The Maverick's Return

“I like hamburgers, Mom,” Janie reminded her pointedly.

Anne surrendered, secretly relieved that she was getting out of this so easily. Janie would normally grill her a lot longer.

“Okay, hamburgers it is,” she told her daughter. “But later on, when you’re staring down at your plate and you decide that you would have wanted to have something a little fancier, just remember, the hamburgers were your idea.”

“I’ll remember,” Janie promised.

Anne opened the refrigerator to make sure she had the necessary main ingredient for this particular “feast.” She did.

“Okay,” she said to Janie, closing the refrigerator door again. “Now go do your homework.”

“I can do it after dinner,” Janie protested, suddenly acting her age again.

“Yes, I know. I also know it’s better to get your homework out of the way first so that you don’t have it hanging over your head all evening. Remember, your father’s coming to pick you up for a sleepover tonight.”

Janie sighed dramatically, accepting defeat. “Okay, okay, if you don’t want my bright, shining face looking up at you adoringly while you cook, I will go and do my homework.”

Eleven, going on thirty, Anne thought with a smile. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll see your bright, shining face looking at me from across the dining room table at dinner—after you finish your homework.”

Janie walked away, shaking her head. “You know, you should have been a teacher, not a receptionist,” the little girl complained.

“Oh no,” Anne answered, pretending to shudder at the very thought of being a teacher. “Corralling one student is all I can handle. I’d never survive a whole classroom full of them,” Anne assured her daughter. “Now go, make me proud.”

A giant, deep-down-from-her-toes sigh was her daughter’s only response.

Anne’s laugh was followed by a soft sigh as another memory corkscrewed through her. Janie was just like Danny had been at that age. Bright, sunny, eager to twist things until he got his way. And he always managed to do it without annoying anyone.

Sometimes, when she looked at Janie, she could really see Danny. See his face, see his mannerisms.

Anne could feel a tightening in the pit of her stomach again.

She supposed that was what had gotten her started today. Remembering what it had been like when she and Danny had been together.

Well, you just stop it right now! she ordered herself fiercely. She didn’t have time for this. There was no point in thinking about someone who hadn’t been in her life for twelve years.

Anne glanced at her watch. It was still early. Dinner was not for another hour and a half. Since Janie wanted hamburgers, dinner would take no more than fifteen minutes to prepare. That left her with enough time to do something she could actually regard as being fun.

That didn’t happen very often.

So infrequently, as a matter of fact, that she couldn’t think of anything right off the bat.

Stumped, she was tempted to call her daughter back into the room. They could watch a program together, one of those cartoons that Janie used to love so much when she was a little girl. Granted Janie was almost an adult—or so her daughter liked to think—but Anne knew that Janie secretly still loved watching animated films, especially the ones that were well made and had heart.

Heaven only knew how much longer that would last, Anne mused, going into the family room and looking at the television guide. It wouldn’t be all that long before Janie would feel obligated to turn her back on everything and anything that was connected to the little girl she had once been.

It was a rite of passage, Anne thought sadly.

She was just about to turn on the TV and call her daughter into the family room when she heard the doorbell.

Someone was at her door.

Anne looked at her watch. Ordinarily, she would be still at the animal clinic at this time. Her friends all knew that, which meant that this wasn’t a social call. And it was way too early for Hank.

Maybe one of her neighbors had seen that her car was in the driveway and was bringing over their beloved dog or cat for some free medical advice. For some reason, some of her neighbors thought that just because she worked at the vet clinic, she knew everything that the vets did.

Only one way to find out who was at her door, she thought with a resigned sigh.

She went to the door, preparing to dispatch the neighbor and their pet as quickly as possible.

Opening the door, Anne said, “What seems to be the problem?” before she actually looked at the person who was standing on her doorstep.

The word problem came out as more of a squeak than an actual word.

Her heart was suddenly pounding in her ears. Anne blinked, just in case she actually was seeing things.

The person on her doorstep didn’t vanish, didn’t change.

She had imagined this very scene so many times in the last dozen years, she couldn’t even begin to count them. Now that it actually seemed to be taking place, she felt as if her entire body had been dipped in glue, then held fast against some invisible canvas. She was unable to move.

Unable to even breathe.

All she could do was stare at him in complete disbelief.

Slowly, she fought back from the emotional paralysis that held her in its grip, struggling to say something, a sentence, a word.

A sound.

“Hello, Anne.”

His deep voice rumbled, the sound echoing within her very chest, interfering with the beat of her heart, or what might have passed for a beat right now if it wasn’t as paralyzed as the rest of her.

Finally, with the inside of her mouth drier than the desert and swiftly turning into sand, Anne forced herself to say something.

Or rather, to say a word. A name.

His name.

“Danny?” she asked hoarsely, her throat all but closing up.

She saw a smile, that same faint, funny little smile she had loved so well, curve his lips just before he confirmed what she was asking.

“Yes, Anne, it’s me.”

The moment he said that, she felt them. Felt the tears that she had been harboring within her for the last twelve years, tears she’d forbade herself to ever shed, even once. She had been able to maintain almost superhuman control over herself, afraid that if she ever allowed herself to cry, to shed so much as a single tear, then there would be no way to stop the flow.

Twelve years’ worth of tears.

Anne bit her lower lip, desperately trying to prevent them from falling. Struggling to keep from losing the battle she felt she was doomed to lose.

And then she heard him hesitantly say her name again, the name he used to call her, when the world was so full of possibilities and their love was brand-new.

“Annie?”

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