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

"You'll be there, won't you?"

Burton covered his face with his hand and swore silently.

"Burton? Did you hear me? I said--" "I heard you." He cleared his
throat.

"What time? It's going to be chaos around here today--" He broke off.
Every day was chaos, a baffle to stay ahead of a breakneck schedule
constantly being undermined by the unexpected.

"Eight o'clock. Now, Burton..." Rather than reproach him, her tone
implied she expected him to do the right thing.

Burton flipped open his daily planner to the ribbon that marked last
Friday's date, April 30. He turned the pages forward to Monday, May
3.

Every time slot until seven-thirty at night had something penciled
in.

Snatching a pen out of the bamboo holder on his desk, he made a slash
through tonight's seven-thirty entry. And wished for the zillionth
time there were forty-eight hours in every day.

"Don't worry, Mother. I'll be there. I'll come straight from the
station since I'll be work-Lng late."

Catherine sighed.

"When are you not? You're so much like your grandfather."

Burton's gaze moved to the opposite wall, to a photo he now realized
he'd been avoiding looking at since he entered the office. Sandwiched
between the stark images of a Belfast bomb blast and a group of Israeli
soldiers bris-fling with Uzis, was a color portrait of Granddad.

William Armstrong's weathered brow was almost as stem and unyielding as
the soldiers'. But his sense of humor, honed as fine and dry as the
prairies from whence he'd come, was evident in the curving lines around
his strong mouth. His hair, once a dark copper like Burton' s, had
turned to a thick shock of white, but his eyes, the same brilliant
blue he'd passed on to his grandson, had barely dimmed with age.

I'll take that as a compliment." Burton pressed his thumb and
forefingers to the inner corners of his eyes.

"I imagine whatever he had will go to you as his only child, but if his
chess set isn't spoken for, I'd really like it to remember him by."