Roxie glanced up from the photo album she was poring over.She was curled up on a kitchen chair with both legs tucked underneath her.She was wearing soft shorts and a racer-back tank.She looked as if she’d slept in them too.“Hey.I hope you don’t mind I made myself at home.”
If her visitor wasn’t shy about being in her pajamas, Maxie didn’t see why she should have a problem.She moved to the cupboard to get herself a cup.“I never complain when someone makes coffee for me.”
“I wanted to look at these,” Roxie murmured.She flipped a page and nibbled at her lip as she took in the pictures and captions.
She seemed immersed in the photos of everyday life in what had been the Miller household.Maxie didn’t mind her thumbing through them, but they did bring up a lot of questions now.Questions about her childhood and things she might not have known.Most of all, though, they brought up feelings.Loving feelings.Fiercely protective feelings.She couldn’t remember being fierce about anything before.
“You look like you had a good night,” Roxie noted.
“What makes you say that?”
“You look relaxed and, I don’t know,tumbled.”
The coffeepot clinked against the mug when Maxie’s hand slipped.“I…I did sleep well.”
“You must have tuckered our fine sheriff out.”Roxie chuckled before taking a sip of her own coffee.“I haven’t heard him moving around up there at all.”
Maxie put the coffeepot back on the warmer before she could drop it.Her bedroom was right overhead.She remembered how Zac had looked splayed across her bed, and she busied herself with wiping up the counter where she’d spilled.
“You’ve got a keeper there, girl.”
Did she?How did one keep something she wasn’t sure she had?Especially when she’d fallen asleep at exactly the wrong time?Maxie bit her lip.He’d spent the night in the first place because they’d been pretending.
She had to change the subject.If she thought about it anymore, her head might explode.“What are you looking for in those albums?”she asked.
Roxie shrugged.“It’s interesting.We each grew up so differently.”She flipped a page and smiled at a picture of Maxie’s grandmother wearing a sombrero at a Mexican restaurant on her birthday.“Your life was sonormal.”
Maxie braced herself for laughs or jokes, but the word was said with so much wonder, it slipped by her defenses.She’d never thought that someone like Roxie could sound wistful.
“It’s what I always dreamed of having,” the woman admitted.
Maxie’s throat tightened.She’d been the girl at school without any parents, but she’d had her grandmother.She’d had family.She couldn’t imagine growing up in foster care, all alone in the world.“I’m sorry about your childhood.The things in that file…”
“Don’t be.Don’t be sorry for what happened to me or what might have been.You hold on to what you had with both hands.”Roxie lifted the album.“You hold on to this.I want you as my sister now, but I don’t want to take your past away from you.”
Maxie’s heart was beating a bit too hard.That was her biggest fear, with everything that had happened.She didn’t want to disavow the childhood she’d had.She couldn’t forget the people she’d loved, the family who’d raised her.
“Lexie has another family too, you know.She’ll never give them up.”Roxie settled the album back onto the table and rolled her shoulders.“Much as they deserve it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know that saying, ‘Money can’t buy you happiness?’That’s the story of our sister’s life.”
Maxie paused with her coffee halfway to her lips.“Were they not good to her?”
“Mmm… Let’s just say that she was the one who was never good enough.”
Not good enough?Lexie?Anger flushed through Maxie, but she heard footsteps in the living room.Roxie made a slashing motion across her throat, and they both let the subject drop.
“Is that coffee I smell?”Lexie padded into the room.She hadn’t gotten dressed either, but she was wearing a satin robe.Her toenails were painted a dusty pink.How she could look so classy and elegant first thing in the morning was beyond Maxie.
Not good enough?Who were these people?
“Roxie made it,” she said.It was difficult with her jaw feeling like it was going to pop.
Lexie’s eyes brightened when she saw the photo albums on the table.“I’ll take a cup.”
“Make that two.”
