Annie's Rainbow - Fern Michaels [43]
“Fine,” Parker snapped. “Watch your footing, or you’ll go into the falls.” .
“God, I just hate it when people disappoint me,” Annie seethed.
“What?”
“Shut up. I wasn’t talking to you,” Annie continued to fume.
The trip to the plantation house was made in silence. When Parker held the door open for her, Annie marched inside and down the long hall to her room. “Damn!” Her bags had been unpacked. Now she had to pack them again. She did it any old way. The sound of the zipper closing was so loud in the room, Annie found herself wincing. “Just when I thought I found the perfect man he turns out to be a dud. Damn, damn, damn!”
“This is stupid, Annie,” Parker said.
“Yes, I could see how it would seem stupid to you,” Annie said. “Who’s taking me to the airport?”
“It looks like I’m the lucky winner.”
The housekeeper looked from one angry face to the other. Hesitantly, she held out a rainbow-colored gown. Tears welled in Annie’s eyes as she reached for it. “Thank you so much for . . . for this.” She slung the dress over her shoulder as she made her way to the front door.
“She doesn’t understand our ways. She’s upset because I inherited the plantation and my sisters didn’t,” Parker whispered to the old woman.
“Miss Clark is right, Parker. It was a terrible thing your parents did to your sisters. The old ways no longer work, as my children point out to George and me on a daily basis. It is a new time we live in, Parker. If we are to grow with the times, then we must embrace that same time. Why do you close your eyes to this? You were educated on the mainland at great expense. I can speak like this, Parker, because I raised you along with your mother, and when she was no longer here, I raised you alone. Now, go to the young lady and make peace. She looked very angry to me. She is the best one yet. As George says, you snooze, you lose. Go now, Parker.”
“We’ll discuss this later in greater detail, Mattie,” Parker hissed in the old housekeeper’s ear.
Mattie drew herself tall until she was eyeball-to-eyeball with Parker. “No. I have said all I intend to say. If you wish to discuss the matter, it should be with your sisters.”
“I’ll be damned. When did you go modern on me, Mattie?”
“When I learned about social security, pension plans, and estate planning. Sometimes I think you have coffee beans for brains. I told you to go, Parker!”
“Yes, ma’am,” Parker said, turning on his heel. It didn’t pay to argue with either Mattie or George.
In the car, Parker reached up to the visor for his aviator glasses. Behind the dark shades he felt more confident. Out of the corner of his eye he could see how straight Annie was sitting, how prim and proper she looked. He slammed the car into gear. “Listen, you can’t just barge into my life, tell me what to do, then barge back out because you don’t like my culture. I wouldn’t even think about doing something like that to you. What the hell kind of destiny is this?”
“I don’t have any trouble with your culture. It’s your attitude about women. Let’s just say for the sake of argument that you and I got married. I have a successful business. You have a successful business. We have one boy and two girls. Who gets our estate when we die?”
“I got the point back at the falls.”
“Who gets the estate, Parker?”
“The oldest son.”
“My business, too?”
“Yours becomes mine at marriage.”
“Stop this fucking car right now. I’ll walk the rest of the way, thank you.”
Parker’s foot slammed on the brake. “You can send me my bags.” Hands on hips, Annie glared at the man behind the sunglasses. “Do not ever, even for one second, think I would bust my ass working sixteen or eighteen hours a day so your son could inherit over my daughters.”
“We aren’t married,” Parker bellowed.