Getting Some Of Her Own by Gwynne Forster Page B

here, there’s nothing but chaos. I think I’ll go back to the States after this tour is over. It’s time I started living in reality. Your father’s been gone for five years now, and escaping over here hasn’t helped. I have to deal with it there.”
    â€œYou know I’ll be here for you, Mom, whenever you get back.”
    â€œI know, child, and it means everything to me.”
    Later, as Susan mused over their conversation, it occurred to her that she’d heard that decision from her mother several times in the last four years—whenever her mother had a fit of depression about her father’s death.
    School resumed after the first of the year, and Susan could hardly wait to see her pupils. When she saw that all of them had returned, a wide grin spread over her face, and she could hardly contain her joy. Rudy and Nathan sat beside each other, the only children to sit in the front row, and she suddenly understood Nathan. He was not a foster child, but he lived separately from his mother, and he sympathized with Rudy.
    The children’s apparent delight in returning to her class made her giddy with happiness and, when the tutoring session ended, she stood in the corridor beside the door of the classroom surrounded by them as they laughed and chatted. However, she had a sudden twinge of discomfort when Lucas Hamilton walked past her accompanied by an attractive woman who was not one of the volunteers. And it angered her that he didn’t speak, but half smiled and winked at her instead. That is, if you could call squeezing both eyes tight a wink.
    â€œI don’t care what he does or who he does it with,” she reminded herself as she drove home.
    But that proved to be only the beginning. One of Lucas’s girlfriends dropped by Wade School on Tuesdays and Thursdays and left along with him with such regularity that one would have thought he feared leaving alone. “The devil with him,” Susan murmured one Thursday evening.

Chapter Four
    Lucas left the Woodmore Bank in high spirits, his steps quick and his purpose sure. During the past two weeks, he had hired a secretary, a junior architect and an accountant. Most importantly, he had the financial backing of Jack Muller and Muller Furniture, Inc. and the right to break ground for Hamilton Village. He slid into the driver’s seat and knocked his right fist into his left palm. “I’m on my way.” And he’d managed it without investing a dime of his own money.
    Using his cell phone, Lucas phoned Willis. “It’s all set. The money’s in the bank, and the papers are in my briefcase. Get busy.” This was his chance to ensure that Woodmore, North Carolina, registered his name for posterity, and when he finished, Hamilton Village would do for him what Fallingwater did for Frank Lloyd Wright.
    â€œWe’ve just put the floor in Susan’s kitchen,” Willis said, “and I have to tell you, we ought to photograph this place for Architectural Design . It’s exquisite. I’ve never been so proud of anything I’ve done. Man, it’s perfect.”
    â€œI’m on my way home. I think I’ll drop by and see it. Is she home?”
    â€œI don’t know. She gives me a wide berth.”
    â€œI hope you haven’t done anything else to upset her.”
    â€œAw, come on. I pull her leg a little bit sometimes, but—”
    â€œYou’d better say what you mean.” The sound of Willis’s laughter did not amuse Lucas.
    â€œWeren’t you trying to upset her when you decided Wade School was the place to interview women for the secretary’s post?” Willis prodded. “Huh? Man, I’m not stupid.”
    â€œI’ll see you in a few minutes.” Lucas had not bothered to examine his motive in interviewing the women in his office at Wade School half an hour before the tutoring sessions terminated. On those days, he scheduled his own