If Wishes Were Horses. Carolyn McSparren

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      CHAPTER FIVE

      DURING DINNER, Pat gave Mike a replay of every moment of her first day at camp.

      Mike thought she seemed happier than he had ever seen her. Her face was flushed...

      He reached across the table and laid the back of his hand against her forehead.

      “Oh, Daddy,” Pat snapped. “I don’t have any fever.”

      “You’ve got a lot of color in your cheeks.”

      “The sun does that.” Pat snorted. “Get a grip. I feel great!” She told him for the third time how she’d trotted that pony all by herself. A couple of times she nearly slipped and told him the truth—about how she stayed behind so that Liz could help her work through her fear. She managed to catch herself in time.

      She was used to giving her father a heavily edited version of her activities. She knew he’d have a cat fit if he ever caught on to some of the things she did when he wasn’t around, and Mrs. H. had promised not to snitch on her. It wasn’t lying exactly. She didn’t want Mike to worry—well, not any more than he did, at any rate.

      Maybe when he saw how much fun she was having he’d loosen up a little. She checked to see how he was taking all this. He had a goofy grin on his face. She got up to kiss his cheek.

      And she kept up the chatter. Mike found he was listening with a tinge of jealousy. Pat was the only person left in his life who loved him. God knew he loved her. And now she seemed to be developing a crush on Liz Matthews. All his colleagues had warned him that sooner or later Pat would grow up and begin to move away from him.

      Strange. He’d never rebelled against his parents. He’d felt no more for them than they had for him. They saw him as a certificate of deposit—tend it properly and the dividends would be worth the expense.

      Well, he’d paid off handsomely by presenting them with a large trust fund that would make their years of retirement from the faculty at Berkeley more than comfortable. And then he’d walked out of their lives.

      That was almost twenty years ago. He doubted they noticed that he no longer called or came to see them. His father would still be writing stuffy papers about the state of the economy for academic journals, and his mother would be so engrossed in her mathematical formulae that she’d forget dinner.

      When they’d sent him to prep school at age twelve, he’d never had a moment’s homesickness. Probably because he’d never felt at home with them. Even as a small boy, he’d often wondered whether he should introduce himself to his parents at breakfast. They never seemed to know quite who he was or what he was doing in their cloistered lives.

      Wiping her hands on a linen towel, Mrs. Hannaford came in from the kitchen. “Enough. Time for bed, young lady.”

      “No. It’s too early.” Pat’s statement was flat. “Did I tell you...”

      “Tomorrow comes early.”

      “I’m too keyed up to sleep. I’ll just lie there and toss and turn until daylight.”

      “So look at the ceiling and think about tomorrow,” Mike said. “Mrs. H. is right. Take your bath and go to bed. Now.”

      “Daddy, I’ve had one bath this evening. I do not intend to take another, thank you very much.”

      “Point taken. So brush your teeth and things.”

      Pat stalked off toward her bedroom with her head high. She could usually get around her father except when it came to her health. Bedtimes were not negotiable. At the door she paused and turned to say dramatically, “I can hardly wait to get to college and away from here. I plan to drink, smoke pot and date the entire football team.”

      “You do and I’ll lock you up in a dungeon until you’re ninety,” Mike answered.

      “I’m already locked in a dungeon.” She slammed the door behind her.

      “Just like you.” Mrs. Hannaford’s voice was gruff with affection.

      “I drink very little, I don’t smoke pot or anything else, and I have never ever dated anybody’s football team.”

      “You might consider dating the girls’ volleyball team.”

      Mike laughed. “They’re about six years older than Pat. Besides, at my age all that sex would kill me.”

      Mrs. Hannaford gave him a cool appraisal. “I doubt that. You going out tonight?”

      “No, I’m going to bed. Rachelle is at some real-estate dinner thing.”

      “Oh, really.”

      At the housekeeper’s tone, Mike raised his head from the back of his chair. “I don’t know why you dislike Rachelle. She’s beautiful, has a great career of her own so she’s not after me for my money—her alimony has left her a wealthy woman—and she and Pat are even civil to each other most of the time. In one year Pat will be thirteen. She needs a mother to—oh, teach her how to shave her legs.”

      “I have already taught her that.”

      “You have?” Surprised, Mike pulled himself out of the chair and walked over to Mrs. Hannaford.

      “Mrs. Hannaford, I don’t know what we’d do without you. Promise me that even if I do marry again, you’ll always be with us.”

      She turned away and casually flicked her linen towel at an imaginary dust mote on the polished glass dining-room table. “A new wife СКАЧАТЬ