Barefoot Brides by Annie Jones Page A

seemed to take a quick gasping breath at that.
    Moxie didn’t care. Well, she cared, she just didn’t see any other way to get her point across except to stop caring about how these people would feel and let them know how she felt.
    â€œIt was one thing when you simply crowded into my life.” She thought of all the examples she could give but decided that was not the point; the point was…“Today you tried to crowd me out of my dad’s life or, worse, a threat to his life.”
    â€œI am so sorry.” Dodie reached out to touch Moxie’s cheek.
    Moxie flinched, just enough that the woman’s finger only grazed her hair instead of brushing her face.
    â€œYou thought my dad’s life might be in danger and you called everyone…” Moxie pressed her lips together but they still trembled with the emotion she wanted so desperately to hold back. “Everyone but me.”
    â€œIt was a gut reaction, honey.” Dodie stroked her arm. “It made sense at the time. I called Kate because she’s a doctor and then Jo because I knew she could find Travis and get him here.”
    â€œNot because it mattered whether I knew or not,” Jo mumbled in a way that seemed half humorous and appeasement for Moxie’s sake, half hurt little kid straight from her own heart.
    â€œI was making calls fast and furious as I tried to get Billy J here,” Dodie went on. She sounded truly sorry about the oversight but not upset about Moxie’s rudeness brought on by her injured feelings.
    â€œI had to drive Kate,” Vince volunteered. “But you can bet your bait bucket that if I knew you and Billy J needed help, nothing could keep me away.”
    â€œThanks.” Moxie smiled at the man she considered a big brother to her.
    â€œI came because I thought Lionel could use backup,” Kate snapped. “So I’m going in there to see what I can do to help.”
    â€œNo help necessary.” Lionel came through the door again with a file in his hand. “Though, if you’d like, you can go in, look him over and see if you concur with my diagnosis.”
    â€œDiagnosis?” Dodie stepped forward.
    Everyone else pressed in behind her.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œIs he okay?
    â€œWhat can we do to help?”
    Moxie held her arms close in at her sides and shifted her feet to keep anyone from trampling her toes. It was as though they hadn’t heard her diatribe about backing off at all.
    â€œIt’s not a heart attack,” Lionel assured the group.
    â€œThank the Lord,” Dodie whispered, her hand over her heart.
    Vince exhaled and stepped away to rest his back against the wall. “That’s great news.”
    â€œJo and I prayed the whole way over here.” Travis took Moxie’s hand and gave it a squeeze.
    Suddenly Moxie felt just awful. They had come and crowded in and ignored her ugly reaction because they cared about her father and about her and she had acted so…“I wasn’t really angry at you, just…”
    â€œScared.” Dodie did caress Moxie’s cheek this time. “I know. And hurt.”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œAnd you had every right to feel that way.” Dodie’s gaze searched Moxie’s face.
    Tears shimmered in the woman’s eyes. Eyes that seemed to Moxie like those of a stranger and at the same time so familiar that she felt she had looked into them a thousand times and every one of those times found love and acceptance.
    â€œYou should have been my very first call, Moll…um…Moxie, sweetheart.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œI’ll stop and take your feelings into account before I do anything like that again.” Dodie gave Moxie a hug.
    For the first time since she’d begun feeling hemmed in by this new situation, Moxie returned the gesture. Tentatively but without reservation. “That means a lot to me.”
    Moxie let go and started to step