Defender. Diana Palmer

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СКАЧАТЬ terrible things about me, and you never chastise him!” Sari accused.

      “Well, darlin’, I may be old, but I can still appreciate a handsome man.” She grinned at them.

      Sari threw up her hands. Paul made her a handsome bow, winked and walked out the back door.

      “You always take his side,” Sari groaned.

      Mandy chuckled. “He really is handsome,” she said defensively.

      “Yes. Too handsome. And too standoffish. He’ll never look at me as anything but the kid I was when he came here.”

      “You’ve got law school to get through,” Mandy reminded her. She sobered. “And you know how your dad feels about you getting involved with anyone.”

      “Yes, I know,” Sari said miserably. “Especially anybody who works for him.” Shivering softly, she said, “It’s just, I’m getting older. I’m a grown woman. And I can’t even drive myself to San Antonio to go shopping or invite friends over.”

      “You don’t have any friends,” Mandy countered.

      “I don’t dare. Neither does Merrie,” she added solemnly. “We’re young, with the whole world out there waiting for us, and we have to get permission to leave the house. Why?” she exclaimed.

      Mandy ground her teeth. “You know how your dad guards his privacy. He’s afraid one of you might let something slip.”

      “Like what? We don’t know anything about his business, or even his private life,” Sari exclaimed.

      “And you’re both safe as long as it’s kept that way,” Mandy said without thinking, then slapped a hand across her mouth.

      Sari bit her lower lip. She moved closer. “What do you know?”

      “Things I’ll die before I’ll tell you,” the older woman replied, turning pale.

      “How do you know them?”

      Mandy ignored her.

      “Your brother, right?” she whispered. “He knows people who know things.”

      “Don’t you ever say that out loud,” she cautioned the younger woman, looking hunted until Sari reassured her that she’d never do any such thing.

      “It’s like living in a combat zone,” Sari muttered.

      “A satin-cushioned one,” came the droll reply. “If you want an apple pie, here’s a do-it-yourself kit.” She put a basin of apples in front of the younger woman. “So get busy and peel.”

      Sari started to argue. But then she recalled the delicious pies Mandy could make, so she shut up and started peeling.

      * * *

      Graduation came all too soon. The household, except for Darwin Grayling, who was in Europe at the time, went to Merrie’s first at the high school and took enough pictures to fill an album. Then, only a few days later, it was Isabel’s graduation from college. Merrie kept fussing with Sari’s high collar.

      “It’s okay,” her older sibling protested.

      “It’s not! There’s a wrinkle, and I can’t get it smoothed out!” Merrie grumbled.

      “It will be hidden under my robes,” Sari said gently, turning. She smiled at her younger sister. She shook her head. With her long blond hair like a curtain down her back, wearing a fluffy blue dress, Merrie looked like a picture of Alice in Wonderland that Sari had seen in a book. “I like your hair like that,” she said.

      Merrie laughed, her pale blue eyes lighting up. “I look like Alice. Go ahead. Say it. You’re thinking it,” she accused.

      Sari wrinkled her nose.

      Merrie sighed. “He decides what we’ll wear, where we’ll go, what we do when we get there,” she said under her breath, her eyes on their father, standing with Paul near the front door. “Sari, normal women don’t live like this! The girls I go to school with have dates, go shopping…!”

      “Stop, or I won’t get to graduate at all,” the older sister muttered under her breath when Darwin Grayling shot an irritated glance toward them at Merrie’s slightly raised tone.

      Merrie drew in a deep breath. “It’s Sari’s collar,” she called to her father. “I can’t get the wrinkle out!”

      “Leave it be,” he shot back. He looked at his watch. “We need to leave now. I have meetings with my board of directors in Dallas in three hours.”

      “That’s your graduation, sandwiched in between breakfast and a board meeting,” Merrie teased under her breath. “At least he came home for your graduation,” she added a little bitterly.

      Sari kissed her sister’s cheek. “I was there at yours. So were Mandy and Paul. Now shut up or I’ll never graduate,” came the whispered reply. “Let’s go!” She smoothed down her very discreet black dress, regardless of her own wishes, and started toward the door. She noticed Paul’s faint wince as he saw how she was dressed, like someone out of a very old Bette Davis movie instead of a young woman ready to start graduate school.

      She didn’t answer that look. It might have been fatal to his employment if she had.

      Graduation was boisterous and fun, despite her father, who sat through the entire ceremony texting on his phone and then conducting a business call the minute the graduates filed out into the spring sunshine.

      “Maybe it’s glued to him,” Merrie teased as she and Sari were briefly alone.

      “Attached by invisible cords,” Sari replied. “Hi, Grace, happy graduation!” Sari called to a fellow graduate.

      “Thanks, Sari! You off to law school in the fall?” she asked.

      “Yes. You?”

      “I’m moving in with my boyfriend,” Grace sighed, indicating a tall, gangly boy talking to another boy. “We’re both going to the University of Tennessee.”

      “Oh, I see,” Sari said, still not comfortable with modern ideas and choices.

      Grace made a face. “Honestly, Sari, you need to buy normal clothes and go out with boys,” Grace said, loud enough for Sari’s father to hear.

      He hung up his phone and moved to join them, looking expensive and coldly angry. “Are you ready to go, Isabel?” he asked curtly. His eyes never left Grace. He looked at her as if she were some disease he was afraid his daughters might catch.

      “Uh, congrats, Sari. See you around,” Grace said, red-faced, and went back to her boyfriend.

      “Slut,” Darwin said, just loud enough for his voice to carry and Grace to look both ruffled and insulted. “Let’s go.” He took Sari by the arm and almost dragged her to the waiting limousine, with a flustered Merrie running to catch up.

      “I’ll have Paul watching,” Darwin said as Paul put the girls into the back of the СКАЧАТЬ