Maggie's Dad Read Online Free Page A

seat on the next commuter flight to Billings, where the nearest airport to Bighorn was located.
    Â 
    Because Wyoming was so sparsely populated, it was lacking in airports. Powell Long, now wealthy and able to afford all the advantages, had an airstrip on his ranch. But there was nowhere in Bighorn that a commercial aircraft, even a commuter one, could land. She knew that Barrie’s stepbrother had a Learjet and that he had a landing strip near Bighorn on his own ranch, but she would never have presumed on Barrie’s good nature to ask for that sort of favor. Besides, she admitted to herself, she was as intimidated by Dawson Rutherford as Barrie was. He, like Powell, was high-powered and aggressivelymasculine. Antonia felt much safer seated on an impersonal commuter plane.
    She rented a car at the airport in Billings and, with the easy acceptance of long distances on the road from her time in Arizona, she set out for Bighorn.
    The countryside was lovely. There were scattered patches of snow, something she hadn’t thought about until it was too late and she’d already rented the car. There was snow on the ground in Billings, quite a lot of it, and although the roads were mostly clear, she was afraid of icy patches. She’d get out, somehow, she told herself. But she did wish that she’d had the forethought to ask her father about the local weather when she’d phoned to say she was leaving Tucson on an early-morning flight. But he was hoarse and she hadn’t wanted to stress his voice too much. He knew when she was due to arrive, though, and if she was too long overdue, she was certain that he’d send someone to meet her.
    She gazed lovingly at the snow-covered mountains, thinking of how she’d missed this country that was home to her, home to generations of her family. There was so much of her history locked into these sweeping mountain ranges and valleys, where lodgepole pines stood like sentinels over shallow, wide blue streams. The forests were green and majestic, looking much as they must have when mountain men plied their trade here. Arizona had her own forests, too, and mountains. But Wyoming was another world. It was home.
    The going got rough the closer to home she went. It was just outside Bighorn that her car slipped on a wide patch of ice and almost went into a ditch. She knew all too well that if she had, there would have been no way she could get the vehicle out, because the slope was too deep.
    With a prayer of thanks, she made it into the small town of Bighorn, past the Methodist Church and the post office and the meat locker building to her father’s big Victorian house on a wide street off the main thoroughfare. She parked in the driveway under a huge cottonwood tree. How wonderful to be home for Christmas!
    There was a decorated tree in the window, all aglow with the lights and ornaments that had been painstakingly purchased over a period of years. She looked at one, a crystal deer, and remembered painfully that Powell had given it to her the Christmas they’d become engaged. She’d thought of smashing it after his desertion, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. The tiny thing was so beautiful, so fragile; like their destroyed relationship. So long ago.
    Her father came to the door in a bathrobe and pajamas, sniffling.
    He hugged her warmly. “I’m so glad you came, girl,” he said hoarsely, and coughed a little. “I’m much better, but the damn doctor wouldn’t let me fly!”
    â€œAnd rightly so,” she replied. “You don’t need pneumonia!”
    He grinned at her. “I reckon not. Can you stay until New Year’s?”
    She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I have to go back the day after Christmas.” She didn’t mention her upcoming doctor’s appointment. There was no need to worry him.
    â€œWell, you’ll be here for a week, anyway. We won’t get to go out much, I’m afraid,