only stipulation for the divorce was that their secret would remain a secret. As far as Janie and everyone else in Rust Creek Falls knew, he was Janie’s father. Anne agreed and Hank continued to cherish the role of father.
As for the divorce, though it was sudden, no one really questioned it. Their friends and family all just assumed that she had been too young to get married and that, most important of all, she had married Hank while still on the rebound from Danny.
Anne never told anyone otherwise, thinking it was best for Janie if everyone just went on believing that. That way, they wouldn’t go digging any further.
And her secret would remain just that, a secret. There was no reason for it to be otherwise.
Anne sighed as she pushed the memories aside. Instead, she rummaged through her pantry for dinner ingredients, not really sure what it was that she was looking for.
“What’s the matter, Mom?” Janie asked.
Anne blinked, realizing that she’d allowed herself to really drift off. She hadn’t even heard her daughter come into the kitchen. Facing her now, she quickly offered Janie a smile.
“What makes you ask that? There’s nothing the matter, honey,” she told her daughter a bit too quickly.
“Yes, there is,” Janie insisted. “You’ve got that funny look on your face, that look you get when something’s wrong.”
At eleven, Janie looked younger because of her size. She was a shade under four foot ten and weighed seventy-five pounds, making the blue-eyed blonde smaller than average. Despite that, Janie acted older. Sometimes, Anne had the feeling that her daughter was the adult and she was still that young girl who had fallen head over heels for Danny Stockton.
But this was not the time to indulge herself or wallow in old memories that belonged locked away in the past.
She knew that Janie was waiting for her to say something. She said the first thing that came to her mind. “I’m just trying to figure out what to make for dinner,” she told her daughter. It wasn’t exactly the most creative excuse, but for now, it was all she had. “Any suggestions?”
“How about hamburgers?” Janie asked brightly.
Anne shook her head. “Hamburgers are for when I don’t really have time to make dinner. The whole point of my coming home early is that I could make you something special.”
Far more intuitive than most girls her age, Janie was immediately alert. She looked at her mother suspiciously. “Are you going away, Mom?”
Caught completely off guard, her daughter’s question surprised her. Why would Janie think something like that? “No—”
“Am I going away?” Janie wanted to know.
Not for the first time, she couldn’t help thinking that her daughter was exceptionally bright. Janie could always pick up on her moods and seemed to instinctively know if something was bothering her—sometimes even before she knew it.
“No, of course not,” Anne denied, making certain that she sounded calm. “Can’t a mom come home early and make something special for her best daughter?”
Janie gave her a look as she said, “I’m your only daughter.”
“There’s that, too,” Anne said with a fond laugh as she gave her daughter a one-armed hug. “My best and only daughter.”
“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
