Read Online His Precious Inheritance (Inspirational Historical Romance) by Dorothy Clark - Free Book Online

having to do with mathematics, she placed at the extreme-left top corner.
    She sailed through the pile, defining the topics and placing the opened letters in the corresponding stack, then grabbed more letters from the bag, tossed them into a big heap in the middle of the table and began again. The second letter from that heap was directed to Dr. Austin. She set it aside in a personal-correspondence pile and snatched up another.
    “Well, what have we here?”
    She jumped, jerked her gaze to the man standing at the top of the stairs. Her stomach knotted. “Good morning, Mr. Willard.”
    “It is now.” The reporter grinned, tossed his hat on his desk and strode down the room toward her. He swept his gaze over the stacks of letters covering the table. “What’s all this?”
    She held her uneasiness in check and answered in a calm, polite tone. “The CLSC letters I’m going to answer.”
    “All of
those
?”
    She noted his shocked expression and nodded. “And many more. This whole bag, in fact.” She indicated the bag leaning against the wall.
    He let out a long, low whistle. “It looks like you’re going to need a lot of help to get all of those letters answered.” He gave her a wolfish grin. “I’d be happy to volunteer.”
    She gave him a cool look to discourage his flirting and cast another look toward the stairs. They were all alone. A shiver slipped down her spine. “Thank you for your considerate offer, Mr. Willard. But I am managing fine by myself. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve a great deal of work to do.” She scanned a letter, added it to the grammar stack and picked up another.
    “Ah, don’t be like that, cu—”
    “Is there something you needed from the reference shelf, Willard?”
    Mr. Thornberg.
The tension left her spine and shoulders.
    “Just saying good morning to Miss Gordon, boss.”
    “We still need a lead story for tomorrow’s edition, Willard. Have you one?”
    “Not yet.”
    “The annual Chautauqua Assembly is important to the economy of this city, and I’ve heard rumors of a substantial amount of construction going on. Why don’t you go to Fair Point and see what you can find out?”
    It was clearly an order, given in a tone that left no doubt of Mr. Thornberg’s opinion over the reporter’s waste of time. She looked up, stared at her boss’s taut face. The reporter wasn’t the only one Mr. Thornberg was displeased with. Surely, he didn’t think she had
invited
Mr. Willard’s attention? The knots in her stomach twisted tighter. She plunked the letter in her hand on top of the definition-of-words stack and grabbed another from the heap.
    Boyd Willard walked away, the strike of his shoe heels against the wood floor loud in the silence. Mr. Thornberg took the reporter’s place across the table from her. She pressed her lips together to hold back the urge to explain. She’d done nothing wrong. She slapped the letter she held onto the mathematics pile and snatched up another.
    “What are you doing, Miss Gordon? What are these different piles?”
    She glanced up. There was a slight frown line between Mr. Thornberg’s straight dark brows and a glint of curiosity in his brown eyes. The discomfort in her stomach eased a bit. “I am sorting the letters into different classifications. These—” she indicated the first stack on her right “—have questions about words...their pronunciation or definition. And these—” she moved her hand to the next pile “—have queries about science. And then there are grammar and mathematics stacks. And those—” she gestured toward the smallest stack at the edge of the table “—are the ones directed to Dr. Austin or specific teachers at the Chautauqua Assembly.
    “When I’m finished sorting, I will answer one stack of letters at a time. As they will all deal with the same subject, I won’t have to keep switching reference material
if
I don’t know the answers.” She couldn’t stop herself from putting a slight emphasis