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  EMILIE RICHARDS

  HANGING BY A THREAD

  EMILIE RICHARDS

  USA TODAY bestselling author Emilie Richards earned a B.A. in American studies from Florida State University, and her master’s in family development from Virginia Tech. She subsequently served as a therapist in a mental health center, as a parent services coordinator for Head Start families and in several pastoral counseling centers before she began writing full-time. Richards says that in every social service position she has held, she gained more than she gave. “I set out to help people and ended up learning so much more about myself.”

  Richards has drawn on those experiences while writing more than fifty novels. Although in recent years she has broadened the scope of her writing to women’s fiction, she was awarded the prestigious RITA® Award for her earlier work in the genre. Romantic Times BOOKreviews magazine has presented her with numerous awards, including one for career achievement.

  No doubt Richards’s background as a relationship counselor is partly responsible for the awardwinning nature of her novels. This background enables her to consistently deliver richly textured family dramas that explore the human condition.

  Richards has been married for thirty-eight years to her college sweetheart, a Unitarian Universalist minister. They have three grown sons and a daughter. Born in Bethesda, Maryland, and raised in St. Petersburg, Florida, Richards has lived with her family not only in Virginia but also in Louisiana, California, Arkansas, Ohio and Pennsylvania. They also spent two four-month sabbaticals in Australia.

  When not writing or quilting, Richards enjoys traveling and turning her suburban yard into a country garden. She is currently plotting Sister’s Choice, the fifth book in her Shenandoah Album series, which will be published in 2008.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Tracy Wagner pretended not to notice the baby girl in the pink striped coverall who was crawling determinedly in her direction. Little Liza Thaeler seemed to think that “Aunt” Tracy was the top pick in any room, the woman most likely to bounce a baby on her knee or play interminable games of peekaboo.

  Tracy could only hope that as Liza grew, her instincts about people improved.

  Janet Thaeler intercepted her daughter before she could reach Tracy, then immediately held her away. “Phew! Give me a break!”

  “Don’t look at me,” Tracy said, although Janet never would have. She knew Tracy was not a baby person. Janet understood Tracy better than almost anyone in the world, except, of course, Graham, Tracy’s husband. And even that was up for grabs sometimes.

  “When was the last time you changed a diaper?” Janet checked to be sure her olfactory senses were working correctly. She screwed up her face at the evidence.

  “Let me think.” Tracy rested one sensibly manicured finger against her cheek. “I think it was the day I left home for college. By the time I went back the next summer, Mom had finally declared a childbearing moratorium, and my youngest sister was wearing ruffled training pants.”

  “Sometimes I’m surprised you even speak to me. I’m recreating your childhood.” Janet abandoned the room with a giggling Liza tucked under one arm.

  While she waited for her friend to return, Tracy gazed around. Janet was right. Tracy had grown up in a house like this one, if a shade more rustic. Toys piled in every corner. Building blocks and stuffed animals strewn across the floor. Strollers in the hallway, high chairs pushed against the dining-room table, shouts and squeals and demands rending the air.

  Janet had four children and another—the last, she swore—due next spring. She claimed she was so used to being pregnant that morning sickness felt normal, and a visible belly button seemed grossly obscene.

  Tracy was the oldest girl in a family of eight. She had grown up in Washington’s Wenatchee Valley, the daughter of hardworking apple growers. Even now if she looked in the mirror, a farmer’s daughter smiled back at her. A healthy round face with pink cheeks and clear blue eyes. Glossy dark hair that was bluntly cut to her collar. A little too plump, a lot too ordinary and much too busy to be worried about any of it.

  Her role in the family had been clear as soon as she was old enough to hold a bottle. Tracy was in charge of the babies when her mother was called on to do other things, which was much of the time.

  The family was a happy one, and her parents had been as fair as time allowed. But Tracy had gotten her fill of babies by the time she escaped to Oregon State. She loved her brothers and sisters, particularly now that they were more or less grown. But if she never opened a jar of baby food, washed a load of receiving blankets, or walked the floor with a feverish infant, it would be too soon.

  Janet returned with a giggling, sweet-smelling Liza. “Thank heaven for Molly.” She plunked Liza in the corner with a stack of blocks. “If she weren’t here, we wouldn’t be able to finish a sentence.”

  Tracy wasn’t sure how many they’d finished anyway. “Molly Baker? The girl across the way?”

  “I started paying her to come over every afternoon to play with the kids and keep them out of my hair for a while. They’re wreaking havoc in the playroom right now. She’s so good with them. She’s a gem.”

  Janet’s expression didn’t match her enthusiastic words. An ebullient blonde, pixieish, freckled, Janet was almost always smiling. She wasn’t smiling now.

  “Some problem?” Tracy probed. “Don’t tell me you’re feeling guilty because you need a little help.”

  “Good grief, no.” Janet frowned at her, as if Tracy had lost her mind. “I’m an earth mother, not a martyr. No, it’s Molly I’m worried about. You know she’s a foster child?”

  Tracy knew that Molly had lived with the people across the street for most of a year. She was a quiet, self-contained teenager or preteen, Tracy wasn’t quite sure which. She was a pretty girl, brown-haired, dark-eyed and slender, and showed the promise of greater beauty to come. During their few conversations, Tracy had been impressed with her manners and a little worried about the caution in her eyes. Molly seemed to weigh every word, as if she needed to be certain Tracy got exactly the right impression.

  “What’s the problem?” Tracy asked. “Some issue with the courts?”

  “No. The Hansens are moving to Europe for a year, possibly longer. He’s taking over his company office in Paris—or something like that.” Janet lowered her voice. “They can’t take Molly, or they won’t. But I do know she’s free for adoption, and for whatever reason, they’ve decided not to pursue it. So in three weeks, she’ll have to move. And there aren’t any foster homes available in this school district. At least not at the moment, and not one for a fourteen-year-old girl. And she’s been at the same middle school since sixth grade.”

  Tracy tried to make sense of this. “So what happens to her?”

  “The social worker’s talking about placing her in a group home. In a different school district. From what I can tell, the other kids are there because they’ve had problems in traditional care. Molly’s never caused anyone a problem.”

  “The foster parents told you all this?” Tracy was pretty sure that Molly hadn’t confided these details. It was contrary to everything Tracy knew about her.

  Janet inspected a fleck of lint. “A neighbor told me the family was moving without Molly. I called social services and talked to her social worker.”

  Tracy was surprised the agency would have confided so much in a phone call. Then her eyes narrowed. “You didn’t call for information, did you? You called to volunteer to take Molly.”

  Her friend looked faintly chagrined. “She’s such a great kid, Trace. And here we are, right down the street from her school.”

  “And?”

  “The social worker
visited. We have too many kids, and too few bedrooms. And with the new baby coming in the spring…” She shook her head. “I’m afraid she’s right, as much as I hate to say it. At Molly’s age, she shouldn’t be sharing a bedroom with preschoolers, or competing for our attention with so many little children.”

  Tracy fell silent, mulling over this sad turn of events.

  Molly chose that moment to appear in the doorway. She had a blond Thaeler girl on one hip and an even blonder boy in the crook of her arm. She was wearing faded jeans and a gold sweatshirt that was at least three sizes too large.

  “We finished our third game of Chutes and Ladders,” she told Janet. “Alex is still building a city out of Lego in the playroom. I have to get going. I have to practice saying the prologue to the Canterbury Tales in Middle English for extra credit.”

  “Still?” Tracy was surprised. “They still make you do that?”

  Molly didn’t exactly smile, but her expression lightened a little. “I chose it. We’ll study it next year, and I kind of like it. It sounds so pretty.”

  “Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote, the droghte of March hath perced to the roote…” Tracy quoted.

  “You remember that?” Molly sounded surprised.

  “That’s about it. And, hey, I’m not that old. I remember liking it, too. Maybe you can recite it for me once you have it all learned.”

  The girl tossed back a lock of her shoulder-length hair and looked appropriately embarrassed. “I’d better go.”

  The Thaeler kids began to chatter at the same time. Janet got up and took the girl in Molly’s arms, soothed the boy, who was trying to tell her how he’d beaten Molly at their game, and simultaneously handed Molly some cash from her pocket.

  “Can you come tomorrow?” she asked when there was a lull.

  “Yes, but, Mrs. Thaeler, I won’t be coming much longer. I’m going to be moving.”

  “I heard,” Janet said, trying to shush her son for a moment. “I’m so sorry, Molly. We’ll miss you very much. I hope you’ll be close enough that we can still see you once in a while.”

  Molly didn’t respond.

  The children waved goodbye, and Molly did, too. Then she was gone.

  Tracy thought back to her own middle-school years with a pang. The sense of never really belonging, the fear of being different, the spats with friends and the painful sputtering romances that never ended happily. She remembered a girl who had moved to her school, and the pleasure some of the other kids had taken in making her feel even more like an outsider.

  Most of all she remembered that her own parents had guided her through the worst of times with wisdom and love. Who would guide Molly?

  “Moving is going to be one huge disaster for her,” Tracy said. The children had taken that one moment to fall silent, and her words, though softly spoken, rang in the narrow room.

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” Janet said. “I hate it, but there’s not a darned thing I can do about it.”

  Tracy and Graham’s penthouse condominium in northwest Corvallis had walls of windows that overlooked the Cascades and Three Sisters, polished oak floors with expensive Oriental carpets, granite countertops and the chic, uncluttered appearance of a model home. When Tracy let herself in after her visit with Janet, the silence was both blessed and disturbing. Blessed because there were no shrieking children here. Disturbing because there was no one at all to greet her.

  Graham wasn’t home from his job as the vice president of a financial planning firm. He was often out in the evenings, visiting clients whose days were as busy as his. Tracy was often gone in the evenings, too. She was an interior designer who worked exclusively with a popular local developer. She consulted on the basics of his designs and dealt directly with his clients, helping them choose fixtures and draperies, floors and floor coverings. Tonight, the only reason she was home before six was that both her late-afternoon and early-evening appointments had canceled, giving her time to stop by Janet’s.

  She didn’t kick off her shoes or throw her suit jacket on the back of the sofa. She was tempted, though. The condo would look more lived in if she did, and this evening the pristine beauty of the rooms was oddly unappealing.

  She had spent a lot of time decorating their home. She had chosen just the right pieces for display, sculptures and pottery from local Oregon craftspeople, handwoven wall hangings and Indian ceremonial masks, carved candlesticks with hand-dipped candles.

  Of course, Graham had provided the most important touches. He was an extraordinary woodworker. He had designed and crafted their dining-room table and chairs of natural cherry. The coffee table was bird’s-eye maple, and the end tables beside their sofa—dotted with needlepoint pillows she had discovered on a shopping trip in Portland—were constructed from portions of a mahogany staircase he had salvaged with the help of a local wrecking crew.

  Most of the furniture had been finished before they met, when he had dreams of opening his own custom cabinetry and furniture shop. They were display pieces, meant to entice new clients. After their marriage, Graham’s dream had gently drifted away, and reality had intruded. Tracy, too, had stopped imagining new and fresher possibilities and settled for maintaining a comfortable lifestyle.

  Neither of them despised their jobs. Both of them liked the financial rewards. When they could eke out the time, they had the money to travel anywhere they wanted to go. They drank excellent wines, ate at the best restaurants, gave each other extravagant gifts.

  They were lucky. Tracy knew that. Nevertheless, tonight she wasn’t feeling lucky. She was feeling lonely, out-of-sorts, unhappy with a world that would take a nice kid like Molly and throw her to the four winds. And there was nobody here to share that with. By the time Graham got home, she would probably be asleep.

  She thought about calling her mother, but she didn’t want to upset her with the vision of a homeless child. She considered calling one of her sisters, but wasn’t sure which one would understand. None of them would ever meet Molly or have a stake in what happened to her.

  She wandered into the master bedroom, which was dominated by a king-size bed with no headboard. For the ten years of their marriage, Graham had promised to build one from leftover mahogany but never found the time. She had solved the decorating dilemma by hanging a contemporary quilt of red, black and silver strips behind it and piling the bed with pillows of coordinating fabrics. The room seemed stark and empty anyhow, so she tossed her clothes on the bed as she undressed, just to liven it up.

  As she was pulling on sweats, she heard the front door open. She slipped into sneakers and went to check. Graham was hanging up his all-weather coat in the hall closet.

  “You’re home so early.”

  He whirled, surprised. “Jeez, Tracy. You startled me. What are you doing here?”

  “I live here. Remember?”

  He laughed and walked over to her for a hug. “Well, I thought you did. At least I’ve seen your name on the mailbox and mortgage.”

  She sank into his welcoming arms. He smelled like the crisp fall air and she laid her head against his shoulder.

  Sometimes she was overwhelmed by the knowledge that this man was hers. Graham Wagner had come into her life during her final year at Oregon State. He was broad-shouldered and lithe, with light brown hair and smoky green eyes. His smile could warm the coldest winter night; his generous heart was even warmer.

  Sometimes she still wondered why a man with his background had fallen in love with a simple farmer’s daughter. His parents were professors, his family as historic as the Oregon Trail. He had grown up a quiet only child in a household devoted to study and debate. The antics of her large, raucous family were as foreign to Graham as picking apples.

  She stepped out of his arms after a moment. “Are you home for good? Or did you just stop by on the way to an appointment?”

  “I had an appointment. I canceled.”

  Immediately she was worried. “You’re sick. It’s that virus that’s going around.�
�

  “Nope.” He loosened his tie, a conservative gray with a thin green stripe that went with the image, if not precisely the man. “I was just tired of being gone every evening. I need a night here with my feet up.” He paused. “You’re a huge bonus, you know that? And from the way you’re dressed, you’re not going back out. Right?”

  “Right.” She rested fingertips on his shoulders. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  He paused a moment. “Just tired. Really.”

  She sensed something else but knew better than to push. “Let’s see what we have for dinner.”

  “I could take you out,” he offered, although he didn’t look enthused.

  “No. You need to stay home. Besides, it sounds better. Let’s see what we have.”

  He joined her in the kitchen after he’d changed into khakis and a polo shirt. Together they prepared a meal of jarred marinara sauce over linguine and canned green beans. She set slices of frozen cheesecake on the counter to thaw.

  They sat in the cozy breakfast nook, and Graham poured wine from a newly opened bottle. “To being together for a change,” he said as a toast.

  Tracy tried to remember exactly how long it had been since they had eaten a meal together at home. She rarely needed to shop. She kept emergency supplies on hand, like those they were eating, but she couldn’t remember the last time they’d had anything fresh to prepare or any reason to prepare it.

  “Two weeks?” she said out loud. “Since we ate together here?”

  “Something like that.”

  “We’d better be careful. Dining in could get to be a habit, although I’d like some mushrooms or peppers to put in the sauce.”

  “That would be a commitment.” He smiled.

  “I might be up to a mushroom commitment.” She smiled, too, and asked him about his day.

  His recital was short, and when it was her turn, she considered whether to tell him about her visit to Janet’s. But Graham was too perceptive not to notice her hesitation.