Read Online Eye of the Tiger by Diana Palmer - Free Book Online Page B

miss the swollen mouth, and he had an unbearably smug look on his face as well.
    “How is it that you left with Wade and came home with Keegan?” he asked.
    She cleared her throat. “Actually, Keegan sent his Irish guests over to buy one of Wade’s horses, and then kidnapped me before Wade could offer to drive me home. We went on a picnic.”
    “Kidnapped you, did he?” He grinned broadly. “A man after my own heart.”
    “Well, it was underhanded, all the same.” She tried to sound indignant. “I was looking forward to going sailing with Wade.”
    “Keegan has a boat. I’ll bet he’d take you sailing if you asked him.”
    “He’d love that,” she grumbled, “having me beg him to take me places.”
    “I doubt you’d even have to ask,” he said quietly. “Easy to see he’s got a case on you. I think he always did.”
    Fathers, she thought fiercely, glaring down at him. “Cupid Whitman,” she accused. “Where’s your little bow and arrow?”
    “You might give him a chance, before you wind up with that Wade fellow.”
    “I gave him a chance,” she said coldly, “four years ago. And he got engaged to Lorraine, remember? He’s not putting my neck in a guillotine twice in one lifetime, oh, no. I’m older and wiser now, and I won’t be manipulated anymore by your chess-playing hero.”
    He lifted an eyebrow and stared pointedly at her lower lip. “Looks like that statement comes a bit late, doesn’t it?” he remarked carelessly.
    She started to speak, threw up her hands and left the room. What was the use in arguing? Keegan had a ready and waiting ally, right here in her own house. If only she could tell her father the whole truth, he might not be so eager to push her into Keegan’s waiting arms. But that was a secret she’d have to keep.
    At times like these, she wished her mother were alive. Geraldine Whitman was little more than a soft memory now, the accident that had taken her life just a nightmare. She’d been only ten when it happened, and her father had been her whole life in the years since. Eleanor wondered how it would have been to have someone to talk to. She had Darcy, of course, but a mother would have been different.
    She didn’t see Keegan again in the next few days, and she was grateful for the breather. She went to work and on Tuesday afternoon rushed home to get ready for her date with Wade.
    Her father looked depressed when she returned to the living room; he was sitting huddled in his chair with a scowl on his face.
    “What’s your trouble?” she asked him mischievously.
    “You’ve run off my chess partner,” he grumbled, and her heart leaped at the reference to Keegan.
    “He’s gone away? Oh, goody!” she said gleefully.
    He glared at her. “No, he hasn’t gone away. He just can’t come down for chess. He’s taking that Irish girl to a party.”
    She couldn’t camouflage the pain in her eyes fast enough, although she turned away quickly. “Is he?”
    “If you’d warm toward him a little… For God’s sake, girl, he’s going to wind up with another one of those heartless, self-centered little idiots, and it will be all your fault!”
    “On the contrary,” she said, forcing a smile, “if that’s the kind of woman he likes, nothing I do will reform him. Dad, I don’t want Keegan. I’m sorry, you’ll just have to accept it.”
    He looked as if he’d lost his last friend. “Yes, I suppose so. Well, have a good time.” He glanced up, approving of her full blue-plaid skirt, pale-blue blouse and high heels. “You look very nice.”
    She curtsied. “Thank you. Can I bring you back anything?”
    He shook his head with a sigh. “No, I’ll watch a little television, I guess, and go to bed. Maybe I can get back to work next week. I’m sure tired of sitting around here like a stick of furniture.”
    She bent and kissed his bald head. “I can imagine. Have a nice evening, Dad. I won’t be late.”
    “Have fun,” he called as Wade’s car drove