Anna Meets Her Match by Arlene James Page B

for her,” Odelia gushed.
    Whoosh! The tide spewed and flung him blindly out to sea. He cleared his throat, shifted in his seat and tried to keep his voice level and casual. “Learning to skate certainly seems to have given Gilli a sense of accomplishment.”
    “And it’s Anna, dear,” Hypatia reminded her sister gently.
    “Oh. Yes. Amazing what a little time and patient instruction can accomplish with one so young,” Odelia went on. “Who’d have thought it? Anna was just brilliant with Gilli today. Don’t you agree, Reeves?”
    He opened his mouth but couldn’t find a thing to say that wouldn’t drown him, so he closed it again and tilted his head in what might have been construed as a nod. But how, he wondered, could Anna Miranda Burdett be a good influence on his impressionable daughter? Okay, she’d been right about it being time to teach Gilli to skate, though Reeves still privately marveled that anyone could get Gilli to concentrate long enough to do something as physically complicated as skating. That did not mean that Anna knew more about his daughter than he. Did it?
    Odelia apparently thought so. “If ever a woman was born to understand a child,” she pressed on, “it’s Anna Miranda and Gilli.” No one corrected her use of Anna’s full name this time.
    Reeves felt as if he was choking. “Excuse me,” he said, dropping his napkin onto his plate. “I’d better check on Gilli.”
    He left the dining room as sedately as he could manage, despite feeling as if he was being dragged down into thatundersea cavern again. Only God knew when and where the unmanageable sea of difficulties that was his life would spit him up next time, but he had the unsettling feeling that wherever that new shore might be, Anna Miranda Burdett would be there waiting. Worse, he feared that Odelia just might be right about her. But, if Anna was actually good for his daughter, then what did that make him?
    The problem, he decided. That made him the problem. Just as Marissa had said.
    Maybe, he told himself bleakly, it would be best if Marissa did take over raising their daughter. If only he could convince himself that Marissa really cared for Gilli and not whatever financial support might come with her. He just didn’t know what was best anymore, and he wasn’t sure now that he ever had.
     

    “Nooooo!” Gilli twisted and pulled, trying to free herself of Reeves’s hold as he divested her of her coat.
    “Cut it out now,” Reeves scolded, keeping his voice pitched low. “You know you have to go to Sunday school.”
    “I don’t want to!”
    Somehow he’d expected her good behavior to carry over from the day before, but she’d been fighting him all morning, first over what to eat for breakfast and then over getting dressed. Gilli insisted that she hated the dark green velvet and black satin dress that Aunt Mags had given her for Christmas, but it was a cold-weather dress that was already too small, and Reeves figured that if she didn’t wear it now, she wouldn’t get to wear it at all, which would undoubtedly hurt Magnolia’s feelings. After he’d gotten Gilli outfitted in black tights, black patent leather shoes and the abhorred dress, he’d had to badger her into the very coat that she didn’t want to take off now. He simply could not fathom what her problem was today.
    Glancing around at the families passing through thehallway of the children’s education wing, Reeves wondered why his daughter had to be the only one to balk at going into her class. She had done so almost since she’d been promoted to the three-year-old room six weeks ago. To calm her, he released his grip on her coat but blocked her flight with his body, trapping her against the wall.
    “Gilli, you have to go in.”
    “I wanna stay with you.”
    Frustration boiled up in him. “You’re just being silly,” he told her sharply. “I’m sure you’ll have fun. Now get in there and enjoy yourself!”
    A derisive chuckle had him turning