The Greatest Risk by Cara Colter

their son, Jason. And whenever Jason had grinned that grin, she had remembered the man who had given it to him.
    Not the betrayals. Not the dreams on collision course.
    The laughter. The lovemaking. The sheer joy of being together.
    â€œGo after what you want,” he repeated emphatically at the end of the seminar. “Erase self-doubt.”
    Carrie did not join the many who wanted to talk to him after the class. She slipped out the door and contemplated his words.
    She smiled cynically. He would not have utteredthem nearly so confidently if he knew that what one member of his class wanted to go after was him. Oh, how she would love to expose Dr. Richard Strong for what he really was: a superficial man who had left his pregnant young wife to fend for herself. Who had emptied half the bank account when he had left.
    Not, she thought reluctantly, that he had known she was pregnant.
    That was the self-doubt part.
    Erase it, she ordered herself. But she couldn’t.
    With Jason in college she had felt so confident that it was time to track down her old husband, to put away the ghosts of her old life for good.
    She stood in the late-afternoon sunshine outside the Healthy Living Clinic. The door swung open, and a wave of laughing people, filled with confidence and energy and excitement from what they had just learned from Dr. Richie, spilled out on the sidewalk.
    And her self-doubt intensified. She was no longer nearly as certain why she had come here or what she had hoped to accomplish. But a voice inside her, one of those ones that Dr. Richie spoke of but that she was pretty sure he was not on familiar terms with in his own life, told her to wait. When the time is right, you will know exactly what to do.
    She walked away, feeling lonely and tense, and very, very separate from all the hopeful, energetic people who had been inspired by a man who was not even close to being what he was saying he was.

Five
    F or all the times she had looked longingly in the window, Maggie had never shopped in Classy Lass before.
    The summer dress was still in the window, red and bold, and, taking a deep breath, Maggie went through the wide double oak and glass doors. It was quickly apparent that Classy Lass was not the kind of store she usually shopped in. It was more like walking into a very posh hotel lobby than a store. There were deep comfortable leather sofas, tasteful displays, wonderful little alcoves to explore.
    A freckled, friendly girl introduced herself as Tracey and made Maggie feel warmly welcome. Tracey acted as though she had no idea Maggie did not belong in a shop that was not advertising the underwear special in aisle 9 over the PA system.
    â€œMake yourself at home,” she said, “and just ask me if you need anything.”
    After looking at the price tag on a leather bag hooked carelessly over the arm of one of the sofas, Maggie wanted to say what she needed was a dose of oxygen. For a moment she considered leaving, but then she took a deep breath and approached Tracey.
    â€œI like the red dress in the window, but I don’t see it on display anywhere else. Have you got it?” Maggie gave the woman her size, and crossed her fingers that they’d have it.
    Tracey grinned without one little bit of condescension. “Only one perfect little red dress,” she said. “You don’t want to see everyone in Portland wearing a dress you paid eight hundred dollars for, do you?”
    Maggie felt her jaw dropping. Eight hundred dollars? For a dress that looked as if it barely contained a yard of material? She had known Classy Lass was going to be expensive, but she had not expected it to be quite so far out of her price range.
    The girl read her expression, and instead of looking haughty, she took on the look of a conspirator. “It doesn’t hurt to try it on,” she said, and before Maggie could protest, she was up in the window retrieving the dress. “It is your size.”
    A moment