They didn’t cure cancer or promote world peace at Quixie. They just made fizzy soft drinks. But their product made people happy.

Mason might fret about shrinking market share, but one thing did not change. Their customers felt intense loyalty to a soft drink that had been around for more than ninety years. Quixie employed three hundred people in Passcoe, which made it the county’s biggest employer. Quixie, and by extension the Bayless family, had provided most of the funding for Memorial Park, the high school football stadium, and the obstetric wing of the hospital. Quixie and its employees were always the biggest contributors to the local United Way fund, and, of course, their taxes kept county roads paved and libraries and schools funded.

Annajane ran her tongue over her now-straight teeth. As the child of a longtime Quixie employee, the company’s health plan had paid for her orthodontia, and Leonard’s company-sponsored savings plan had sent her to college.

Quixie, she vowed, could not just up and leave. She might not have a home or a job or a future here, but she couldn’t let all of this go. Not without a fight.

Her cell phone rang and she recognized the number on the readout as her real estate agent’s.

“Annajane, hey,” Susan Peters said. “I’m so glad I caught you.”

“Please don’t tell me you have bad news,” Annajane said. “I’ve already had enough today.”

“Not exactly bad news,” Susan said. “But news. We need to move up the closing on your loft to Wednesday. So you’ll get your money two days early. Hooray, right?”

“But that’s the day after tomorrow. I’m not even done packing.”

“Sorry,” Susan said. “Your buyer has to leave the country on business Friday, and Wednesday is the only day we can get it scheduled with the lender and the closing attorneys. So it’s Wednesday or nothing.”

“I won’t have to move until Friday though, right?”

“Uh, no. You’ll need to be out of there by noon Wednesday, so she can get moved in before she leaves on Friday.”

“Susan!” Annajane said, with a moan. “You don’t know what you’re asking. I just found out today my job in Atlanta fell through. I don’t have any place to move to.”

“Can’t you just move in with your fiancé?”

“Probably not, since we’re no longer engaged,” Annajane said.

“Oh. Wow. You are having a run of crappy news,” Susan said. “Well, look on the bright side. You’re making out like a bandit on the sale of the loft. You can afford to buy something really nice now. I’ve got a darling 1940s cottage over on Mimosa Street. It’s a three-bedroom, two-bath, on a huge lot, with tons of potential. You could pick it up for a steal, and have lots of money left over for the restoration.”

“Restoration?”

“It’s what we real estate professionals call ‘a handyman’s special.’ You know, it’ll need a new roof, plumbing, electrical, heat and air, a new kitchen, like that. I can show it to you today, if you want, and if you love it, which I think you will, we can write up an offer by tonight.”

“Whoa!” Annajane said. “I’m still processing the news that I’ll be homeless in two days. Look. I can’t wrap my mind around this right now. I’ll have to call you back, okay?”

“Okay, but remember, closing is now at 9 A.M. Wednesday. And you really do have to be out of the loft completely by noon. Call me if you want to see Mimosa Street.”

Annajane dropped her phone into her open pocketbook with a sigh. This day was one that would go down on record as one of the worst in her life. Ever.

She slowed the car at the intersection of the county road and the street that led to Mason’s house. She would deal with her broken engagement, the job situation, and the moved-up closing later. What she needed now was a little cheering up. Sophie would be home from the hospital by now. Impulsively, she made the turn, and hoped all the turmoil at the office meant she could visit the little girl without encountering Mason. Or Celia.

*   *   *

Sophie’s nanny, Letha, gave Annajane a quick hug. “She’s been asking about you since we got home,” Letha said. “Her daddy told her you’d gone out of town, and she sure didn’t like hearing that!”

She found Sophie propped up on the leather sofa in Mason’s study, sipping from a glass bottle of Quixie and watching The Little Mermaid video. The little girl’s pallor was gone, and she was giggling as Sebastian the lobster capered around on the colorful flat-screened television.

“Annajane!” Sophie cried, spotting her. “You came back.”

“I did,” Annajane agreed, sitting gingerly on the edge of the tufted ottoman that served as a coffee table. She reached over and adjusted Sophie’s sparkly pink glasses, then ruffled her hair. “Are you glad to be home?”

“Yeah. The nurses were nice, but Letha is nicer.”

“Lots nicer. And you’re feeling better, I hear?”

As an answer, Sophie pulled up her pajama top and pointed at her abdomen. A small square of gauze covered her incision. “I’m gonna have a scar,” she said proudly. “Nobody else in my whole school has a scar like me.”

Annajane laughed. She stuck out her leg and rolled up her pant leg to her knee. “I’ve got a scar, too,” she said.

Clearly intrigued, Sophie ran her finger over the faint strip of puckered flesh and shivered. “Did you have to go in an ambulance and have an operation at the hospital?”

“Nope. My scar isn’t anywhere near as cool as yours.”

“How’d you get it?”

“It was a long time ago,” Annajane said. “I was dressed up in the Dixie the Pixie costume. You remember that from my office, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well. I was marching in the Fourth of July parade, and I had a cart full of Quixie to give away to people watching the parade, but then these bad boys ganged up on me, and they stole my cart.”

“Oh no.” Sophie’s eyes widened. “What did you do?”

“I tried to chase after them, to get the cart back,” Annajane reported. “But I had on that big goofy pixie head, and I couldn’t see very well, and then I was also wearing those silly shoes that were five sizes too big, and I tripped! And that’s how I banged up my knee and got this scar.”

“You left out the part about how I rode up in the fun car and saved you.”

Mason. She hadn’t even heard him come into the room.

Annajane didn’t turn around. “Actually, I saved myself. But your daddy did give me a ride home that day.”

“Don’t forget I bought you a hot dog and some potato chips,” Mason said. He walked over to the sofa and dropped a kiss on the little girl’s head. He held up a white paper sack. “Guess what’s in here?”

“Ice cream!” Sophie exclaimed.

Mason pulled a round cardboard tub from the bag. “Your grandmother sent this over. Strawberry shortcake ice cream. Want some?”

Sophie nodded vigorously, sending the pigtails on either side of her face wagging.

“I’ll fix it,” Annajane volunteered, taking the bag from Mason.

She was out in the kitchen, scooping ice cream into bowls, when Mason strolled into the kitchen. “I’ll just fix this for you guys, and then I’ll take off,” Annajane said.

He leaned with his back against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest, surveying her with studied indifference.

Tell her about the baby, he thought. Tell her so she can cut and run. Do it now. But he couldn’t. Not tonight.

“Wanna share any news with me?” he asked.

Annajane gave him a backward glance. “Pokey told you I broke up with Shane, right?”

“She mentioned it. I’m sorry, Annajane. So, he didn’t take the news of our, uh, encounter well?”

“He didn’t take it the way I anticipated,” she said, avoiding all the messy details. “As it turns out, it’s been a day full of unpleasant surprises.”

Mason took her by the shoulders and turned her around to face him. “First things first. I want you to know that I had no idea Davis was going to fire our ad agency, effectively rendering you unemployed. He didn’t bother to inform me until it was a done deal.”