Taking the Reins. Carolyn McSparren

taught me more in my vacations here than he ever taught you, and I’ve been working my tail off to learn everything I can since we came back. I’m thinking of all those classes and clinics I should be taking instead of teaching these people to drive.”

      “Dad was aware I would never be a farmer or a horseman,” the colonel said. “As a matter of fact, until I came home to look after him when he got so sick, he didn’t believe I’d ever live here after I left for college. He expected me to hire a manager to handle the place after he died until Steve retired and you two came back here to take over.” He shrugged. “I thought then he was living a fantasy. You would never have been able to convince Steve to retire from the army and move to a horse farm. He was an adrenaline junkie, Charlie. They don’t change.”

      “We don’t have to worry about that any longer, do we?” She padded out of the library, shut the door and fought back tears. He was doing the same thing he’d always done when she was growing up. The absentee father shows up, issues orders for her own good and then leaves again. The gospel according to Colonel Vining. Most of the time she disobeyed just to prove she could. She must have driven her mother nuts.

      If he hadn’t made her leave her horse when she was thirteen, her whole life might have been different. If her mother hadn’t died and left her without a buffer, if her father hadn’t forbidden her to see Steve, she’d never have run away and married him. The colonel always tried to control her and she always fought him, even when he was right.

      Especially when he was right.

      Carrying her boots, she took the stairs to the bedrooms two at a time. As she reached the top she heard Sarah clicking away on their shared computer.

      Time to close down so they could go help Vittorio with dinner. She stopped with her hand on the doorknob. Wasn’t she trying to control Sarah the way the colonel tried to control her? She wanted Sarah to be happy, but her idea of what constituted happiness might not mesh with Sarah’s any more than the colonel’s had meshed with hers.

      Should she let Sarah have her head a little bit? She was a good kid who was lonely and grieving. She’d never betrayed Charlie’s trust. She ought to be able to make her own mistakes.

      And wind up pregnant and married? No way. If that meant controlling her, then so be it. Wasn’t that what the colonel said? Kids at this age hate their parents when they act like parents. Tough.

      For all practical purposes Charlie had been a single parent most of Sarah’s fourteen years, but while he was home between deployments, Steve was always better with their daughter than she was. He was the good guy, Charlie was the ogre. No wonder Sarah missed him so much. No wonder when she had to blame someone for his death, Charlie was elected.

      Why am I so uptight? Why don’t I just go in there and hug her? Because if she went stiff and backed away, I’d cry.

      One of the four bedrooms on the second floor of the main house had been fitted out with Sarah’s shabby furniture brought from their base housing, and another had been given over to a home office that she was supposed to share with Charlie. In reality, however, Sarah spread out like kudzu vine, overrunning every flat surface in her own room and threatening to engulf the office.

      The computer keys kept popping like soggy popcorn. Sarah couldn’t touch-type yet. She planned to take typing in the fall at her new private school. She could, however, race the wind with her two-finger technique. And texting? Did anyone over twenty have thumbs that small or nimble?

      Charlie walked by the computer room and went into her own bedroom instead. She longed to lie down for a few minutes before she plunged back into her job, but she didn’t dare. She’d fall asleep and not get up until tomorrow.

      Every piece of furniture in the room was new. Most of the things in their army quarters, except for Sarah’s bed and dresser, belonged to the quartermaster and had to be returned to stores every time they moved. Each new post meant another requisition of boring quartermaster offerings. The cheap furniture she and Steve had accumulated during their fifteen years of marriage had grown shabbier with every move. After he died, she’d sold everything except the photo albums, keepsakes, personal papers and Sarah’s furniture in a garage sale. Sarah had wanted her own bedroom furniture and other familiar objects around her, so she could have the illusion of home wherever the family landed. Charlie, on the other hand, wanted to slam the door on her life with Steve. Two years ago, she wouldn’t have felt that way, but that was before Steve came home from his second tour in Afghanistan and asked for a divorce.

      Even combat widows were not welcome in post housing for very long. She’d had to beg to keep her quarters until school let out in mid-May. So here she was with the colonel. His house, his rules.

      She stood under the shower for five minutes to wash the dust and sweat off, washed her hair for the second time that day, then redid her makeup and put on a clean polo shirt and jeans. Her mother had always taken an afternoon shower and changed into fresh clothes. She said it was a carryover from the days before air-conditioning. Charlie had picked up the habit from her. “Sarah?” Charlie opened the office door and stood in the doorway with her hand on the knob. Sarah jumped and hit the escape key in one motion. Whoever she was on line with disappeared.

      “Mother! You scared me spitless.” She wheeled in her chair and glared at Charlie. “You ooze around like a fungus.”

      “Green and soggy, that’s me. Thought you were cutting down on the social networking.”

      Sarah avoided her eyes and did that flouncy, hair-swinging thing. “I am trying to help you. I looked up all those people on Google and Facebook. Don’t you want to know what all I found out?”

      “I would love to know what you found out,” Charlie said. “Thank you. But you ought to be outside, not sitting in here over a hot keyboard.”

      “What else is there to do out here? Go to the mall or the movies with my BFFs? Last time I checked they were in Kansas.”

      “Once school starts you’ll make plenty of friends.”

      Sarah rolled her eyes. “Oh, right. Most of them have been together since kindergarten. They’re going to fall over to welcome the outsider. We should have stayed in Kansas.”

      “Ah, Kansas, the center for sophistication in the known universe.”

      Sarah opened her mouth to make another snappy comeback, then giggled. “Good one, Mom.”

      Charlie pulled her up from her chair and Sarah hugged her. Charlie felt a surge of joy. She lived for these moments. She hugged Sarah back hard. Then she whispered, “I love you.”

      The moment passed in a flash as Sarah slipped past her and down the stairs. Charlie followed more slowly. At least she’d said the words.

      An hour later, Charlie helped the students set the food dishes on the table in the common room, and watched everyone find seats. All except Jake.

      “Sean, where’s Jake?” she asked.

      “I’ll take him a plate.”

      “No, you won’t. He needs to join us at the table. That’s the rule. I thought he obeyed rules. No decisions necessary.”

      “Charlie, he’ll starve before he comes down here. Don’t ask me why. I just know it.”

      “Oh, for Pete’s sake!” She took a deep breath. “I’m not going to get into a battle tonight I will probably lose, but Sean, would you talk to him? Convince him that sitting at the table with you all is not going to cause the end of Western civilization as we know it?”

      Sean shrugged. “I’ll sure try, but I’m not guaranteeing it’ll do any good.”

      They’d already worked out an informal seating arrangement. Jake at the far end, then Sean, Mary Anne. Mickey’s wheelchair at the other end, then Hank.

      “I’m not joining you for dinner tonight anyway,” Charlie said. “Give you a chance to talk things over, get to know one another without either the colonel or me eavesdropping.”