"WHAT do you mean you gave Kevin Jamieson permission to marry me?" Tisha Caldwell demanded angrily. Long hair flew about her shoulders at the sudden pivot that brought her glaring eyes to bear on her father.

"I gave him permission to ask you to marry him." His reply was drawn through tightly clenched teeth.

"With your full support and blessing!" she finished, not attempting to disguise the caustic sarcasm rising so bitterly in her throat.

They stared at one another, two forceful personalities, each trying to make the other give in first. Richard Caldwell was a tall, handsome man with a muscular physique that hadn't varied one inch since his college days. The years had only added character to his already handsome face and some dignified feathers of grey to his dark hair.

Tisha Caldwell did not have the striking looks of her father. In repose, her oval face was only ordinarily attractive. But when animated by laughter or anger, as now, she was compellingly beautiful. Her inheritance of her father's volatile personality and stubborn independence made the flashes of beauty occur frequently. And most of the time, it was her father who ignited the sparks.

"Yes, Kevin received my support and my blessing," Richard Caldwell retorted sharply, his temper rising in conjunction with what he labeled his daughter's insolence. "He's a respectable and respectful young man, which is more than I can say for those other "things" you go out with!"

"He certainly isn't like any of the other boys I date!" Tisha agreed fervently. "I get the feeling when he kisses me goodnight, he runs home to take a shower in case he's got dirty."

"I assure you he is a normal healthy male who merely has his emotions under control." His index finger was pointed in an angry gesture towards her. "At least you don't come in from a date looking as if you've been pawed by some over-sexed beast when you are out with Kevin."

Her hands doubled up into fists. "You make me so angry I could scream," was her muttered answer. "Only a couple of the boys I've gone out with have ever stepped out of line. None of my dates have ever made a practice of pawing me, as you put it."

"You're darn right they don't." he snapped, his brown eyes snapping with anger as he stared into the stormy sea green ones of his daughter. "Because before they ever leave this house with you, they know they're going to have to face me if they so much as lay a finger on you!"

"I'll be twenty years old next month, Father," Tisha sighed in exasperation. "Will you stop treating me like a child? I'm old enough to decide if I'm going to marry and whom I'm going to marry without any advice from you. I'm capable of deciding whom I will date and defending myself if necessary!"

"No woman can defend herself against the superior strength of a man," he scoffed with an authoritative ring of personal knowledge in his voice. "It's up to her father and subsequently her husband to protect her."

"Oh, heavens, that sounds like something from the Dark Ages! That chauvinistic attitude went out with the Ark," she grumbled.

"It's time it made a nostalgic comeback," Richard Caldwell muttered. He was about to expound further when the doorbell rang.

Tisha darted a baleful glance at him. "I suppose you told Kevin to come round this afternoon," she accused. "All I can say is I certainly hope he didn't waste his money buying me a ring, although it would give me great satisfaction to throw it in his face."

"You keep a civil tongue in your head, girl!" A finger again waved angrily in the direction of her back as Tisha stomped around the room divider to the mock foyer of the front door.

With an impatient hand she swept her dark auburn, nearly waist-length hair behind her back as she flung the door open, ready to lash out with her tongue at the man she expected to see on the stoop. The woman standing there arched an inquisitive glance when Tisha's mouth snapped shut in a grim line. A bemused smile tilted the corners of the woman's mouth.

"I have the feeling I should come back another time." Brown eyes glittered with laughter.