"Kilby, Joan - Temporary Wife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kilby Joan)

piece of lumber. And he was gone, just like that. Slumped on the
sagging steps of the farmhouse he'd built with his own hands almost
sixty years ago.

Burton sidestepped a puddle, bumping umbrellas with a faceless
passerby. He stepped up his already-brisk pace amid the stream of
workers hurrying to their dry, well-lit offices and shops. Pointless,
futile anger directed at himself as much as at fate drew a spontaneous
muttered curse from him. He should have been there to carry that
lumber. Because of him, perhaps, Granddad had been cheated out of
seeing another spring mm to summer, seeing his crops grow and ripen.

Granddad's death also left question marks around Burton's half-finished
documentary about the history and future of farming in the Fraser
Valley. He had a nasty feeling Murphy would come up with an answer.
One he wouldn't like.

Burton ducked out of the rain and into the Channel Seven television
station. Granddad hadn't lived to see the dramatization of his life's
work, but by God, Burton would make sure the old man was remembered.

He shook out his umbrella in the doorway, and collapsed it into clammy
nylon folds as he crossed to reception. Halfway there, he did a
double-take. Li]lian Spencer, the station's attractive elderly
receptionist, had changed her hair. Normally fluffy and white, curled
in a fashion befitting a grandmother ten times over, it was now cut in
a youthful, spiky style.

"Good morning, Burton," Lillian said, glancing up from her computer to
greet him with a smile.

"Still raining, I see."

"A morning fit only for ducks and native Vancouverites," he said as he
balanced his briefcase on his knee and popped the latches. Removing a
single stem of yellow frees ia he added it to the vase bursting with
spring flowers on Lillian's desk. He kept the vase full by adding one
flower every day. Rain or shine. Life or death.

"You've had your hair done."

Lillian pulled the frees ia toward her and inhaled.

"You're a darling, Burton." Straightening, she gingerly touched her
hair.

"Do you like it?

My grand niece is going to hairdressing school. I think it makes a
change from my plain old-lady style."