Christmas On His Ranch: Maggie's Dad / Cattleman's Choice

She cleaned up the classroom, waiting for Powell to storm in and give her hell. But he didn’t show up. She went home and spent a nerve-rackingly quiet weekend with her father, waiting for an explosion that didn’t come.

The biggest surprise arrived Monday morning, when Maggie shoved a crumpled, stained piece of paper on the desk and walked back to her seat without looking at Antonia. It was messy, but it was the missing homework. Not only that, it was done correctly.

Antonia didn’t say a word. It was a small victory, of sorts. She wouldn’t admit to herself that she was pleased. But the paper got an A.

Julie began to sit with her at recess, and shared cupcakes and other tidbits that her mother had sent to school with her.

“Mom says you’re doing a really nice job on me, Miss Hayes,” Julie said. “Dad remembers you from school, did you know? He said you were a sweet girl, and that you were shy. Were you, really?”

Antonia laughed. “I’m afraid so. I remember your father, too. He was the class clown.”

“Dad? Really?”

“Really. Don’t tell him I told you, though, okay?” she teased, smiling at the child.

From a short distance away, Maggie glared toward them. She was, as usual, alone. She didn’t get along with the other children. The girls hated her, and the boys made fun of her skinny legs that were always bruised and cut from her tomboyish antics at the ranch. There was one special boy, Jake Weldon. Maggie pretended not to notice him. He was one of the boys who made fun of her, and it hurt really bad. She was alone most of the time these days, because Julie spent her time with the teacher instead of Maggie.

Miss Hayes liked Julie. Everyone knew it, too. Julie had been Maggie’s best friend, but now she seemed to be Miss Hayes’s. Maggie hated both of them. She hadn’t told her father what Miss Hayes had said about her homework. She wanted her teacher to know that she wasn’t bad like her mother. She knew what her mother had done, because she’d heard them talking about it once. She remembered her mother crying and accusing him of not loving her, and him saying that she’d ruined his life, she and her premature baby. There had been something else, something about him being drunk and out of his mind or Maggie wouldn’t have been born at all.