She sat on the edge of her bed with her bathrobe wrapped tightly around her. Her hair was still damp from the shower; her toes were pink from the hot water. A depressing lethargy had taken hold of her. At least she wasn’t in one of her emotional moods, she thought. Lately she’d been succumbing to crying jags. No one knew. She cried quietly with her face stuffed into her pillow. She cried late at night when everyone else was asleep.

There was a soft rap on her closed door. “Maggie, can I come in?”

It was Hank. Probably wondering why she was so late. She should have been dressed half an hour ago, but she couldn’t seem to finish the task. “The door’s unlocked.”

He wore a dark suit with a white shirt and red tie, and the corner of a red silk handkerchief peeked rakishly from his breast pocket. The sight of him made her heart feel like lead in her chest.

Hank Mallone would never want for female companionship, she thought. Once she was out of the scene, women would be flocking to his doorstep. He was sinfully handsome and in a few years he would be wealthy. The contracts for his pies and cider were pouring in. After the first of the year when the pie factory opened, Skogen would be at a hundred-percent employment thanks to Hank.

He sat beside her on the bed and placed a small paper-wrapped box in her hand.

“It’s customary in my family to give a gift on the night of the Christmas party. When I was a little boy, my parents always gave me a special present just before we left. It would be something I could take with me. A pocketknife, or a pair of red socks, or Christmas suspenders. And my dad would always give my mom jewelry. I know this is hard to believe, but in his own way, my dad is actually quite romantic.”

She hadn’t expected this. Wasn’t prepared for it. In the last two months they’d barely spoken, and she harbored a secret fear that he finally wanted her to leave. He’d stopped trying to make conversation, stopped finding excuses to touch her, stopped trying to coax her from her room.

And now he’d given her a gift. She didn’t know what to make of it. She held it in her lap to keep her hands from shaking, but she wasn’t entirely successful. Emotions too long held in check were tumbling to the surface, making it difficult to think, making it difficult not to smile.

For months now she’d treated him badly. And how had he responded to that? He’d bought her a gift!

He sat quietly watching, seeing the confusion in her face, seeing the pain mingling with a sudden infusion of unexpected joy. He’d been waiting for this moment for months, knowing that even if her book wasn’t finished, even if all feelings for him were gone, she’d have to give him this evening.

He drew a shaky breath while she stared at the box. He hadn’t been sure she’d accept it. He wasn’t even sure she’d open it. Now that he saw the range of emotions play across her face, he knew things would work out.

He pulled her onto his lap and cuddled her close to him.

“I haven’t wanted to bother you these past months. I know how hard you’ve been working on your book.”

She thought she owed him an honest reply. “My book is done. It’s been done for a little over a month now.”

He understood her reasons for not telling him. She’d been using the book as an excuse to remain aloof. He’d suspected as much. He hadn’t heard any computer noises lately. The slight hurt, but he struggled not to let it show.

“Can you tell me about it? Is it good?”

Maggie laughed softly. It was an odd question. It was like asking a mother if her firstborn daughter was ugly.

“I’m not sure if it’s good, but it’s sold. I’ve kept my promise. Aunt Kitty’s diary will be published in book form.”

He gave her a squeeze. “I always knew you could do it.”

She liked the sound of pride in his voice, and it triggered a surge of pride in herself, bringing the first rush of excitement over her success.

“I wasn’t that sure,” she said. “I still can’t believe it.”

She was smiling. First with her mouth, then with her eyes, then every vestige of sorrow vanished. It was as if the sun had suddenly come out in all its blinding glory. Maggie Toone wasn’t a woman who took easily to unhappiness.

She remembered the package, and her fingers fumbled with the wrapping paper. “I love presents!” she said. “I love surprises!” She opened the box to find a pair of diamond stud earrings. “Oh!”

He pushed a curl behind her ear so he could see her face more clearly. “Do you like them?”

“Yes! Of course I like them. They’re beautiful. But…”

“But what?”

She slouched against him, some of the old tiredness returning.

“I can’t accept these. This isn’t the sort of present you give to a…” She searched her mind for the appropriate word, but couldn’t find one that defined their relationship. “Friend,” she finally said. “This isn’t the sort of present you give to a friend.”

“It’s the sort of present I give to my best friend.”

“I thought Bubba was your best friend.”

“Bubba is my second best friend.”

She thought he’d given up, but he’d only been lying low. She had to give him something for tenacity. And she had to admit-she was pleased. The dream was dancing around inside of her. She couldn’t control it.

“It isn’t going to work,” she said. “Skogen hasn’t changed.”

He looked confident. “It’ll work. It was never necessary for Skogen to change. You just haven’t seen it yet. You haven’t figured it out.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I was just like you. I had to get away. Trouble was that for a while my problems kept following me. That’s because you can’t run away from your problems. You only end up with the same problems in a new location.

“Then one day I was sitting in a crummy hotel room in Baltimore, and I realized I’d grown up. Somewhere along the line I’d sorted things out. My identity wasn’t dependent upon the people around me. I didn’t need my parents’ attention or approval. I didn’t need to be the class clown or the macho stud or the star quarterback. I just needed to do things I found personally satisfying. Like studying about agriculture, and improving my granny’s apple orchard.

“I think you’re a little like that. I think you needed to get away and write your book. And I think you needed some time alone to get in touch with Maggie Toone.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know if it’s that simple. I don’t know if I can stand the isolation of living on a farm.”

“You’ve imposed your own isolation. We brought your little red car up here, but you haven’t used it. You just need to get yourself out on the road. You need to cuss out a few old ladies, give a few rude hand signals. You need to hit those shopping malls once in a while.”

“Vermont has shopping malls?”

“Mostly we have towns,” he admitted. “But they’re just as good as a mall. Burlington even has a pedestrian street. Doesn’t that get your adrenaline going?”

Not nearly as much as sitting on his lap, Maggie thought. Still, it might be worth an investigation.

“And if you want to get out of the house on a regular basis, you could go back to teaching.”

“No. I don’t think so,” Maggie said. “I think I want to write another book.”

“Have you got an idea?”

She shook her head. “My creative energy hasn’t exactly been at an all-time high.”

“My Uncle Wilbur ran the county newspaper for forty years. He retired in 1901. We have crates and crates of papers in the basement of this house. I went down to check on them the other day. They’re fragile, but they’re still readable. Maybe you could find a new story in one of them.”

Maggie’s heart beat a little faster. Forty years’ worth of old newspapers in her very own basement! It might be worth marrying Hank just for the newspapers alone!

Wait a minute. Hold the phone. She was getting carried away. Okay, so the Gap had come to Vermont and there was a book lurking somewhere in Hank’s cellar. What about all those weird Skogenians who didn’t like her? What about Bubba? What about Vern? What about Mrs. Farnsworth and her quilts?