Tennessee Reunion by Carolyn McSparren

Author:Carolyn McSparren
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2018-11-30T20:55:33+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

VINCE TURNED THE air-conditioner in his van on High on the drive back home. He’d be glad when the heat wave broke, but with global warming that might not happen until October. Hard on the horses, hard on him. Extra hard on Anne. She did need help. Even so, he should never have been conned into helping her. Working with her would make his long days even longer. Tired vets made mistakes. He didn’t allow himself mistakes. He’d have to remain sharp somehow.

His primary responsibility was to Barbara and the clinic, but she’d already told him he should help with the VSEs. He’d have to maintain his emotional distance from Anne. She was becoming a distraction rather than an annoyance. She was too easy to talk to.

Why on earth had he told her all that stuff when they were having fajitas? He should learn to keep his mouth shut about his family.

They weren’t all bad. He considered his current stepmother, Mary Alice, as kind of a present-day Katherine Parr, Henry the Eighth’s last wife—the one who outlived him. Old Henry couldn’t have been easier to deal with than his father Thor Peterson. The main difference between the two was that Henry chopped a couple of his wives’ heads off. Thor divorced his.

King Henry had produced one sickly boy child who barely lived to maturity. He never thought the girls counted. Thor had produced three strapping males, then spent his time interfering in their lives and treating them like undervalued servants.

Vince turned on his radio, listened to the beginning of a news story about the latest disaster and turned it off again. After a day spent pregnancy-checking fifty cows in the oppressive heat, he relished the quiet.

At last he turned into the driveway of his cottage, across the street from Seth and Emma’s house. Inside their living room warm light glowed and spilled out onto the front porch. Through the window Vince could see that Seth, who often worked late, was home on time tonight.

Emma came in from the kitchen carrying their baby, Diana.

Vince was close to crossing the line between neighbor and peeping Tom, but he couldn’t turn away.

Diana reached out her arms to her father. He took her from Emma and cradled her against his chest. Emma sat beside him and leaned against his shoulder. Vince felt a stab of jealousy. Without a wife, he would never have a chance to hold his own child. He could hope that he’d be a better parent than his father had been, but the odds were stacked against him.

He hadn’t realized that his father’s parenting tactics could be viewed as child abuse until his freshman psych class at college. The professor harped on the generational thing—one generation of abused children became the next generation of abusers.

His father had never raised a hand to him or his brothers. He hurt with words. Those wounds went deeper and bled longer.

In the darkness of his own front porch he fumbled with his house keys, got the door open and turned the lights on.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.