A Damaged Trust Read Online Free PDF Page A

looking down at his daughter with a smile, “How would you like to go riding with me after lunch?”
    “That sounds really nice,” she agreed pleasantly. “And it will give us a nice chance to talk.”
    “Yes, well.” Cliff looked around, his eyes crinkled in a squint against the already bright sun. “I guess I’d better head on into the office. Janet has some papers she says won’t wait another day.” He sighed. Carrie had to hide a grin of amusement, for she knew how much her father hated the paperwork involved with running a large ranch like the Metcalfes’.
    She said suddenly, “Let me walk you back, Dad, and I’ll give you a hand with the typing if you like.”
    He said gruffly, “Thanks forthe offer, Carrie, but we’ve hired a girl from town for part-time help and she’s due to get here around noon. She takes care of the typing and filing.”
    “That should be a great help for Mom.”
    “It was her idea to begin with. Now she’s got herself all immersed in plans for a barbecue next week.” Cliff spoke with some degree of smugness. He couldn’t see the sense in dinner parties and only attended them under protest. It was one subject that his wife held the upper hand in, for attend them he did, right beside her and under her watchful eye. It was a thoroughly miserable experience for the man, so Janet relented as far as her own entertaining went, and she faithfully stuck to barbecues, something that Cliff did enjoy. He didn’t have to put on a suit.
    Carrie chuckled. “Maybe she needs help with that, then. I have to find something to do with myself—I thought I’d want a vacation, but on my first day, I’m already looking for things to do!” Her smile faded as she thought of just why she needed to keep her mind so busy. She needed to keep from thinking of what was now the past.
    They walked as they talked, nearing the house, and just before going in, Cliff put a detaining hand on Carrie’s arm. She looked up, a question in her eyes.
    “Er—” Sounding embarrassed, he cleared his throat and stared at the ground. “D’you feel like keeping the Porsche? Have you thought about it much yet?”
    Carrie watched her father thoughtfully. A few months ago, Cliff had made a trip to Chicago to stay overnight for a short visit with her and, on the next day, he had come into the apartment with a gleaming new key. The car had been parked outside. He had insisted that Carrie keep the car for a little while to see if she liked it or not, and to have a chance to decide if she wanted to keep it. She had known what he had wanted to do; the car was a peace offering, a conciliatory gesture for their past conflicts. It was the closest that Cliff would ever be able to come to saying he was sorry for the harsh things that he had said as she had left the house for the last time, with her things.
    She was even more sure when Cliff asked her, a trace of sheepishness in his voice, not to tell anyone where she came by the car, not even the rest of the family. It would never do to have the others find out, she saw how his reasoning went, for then he would have to admit the possibility of him being in the wrong once in a while, thus undermining his authority in his own home. She privately thought it was all a little ridiculous.
    The gift did reveal, however, her father’s genuine desire to return to a more natural and easy relationship with his daughter, and she knew it. It was much more than just an expensive car; it was a promise, and a token of affection. She realized that if she rejected the car, then she would be rejecting Cliff too, and this made her pause to consider all the implications more deeply. Seeing Cliff as he was at the moment, with head a little bent and eyes averted, she suddenly sensed a vulnerability in her father that as a child she had never really seen. In spite of the past and their many differences, he truly cared.
    Speaking gently, she stretched out her arm and tucked it in the curve of her