Название: Courageous
Автор: Diana Palmer
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
isbn:
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“Wow. I never heard of that German officer.”
He gave her a blank stare. “Excuse me? Didn’t you study about World War II in school?”
“Sure. We learned about this general called Eisenhower who later became president. Oh, and this guy Churchill who was the leader in England.”
“What about Montgomery? Patton?”
She blinked. “Who were they?”
He finished his coffee and got up from the table. “I’ll quote George Santayana, a Harvard professor. ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ And for the record, high school history needs retooling!”
“Modern history.” She made a face. “A lot of dates and insignificant facts.”
“The stuff of legends.”
“If you say so.”
He glared at her, grimaced and gave up. “We’re leaving the world in the hands of shallow thinkers when we old ones die.”
“I am not a shallow thinker,” she protested. “I just don’t like history.”
He cocked his head. “Grange does.”
She averted her eyes. “Does he?”
“Military history, especially. We have running debates on it.”
She shrugged. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to check it out on Google.”
“There are books in the bookcase,” he said, aghast. “Real, honest to goodness books!”
“Dead trees,” she muttered. “Kill a tree to make a book, when there are perfectly good ebooks for sale all over the web.”
He threw up his hands. “I’m leaving. Next you’ll be telling me that you agree with all the bookstore and library closings all over the country.”
She hesitated. “I think it’s very sad,” she said unexpectedly. “A lot of people can’t afford to buy books, even used ones. So the library has all that knowledge available for free. What are people going to do when they don’t have any way to learn things except in school?”
He came back and hugged her. “Now I know you’re really my daughter.” He chuckled.
She grinned. “Aw, shucks.” She lowered her head and scuffed her toe on the floor. “Twarn’t nothing,” she drawled.
He laughed and went away.
“Pie?” she called after him.
“Wait an hour or so until dinner has time to settle!” he called back.
“Okay.”
She heated up a cup of coffee and carried it through the house, out the back door and into the barn. Grange was sitting out there in an old cane-bottom wooden chair with a prize heifer that was calving for the first time. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was attached to the Santa Gertrudis first-time mother, whom he called Bossie. She was having a hard time.
“Damned big bull that sired this calf,” he muttered, accepting the coffee with a grateful smile. “If I’d known who the sire was, I’d never have let Tom Hayes sell me this pregnant heifer.”
She grimaced. She knew about birth weight ratios. A first-time mother needed a small calf. The herd sire who bred this one was huge, which meant a much higher birth weight than was recommended. It would endanger the mother.
“I hope she’ll do okay.”
“She will, if I have to have the vet come out here and sit with her all night and pay him.”
She laughed. “Dr. Bentley Rydel would do it for free. He loves animals.”
“Good thing. His brother-in-law sure is one. An animal, I mean.”
“You really have it in for mercenaries, don’t you?” she asked, curious.
“Not all of them,” he replied. “Eb Scott’s bunch is a notch above the rest. But Kell Drake, Rydel’s brother-in-law, was a career military man and he threw it all up to go off searching for adventure in, of all places, Africa!”
“Is Africa worse than South America?” she asked, making a point.
“Much worse, because you have so damned many factions trying to get a foothold there,” he replied. “Most of the aid that’s sent never reaches the starving masses, it goes to sale for the highest bidder and the money goes in some warlord’s pocket.” He shook his head. “Guns don’t really solve problems, you know. But neither does diplomacy when you have two religions slugging it out in the same region, plus class warfare, tribal conflicts, greedy corporations …”
“Is there anybody you like?” she asked pointedly.
“George Patton.”
She laughed, remembering her father had mentioned the name. “Who’s he?”
His eyes almost popped.
“Well, I’m young,” she muttered. “You can’t expect me to know everything.”
He drew in a long breath. She was. Very young. It made him uncomfortable. “He was a famous general in World War II. He served in several theaters of operations for the Allies, predominantly the North African and European campaigns.”
“Oh, that Patton!” she exclaimed. “My dad was telling me about a German general named Rommel in North Africa. Then there was this movie I watched … did Patton really do those things?”
He chuckled. “Some of them. I went through West Point with a distant cousin of his.”
“Neat!”
He finished the coffee. “You should go back in. It’s getting cold.”
She took the cup from his outstretched hand. “It is.”
“Thanks for the coffee.”
She shrugged. “Welcome.” She glanced at the heifer, who was staring at them with wide brown eyes. “I hope Bossie does okay.”
He smiled. “Me, too. Thanks.”
She nodded, smiled and left him there.
The next morning, СКАЧАТЬ