Any Thursday (Donovans of the Delta) Read Free

shoot him and didn’t,” she muttered.
     o0o
    Hannah found her mother in the kitchen, up to her elbows in petit fours and cheese straws and finger sandwiches. Anna turned at the sound of the back screen door banging shut.
    “I declare, Hannah. If you don’t do something about Agnes, I’m going to go stark raving crazy. She thinks she knows more about weddings than Amy Vanderbilt. You’re the only one in the family who can handle her. She’s in the library now, thinking up mischief. If she says we need Italian bowknots one more time, I’m going to—”
    Abruptly she stopped talking and reached up to wipe away a big spot of grease from Hannah’s cheek. She gave her daughter a cagey smile. “Let’s forget about this wedding for a while and talk. Just the two of us. It seems I never get to talk to you, with you up there in Alaska doing all that whale research.”
    Hannah picked up a cheese straw and popped it into her mouth. She smiled at the emphasis her mother put on whale research. Although Anna Donovan would never presume to tell her children what to do, her greatest desire was that they all marry and have big families and live happily ever after— just the way she had with Hannah’s father, Matthew.
    “Yes, let’s talk, Mom.”
    Taking her mother’s hand, Hannah led her to a chair and sat down beside her at the kitchen table. No, she thought, Anna never would say outright what she was thinking, but she’d drop hints that were big enough to fell an elephant.
    “Now . . . tell me about Aunt Agnes’s latest plan.”
    Anna pushed an errant pin into her neat salt-and-pepper French twist. “That can wait. Tell me what took you so long out in the pasture. I thought you were just going out for a little target practice.”
    “I got sidetracked—by Jim Roman. What in hell is he doing in Greenville?”
    “Hannah! Watch your language. I declare, I don’t know where you get that talk, your brother Paul being a preacher and all. It’s enough to scare any man off. Why . . . how in the world did you get sidetracked by Jim Roman?”
    “His car broke down, and I fixed
    “Oh. Is that all?”
    Hannah chuckled at the crestfallen look on her mother’s face. “Don’t start putting one and one together and getting six.”
    “Who? Me?”
    “Yes, you. I know what you’re up to, Mom. And it won’t work. You’ll just have to be satisfied that you raised one daughter who’s content to be an old maid.”
    “Pshaw! You’re always teasing me. Just like your father. He’s a nice man, don’t you think?”
    Hannah grinned. “Pop? I’ve always thought so.”
    “There you go, teasing again. Of course your father is wonderful. That’s a given. I’m talking about Jim Roman.”
    “What I think about Jim Roman won’t do to tell in polite company. How do you know him, Mom?” Jim had told her, but she wanted to hear it from her mother. She figured he wasn’t above lying to get what he wanted.
    “He’s the son of my college roommate and one of my best friends, Mary Louise Pritikin. You remember Mary Louise, don’t you?”
    Hannah laughed. Her mother had so many people she called best friends, it would take the census bureau to keep up with them all. “No, Mom, I don’t. That was before my time, remember?”
    “I forget. My, my, it seems like yesterday—me and Mary Louise getting our first pair of silk stockings together.” Her face became dreamy as she thought of old times. “Anyway, she married and moved off to California, but we’ve kept in touch over the years. I still have the card she sent me when Jim was born. She sent me a card when he got his big, fancy job too. He writes for that paper . . . what’s it called?”
    “ The Daily Spectator .” Hannah smiled at her mother’s perception of Jim Roman’s work. “Writes for that paper” didn’t touch the scope and influence of Jim’s column. “I still don’t see what he’s doing here. Surely The Daily Spectator isn’t interested in covering a