yes,” Maggie promised.
The next day she wrote Culley another letter while Ty was napping. She described her first earthquake, how she had roped this expensive horse, and how nice Phillip and Pamela Gordon had been to her. It was the first really special thing that had happened to her since coming to California, except giving birth to Ty, of course.
Chapter XVIII
The doorbell rang. Maggie smoothed a hand over the black skirt of her dress. It was the second occasion she’d had reason to wear black in the last two weeks. The first time had been in June to attend Dad Hogan’s funeral. The second was to attend the funeral of Mother Hogan, who had willed herself to die a week after her husband.
Maggie hadn’t cried when her father died, and she had shed no tears with the passing of this elderly couple. She silently wondered if there was something wrong with her—if Chase had taken away her ability to feel things. The strain of keeping it all bottled up inside showed in the tautness of her features, made whiter by the black dress she wore and the jet-black color of her hair.
When she entered the living room of her aunt’s house, Cathleen had already answered the door. Maggie watched with an outward impassivity while her aunt submitted to the compassionate and comforting embrace of Phillip Gordon, then dabbed at her tear-red eyes with a lace handkerchief. Pamela was with him in her wheelchair and hugged Cathleen when the older woman bent to greet her.
Phillip crossed the room, resplendent in a gray suit. He smiled at Maggie in that quiet way of his and took the hands she had unconsciously clasped in front of her. “How are you, Maggie?” he asked and studied the stillness of her features. He knew perfection when he saw it: the balanced contours of bone structure, everything in proper proportion. In no way could his surgical skills improve on the gift of natural beauty.
“I’m fine, thank you,” she replied in an emotionless voice.
His gaze ran over her purposely blank expression. He’d seen this wall erected before the few times she had visited his home. Mostly, it came when she was asked an innocent question about her parents, her childhood, or the father of her illegitimate child. The latter he could understand she would be reluctant to discuss. Yet she didn’t want to talk about her parents, especially her father, or what her life had been like prior to moving to California.
“This must be difficult for you. It is a lot to deal with for someone as young as you are,” Phillip sympathized.
Maggie withdrew her hands, refusing the comfort he offered. “Dying is only hard for those who live.” Her wisdom and experience belied her age.
“Pamela and I stopped to offer our condolences and see if there was anything we could do to help.” He was aware of her rejection. Phillip could not recall meeting anyone so young who had this much pride and independence. “I have already told Cathleen that she should feel free to consult with my attorney if there are any legal questions regarding the estate of her late husband’s parents. As for any medical bills or—”
Maggie stopped him before he could offer any financial assistance. “I believe there was sufficient life insurance to take care of their bills and pay for the funerals. They had no estate, except their personal belongings.” Belatedly, she realized she had been cold in denying his overture of assistance. “It’s kind of you to offer, though.” She smiled somewhat stiffly.