Looking For You All My Life Part 157

that would profit the majority. She glanced at her desk cal-

endar, surprised to see that the month was nearly half over,

with less than two weeks until Christmas! Well, hopefully TS

Development wouldn't be able to accomplish too much

before the end of the year. Maybe by that time, if all went

well, Gavin would get the go-ahead from his developer

friend, Stan Williams, and the compet.i.tion would quickly be

set into motion. Gavin had mentioned just this morning that

he planned to spend much of the day researching county per-

mits and some necessary land use information that Stan had

asked him about. He wanted to get everything in place just

as soon as possible. The hardest thing, she thought, would

be for them to keep this wonderful possibility under their

hats.

"Excuse me, Maggie," called Abigail's voice on the

-intercom. "Barbara Harris is here hoping to see you. She said Looking for YouAllMy Life245

she didn't have an appointment and doesn't want to disturb

you, but-"

"It's not a problem at all. I'll be right there," answered

Maggie, thinking she could use a friendly face just now. She

went out to the reception area and handed Abigail the peti-

tion she'd just received from Buckie and Kate. "Will you

make a couple copies of this, please, and give one to Scott?"

Then she greeted Barbara and led her into her office. "It's so

nice to see you again, Barbara. Have a seat and tell me how

you're doing."

Barbara sat down and removed her soft leather gloves.

Then she rubbed her hands together and smiled as if she

were keeping some delicious secret to herself. "Well, I just

don't know quite where to begin, my dear."

Having no idea what she was referring to, Maggie just

shrugged. "Well, why don't you just start at the beginning?"

"All right, I will. You see, I went to Galloway's Deli for

one of those wonderful raisin scones that Rosa bakes fresh

every morning. And I happened to mention to her that I was

sorry to have missed going to church yesterday. Between you

and me, because Michael wasn't preaching, I didn't much

feel like going. I know that's not very good of me, but it's the

truth. Anyway, Rosa told me that it was the last service

they'd be having up at Jed's beautiful mountain cabin, and

why, that just made me feel so very, very sad. I've never been

a churchgoing person, but something about being up there,

well, that, combined with Michael's eloquent sermons, just

seemed very special to me somehow.. so, anyway-" She

stopped abruptly and looked at Maggie. "Goodness, dear, I

hope I'm not keeping you from anything important."

Maggie shook her head, feeling slightly confused. "On

the contrary, you've really aroused my curiosity. Please, con-

tinue your tale."

"So, I asked Rosa where the church would be meeting in