Free Land of a Thousand Dreams by BJ Hoff

me, I’m afraid.”
    Her father’s dark eyes searched hers. “Sara,” he said, shaking his head, “that boy is almost a man. Indeed, for all practical purposes, he is a man. Don’t get your hopes up for any real changes there. You and Michael need to plan a life without him, not around him, it seems to me.”
    Sara looked away, troubled as always by the thought of Michael’s rebellious son. “I know you’re right, Father. But it’s difficult. Michael had so hoped we could all be a family. I hate what Tierney’s disapproval is doing to him. Yet, I think I almost understand why the boy resents me. I represent everything that Tierney dislikes and distrusts, just by the fact of who I am.”
    Again her father shook his head. “The boy’s disapproval of you is only a part of the trouble between him and his father. There were problems there long before Michael asked you to marry him. He told me as much.”
    Again Sara nodded. “That’s true, but—”
    â€œSome things don’t change, daughter,” he said softly, taking her hand. He seemed hesitant, as if he weren’t quite certain he should go on. “So the delay is your doing, then?” he asked gently. “I thought as much.”
    Sara avoided his gaze. “I don’t want to make things worse between Michael and his son. I couldn’t live with that. Tierney is his only child—”
    â€œTierney Burke is no child!” Her father’s hand tightened on hers. “Listen to me, Sara. Allow me, just for a moment, to be an interfering father.”
    Surprised, Sara turned back to him. Over the years, her father had made it a point to reserve his advice for only those matters of great importance. A man who had an opinion on almost everything, more often than not he kept his feelings about Sara’s personal life entirely to himself.
    â€œCourting you can’t have been easy for Michael,” he said in his characteristically direct manner. “The man is no fool. He knows there’s every likelihood he’ll be marked as just another fortune hunter—”
    Sara bit her lip, stung by his words.
    â€œNow don’t take on,” he said quickly, clasping her shoulders. “Anyone with half his wits can see the man is in love with you! Still, I’m sure it’s no easy thing for him to deal with the assumption and speculation. There’s noignoring the truth, after all: Michael is an immigrant policeman who presumed to ask a millionaire’s daughter to change her entire life for him. The fact that he believes you love him enough to do so—and the fact that he believes in you enough to think you can manage it all—is a real tribute to you. But don’t think for a moment it’s easy for him.”
    He silenced Sara’s renewed protest with a wave of his hand, then went on. “It seems to me the man has quite enough to handle without worrying that you might be having regrets. Your reluctance to set a date is bound to trouble him.”
    Smarting from the undercurrent of criticism she sensed in her father’s words, Sara stood looking down at the floor, not trusting herself to answer. At the back of her mind lurked the discomforting awareness that he was right. He usually was.
    His words followed her all the way upstairs into the bedroom. As soon as she entered the room, she sank down onto the vanity stool. With unsteady hands, she loosened the thick twist of hair at the nape of her neck, smoothing it and repinning it in place.
    Michael was fond of teasing her about what he called the “proper little knot on her neck.” Once they were married, he said, he was going to insist that she let her hair down. “We’ll create a scandal,” he would say. “The proper Miss Sara Farmington lets her hair down at last. Ah, the shame of the woman!”
    In truth, he had tried more than once to coax her into doing