Upstairs, the guesthouse contained two rooms plus a bathroom. The first room we came to was my office, so there was no avoiding the computer. When my father saw it he stopped and did a double take. It wasn't quite the latest model, but it did have a large monitor, color printer, scanner and high-speed Internet hookup.

Of course he understood what he was seeing. Richard Patterson was founder and CEO of a successful software company and computers were his life. But he didn't say anything and I quickly led the way into the next room, which I used as a living room. I offered him one end of a large couch that once had been in the castle, and sat at the other end so I wouldn't have to face him directly.

I had found through long experience that it was better to let him speak first when he had something on his mind. I tried to look at ease. I noted that his expensive blue suit and silk tie were more fashionable than the ones he had worn before he met Jacie. I felt underdressed in my T-shirt and shorts.

But he had always dressed well; my father had never heard of casual Friday. He looked good, with remarkably few wrinkles, and his short brown hair stubbornly refused to acquire more than a few streaks of gray.

"So what do you use the computer for, playing solitaire and hearts?"

"And Minesweeper." I was prepared for a dig about the computer. "It's a good game." Minesweeper was a Microsoft product, and Microsoft meant Bill Gates, whose fortune was worth some billions more than my father's, but if he caught my drift he ignored it.

"You aren't gambling on the Internet, are you?"

I was silent.