Home Fires Read Free Page A

continuing down the hall. “Something light,” she called back over her shoulder. “Perhaps an omelet?”
    Irma smiled and shook her head at the disappearing figure. She knew just how Deanna Hunt liked her omelets: moist, with cheese and spinach. It was a simple meal to prepare. She half suspected that Deanna chose it often for that very reason. But Deanna was as undemanding in other things as well, which was remarkable, since she had grown up amid nearly as much wealth as she currently enjoyed.
    Indeed, Irma mused, it would not have been surprising had she been spoiled and demanding, yet she was neither. She was an easy woman to please, her temper calm and controlled even during those times when her eyes held that well of loneliness she kept so stoically to herself. Through the months following her husband’s death she had held her emotions in check. Now over a year had passed and she did no differently.
    It seemed odd that a woman as young and attractive as Deanna Hunt should lead such a simple existence. Not quite the poor little rich girl, she was outwardly content. But surely she should be out more, with people, enjoying life. Surely she should be having fun, leading a less structured life than she did. Perhaps … in time. Shaking her head in silent regret, Irma headed for the laundry room.
    Meanwhile, in the den, Deanna lifted her pen to write another of the letters she was personally sending to each of two hundred potentially major contributors to the hospital project “Dear Monte and Diane,” she wrote, then let the pen fall idle once more. Monte and Diane
were friends of Larry’s, contemporaries of his rather than hers. What were her own contemporaries doing with their lives?
    More often now than ever in the past, she wondered what things might have been like had she gone on to college as her brother had, rather than marrying fresh out of high school and becoming Larry’s wife and hostess. Certainly she would have formed a different, if smaller, circle of friends. She might even have married someone her own age rather than a man twenty years her senior whom her parents had known for years. Larry had courted her gently, offering her the care and protection she had come to depend on. He had loved her, and she him, but in a way that was somehow different from what she had imagined it to be in her wildest dreams.
    In place of starbursts and rainbows she had found companionable serenity. While Larry lived, it had been enough. Now, as she faced a future alone, she wondered. What would it be like to do something wild? Something irresponsible? Something selfish? Could she ever kick up her heels and truly let loose? Her brother had done it and the results had been tragic.
    Shaking her head free of the sad memories, Deanna grimaced at her inappropriate thoughts. She was simply not the rebellious type. Even had her brother not died so young, she probably would always have stayed close to home. After all, she did enjoy her life and its comforts. She couldn’t deny that. And there was definite psychological merit in devoting oneself to philanthropic concerns such as those encompassed by the Hunt Foundation.
    â€œDear Monte and Diane …” She reread the salutation aloud, put pen to paper and proceeded to complete the letter from one of the prototypes she’d worked out with the public relations department. By the time she had
finished and signed her name with a disciplined flourish, it was time to leave.
    This Wednesday passed as did every other Wednesday. Henry dropped her at the club for the morning and picked her up later. She ate lunch back in her suite in the sunny, informal breakfast room, which was never used for breakfast, only for lunch and dinner. The larger, more formal dining room, which seated sixteen easily, had been unused for over a year.
    Her afternoon was spent quietly at home, ostensibly heading the Hunt Foundation from the comfort of her den, in reality