Small Town Moms: A Dry Creek Family / A Mother For Mule Hollow

Maegan Shay couldn't believe she'd started talking to the teddy bear. She'd been on the road for three days and her anxiety was building. If Smokey the stuffed animal hadn't been there, she'd be talking to the little brass button on her steering wheel by now. She should have waited until she arrived in Dry Creek, Montana, to make the call to the Parker family, but her first worry had been that everyone would be away from their ranch when she got to the small town. So, before she left Chicago, she phoned and told Clint Parker that she was coming to meet her nine-year-old niece. That had been a mistake.

"He can't stop me from seeing Lilly," she turned to remind Smokey as he sat in the passenger seat of her car. She was supposed to meet her niece for the very first time when she arrived in Dry Creek. She'd already told the bear the whole story, especially the part about how the girl's uncle, Clint, had barely let her explain why she was calling before he accused her of trying to take advantage of the young girl.

"Since when is a woman in search of her family taking advantage of anyone?" she asked the bear. "If he only knew how many hours--make that years--I've worked to find them."

Smokey didn't answer her question, but his black button eyes did look sympathetic. He wore a sequin studded pair of suspenders and corduroy pants. She'd bought him for her niece at a gas station outside of Grand Forks when it suddenly occurred to her that Lilly might not take to strangers. Maegan hadn't at her age. Some days she still didn't, although at the age of thirty-two she could usually hide her distrust better than someone Lilly's age.

So, the bear was going to be her goodwill offering to her young niece and, by extension, to the man who appeared to be raising her. She wished she didn't feel the need for a present. She usually had more confidence. She should be a match for a rancher like Clint Parker, even if he did have enough steel in his voice to give her visions of John Wayne holding off the bad guys. She pictured him as an older, burly man with a rifle across his knees and a scowl on his face. Not the most comforting image to have in her mind as she neared her destination, especially not when he was the one in charge of her young niece.

Maegan turned her full attention back to the road. She was used to driving in big-city traffic and it made her slightly nervous that there were no other cars in sight. The ground on both sides of the asphalt was as flat and empty as it could be. Grain fields had been cut short last fall and the stubble left to die during the winter. Plus, the sky was overcast. It was only March and spring was nowhere in sight.

She couldn't stop thinking about the phone conversation. She kept wondering if Clint would stand by his agreement to let her meet her sister's daughter. He had clearly been reluctant, like he didn't understand the importance of this trip to her.

She would think her need to see Lilly was obvious. Maegan and her sisters had been scattered across the foster care system twenty-five years ago when their parents died in a car accident. She had located her middle sister, Olivia, last fall and just recently discovered that her youngest sister, Dawn, had died three years earlier in another car crash, leaving two children behind. Each of the children were now living with their respective fathers. Olivia would be checking on the youngest child, a boy, who lived in Mule Hollow, Texas. That left Lilly for her.

Maegan glanced into the rearview mirror as she tucked her honey-colored hair behind the large amber barrette she wore. She'd learned years ago that loose hair annoyed most of the adults looking her over for adoption so she always had her barrette handy just in case she ever wanted to make a good impression. She hadn't used it much back then. She was in no hurry to be adopted. She wanted a perfect family or none at all.

Back then, she had hope. And faith. She remembered repeatedly praying to God for the perfect parents, which--in her mind--were a couple who would keep her and her sisters together. It hadn't seemed like too much to ask. She'd even found a man and woman she thought would do, but when she whispered to them about her sisters, they just shook their heads. After several of these disappointments, she finally realized no one was going to help her--not God, not the social workers, not the people who said they wanted to be parents. They all talked about families, but they didn't care about hers. Finally, she and her sisters lost track of each other.

From then on, Maegan just gave up. She had no intention of replacing her sisters or her parents with new people so she bounced around from foster home to foster home. She'd do without a family if she couldn't have the one she was born with. Almost everything else she owned had been taken away. Even her faded T-shirts were replaced with some scratchy cotton blouses that were supposed to make prosp...