Stranger. Megan Hart

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СКАЧАТЬ and your mother told me I’d better find something to do to keep me out of the house.”

      I sat back in my chair with a laugh. “Uh-huh.”

      Even nearly three years later, it still felt wrong to be on the other side of this desk while he sat in the chair meant for clients. I don’t think he liked it much, either, if the way he waved that folder was any indication. I didn’t need my dad to go over the books for me, just like I didn’t need him to ask me if I had enough gas in my car or if I needed someone to come in and fix my sink. I didn’t like feeling secondguessed. He didn’t entirely want to let go. It was half on the verge of ugly.

      My dad grunted and pushed his glasses back up on his nose. He spread out the statements and stabbed one with his finger. “See, there? What’s this for?”

      Two clicks of the mouse brought up my accounting program, a system my dad had never used. “Office supplies.”

      “I know it’s office supplies. The charge is from the office-supply store. I want to know why you spent a hundred bucks!”

      “Dad.” I tried to keep calm. “It was for printer ink, computer paper and stuff like that. Look for yourself.”

      He didn’t do more than glance at the monitor before he dived back into the pile of papers. “And why are we getting a cable bill?”

      “We aren’t.” I plucked it from his hand. “That’s mine.”

      My dad wouldn’t ever come out and accuse me of trying to slip my personal bills into the funeral home’s accounting. He’d hammered hard the idea that the home’s expenses had to be kept separate from family bills enough times that I had no trouble remembering it. Considering the fact I’d be expected to cut my salary should the business require it, I didn’t see any issue with paying for my cable bill out of the same bank account, especially when it was ridiculous to have two separate cable Internet accounts to serve one location. I lived just upstairs. I could share the home’s wireless.

      “I’ll have a talk with Shelly. Tell her to make sure the bills don’t get all jumbled up like that.” My dad harrumphed a little. “Maybe give Bob a mention, too, next time I’m at the post office. Make sure he’s putting them in the right slots.”

      “Dad. It doesn’t matter.”

      He gave me a look guaranteed to make me quake. “Sure it does, Grace. You know that.”

      Maybe it had when he was running the business while raising a family, but now it was just me, and I didn’t agree. “I’ll talk to Shelly. You’ll just make her cry.”

      Fresh from two years of business college, Shelly’d never worked anywhere else before I’d hired her for the office manager position. She was young, but a hard worker and good with people. My dad huffed again, sitting back in the chair I could tell he still thought of as the wrong one.

      “I wouldn’t make her cry.”

      It wasn’t too hard to make Shelly cry, but I didn’t argue with him. I tucked the cable bill into the drawer where I kept my private things and looked back at him. “Anything else you have a question about?”

      He looked over the bills and statements again, but perfunctorily. “No. I’ll take these home. Get it all worked out.”

      I hadn’t had a problem, but it was almost guaranteed he’d come back with a list of questions about expenses I needed to justify. You’d have thought I was running the place into the ground, sometimes, the way he talked. I shrugged and he closed the folder.

      “That still doesn’t answer my question,” my dad said. “About where your head is.”

      “I thought it was up my rear.”

      My attempt at humor didn’t make him smile. “Don’t be smart, Gracie.”

      I raised a brow in a perfect imitation of him. “You want me to be dumb?”

      He didn’t smile this time, either. He was really mad. Or upset, I couldn’t tell. “Your sister says you’re seeing somebody. Says you don’t want to bring him around the house. Meet the family.”

      I held back the groan. “Hannah talks too much.”

      He snorted. “I won’t argue with that, but is she right? You have some fella you don’t want to bring around? You’re ashamed of us, or what?”

      “Oh, Dad. No.”

      “No, you’re not ashamed,” he said, “or no, you don’t have a fella?”

      I should’ve known better than to try to get around my dad by twisting words. “No to both.”

      “Huh.” He gave me an eye. “Is it Jared?”

      I wanted to laugh, but the sound that came out didn’t quite make it. “What?”

      My dad jerked a thumb toward my office door. “Jared.”

      “Oh, God. No, Dad.” My head tried to fall into my hands, but I kept it up. “He’s my intern.”

      My dad huffed a little more. “People talk, that’s all.”

      “People like you?” I folded my hands together on my desk.

      My dad didn’t look ashamed. “I’m just saying. You’re a lovely young woman. He’s a young guy.”

      I sighed, heavily and on purpose. “And he’s my intern. That’s it. Drop it, okay?”

      My dad just looked at me, up and down. He didn’t say he was sorry, the way my mom would’ve, and he didn’t bug me for answers the way my sister would have. He just shook his head slowly from side to side and left me to wonder what that meant.

      “What’s that sign out there say?”

      Whatever I’d imagined he might say, it wasn’t that. “Frawley and Sons.”

      My dad nodded. He put his glasses away into his breast pocket. He stood, the folder of bills in one hand. “Think about that.”

      He turned to go, apparently not planning to say anything else, and I got up. “Dad!”

      My dad stopped in the doorway, but didn’t look at me.

      “What’s that supposed to mean?” I cried.

      He looked at me then, the same look he’d given when I’d sneaked in after curfew, or brought home a bad grade. The look said he knew I could do better. More than could. Should. Must. Would.

      “I’m sure your sister won’t let her kids come within an arm’s length of this place. Your brother…” He paused, but only for a second. “Craig, if he ever has any, won’t either.”

      “So it’s up to me, is that what you’re saying?” I blinked, hard, thinking the sting in my eyes would go away.

      “You’re getting older, too, Gracie, that’s all I’m saying.”

      If I was СКАЧАТЬ