Calamity Mom Read Online Free PDF

out of the water and we talked for a few minutes. That is the extent of our acquaintance. I have no desire to become his mother, despite the impression he may have given you.”
    “I appreciate what you did for Ben,” he said quietly. “You may not think so, but he’s very important to me.”
    “Is he?” she asked with faint sarcasm, and a ruddy flush ran over his high cheekbones.
    “Yes, he is,” he returned curtly. “I can do without any more insults from you.”
    “Isn’t turnabout fair play? You’ve done nothing but insultme since the first time you spoke to me. All right, I shouldn’t have flirted with you. I made eyes at you and pretended unrequited love to get my friends off my back, and it was wrong. But you had no right whatsoever to assume that because I smiled at you, I was eager and willing to warm your bed!”
    “No, I didn’t,” he agreed surprisingly. “Perhaps I’m more jaded than I realized. You’re very lovely. It’s been my experience that most women with looks find a market for them.”
    “Perhaps you’ve known the wrong kind of women,” she said. “And while we’re on the subject, whether or not she’s your fiancée, that woman has no right to talk to Ben as if he’s a pet dog!”
    His dark eyebrows arched and he smiled. “My, my.”
    “He’s a fine boy. Better than you deserve, and a walking miracle considering the lack of guidance he’s had.”
    He sighed slowly, watching her through narrowed eyes. He toyed with a plastic fork on the table and muscles rippled in his broad chest, dark hair visible through the thinness of his shirt as they moved.
    “I’ve been busy supporting us,” he said.
    “Your son will be away from home for good in about six years,” she reminded him. “Will he want to come back for visits then?”
    He scowled. “What do you mean?”
    “Ben doesn’t want to be a military man. He doesn’t want to go to a school with rigid discipline or become a hunter. He wants to be an artist. Is it really fair of you to try to relive your life through him?”
    He looked shocked. “I wasn’t.”
    “Ben doesn’t see it that way.” She grimaced. “Neither do I,” she said honestly. “My father is just like you. I’ve had to fight him constantly to get to do anything my own way. He’s got a husband all picked out for me. College, you see, is a waste of time for a woman.”
    He lifted an eyebrow and didn’t reply.
    “You think that way, too, I gather. A woman’s place is in the bedroom and the kitchen—”
    “I wouldn’t know,” he said curtly. “My mother was a corporate executive. She was never home.”
    She stared at him warily.
    “Surprised?” he asked mockingly. “My father worked himself to death before he was fifty. Mother inherited the company. In order to keep it going, she decided that I was expendable. She stuck me in a private school and devoted the rest of her short life to high finance. She died when I was in my final year of college. She dropped dead of a heart attack in the middle of a heated board meeting.”
    She was shocked. “I see.”
    “No, you don’t see anything. My father thought my mother was a home-loving woman who would want to give him children and love and care for them until they were old enough to live alone. But she never wanted children in the first place. God knows, she said so often enough when I was growing up!”
    “Oh, you poor man,” she said softly, and with genuine sympathy. “I’m so sorry!”
    He glowered at her. “I don’t need pity!”
    “Some women aren’t suited to domestic life,” she said gently. “Surely you know that by now?”
    “Then they shouldn’t marry.”
    She searched his hard face. A lot of things were clearing up in her mind. He was raising his son as he’d been raised, in the only way he knew.
    “There are other ways to make a boy self-sufficient and independent,” she said. “You don’t have to banish him to make him strong. He thinks you don’t want him.”
    He