By The Sea, Book Four: The Heirs by Stockenberg Antoinette

Author:Stockenberg, Antoinette
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romantic suspense, adventure, mystery, family saga, contemporary romance, cozy, newport, americas cup, mansions, multigenerational saga
Publisher: Antoinette Stockenberg

Chapter 10

During the long drive back to Newport, Quinta had plenty of time to review. She did not believe in rehashing mistakes; she'd seen enough of that in her father to last a lifetime. Still, dumb was dumb, and she was smart enough to know it. It was dumb to have taken advantage of Alan Seton's guilty feelings toward them by requesting the interview; dumber still to have pouted when he didn't obligingly spill his soul; and dumbest of all to have let him say all that about his dead wife. There was no way Quinta would compound her stupidity by repeating any of it to her father.

On the other hand, it was fair to say that Alan Seton had overreacted. Why he had was an interesting question. World-class competitors were all a little high-strung, she knew. Celebrities had been known to spit at the media, or beat them up. At least Alan had made coffee. She stole a look at herself in the rear-view mirror: a straight-haired blonde with what she hoped was an honest face. But dumb, dumb, dumb.

It was very sad. In the baggage from her youth she'd been carrying a special feeling for Alan Seton. He'd been so kind, so easy to talk to on that day they'd gone to pick up a puppy for her dad. But today he hadn't even asked about Leggy, who was just fine, thank you very much.

When she got back to her father's house she found him in a humor that was, even by his standards, unusually black. She'd learned over the years to tiptoe fearfully around such moods as if they were so many mousetraps, ready to snap her serenity in two and ruin her day. But the day was already shot, and Quinta was feeling neither serene nor, after what she'd been through, particularly afraid.

"What's bugging you, Dad?" she asked after a couple of hours of watching him wheel his chair with particular ferocity through the downstairs apartment he had fashioned for himself. He seemed to want to be everywhere at once: at his computer station, the microwave, the file cabinets, the waist-high bookshelf that ran the length of one entire wall. But he was doing it all at fever pitch, and that made him clumsy. He ran over his favorite CD, of Beethoven sonatas, and then he nearly ran over Leggy's tail. When he went to put back an ungainly reference book, it slipped from his hands and fell to the floor. Each time he swore, and each time he meant it.

"Dad. For goodness' sake, what's wrong?"

"The same thing that's always wrong!" he shouted at her. "I can't walk!"

"You couldn't walk yesterday; you couldn't walk last year!" she said recklessly. "What's so different about today?"

Obviously Neil had been waiting for her to ask. "Today I got this in the mail." He reached into a side pocket of his wheelchair, pulled out a large brown envelope, and sent it sliding across the floor to her.

Quinta picked it up.

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