Setup

EMILY LAMBERT STOOD for a moment in the doorway of her father's study. Outside, a bitter January wind was attempting to rattle the windows of the two-story Tudor house. Even for Boston, this year's winter had been particularly brutal so far.Her father didn't seem to notice the rattling or to be aware of her presence. Given his obvious preoccupation, she had a feeling that she could have stood there for an hour and he still wouldn't have noticed her. Whatever he was working on tonight had captured his attention.Ordinarily, Emily would have just slipped away again, and waited for a better opportunity, but time was growing short. They were almost down to the wire. She felt a little edgy. Her father was a sweet, kind-hearted man, but he could be incredibly stubborn at times, and she had a feeling this was going to be one of them.Tossing her straight black hair over her shoulder, she rapped once on the door jamb and waltzed into the room as if she owned it. Sixteen going on thirty, Emily sometimes felt as if she were the parent and her corporate-lawyer father the child. In reality, their relationship was a seesaw of give and take and they were incredibly close. They had been ever since her mother died in a car accident eight years ago. It was then that Jefferson Lambert, the brightest corporate lawyer God ever created, at least as far as she was concerned, had taken over the responsibility of being both mother and father to her while still working full-time at Pierce, Donovan and Klein.Always busy, he still found time to be there for her whenever she needed him, whether it was to attend a school play, to tutor her in math, or to show her the finer points of tennis. Every moment of his day was accounted for and he had none left over for a social life. In her younger, more self-centered days, this had worked out just fine. She liked having her father all to herself. But now that she was beginning to see boys as something other than the annoying enemy, she really needed her dad's attention to be focused away from her.A late bloomer, Emily was just barely learning how to make herself desirable to the opposite sex, and she had absolutely no idea what kind of woman her father would like. She was increasingly aware of their own differences in taste, for instance. Her father liked musicals, for heaven's sake, and could quote the lyrics to maybe a hundred songs or more, and each one could send her running from the room.The very thought of a musical made her want to shiver. She could only pray that somewhere out there was a woman with similar strange tastes.Emily was determined. She justhadto get her father back into the dating pool. Of late, it had become her mission in life. She was fairly certain that he would never find anyone if he continued to focus on her and his work. When that invitation from his old fraternity at Tulane University in New Orleans had arrived last year, she'd been overjoyed, positive that her prayers had finally been answered. Or at least addressed. The invitation was for a huge reunion.Knowing that her father would go solo and probably remain that way, Emily had scraped together every penny she had in order to pay an online dating service to set her father up with a date once he was in New Orleans. With time growing short, she still had to determine which one to use.All her plans had been unceremoniously upended when her father informed her that he had absolutely no intention of attending the reunion. He'd underscored his decision by balling up the invitation and tossing it into his wastepaper basket with the finality of a slam-dunk. She'd fished it out the next morning. And then again a few days after that. Each time, she'd smoothed the invitation out and placed it back in the center of his desk -- where it was supposed to be now.Except that it wasn't.Glancing down, she saw it was in the waste-basket. Emily sighed and bent down to retrieve the paper that represented, she hopeFerrarella, Marie is the author of 'Setup ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780373389391 and ISBN 0373389396.