How to Tame a Silver Fox novel · Chapter 15 of 32

Chapter 15: The Father in the Study

My phone had caught the garage clip.

I drove to the house in the sedan Junie borrowed from her brother.

I parked on the gravel where I had parked since I was sixteen, and used my own front door key.

Nobody had thought to change the lock.

My father was in his study with the door open an inch and a glass in his hand.

It was five in the afternoon, and the bottle was already a third gone.

"Willa," he said, and set the glass down gently. "You came home."

"I came to talk."

"Sit. Please. Sabrina is at her fitting. We have the house to ourselves."

"I'll stand."

He smiled at me.

The study smelled of leather and cigars, and over his shoulder hung the one painting of my mother's that Sabrina had not yet moved.

It was the river in March, all brown and silver.

"Sabrina has a recording of you," I said. "A piece of it, anyway. You say you were driving."

His smile held.

"Is that so."

"She wants my signature for it."

"Does she."

"You don't look surprised."

"Because I'm not." He lifted the glass and drank, unhurried. "She has recorded me since June. Do you think I'm a fool, sweetheart?"

"Then why marry her?"

"A wife cannot be made to testify against her husband. After Saturday, the tape is a woman's gossip."

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