A Gift for All Seasons Read Online Free PDF Page B

it. Meaning, yes, she’d deliberately kept her parents in the dark about buying out her cousins, about her plans, because April was having enough trouble convincing herself she could make a go of this without throwing her mother’s inevitable disapproval into the mix. So why she’d thought presenting it as a fait accompli would garner a better reaction, she had no idea. Because clearly it hadn’t.
    “And you know I can’t set foot back in that house,” Mama said behind her. “I just can’t.”
    April turned away from the window, thinking that—from a distance, anyway—with her ash-blond pixie haircut and still-trim figure, her mother looked far younger than she was. “Except it’s my house now—”
    “It’s still tainted, April. With all those bad memories...” Her mother shut her eyes, shaking her head. “So many bad memories.”
    Although how terrible her mother’s memories really were, April wondered. Lord knew Nana had been irascible and strict, and from all accounts had given her three daughters far less freedom than most children of their generation—prompting all three girls to rebel by marrying men Nana heartily disapproved of. And which, in turn, led her grandmother to cut all three of them off. Warm and fuzzy, Nana had not been.
    But while her grandmother might’ve been a pain in the butt, April had no reason to believe she’d ever been out-and-out abusive. And weirdly enough she hadn’t let the rifts between her and her daughters tarnish her relationship with her granddaughters. Not when they were kids, at least. Those summers at the beach house with Blythe and Mel—summers when April could, for six or eight weeks, forget her own chaotic homelife—had been the high points of her childhood.
    “I know you and Nana had your differences,” April said gently, “but she and I didn’t—”
    “Why, April? Why? ” Her mother squawked the last word like her neck was being wrung. “Even if the place weren’t a money pit, which you know it is, for you to, to do this without telling us, to throw away everything Clayton left you...I don’t understand, April. I really don’t. You could have bought any house you liked—”
    “Because I don’t want any place, I want this one. I love the Rinehart, Mama,” she said when her mother pursed her lips. “I always have. And now, unbelievably, it’s all mine. My money pit.” Although what she’d spent on the house so far had barely made a dent in the inheritance. Of course, she knew she couldn’t coast on that forever, that if the inn didn’t turn a profit within a reasonable time she wouldn’t be able to keep it going. A worry for another day, however. “Besides, you wouldn’t recognize it now, what with everything Blythe’s done. And especially once the landscaping’s complete.”
    Which, unfortunately, wouldn’t be before April’s return.
    Too bad, that. Since, now that April had put some space between herself and Patrick Shaughnessy’s lethal gaze and could look at things with something resembling objectivity, she had to admit two things: one, that she was seriously attracted to the man, which she supposed, given her...situation and the before mentioned lethal gaze, wasn’t really a stretch; but that, two, the timing couldn’t be worse for her to be attracted to anybody.
    “No,” her mother said again, shaking her head, and it took April a moment to click back into the conversation. “When your grandmother threw me out, I vowed I’d never return. And I don’t renege on my promises.”
    Yeah, back to that stubbornness thing. As witness her mother’s never giving up on April’s father, no matter how many times he’d propose yet another “brilliant” get-rich scheme that inevitably fizzled out, but only after blowing through whatever savings they had. A good man, a kind man, but with the business acumen—and sense—of a gerbil.
    So her mother going on about April’s “throwing her money away” was just a trifle