Read Online Heaven Sent by Alice Duncan - Free Book Online Page B

comfortable position on her soft
pillows.
    Good. That made two happy and one
grouchy household inhabitant. Callie imagined she’d get along well
with the rest of the staff. Most of them lived in Santa Angelica
and she’d known them for years. She wished there was some way to
get through to Aubrey.
    With a small pang of guilt, she
wondered if she’d been wise to confront him so boldly this
afternoon. Once one confronted a man without mincing one’s words,
it generally took the rest of one’s life to get him to climb down
from his high horse.
    On the other hand, Callie had
perceived no other course of action. She couldn’t, in good
conscience, have allowed the incident to pass by unremarked upon.
If she’d used subtlety, she knew good and well he’d have either
ignored her or pretended not to understand. Therefore, she guessed
she’d done the best thing for Becky, and that was what mattered.
He’d probably hate her forever, but that couldn’t be helped. She
didn’t know why her heart ached a little at the notion of Aubrey
Lockhart hating her, but it did.
    “ Miss Prophet?”
    “ Yes, Becky?” Callie scolded
herself for letting her mind wander.
    The little girl hesitated, then said,
“Do you think Papa likes me?”
    “ Oh, Becky!” Callie scooped
Becky into her arms and hugged her hard. “Of course, he likes you!
He loves you. Very much.”
    Becky hugged her back without speaking
for a moment.
    Callie, for perhaps the hundredth time
that day, felt like crying. She settled Becky back on her pillows
and stroked her cheek. “Darling Becky, your papa has suffered a
lot, just as you have, because your mama got sick and died. I think
it’s taking him some time to adjust to not having her
around.”
    “ He used to laugh a lot,”
Becky admitted. “He doesn’t laugh anymore. I guess it’s ‘cause he’s
not adjusting.”
    “ Well,” Callie said in a
bracing voice, “we’ll just have to help him learn to laugh
again.”
    “ How?”
    Children could ask the most awkward
questions sometimes. Callie admitted softly, “I’m not sure. We’ll
have to put on our thinking caps and try to find some way to make
him laugh. All right?”
    Becky smiled up at her. “All
right.”
    “ Let’s hear those prayers
now, young lady.”
    So Becky said her prayers, which
included a lot of blessings for the grown-ups in her life, and
Callie listened with a tear in her eye and an ache in her
heart.
    *****
    Callie Prophet had been living in the
Lockhart mansion for a week, and Aubrey needed to get some work
done. He could neither understand nor justify his compulsion to
stand at his library window and watch Becky and Miss Prophet
frolicking on the back lawn.
    Although it was only midmorning, Miss
Prophet had lugged out a big wicker picnic basket and set it under
a tree. She and Becky were ignoring the basket at the moment, and
were playing some. kind of game that included a lot of running
around and shouting.
    His thoughts retreated into the past,
and he recalled watching Anne and Becky together. Anne had been
much more decorous than the rollicking Miss Prophet, but she and
Becky had loved playing together. Evidently Miss Prophet didn’t
know the meaning of the word quiet.
    Torn between amusement and irritation,
Aubrey pushed the window up in order to hear better. The joyful
sounds of laughter smote his ears. Becky had picked up a big stick
and held it thrust out before her with her hands horizontal to the
ground.
    “ They call me Little John,”
she roared, making her voice go as low as she could, which wasn’t
very.
    “ Little John? But you’re
enormous!” Callie propped her hands on her hips and adopted a
swaggering pose. “Let me pass, you varlet.”
    Becky giggled. “Make me.”
    “ All right for you, then I
shall!”
    With feigned menace, Callie strode
toward Becky, who stood her ground fiercely and waggled her stick
at Callie.
    The two met and engaged in a
counterfeit battle that ended with Callie taking a tumble