Wild and Wonderful Read Free Page B

with her usual sassy spirit. "And you'd better do more than pick at my food tonight, Orin Reynolds, or else I'll stick you in a high chair and spoon-feed you. If you think I can't do it, you just try me," she threatened and set the tureen on the table near Glenna with a decisive thump.
    Her father barely noticed the housekeeper, who had practically become an adopted member ofthe family. Aware that his silence was generated by her reference to the trouble at the mine, Glenna took over the task of ladling the homemade chicken soup into the individual bowls.
    "Dad loves your homemade egg noodles, Hannah," Glenna assured the woman sternly eyeing Orin Reynold's bowed head, "Don't you?" she prompted and set a bowl of the steaming soup in front of him.
    "How did you find out about the mine?" He lifted his gaze to her face. His expression was a little stunned, a little disbelieving and tinted with relief.
    "Did you really think you could keep it from me?" she chided and dished a bowl of soup for herself. "I simply asked Bruce outright what the problem was at the mine. I saw how worried you looked when I first came in. Bruce isn't as good a poker player as you are. It was a simple deduction that whatever was bothering you, it had to do with the mine. After that it was a simple matter of putting a few pointed questions to Bruce." She shrugged her shoulders in an indication of how easy it had been to get the answers from him.
    The curving line of his mouth held faint bemusement. "I doubt if it was hard to get the answers from him. You have Hawkins wrapped around your little finger. He'd do or say anything to please you, you know that, don't you?"
    It wasn't really a question so much as it was an observation. Glenna flicked him a dry glance, reading between the lines of his comment.
    "Don't decide to try any matchmaking, dad." She filled the last soup bowl and leaned across the table to set it where Hannah would be sitting. "I'll choose my own future husband, thank you." Moving the soup tureen to the center of the table, Glenna returned the conversation to its original topic, the coal mine and its problems. "Why didn't you tell me about the trouble you were having?"
    "I didn't want to cause you any needless worry." He picked up his soupspoon and dipped it into the bowl, but made no attempt to lift a spoonful to his mouth. "I never thought it would come to this point," her father admitted as Hannah returned to the dining room with a basket of homemade saltine crackers to go with the soup. "I was positive that between us, Bruce and I would come up with a solution that would keep the mine from being shut down. I wasn't really trying to keep it from you. I just didn't want you worrying over something you couldn't do anything about. You have enough on your mind."
    "What's this about the mine being shut down?" Hannah demanded. A frown of concern narrowed her eyes. "When did all this come about? And eat your soup. Stop playing with it," she ordered without a pause.
    "The mine doesn't meet the safety standards. Unless it complies, the government is shutting it down," Glenna explained quickly and a little absently since it was old news to her. She barely noticed the faint shock that spread across Hannah's face as the plump woman sank into the chair opposite her. Challenge glinted in the look Glenna cast at her father. "So what are you going to do? Quit? That seems to be the opinion Bruce has."
    "We have exhausted just about every avenue of hope," Orin sighed. Leaving the spoon in the bowl, he rested his elbows on the table and clasped his hands together to form an upright triangle with the table top, pressing his fingers to his mouth. There was grim resignation in his features. "I'm at a complete loss to know which way to turn."
    The housekeeper glared at him. "Orin Reynolds, I have never known you to give up."
    He lifted his head, sending the frazzle-haired woman an irritated look. "Who said I was? I just don't know where to go from