A Wild Goose Chase Christmas: Quilts of Love Series (19 page)

Putting the message aside, he moved to the first file. It contained plans for the Going West exhibit. There was still so much information Tara needed in order to wrap things up. If they waited any longer, it wouldn’t matter what Izzy’s family said. Even if the museum had the quilt, there’d be no way to get everything done in time for the fund-raising gala on December twenty-first. He thought of the file on his computer that
contained all the information he’d gathered on the Wild Goose Chase so far. He’d wanted to wait until Izzy formally loaned him the quilt, but if he sent it to Tara now, she could move the process along. It would make it that much easier to complete the exhibit and would enable him to go forward with what he hoped could be a more personal relationship with Izzy.

Making an executive decision, Max quickly composed an e-mail to his assistant, attached the file, and sent it whizzing through cyberspace.

He flipped through the rest of the files, then set them aside. Nothing there that couldn’t wait. His first order of business was to finish transcribing the second diary. But his eyes fell back on the pink slip of paper, and curiosity got the best of him. If he was working on a Saturday, perhaps Dalton Reed was too. It wouldn’t hurt to call. At the very least he could leave a message and speak to the man on Monday.

He dialed the phone and was surprised when it picked up on the second ring and a deep voice rumbled through the line.

“Dalton Reed here.”

“Mr. Reed. Hello.” Max cleared his throat. Why hadn’t he thought to take a drink of water before making the call? “This is Max Logan, of the—”

“Logan, great to hear from you. Hold on one second.”

All the sounds became muffled, but Max was sure he heard the words
over easy
and
substitute tomatoes for the hash browns
. Good grief, the man had left his cell number, and Max was intruding on his breakfast.

“Back with you, Logan.”

“Sir, I’m sorry for bothering you. I didn’t realize—”

“Nonsense. Wouldn’t have given you this number if I didn’t want you to call. But I’m out with my family, so I’ll cut to the chase. I’ve been hearing good things about you, Logan.”

“Thank you, Sir.” Max had no idea where or how the man had heard anything about him, but he wasn’t about to argue.

“One of my best people was just snatched up by the Smithsonian, so I have a hole to fill. The opportunists are circling, but I don’t want just anybody. I could use a man like you on my team.”

The implications were clear. Not only was Dalton Reed offering him a highly sought-after position; it was one that could eventually lead him to bigger things. Like the Smithsonian.

“Mr. Reed, I’m flattered you’d even consider me.”

“Don’t be flattered. I only pick the best people for the job.

And call me Dalton.”

“Thank you, Dalton.”

“I plan to be at your gala on the twenty-first. Need to see you in action before we make any hard, fast decisions. You understand.”

“Of course. I’ll have my assistant make sure you have everything you need.”

The sounds of clinking and shuffling came through the phone. “Good, good. Listen, Logan, our breakfast just came. Been a pleasure talking. Take care.”

The call disconnected, leaving Max to stare at his phone until the screen went black. He’d just been offered a job he didn’t know if he wanted to take, which could lead to a bigger job he wasn’t sure he wanted anymore. And all of it hinged on completing an exhibit with a quilt that he didn’t know if he could get.

Talk about a wild goose chase.

21

I
t had been nearly a week since Izzy found Brandon ripping up the backyard. And even though he’d accepted that there was no treasure hidden there, she still couldn’t convince him they should let the quilt out of the family’s possession.

After school, she forced herself to go to the Y to exercise, but her heart wasn’t in it. As she stretched and moved through the water, her mind kept returning to the quilt, and then her eyes would stray to the door from the men’s locker room, as if Max might stride through, looking wonderfully out of place in his proper suit.

It was after five o’clock when Izzy trudged into her unusually quiet home. Not only was there no welcome-home barking but the TV was off as well.

“Hey, Mom.” She took off her coat, unwound her scarf, and hung them both on the coatrack. “Where’s Bogie?”

“Right here.” She motioned to the end of the couch.

Sure enough, there was the Jack Russell, curled up in a furry white ball, his brown snout resting across her mother’s leg. “He sure has taken a liking to you.”

Janice smiled. “He’s a good companion.”

“And where’s Brandon?”

“I made him move out.”

Izzy meant to drop her purse on the desk chair, but instead it thumped to the floor. “You what?”

“I made him move out.”

Izzy sat down slowly on the loveseat across from her. “I don’t understand.”

“Don’t worry, he’ll still come over and stay with me while you’re at school. But it’s silly for him to be sleeping on your couch. I told him to take my car and stay in my apartment.”

“I thought your apartment was too far from his work.” Janice blew out a sharp breath. “What work? I know he’s trying to rebuild his career, but most of what he’s doing right now is on the Internet. He can do that from anywhere.”

She had a good point. Come to think of it, Brandon probably only insisted on staying with her so he could be close to the treasure he hoped to find, the one he now knew didn’t exist.

Her mother angled her shoulders, looking closer at Izzy. “I thought you’d be glad to have one less person staying here.”

“Oh, it’s good he’s got another place to stay. I’m just surprised you suggested it.”

“He was getting a bit too clingy,” Janice said. “Always hovering. Like today, I wanted to read this stuff in peace and he kept asking me about it.”

“What stuff?”

Janice picked up the file folder from her lap. “The diary transcripts.”

Izzy nodded. She’d been disappointed the night before when Max’s assistant, not Max, had brought over the transcripts from the second diary. Tara claimed Max was swamped with work, but Izzy couldn’t help wondering if he was
avoiding her. Perhaps their date hadn’t gone as well for him as it had for her.

“I haven’t gotten a chance to read any of it,” Izzy said, pointing at the folder. “Anything interesting?”

“It’s all fascinating.” She looked at Izzy over the top of her reading glasses. “I’m finding the women wrote a lot about the interaction with their mothers and mothers-in-law. Made me realize that some things transcend time and place.”

“Like what?”

“Like this.” Janice thumbed through a few pages until she found the one she wanted, then she cleared her throat and read.

Mama is still upset with me. I know she wanted me to marry Earl. He’s a good man with the means to provide for a wife. But there was no love there. Robert may only be a poor farmer, but I love him. I just hope that one day, Mama will understand and forgive me.

Janice lowered the pages and took off her glasses. “That was written by Clara Simons in 1891. Two years later, she and Robert traveled from Kentucky to Oklahoma and took part in the land rush.”

Izzy leaned forward. “Did they get a piece of land?”

“They did not.” Janice shook her head. “So they kept going west. From what she wrote, it sounds like they lived a hard life. I don’t think she and her mother ever reconciled.”

“That’s sad.”

Janice sighed. “The women in our family always seem to disappoint their mothers.”

Izzy let her head drop, her cheeks flaming. “Mom, I know I disappointed you. And I’m sorry. But it wasn’t my fault I got sick.”

“Of course it wasn’t. What are you talking about?”

Izzy looked at her mother, whose expression was one of pure confusion. “About me. Disappointing you.”

“You never disappointed me.”

“Excuse me?” Izzy shook her head sharply. “You’ve been upset with me ever since I stopped dancing.”

“No, I wasn’t upset.” She paused, staring at Izzy for a long moment. “I take that back. I was upset. But not because you disappointed me. I was upset because, once again, another woman in our family had to give up her dream.”

“Like you did?”

“Like I did.” Janice blinked rapidly. “Like your grandmother did.”

Izzy held her breath, almost afraid to ask the next question. “What happened between you two, Mom? What caused the rift?”

“It’s not important.” Janice tried to wave away her concern. “Yes, it is. Whatever happened between the two of you has also affected the relationship you and I have. I think it’s time we talked about it.”

The silence stretched and grew, until Izzy was fairly certain her mother had chosen to keep her feelings to herself. But then Janice shifted on the couch, readjusted the pillow under her arm, and began to speak.

“When I was a girl, all I wanted to do was be a dancer like my mother. But I didn’t have the same sense of rhythm she had, that you have, so I had to change my dream. I was going to be an actress. And I had promise. A casting director once said I reminded her of a young Elizabeth Taylor. I could cry on cue. Do you have any idea how hard that is?”

Funny that particular skill would be such a source of pride. Izzy forced back a smile. “No, I can’t say that I do. I’ve never tried.”

“Take my word for it, it’s worth gold. Anyway, I took acting lessons all through high school. There weren’t as many opportunities for young actors then as there are now. There was no Disney Channel, no Nickelodeon, no YouTube videos. After graduation, I skipped college because I wanted to concentrate on my career. I got a job as a waitress to support myself and I went to every audition I could. I did community theater, just to work on my craft, maybe meet some people. And that’s how I met your father.”

“You met Dad at the theater? I never knew he acted.” Izzy couldn’t reconcile the image of her strong, rough-around-the-edges father emoting beneath the bright lights of the stage.

“He wasn’t acting. He was a friend of the director, and he was building the set as a favor.”

“But he was a cop. What did he know about building things?”

“He worked construction for a few years before he got into the police academy. He was good at it, of course. You father was good at everything he tried.” She smiled at the thought. “We were doing a production of
The Glass Menagerie
. I had the female lead, Laura. So I was always there rehearsing, and your father was always there building something.”

As she talked, her eyes took on a faraway quality, as though she were right back there, meeting the man of her dreams for the first time.

“Was it love at first sight?” Izzy asked.

“Hardly.” Janice barked out a laugh so loud that Bogie raised his head to see what was wrong. “I didn’t really notice him, except for the times he was hammering something while I was trying to deliver lines.”

“So what happened?”

“One day, the fellow who played opposite me was sick. He said he had food poisoning, but I think he had a little too much
weekend, if you know what I mean. So the director asked Walt to fill in for him. Just to read the part so I could deliver my lines.”

“And that’s when you noticed him.”

Janice smiled, the same smile Izzy remembered from the good times when she was a child. “That’s when I noticed him. And he noticed me. He asked me out the next day. A month later, he asked me to marry him. And that’s when the trouble started between your grandmother and me.”

“I don’t understand. Didn’t she like Dad?”

“Nobody could meet Walt and not like him.” Janice shook her head. “It was more complicated than that. You have to remember your grandmother’s history. When she met my father, she was on the verge of becoming a big name in the dance world. But she gave it up for love. You see, it wasn’t that she didn’t like your father. It’s that she saw me do the same thing she had done. I gave up my dream for a man.”

“Just because you got married didn’t mean you had to give up acting.”

“It did if I wanted to stay married. Your father would never have been comfortable watching me fall in love with another man on stage or on a movie screen. And I don’t know that I would have been comfortable doing it.” She shrugged her good shoulder. “Besides, Brandon came along a year later. No time for acting with a new baby to take care of.”

Izzy rubbed her palms on her knees. “I still don’t understand why Gran was upset. She and Grandpa were happy. Why wouldn’t she want the same for you?”

“I’m not sure. I think it brought up memories of what she could have been. Even though I know she loved Daddy and wouldn’t have changed her life, she still thought about her old dreams.”

“What about you? You gave up your dream, and then …” Izzy couldn’t finish the thought.

“Then your father died. Too young.” Janice drew in a shaky breath. “I loved him so much, and to lose him when we were just getting started … I felt cheated—of my life with him and of the dream I gave up to be with him.”

A tear rolled down her mother’s cheek, but this was no staged cry. This was real emotion, being shared by a woman who had erected so many walls over the years that Izzy sometimes wondered if she felt anything inside.

“When I saw the talent in you, I latched on to it. I was determined that my daughter would realize her dream, even if I never could.”

In that moment, all the questions of the last several years were answered. “And when I couldn’t dance anymore, it was like watching your dream die all over again.”

More tears flowed. Izzy pulled a white handkerchief from the pocket of her hoodie and handed it to her mom.

“I’ve been just horrid to you, Isabella.” Janice pressed the material against her eyes and dabbed at her cheeks. “And now, you’re taking care of me. I don’t deserve it.”

“Of course you do.” Izzy spoke past the lump of emotion pressing against the back of her throat. “That’s what family does. We take care of one another.”

“You’re a good daughter.”

As moisture welled in her eyes, Izzy was tempted to yank the handkerchief back. Instead she leaned over, grabbed a box of Kleenex from the side table, and pulled out a tissue. “Thanks, Mom.”