Sara said, rushing to take his other arm and hold on to him until he recovered his balance. She didn’t look at Max. She couldn’t.
“Don’t give it another thought, my dear,” the undertaker said. “It was more my fault than yours. After all, I collided with you.”
Because she’d stopped dead in front of him. But Sara kept that to herself. Why give her friends and neighbors yet another reason to ridicule her?
Mr. Fellowes patted her hand, absently peering around him.
“Is something wrong? Aside from the obvious,” Sara added, sending the snickering crowd her best glare, the one that always silenced her third-grade class. It didn’t surprise her that it worked on the people of Erskine.
“I’m fine,” Mr. Fellowes said. “Only…you haven’t seen my eyeglasses, have you? I’m afraid I lost them when I bumped into you.”
“I’m sure they’re around here somewhere.” Sara took a step back and heard a sickening crunch. “Um…I think I found them.”
On the bright side, it was deathly quiet again. Except for the person at the back of the growing crowd who yelled, “I won!”
All Sara could think was that she’d lost. Again.
“SO WHAT DID YOU DO THEN?” Janey Walters asked, picking at the sweet-and-sour pork and cashew chicken still left on her plate.
“I did what I always do,” Sara said glumly. She’d assured Mr. Fellowes and Mrs. Barnett that she’d make reparation, and given Yee’s delivery boy all the cash she had on her. He’d insisted she take the sack of Chinese food, the little white containers mostly intact despite their foray into the world of flight. In the interests of escape, she’d accepted it without argument and hightailed it to Janey’s big Victorian house on the edge of town. “Max tried to talk me into going to the diner with him and Joey, but…” She raised one shoulder and let it fall again, her eyes on her plate of untouched Chinese food.
“The teasing didn’t use to bother you so much,” Janey observed.
“It’s not really the teasing, it’s just…” Sara sighed. “I don’t really know what it is, Janey. I couldn’t face the town, and I definitely couldn’t face Max.”
“Why not? Isn’t this partly his fault?”
“He can’t help how he feels.”
“Yes, he can. If he could see past the end of his nose—”
Sara shoved her plate away and bent forward, banging her head lightly on the tabletop.
Janey bit back the rest of what she’d been about to say. She felt as if she were swallowing a pincushion, but what kind of friend would she be if she vented her own anger and frustration when Sara was in no condition to hear it? “At least we got dinner out of it,” she said, instead.
Sara straightened, managing a half smile. “Cold, slightly bruised Chinese food?”
Janey shrugged. “Nothing a microwave couldn’t fix. And it beats leftovers, which is what was on the menu since I was dining solo tonight.” Jessie, her nine-year-old daughter, was across the street having dinner with Mrs. Halliwell. Jessie didn’t have any grandparents, Mrs. Halliwell didn’t have any grandchildren, and it gave Janey a night off, so everybody got something out of the arrangement.
She pushed back from the table and went to the fridge, returning with a half gallon of ice cream and a bottle of chocolate syrup. “And since you brought the main course, the least I can do is supply dessert.”
Sara took a spoon and the chocolate syrup, scooting her chair closer to Janey’s so she could be in easier reach of the calorie comfort. “What would I do without you?”
“I don’t know.” Janey took a big spoonful of ice cream, closing her eyes and moaning in sheer delight. “I can tell you one thing, though. Without you I’d still be a size eight. I’ve eaten so much ice cream in commiseration that none of my pants fit anymore. But you, you rat, haven’t gained an ounce.”
“Embarrassment burns a lot of calories,” Sara said around a mouthful of ice cream. “I’m thinking of writing a diet book.”
“I don’t think it’ll catch on.”
“It’s not the most pleasant way to lose weight.”
Janey shook her head. “It’s just that most women can’t stick to a diet for six days. You’ve been embarrassing yourself over Max ever since you came to Erskine.”
“Six years.” Sara set her spoon in the carton and sat back in her chair. Hearing it like that made the egg roll and ice cream in her stomach simmer and stir unpleasantly. Not that it wasn’t the truth, but having the past half decade of her life boiled down to that one basic truth made her feel like throwing up.
She’d met Max Devlin when she was nineteen, a bright-eyed, eager sophomore at Boston College. Max had been a senior, there on a track scholarship, and her student advisor; he’d always known somehow when she needed a sympathetic ear or a comforting shoulder, and he’d never failed to provide it—for the short time he could.
Before midterms, Max received news that his grandfather had died suddenly. Sara had ached for him, but even if she could have found a way to help him through his grief, there’d been no opportunity. He’d lost his father to a riding accident before he’d graduated from high school, and his mother had remarried and moved to Europe. With his grandfather gone, there’d been no one to run the ranch, and Max had been faced with a choice—sell or stay home. He never came back to Boston.
Time passed, Max married, and Sara convinced herself that what she’d felt for him was nothing but gratitude for the kindness he’d shown a shy, sheltered young woman out on her own in the world. They’d kept in touch, but the frequency had dropped significantly; Max didn’t have a lot of free time on his hands.
Not that Sara did, either. After graduating from college with a degree in education, her father convinced her to take a job in his company, training men and women with master’s and doctorate degrees how to use software systems they fobbed off on their admins anyway.
When Max’s marriage ended, leaving him with a two-year-old to look after and a ranch to run, Sara hadn’t hesitated. She’d arrived in Montana, a city girl so far out of her element she’d wondered how the ranchers punched cows without hurting their hands. She’d only planned to stay long enough to help Max get things under control, but every time she mentioned leaving, he got such a look of abandonment on his face she hadn’t had the heart to go through with it. In the end, it was her heart that had kept her there.
Looking back now, she could barely remember the decisions she’d made in those first confusing weeks after she realized she was in love with Max. Not that she regretted taking a job teaching third grade; she’d always longed to teach children anyway. Her new job was so much more rewarding than what she’d been doing in Boston. And it had just made sense for her to move into the old, unused bunkhouse on Max’s ranch so she could be closer to Joey. And Max. Someday, she’d hoped, he would fall in love with her and make them a family.
But it seemed that Julia had taken something with her, after all, when she’d walked out of Max’s life. His heart.
“I’m sorry, Sara,” Janey said, “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
Sara dismissed that nonsense with a wave of her hand. “My feelings aren’t hurt, Janey. I’m just beginning to wonder what I’ve been doing here all these years.”
“Sounds like you’ve been talking to your mother again.”
Sara looked up, surprised. “I talk to my mother every week.”
“And she always campaigns for you to move back to Boston, so what’s different this time?”
“Maybe she’s right. Maybe Max won’t ever see me as more than a friend.”
Janey’s