Scarlet Woman. Gwynne Forster

in the task of selecting the board’s officers. Why had Prescott saddled her with something for which she had no taste and worse, with the stipulation that she marry within the year or lose the inheritance, a modern-day coup de grâce?

      Cold tendrils of fear shot through her. She got up from the richly inlaid walnut desk, walked to the window, and looked down at the goldfish pond in the back garden, but the colorful creatures didn’t amuse her. Not even the gentle breeze that brushed her face when she stepped out on the porch off her bedroom gave her pleasure. Maybe nothing ever would again. She turned away from the blackbirds that perched on the porch swing waiting for the crumbs she usually enjoyed feeding to them and walked slowly back into the house. It couldn’t be true; she wouldn’t let it be true. Blake couldn’t be like all the others, maneuvering for the money her husband had earned despite a handicap that would have bested most women and men. She didn’t want to think that of him, but he was certainly making the road rough for any other man.

      She picked up the tablet containing the names of the board members they’d selected, and her gaze fell on Salvatore Luca’s name. She’d written it there, idly, as she spoke with him. She pitched the tablet away from her, lifted the receiver of the ringing phone, and slammed it back in its cradle without answering it. Fed up. With no school until September, she didn’t have to stay in Ellicott City. Not once in her life had she had a vacation, and she was due one. When the phone rang again, she ignored it.