Annie's Rainbow by Fern Michaels Page B

Don’t ask me when she studies. Maybe she’s a quick learner. Daniel said she sells shoes at Bob Ellis. I’m going to hire her. Do you agree?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œHe also thinks I should go to Hawaii to talk to his friend Parker Grayson, who has a coffee plantation. He seems to think we can get a better deal on the coffee from him and he might roast it for us, too. Eliminates the middleman. If both shops are successful at Clemson we’ll be ordering about five hundred pounds of coffee a week. We need to get the best deal possible.”
    â€œI agree.”
    â€œThere’s something else, Tom. With Jane and Bob moving to San Francisco, I don’t think I want him doing our accounting. I just don’t know how to bring it up tactfully without causing hard feelings with Jane. I don’t want to have to rely on the mail and worry about will it get there on time. He’s been picking up the stuff on a weekly basis. I’m more comfortable with a local firm. What’s your feeling?”
    â€œI agree with you on that, too. I can talk to Bob. If it looks like it’s getting dicey, I’ll say I’m taking it over. Business is business, Annie. When friendship gets involved there’s always trouble. I’ll be the bad guy and take the hit so your friendship with Jane stays intact. Boy, that was a good sandwich. How about a chunk of that stuffing? Do you remember, Annie, how Mom always made extra because we liked to eat it cold between two slices of bread? We ate that stuff for weeks.”
    â€œI remember.”
    â€œDo you still write in that diary I gave you on your sixteenth birthday?”
    â€œEvery day of my life. All my memories are in there, or as many of them as three lines can hold. Someday when we’re both home with the flu or a bad cold, I’ll read some of it to you. How come you went to bed so early?”
    â€œI was kind of down. I miss the kids. Seeing Mom and knowing it isn’t going to get any better, realizing what a jerk I was where you were concerned. It all kind of piled up on me.”
    â€œThere’s more, isn’t there?”
    Tom’s face closed up tight. “Yes, but I don’t want to talk about it.”
    â€œThat’s why you should talk about it. Let’s have another beer and sit by the tree and talk it out. We used to do that in high school. Then when we went to bed it all seemed bearable.”
    â€œThat was a long time ago, Annie. We aren’t kids anymore.”
    â€œThat’s exactly my point, Tom. We’re adults now, and we think and act like adults. Now tell me what it is you don’t want to talk about.”
    â€œAh, it’s Mona. I don’t want my kids having a stepfather. Guys never treat other guy’s kids the way they’d treat their own. Ben’s immature, and he’s sensitive. Jack is mouthy and going through a phase. Mandy is growing up so fast. She wants to be like Mona. Mona is too permissive. I was the disciplinarian. If Mona and the guy she’s seeing decide to get married, where does that leave my kids? Even if I lived in California in a house two doors away, Mona would only let me see them on the days the court agreed on. She says I can have them. That’s just the way she said it—you can have them if you give me a hundred thousand dollars. Do you believe that! She’d sell her own kids for a hundred grand. I must have been deaf, dumb, and stupid when I married her. Even if I had the money, I wouldn’t be a part of that. I know Ben heard her that day on the phone when she said it, because he asked me to buy him. I had to do some fast talking to convince the kid he heard wrong.”
    â€œThat’s terrible, Tom.”
    â€œTell me about it. Right isn’t always might as they say. If it’s meant to work out, it will. If it isn’t, it won’t. That’s the way I have to look at it. You know, Annie, that’s a