Love in the Mist (MacKay's) Read Online Free Page A

who would come in once a week to help
with the gardening and teach the kids and staff how to maintain a healthy
garden. The cook and her assistant would be in charge of the rabbits and hens
while the ranch hands would milk the cows every day with the help of the older
children as they rotated the household duties.
    This whole
venture was so exciting… she couldn’t help feeling a small sense of pride at
finally accomplishing what she had set out to do. The town had agreed to pay
for half of the electricity on the orphanage for as long as the doors remained
open. She had even managed to convince them to put a clause in each contract
noting that if the orphanage ever closed for any reason the contracts would
remain active in the event that it might again one day reopen its doors. Some
of the local restaurants pulled together signing a five year contract to pay
the cooks salary and donations from other sources would pay the remaining
salaries. With the state paying their normal support per child, the orphanage
should be able to stay out of the red indefinitely, with proper management of
course.
    The party
tonight was to help finance the last of the structural repairs needed with any
extra money going toward some of her pet projects. Some of those improvements
included a science lab, the new swing set and club house she wanted to put in,
and an enclosed in ground pool, one of the local companies had agreed to fund a
small wading pool for the younger kids as well. The wading pool would be
surrounded by a locked iron gate, with a back gate, also locked, that led into
the enclosed adult pool. It would be an open design with screens starting waist
high to the ceiling… three sets on each side, to allow the summer breezes
inside, with a 5’ of enclosed wall between each set. Bushes would be planted
outside each window 5’ deep to make it more difficult to sneak inside, with a
tree planted periodically around the building in hopes the shade offered would
keep it cooler inside. The floor would be cement, but the tiles for the pool
were going to be done in a multitude of blues and greens. A shop in San Antonio
had agreed to donate the wood furniture she wanted and she was having the water
proof pads made special, at her own expense, to match the tiles in the pool.
    She had spent
a lot of time worrying about the kids. Last week she had actually broke down
after a visit with the kids and spent the rest of the afternoon talking to thin
air. She really hoped these several months away had not been too hard on them
all. The older kids she had known since they were babies, they called her Aunt
Tasha. They may not be blood, but they were all the only family she had left
now and it would be devastating to know they had been mistreated in some way.
She had tried to visit them as often as she could, but lately she had only been
able to manage every other week and that really wasn’t enough in her opinion.
The younger kids didn’t know her well and were shy and reserved around her. They
had been getting used to her visits, but she knew the longer they were away
from the home the bigger the danger of them forgetting. Most were so young it
would be a simple matter to forget the other children.
    She had made
sure that if anything ever happened to her the majority of her fortune would go
into a trust fund for the orphanage, with Mika as the trustee. There was also a
smaller trust fund set aside for the eight children she had watched grow up.
Her grandmother had already set up college funds for each of them when it had
become apparent no one was going to adopt them. This was something different though,
to help them get situated after college. She had even set up specific guide
lines so none of them could use it as a crutch to get by. It was meant to help
not hinder their growth into adulthood.
    “Enough of
this dawdling…..” She grumbled to herself. It was time to get moving to the
costume party. She was already way beyond fashionably