The Last Day by John Ramsey Miller Read Free Book Online

night?”
    Ward smiled. “Great. I saw the beta version ofDriver's Seat and even got to play with it for an hour. The accelerator and braking are perfect, but the steering and suspension controls have to be adjusted. The handling is still sort of sloppy, but it has even better graphics than I'd imagined. Unk, it's so real on the monitor I swear I could smell the tires burning when I made my way around a six- car crash on turn two.”
    “I'm glad to hear it. It's going to make you rich, nephew. Beyond rich. Look at Grand Theft Auto. Tens of millions. And with the race downloads available.”
    “If people buy it, it'll make us both rich.”
    Mark grinned, shrugged. “RGI was always your father's dream, and I know you came in because Wardo and I needed you. The game is all your dream, kid. And the first of many, I'm sure.
    “So, how's your mother?” Mark said, furrowing his brows.
    “No change,” Ward said. “At this point that's real good. She still thinks I'm my father.”
    “I'm sorry, Ward. Hey, Bunny is excited about spending next weekend with you guys. My gal loves the spa, and it shows. Am I right?”
    “What?”
    “Next weekend. In Asheville at the Biltmore Hotel.”
    “Sorry?” Ward asked, tilting his head.
    “You said you and Natasha would join us. I made the reservations right after we spoke last night.”
    “Yes,” Ward said uncomfortably. Bunny Wilson was Ward's age and she treated Mark more like a rich elderly uncle than a husband. Natasha believed that Bunny was far smarter and conniving than she let on. After the wedding, when Ward had made a “trophy wife” comment, Natasha had said, “I wonder who got the one for first place.”
    Mark had met Bunny at the Speedway Club, where she'd been a bartender who'd spent her time flirting, mostly with men who should have been old enough to know it was their bankbooks that she found attractive. Natasha resented the fact that Mark and his wife of twenty- four years hadn't had children only because Mark hadn't wanted any. So naturally, when he left Ward's aunt because Bunny was pregnant with his child, it pissed Natasha off. Women took intimate betrayal personally. A week after Mark proposed and set a certain date, Bunny suffereda miscarriage while visiting an old friend in San Francisco. When Ward told Natasha that Bunny had lost the baby, she shook her head in amusement. “Surprise, surprise,” she said. “Imagine how she'd have looked pregnant in a wedding gown.”
    Ward had never been close to his aunt Ashley because she'd openly resented the fact that her brother hadn't made Mark an equal partner in RGI. She had believed that Mark deserved to own the majority of stock in the company because he did most of the “real” work. And Ashley McCarty Wilson had acted as though she was somehow superior to Ward's mother in every way. When they were together the tension was palpable, but Ashley had been kind to Ward and Natasha and had spoiled Barney with expensive toys and lavished him with her attention. Since Barney's death she had all but stopped communicating with Ward and Natasha. Ward supposed it was because she couldn't face being reminded of her only nephew, and because Ward loved the man she now hated.
    “I'm going to give you help with your golf game next weekend while the girls bond in theantique shops,” he added. “You need something to get your mind off work.”
    “I don't have a golf game,” Ward said. “I'm surprised the PGA hasn't asked me to sell my clubs.” Ward decided that he would wait a day and tell Mark his wife had surgeries scheduled, or some such excuse. And, truthfully, he didn't believe Bunny actually wanted the four of them to spend a weekend together any more than Natasha would. “I still have to run next weekend past Natasha,” Ward said.
    “You didn't clear it with her?”
    “She was already asleep, and she was gone when I got up. If she has conflicts, you guys will understand, right?”
    Mark looked