Beverly Long – Deep Secrets (страница 2)

She hadn’t. To anyone, not even Summer.

“Any matches?” he asked.

“One that looks interesting,” she admitted. “We’ve been emailing back and forth for a couple of weeks.”

“You need to be careful with sites like that,” Milo said, his voice heavy with concern. “Why don’t you give me this guy’s name? I’ll check him out for you.”

She could do that or she could call Chase Hollister, Bray’s brother, who’d taken over the role of Ravesville chief of police recently, and ask him to run a check. “I haven’t said that I’ll meet him yet,” she said. “If I do that, I’ll decide then whether he needs to submit his fingerprints. In triplicate, of course. Maybe give a blood sample.”

He smiled, as much as Milo ever did. “I realize you’re not the foolish type, Trish. But I care about you. A lot of people do.”

“I know. And believe me, it helps. Now, let’s finish up here. I want to go home. It’s been good to have Raney and Nalana Hollister here to help in Summer’s absence, but it’s still been extra work. I just want to go home and take a hot shower and crawl into bed.”

“You’re still planning to take a few days off next week.”

“I am. Payback.”

“Summer will be delighted. You never take time off.”

She rarely did. And on the occasional day that she did play hooky, she generally worked in her yard, which had a never-ending supply of projects. Weeds to pull. Plants to move. Trees to trim.

But this time, she was doing none of that. She felt a little guilty about not confiding in Milo, but he worried way too much about her and Summer.

“Maybe we could go fishing one day,” he said. “I could teach you a few things.”

She held up a hand. “I do not want to hear one more time about that bass you caught.”

He tossed his head and laughed. “It’s not bragging when a man has pictures.”

“I suppose not. I’ll let you know if I’m available to be humiliated,” she added, picking up a fork.

He looked at her pile of silverware. “I’ve got one more load of dishes and then the garbage. Will you be ready in ten minutes?”

When it was just the two of them at the end of the night, he always insisted that they leave together. “You bet,” she said and watched him walk back to the kitchen.

She glanced out the front windows of the Wright Here, Wright Now Café. All the parking spaces in front of the café were empty. The town got quiet fast, even on a pretty spring evening. Tulips had bloomed last week in the flower box in front of the law office across the street, and now they were dancing in the light wind.

Didn’t matter how unbearable the winter was, those flowers always came back. And she had, too. Yes, she’d suffered a great loss. But she had much to be thankful for. A wonderful sister. Her nephew, Keagan, and her sweet little niece, Adie. Her new brother-in-law, who made sure she knew that every one of the Hollisters considered her family.

And now that she was almost thirty-eight years old, it was time to get on with her life.

A soft sob escaped and she looked around the empty café, grateful that no one was there to witness her lapse. Most of the time she was able to fool people. She could laugh and joke with the best of them. Only a precious few knew how much she mourned Rafe, who’d had the bad luck to go on a stupid float trip with his buddies. Only a precious few knew that sometimes she would go to the river and stare at the murky depths, so angry that it had taken her husband from her, not even generous enough to give her back a body to bury.

She rolled the last knife, fork and spoon and gently laid the napkin on the top of the stack. Then she carefully slid the tray of rolled silverware under the counter, where it would be easy to grab in the morning. Tables would fill up fast. She loved it when the place was really busy, when there were customers to wait on, tables to clear and money to take at the cash register. She loved the noise and the energy of people enjoying a good meal.

And while the café had a very different feel at the end of the day, when it was empty and quiet, it was satisfying to sit on a counter stool and look around at the clean floor, the shiny counters, the freshly washed pie case and know that she and Summer had built this from practically nothing.

They had purchased the café more than five years earlier. The previous owners had let the place get run-down and business had dwindled. Once she and Summer had signed on the dotted line, they’d had to close the place for a month just to get it ready to open again. Walls had been painted, floors and counters replaced, booths and tables repaired and all new dishes acquired. Then they’d tackled the kitchen. A new grill had been installed, the walk-in refrigerator scrubbed from top to bottom, and best of all, they’d purchased a new dishwasher.

Summer wanted the day shift to be home with her kids at night. That had been just fine with Trish. She’d always been a bit of a night owl. They’d hired a small staff and opened their doors to the grateful appreciation of all the other business owners on Main Street. The small downtown had been in danger of going the way that most small towns had, with empty storefronts and dilapidated buildings. There were high hopes for the Wright Here, Wright Now Café.

Summer and Trish Wright had grown up in Ravesville and people were willing to give the place a try. Word spread quickly that the service and food were top-notch and business had grown rapidly.

Four months after they’d opened, Trish had been just about to lock the doors the night that Rafe had blown into town. Literally. It had been a hot summer day and the weather forecasters had droned on about the possibility of tornadoes. At nine o’clock, like every night, she’d hung the Closed sign in the window. Had been grateful that the restaurant had cleared out by eight thirty. She had already sent Daisy, her night cook, home, because the woman was deathly afraid of storms.

She’d been walking back to the kitchen, to do one final sweep of the space, when pounding on the front door got her attention. She’d turned, locked eyes with the handsome stranger and, as crazy as it seemed, realized immediately that her life was about to experience a fundamental shift.

She’d unlocked the door just as the Ravesville tornado sirens started ringing. The stranger had smiled at her. “I think it’s about to get interesting,” he’d said.

She’d had no idea.

The café didn’t have a basement, so she and the man had ridden out the storm sitting on the floor in the small space between the back wall and the counter, protected from the possibility of flying glass. They’d each had two pieces of banana cream pie because he’d convinced her if they were both about to die, there was no sense worrying about calories.

The café had survived the storm, and when he’d said goodbye, he’d touched her cheek. She’d thought she’d seen the last of her mysterious stranger, that he’d been a one-timer, but then two nights later, he was back, asking her to dinner. By the following weekend, they’d been lovers.

Neither one of them were kids. She’d been thirty-three and he was just a year older. She hadn’t been especially interested in marriage. She was well aware of how miserable Summer was with her husband, Gary Blake, and she didn’t have any interest in making a similar mistake. When Rafe asked her to move in with him after six weeks of dating, she said no. She liked her independence and didn’t see a need to give it up.

But Rafe Roper knew how to wear a girl down. He was an amazing lover but it was more than that. He was different than the other men that she’d dated. Most important, he made her laugh. Every day. And he remembered all the little things. She’d get up in the morning and there would be chocolate doughnuts on her front porch. He’d have dropped them by early on his way to Hamerton, where he was part of the construction crew building the new mall. He would send her flowers. Never roses, because she’d mentioned just once that they weren’t her favorites. He sent lilies. Always lilies.

He was a fabulous cook and could make all her favorites, including eggplant parmigiana and shrimp scampi. He’d teased her mercilessly about owning a café and being barely capable of boiling water.

She and Summer still had work to do on the café and he was always willing to lend a hand, to fix a door or paint a wall. She could still see Summer standing near the pie case, telling Trish that she’d be a fool to let him get away.

And Trish knew she was right. So when Rafe asked her to marry him after they’d been dating for three months, she didn’t hesitate to say yes. And he didn’t give her time to think about her decision. They were married just two weeks later. Then they bought a house together, too big for just the two of them, but she’d started dreaming about babies to fill the empty rooms. Babies with dark eyes and an amazing smile, just like their daddy.

And life was pretty darn near perfect.

Nine months later, he was dead. He’d gone back east to visit a friend who was sick. She’d assumed it was a dear friend because when he’d returned, she’d sensed that he was still upset. When he’d left the next day on a float trip with his buddies on the construction crew, she’d hoped it would cheer him up.