Love, Marriage And Family 101. Anne Peters

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ even that wasn’t the main reason for his determination to bring up his daughter himself from here on in. That had strictly to do with himself and Cory. She was his daughter, his child. She was the baby he and Becky had been so happy to have created. And she’d grown to be a stranger.

      His fault. Drilling for oil all over the globe didn’t leave a man with much family time. Nor was three weeks of home leave every four months anywhere near enough time for a father to bond with his child. A child who didn’t understand why he wasn’t around like other daddies; who considered his long absences a form of desertion no matter how often he tried to explain the real reason for their lifestyle.

      Not that he hadn’t understood Cory’s bewilderment and agonized over her increasingly resentful attitude. After all, what could something as intangible as the dream of a horse ranch possibly mean to a young child? Or for that matter, to anyone other than Becky and himself?

      It was their dream. Just as it had been their decision to live as they had—he overseas in his oil camps, Becky home with Corinne in Marble Ridge—to one day make that dream a reality.

      Where else could a geologist earn the kind of money Mike had brought home than in those faraway oil fields? Money a fair chunk of which they had faithfully put into savings each month. Watching it grow—every dime and dollar reducing by minutes and hours the time they’d have to wait to be a family again—was what had made it all bearable.

      And then, just like that, time had run out

      First, Becky had become strange and secretive, increasingly so. And then her illness had taken its toll, draining their savings account as relentlessly as the cancer had sucked the life from her body. And their dream had collapsed like a house of cards in a windstorm with Becky’s death.

      Cory’s grief had been as terrible as his own bewilderment. He couldn’t seem to figure out how everything could have gone so wrong. And while the loss should have drawn them closer, it had, instead, driven them further apart.

      Cory had been livid, wild, out of control with rage when she’d seen him packing to fly back to Saudi three days after the funeral. She didn’t want anything to do with him, was more than happy to live with her maternal grandparents, but she was nevertheless outraged that he was leaving.

      Nothing he or Becky’s parents could say had been able to make her understand the necessity. She didn’t care about Mike’s unbreakable contract, didn’t want to hear that they were practically bankrupt, or that the sizable sum he’d earn in the next six months would allow him to take another position with his company for less pay and with virtually no travel.

      That was the position he now held here in Long Beach, California. A town that, in many ways, was as far removed from Marble Ridge, Idaho, as the moon. But even so, it was a community in which Mike had hoped to make a new beginning for himself and his child. To make up for lost time. To become a family.

      So far, their month here together had been a disaster.

      Sighing, Mike pulled into the lot of the supermarket he’d come to know better than he ever thought he’d have to. Grocery shopping was just one of the many new dimensions to his life.

      Pushing his cart up and down the aisles, he hoped to spot the items they were out of since he’d forgotten—again—to bring the list he’d made that morning. Cruising the aisles wasn’t the most efficient way to shop, but what the heck.

      He detoured abruptly when he spotted the by-nowfamiliar—and dreaded—redhead who lived two doors down from him. A forty-ish and still quite attractive divorcée, Pamela Swigert had been the first to welcome Corinne and him into the neighborhood. She had two children, both of whom had names Mike considered as strange and outlandish as their mother’s flamboyant wardrobe. The daughter, Latisha, was Corinne’s age, while the poor kid named Warlock was twelve.

      Latisha didn’t go to Corinne’s school, but the two girls had struck up a desultory friendship of sorts. Though not sure how or whether to discourage the association of these two vastly dissimilar girls, Mike was nevertheless uneasy about the changes Cory’s appearance had undergone with Latisha’s tutelage. Instead of the preppy, brown-haired young girl from Idaho who favored Laura Ashley, Corinne now dressed in Goodwill castoffs and had bleached her chopped-off hair a sickly white.

      As to Pamela Swigert, upon learning that there was no Mrs. Parker, she had taken to unexpectedly dropping in with offerings of food and parenting advice, neither of which Mike particularly appreciated any more than the flirty come-hither attitude that accompanied them.

      He had neither the time nor the inclination to enter into any kind of romantic liaison with a woman, any woman. But most certainly not with a neighbor, even if she had been his type, which Pam decidedly was not. Trouble was, he had no idea how to let her know that without hurting her feelings.

      Which was why Mike chose avoidance whenever possible, inconvenient though that was. Like right now, with Pam Swigert in the frozen food section where Mike needed to get some things, as well. A pizza, for one thing. It was Cory’s favorite food and Mike figured if they shared one for dinner, the talk they were going to have to have just might go a little easier. Hell, he’d get her Rocky Road ice cream, too. As soon as the coast was clear.

      Mike backed up a few steps and peered around the corner. And stifled an oath when he found himself practically nose to nose with a delighted Pamela Swigert.

      “Mike!” she exclaimed, fluttering night-black eyelashes that never failed to fascinate Mike, they were so impossibly thick and long. False, Corinne had scornfully proclaimed them. “I thought that was you I saw skulking by a minute ago.”

      She tapped him on the arm with a flirty moue. “Not trying to avoid me, were you?”

      “Lord no.” Mike mustered a grin. “Just a bit preoccupied, I guess.”

      “Problems?” Pam was instantly all sympathetic concern. “Anything I can do?”

      “Oh, no.” Heaven forbid. To change the subject, Mike craned his neck to look past her. “This the frozen food aisle?” he asked, as if he didn’t know. “Thought I’d get us a pizza—”

      “Pizza?” Pam squealed, pointing to the two large rounds in her own cart. “Can you beat that! Great minds do think alike, I swear. I’ve got enough here for you to join Warly and me. It’ll be fun.

      “Come on,” she insisted prettily, gripping his arm when Mike pulled back, ready to say no. “Don’t be a poop.”

      A “poop"? Mike shook his head, chuckling a little ruefully as he gently but firmly peeled Pam’s fingers off his arm. Sparkly little hearts on. her inch-long, deep red nails momentarily arrested his gaze before he lifted it to her skillfully made-up face.

      “Thanks for the invite, Pamela,” he said. “But I’m afraid it’s just not a good time for us to be sociable right now….”

      Pam’s smile remained in place, but one pencil-sharp eyebrow arched. “Since by ‘us’ you obviously mean yourself and Corinne, dear heart, I suppose that means you don’t know after all.”

      “Don’t know what?” Anxiety slammed into Mike’s gut like a boxer’s fist.

      Pamela’s light laugh held an edge of uneasiness. “About the rock concert at Milton Stadium. I dropped the girls off there half an hour ago.”

      “What?” СКАЧАТЬ