Read 12 The Family Way for Free Online Page A

wasn’t too pleased myself,” he said. “I thought I made it quite clear to you that I didn’t want you in the Lower East Side with all that dirt and disease. I can’t believe that you deliberately went against my wishes.”
    My hackles were truly rising now. That Irish fighting spirit was coursing through my veins. “For one thing I was on Broome Street, which isn’t the Lower East Side, it’s Little Italy,” I said.
    “You know what I meant,” he snapped back. “I meant any of those areas of pushcarts and crowded tenements.”
    “Greenwich Village isn’t exactly a rural haven, is it? I’m risking dirt and disease just as much when I go to the grocery on Charles Street to buy your food.”
    “I agree. That’s precisely why I wanted you to go to my mother for the hottest months,” Daniel yelled back.
    “If I’d known you’d rather eat out in a restaurant than come home for dinner, then I’d have gone long ago. I only stayed out of loyalty and devotion to you, but the way you order me around, you don’t deserve either.”
    “For your own good, Molly. I do it for your own good. You’ve become too accustomed to taking risks. You’re no longer making decisions just for yourself, as I am no longer making decisions just for myself. We’re a family, Molly. We have to pull together.”
    I had been raring for a fight, but his rational approach and the tender way he was looking at me took the wind out of my sails. In my heart I knew he was making sense. It did seem as if I were deliberately undermining him. I took a deep breath. “Daniel, you have to understand that I’ve been responsible for my own life and my own decisions for a long time now. If you take my own choices away from me and put them in the hands of your mother, it makes me feel that I’m worthless and useless and have no control over anything. I feel like a damned spaniel.”
    I knew I was swearing and did it deliberately to show that women were allowed to use as many bad words as men. He didn’t even react to it.
    “But it makes sense to use the experience of others. My mother moves in circles where people are used to hiring servants. Surely it is better for us to find a girl who comes with personal recommendations, rather than letting a complete stranger into our house, isn’t it?”
    I hated it when he was right. “I suppose so,” I admitted grudgingly.
    He put his hands on my shoulders, drew me toward him, and kissed me. “Now up to bed with you. You need your sleep.” Then his arms wrapped around me, pulling me closer to him. “And you don’t look a bit like a spaniel,” he said. “Your ears are much nicer.” And he nuzzled at one of them.
    “Wait,” I said. “I’m dying to know about the kidnapping I witnessed today. What did you find out? Did the lady get her baby back?”
    “Molly, it’s past midnight. You need your sleep and so do I. And you know I shouldn’t discuss police matters with you.”
    “But I witnessed it. I’ve a right to know.”
    “Curiosity killed the cat,” he said, touching a finger to my lips. “We’ll talk about it in the morning. Off to bed with you.”
    He slipped an arm around my waist and was about to escort me up the stairs when I said, in my most casual voice. “By the way, a letter came for my old detective agency today.”
    “I hope you returned it to the sender,” he said.
    “Hold your horses,” I said. “I was going to hand it to you to see if you knew of another private investigator who could look into the case. But the Irish woman who wrote it clearly has no money. She won’t be able to pay normal rates and you probably wouldn’t find any professional detective willing to take on her case. And this poor woman is worried sick about their niece who came to America and now has stopped writing to them. So I thought that since I had time on my hands…”
    “Oh, no…” he began. “Molly, what were we just talking about?”
    “Just a minute!” I snapped. “Would you