Feverish (Bullet #3) Read Online Free Page A

sighed. He’d
have to get a shirt and shoes on and drive to the power company
before five o’clock. He shook his head and shuffled to the bedroom
so he could comb his hair and finish dressing. Time to play grownup
for a while.
     

 
     
     
    Chapter Two
     
    EMILY BRINKMAN TWIRLED her straw in the glass
of iced tea, trying not to tune her dad out. The man meant well,
and she was very lucky to have him in her life. She should have
been putting the finishing touches on her capstone project for
school, not chewing the fat with her dad. Well, she knew damn good
and well she would have been hanging with her boyfriend Bryce if
she hadn’t been with her dad. The project was good to go. She was
just fretting over it now.
    Her dad had been waxing poetic over the
chicken wings, telling her how proud he was that she was going to
be graduating with her MBA in just a couple of weeks. He knew how
hard she’d worked on it and, even though she was going to have a
pile of student loans (and he also promised to help her pay them),
he hoped she’d felt as though her education had been worth the hard
work and sacrifice. Yeah, it had been. She knew that degree was
going to be worth every penny. She already had several companies
fighting over her, but she didn’t know that she wanted to go
straight into the corporate world after graduation. She instead
wanted to play a little, kind of like Bryce was going to do. Bryce
would be working for his father’s corporation beginning August
first, but before that, he and three of his closest buddies were
going to travel Europe.
    Emily knew she could have pushed the issue.
She could have made Bryce feel guilty about not taking her, but she
knew she didn’t want to be the one female surrounded by all that
testosterone. Really, this was Bryce’s extended bachelor party. No,
they hadn’t set a date. He hadn’t even given her an engagement
ring. Their first goal had been to get through school, and they
were almost there. It was a done deal, though. Every time Emily
visited his parents’ house in Cherry Creek, his mother grilled her
for details about what she wanted their wedding to be like. Emily
didn’t have the heart to tell the woman that her own father was
firmly rooted in middle-class finances. He wouldn’t be able to
afford the kind of wedding Bryce’s mother envisioned. So she
imagined she and Bryce would live together a year or two and save
up enough so they could pay for that wedding.
    In the meantime, though, Emily’s dad was
still talking. She managed to tune back in. He said, “Em, I know it
probably doesn’t make much sense to you, but I won’t worry about
you as long as Bryce is in your life.”
    “Oh, come on, dad. I don’t need a
man.”
    “I know, honey, but you’re all I’ve got, and
I worry about you.”
    She smiled and patted his hand. “I survived
college, didn’t I?”
    His mouth turned up at one corner but he
nodded. Her father had been her anchor her entire life. He’d never
remarried after her mother had passed away. Passed away made
it sound so peaceful, but it really hadn’t been. Her mother had
been in a horrible car accident, a tiny car in the middle of a
stack on the highway between Monument and Denver one snowy January.
Emily had been eight, so she’d missed out on all the things her
friends got from their mothers—the talks about menstruation,
pimples, and boys. Fortunately, her friends’ mothers understood
that and included Emily in on their talks. It wasn’t the same,
though, but Emily didn’t fault her dad for that. He’d done the best
he could.
    “Yes, you did. But I’m your father, and it’s
my job to worry.” He smiled at his daughter. She noticed how the
crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes had grown more prominent
over the last few years, and his hair had turned a salt-and-pepper
color. Maybe her going to school really had been harder on him than
she’d thought. “I just wanted you to know I think Bryce is a good
choice for a