Page 8 of Truly, Madly Viking

Maggie thought about stepping into the room and setting the girls straight, but somehow she couldn't burst their bubble. They had plenty of time to learn that dreams came true only in the movies.

Before hopping into their beds, they each took one last look at the wishing star, then gasped. Maggie stifled a gasp, too.

It almost seemed as if the star winked at them. Then their attention was diverted elsewhere.

"Oooh, Suz. Look. Look at that new formation of stars over there. Doesn't it resemble a... a whale?"

Suzy smiled widely at Beth from her matching poster bed. "That has to be a good sign."

When Maggie entered her own bedroom a short time later, she couldn't help herself. Drawn to the large, double-hung windows, she glanced up at the sky.

The new stars were gone.

The next day

"Mother! He's bald!" Suzy exclaimed the moment Dr. Harrison Seabold was out of hearing range. With a grimace of distaste, she added, "Your first date in, like, forever, and you had to pick a baldy?"

"Susan Marie McBride! Shhh!" Maggie cautioned her daughter and darted a quick glance at her boss's departing back to make sure he hadn't overheard. They'd just entered Orcaland, the marine park that was part of the huge amusement complex on Galveston Bay known as Marine Kingdom. Harry had gone off to buy snow cones for the four of them.

"Besides, he's not my date," she added.

"It's not polite to say bald anymore," Beth corrected with an air of one-upmanship. "He's follically challenged."

Suzy and Beth were dressed identically today— something they usually avoided with a passion— in jeans shorts and white Tshirts proclaiming Twins Rule. And they were both in a snit... something to do with a star and a father-hunt and their mother not cooperating.

Even if she hadn't overheard their conversation the night before, Maggie would be able to tell that the girls were up to something. They were so transparent.

She narrowed her eyes at them. If they were seriously starting that husband/daddy business again, she was going to wring their cute little necks. Really.

Besides, she'd already decided as she lay sleepless last night to have the biggest, best Christmas ever for the gifts this year. At home. Case closed. No need for a daddy, after all. Snow and a fireplace were out of her realm, but if they really, really wanted a live tree, who said she couldn't handle that herself? I am woman. Hear me chop evergreen.

Suzy made a nose-wrinkling face at Beth. Beth lifted her pert nose in the air with a superior sniff and twitched back at her.

"You think all men should look like Ricky Martin," Beth continued. "How many posters of him do you have on the wall on your side of our bedroom? Huh? Huh?"

"Not as many as you have of Keiko the killer whale," Suzy countered. "Besides, you like Ricky Martin, too."

"Not as much as you."

"I just think it's stupid for us to go to the marine park again. I'd rather go on a roller coaster. We've already seen all there is to see at Orcaland." The last of her comments was directed at her sister with some hinted meaning.

Presumably, there were better father prospects in an amusement park than a marine park.

Beth was very sensitive about her feelings for Keiko... for all killer whales in captivity, actually. Her precocious daughter even operated her own Web site for youths interested in the plight of the whales.

Normally, with such criticism from her sister, she would launch into her pat adolescent lecture on the tragedy of the orcas. Instead, today she took a deep breath and explained, "What Suzy was trying to say, Mom, when she made that comment about Dr. Seabold being bald, is that we were sort of surprised that you would pick a bald man for a dad... I mean date."

"Don't start—"

"Okay, I admit the Shop 'n' Save guy was a bit young for you," Beth went on, "but isn't this going overboard in the other direction? I know you're always saying that it's what's inside that counts, and that brains are more important than brawn, but still—"

"He's not my date," Maggie interjected—again.

"Brains? Well, duh!" Suzy countered, ignoring her mother. "How many brains could a guy have when he parts his hair at the ear? He'd better hope the wind doesn't blow. And he certainly shouldn't go on any roller coasters." She threw in that last with a huge sigh as if it would be the greatest tragedy in the worlda dad who couldn't go on roller coasters. Horrors!

The twins contemplated Harry's admittedly hopeless comb-over hairstyle and grinned at each other.

Instead of hiding his shiny pate, he was calling attention to it. You'd think a man with all his credentials in the psychiatric field would know better. Men! And they say women are vain!