Free Linda Ford by Once Upon a Thanksgiving Page B

think it’s time you returned to that school I paid for you to attend. It’s not like you’re helping your mother a lot.”
    “I’m not sure I want to return.”
    Mother took her hand. “Maybe if you simply decide to stay home instead of going there .” She said the word with more than a hint of bitterness.
    Kathleen couldn’t answer. She didn’t want to goback to the college. She couldn’t promise she wouldn’t visit Rosie. She hoped and prayed Buck would stay. Somehow she had to convince her father to give them a chance. If only he would meet them, she was certain he’d approve of them. But she wouldn’t speak her thoughts until she’d had a chance to pray about them and form a plan. God, help me.
    She spent the rest of the afternoon at her mother’s side, reading to her, fixing her tea, locating a certain necklace she thought she’d lost. It wasn’t until later in the evening when her mother had gone to bed that she finally withdrew to her own room to consider the events of the day.
    But rather than focus on what her father said, and how to convince him to change his mind about Buck and Rosie, her thoughts went back to the afternoon. Buck had kissed her. A kiss loaded with a thousand unspoken promises. Or so she let herself think.
    She lay on her back in bed and smiled into the darkness. Surely he’d felt something. Vowing she’d try again the next day to convince him to stay, she fell asleep with a smile on her face.
    But the next morning, her mother was too ill to get out of bed.
    “This is on your head,” Kathleen’s father said. “Bringing home dirt from there. Goodness knows what your mother is ill with, thanks to you.” He scowled as he prepared to leave for work.
    “Mother, I’m sorry.” But she had been sick off and on before she started visiting Rosie, and Kathleen was certain she had not brought sickness home with her.
    Her mother slept fitfully throughout the morning and sat up in bed for a lunch of clear soup and crackers. “I’m so weak,” she murmured as she pushed away the tray without finishing.
    “Can I do anything?” Kathleen refrained from glancing at the clock.
    “Could you read to me? I really like the story you started the other day.”
    Kathleen could not refuse her mother, even though it meant she would not be able to go to Rosie’s today. She got the book and settled in next to her mother to read. But it was only words she recited. Her mind was not on the story. If only she could send a message to Buck and let him know why she couldn’t be there.
    But she’d have to wait until tomorrow and an improvement in Mother’s well-being.
     
    At the knock at the door, Buck looked up from playing with the boys and helping Rosie. Had the morning passed so quickly? Or was Kathleen early? He knew the answer. It was much earlier than she normally arrived.
    He headed for the door, eager to see her and judge if she’d changed her mind about him. He broke stride. What if she’d come to say they could no longer be friends?
    He brushed his finger across his mouth. Her kiss said they could be friends and so much more.
    Throughout the night, he’d considered if she could be right. Would people give him a chance to start over here if they knew the truth? Or could he expectto hide it from them? He’d mentally explored ways of disguising his true identity. A false name would be easy enough but carried no guarantees. Experience had taught him that nothing did.
    He opened the door, his smile wide in greeting. A man stood before him, scowling. Buck’s smile flattened in an instant.
    “You would be Buck, I presume. Buck Donahue.”
    His heart plummeted to the soles of his feet. So much for hiding his name. “And you would be?”
    “Samuel Sanderson. I’m Kathleen’s father.”
    “I see. Would you like to step inside?” Not that he felt exactly welcoming at the way the scowling man regarded him.
    “I think I prefer to remain here. What I have to say won’t take long.”
    Buck