Holly's Heart Collection Two by Beverly Lewis Page A

course, I wasn’t, but if I sat around arguing the benefits of staying in Dressel Hills, Colorado, I would be.
    Hurrying to my room, I silently prayed that Friday’s phone call—whatever it was—would cancel out this hideous moving talk.

    At school I kept the news quiet. Maybe by not saying anything the move wouldn’t happen. But at suppertime, the reality hit me hard.
    Still wearing his dress shirt, Uncle Jack sat at the head of the table. His suit coat and tie hung over the chair behind him. With a hesitant smile, he pushed his apple pie aside and leaned over to open his briefcase. Up he came with a flip chart. Then he reached into his shirt pocket and took out two packs of gum, distributing a stick to each of us.
    I groaned silently. Bribery. He’d gone to great lengths to make points with us kids. The gum thing was clever, and I could see it already starting to work by the smiles coming from Carrie and Stephie across the table.
    Uncle Jack flipped to the first card. “Okay, kids, we need to understand each other.” He pointed to a cartoon picture of two big hearts and six little ones, complete with eyes and smiling faces. The girl hearts had long hair and the boy hearts had mustaches. There were mountains in the background. Our mountains.
    Stephie and Carrie giggled, but Mom shushed them playfully. Mark and Phil wagged their heads, holding their hands around their faces, imitating the heart faces. Stan and I sat quietly, acting mature and civilized.
    Actually, the drawings weren’t half bad. Uncle Jack had always made special homemade cards for Mom when they were dating. “As you can see, this family is full of love for one another,” he continued, glancing at Mom.
    Phil made gagging sounds while Mark said “Yuck” at least five times. Uncle Jack waited, casting a hard eye on his younger sons. They settled down quickly.
    Uncle Jack began again. “For the past few days, I’ve been driving to Denver to handle the new business accounts, and it looks as though I might open an office there.” He paused. “The problem is, we have no one to run the Denver office except my partner or me.”
    I thought about Uncle Jack’s business partner, Mr. Miller. He and Mr. Miller had been in business together in Pennsylvania before they moved to Dressel Hills. It was the Millers who’d suggested that Uncle Jack come here in the first place. They thought it would do him good, starting over in a new place after his first wife, my dad’s only sister, died of cancer last year. So, from my point of view, it made more sense for Mr. Miller to take the Denver office.
    I took a deep breath, scrounging up some courage. “Why can’t Mr. Miller go to Denver?” I asked, suddenly realizing what I’d just said. If he moved, so would Paula and Kayla, his twin daughters and my good friends.
    “You’re thinking, Holly, but I’m the one who’s established most of the Denver accounts,” Uncle Jack explained. “So it seems that I’m the logical choice.”
    How could he be so unemotional about this? “Well, why can’t you just get someone else?” I shot back.
    Uncle Jack glanced at his flip chart. “We’re trying. But there’s only one other man we would entrust with this position. We’ve offered him the job, but we won’t know his answer until Friday.”
    My uncle had all the answers, it seemed, but they weren’t good enough for me. I argued, “But you just moved here. Doesn’t that matter?”
    Uncle Jack nodded. “Good point, but we never expected our Denver accounts to grow so quickly.” He leaned back in his chair. “Sometimes that’s very difficult to predict.”
    I swallowed hard. “Why’d you choose Dressel Hills in the first place?” It was a two-fold question.
    “Now, Holly…” Mom had picked up my sarcasm instantly. She was glaring at me, her eyes squinting tightly.
    Uncle Jack put his hand on Mom’s shoulder. “At first it didn’t matter where we based our company, since we set up computer systems