Just for Now Read Online Free Page B

going to fix you for dinner, so you don’t sack me my first night.”
    “No chance of that. Just so grateful you took the post, and
that you’re here. And that I can go to practice tomorrow, and on to Hamilton on
Friday, without worrying about what’s happening at home.”
     
    “Go get your dad, OK?” Jenna asked Harry that evening. “Tell
him it’s dinnertime. And you and Sophie go wash your hands, please.”
    “OK.” Harry bounced off.
    “Sophie,” Jenna said more sharply, seeing the little girl
still sitting at the table she and Harry had just finished setting, once again engrossed
in her book.
    When she still got no response, Jenna went over and closed
the book gently. “Dinnertime,” she said when Sophie looked up. “Go wash your
hands, please.”
    Sophie got up with a sigh, still holding the book.
    “I’ll take this for now,” Jenna told her firmly. “Till after
dinner.”
    “Nyree lets me read at the table, when Daddy isn’t home,”
Sophie objected.
    “Well, first,” Jenna told her cheerfully, “he’s home
tonight. And second, I’m not Nyree. Even when he isn’t home, I’m going to be
talking to you at dinnertime. And I require my dinner partners to answer me.”
    Sophie gave another martyred sigh, but set off toward the
bathroom to wash her hands. Jenna smiled and put the book on the corner of the
bench. She understood the fascination. She’d been known to read at the table a
fair bit herself.
    “Why are there only three places?” Finn asked in surprise
when he came into the kitchen with Harry. “Aren’t you eating?”
    “I thought you’d want family time,” Jenna explained. “On the
nights you were home.”
    “So you’d eat, when?” he asked.
    She shrugged. “Afterwards, I suppose.”
    “This is one of those things I should’ve thought of,” he
realized. “It didn’t come up with Nyree, because she only stayed for dinner on
nights I was gone. But we’re not Poms, and I’m not comfortable with that. Unless
you’d really rather not, I’d prefer that you eat with us. Please.”
    “Please, Jenna,” Harry put in.
    “That’s fine with me.” Jenna pulled together another place
setting, then turned back to the stove where she’d been keeping the meat warm.
“I didn’t have a chance to go to the store today, but luckily you had meat in
the freezer.”
    “Steak,” Finn said with pleasure.
    “Easy dinner,” Jenna agreed.
    “What’s this?” he asked, picking up the bowl of sauce she’d
set down between the platter of steak and the bowl of roasted winter
vegetables.
    “Mustard butter. Try it on your steak and vegies. It’s quite
tasty. Next time, I’ll buy some mushrooms and sauté them to go on top of it
all. That’s the best.”
    “Quite nice as it is,” he agreed after sampling it. “So,
Harry, how was school today?”
    “Bad. It wasn’t fair, ” Harry complained. “Mrs. McMinn
was wrong. But she wouldn’t even listen!”
    Finn looked at his son with surprise. “What happened? Did
you get yourself in trouble?”
    “She was talking about dinosaurs,” Harry told him
indignantly. “And she said Brontosaurus stayed in the water most of the time
because it supported his weight. And that’s wrong!”
    “Ah. Dinosaurs. What’s the strength of that? He wasn’t in
the water, then, after all?”
    “First,”Harry explained, “it’s Apatosaurus now . Everyone knows that. And they didn’t need to be in the
water. People used to think so, but not anymore. But when I tried to explain,
she said not to con . . . con . . .”
    “Contradict?” Jenna asked.
    He nodded emphatically. “She went crook at me. But she was wrong, Dad.”
    Finn looked at Jenna. “Teacher’s advice, please.”
    “How old is Mrs. McMinn?” Jenna asked.
    “Old ,” Harry said. “And mean. Everyone calls her Mrs.
McMean.”
    “Harry,” Finn said sharply. “We don’t call her that.”
    “She’s an older teacher,” he told Jenna. “Sixty or
thereabouts, I