Late Last Night (River Bend) (12 page)
Read Late Last Night (River Bend) Online
Authors: Lilian Darcy
An excerpt from
The Sweetest Thing
Lilian Darcy
Copyright © 2014
“I’ll try to be quick,” Tully said. This wasn’t about her own worshipful love affair with all things chocolate, it was about finding a gift for Sugar, and she might as well be generous if this forgiveness thing was going to get off the ground.
“Really, it’s fine,” the woman insisted. Hm, that tumble of copper-red hair…
“You’re… one of the Carrigans,” Tully realized out loud, although she couldn’t come up with a name.
“Yes. I’m Sage.” She looked surprised at being recognized – well, half-recognized – and clearly didn’t know Tully at all.
“Sage. Right. Your sister Mattie was a couple of years ahead of me in school,” Tully explained. “And then Danielle was a couple of years below. And then there’s you, and…?” But she couldn’t remember.
“Callan. Callie. She’s the youngest.”
Sage still clearly didn’t know who she was talking to, so Tully quickly continued, “I’m Tully Morgan, Patty and Walter Morgan’s daughter.”
It never
felt
like a lie.
Sage’s face cleared. “Oh, of course! I know Patty, and I knew your dad, Walter, a little.”
It never felt like a lie, even when she was telling it to people who knew the family.
“You have a brother, too, right?” Sage went on. “David?”
“Yes, in LA. We both live there, so Mom and Dad tend… tended… to come there to visit. I don’t feel like much of a Marietta native any more, I’m afraid. And then there’s my - ”
A distressed exclamation sounded from the back room, saving Tully from her next familiar lie.
My sister.
“Sage?” the other female voice called. “Help! I can’t get this one out of the mold.”
“Please browse all you want,” Sage said hurriedly. “And I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Oh, no rush.” Tully was quite sure she’d be able to browse for a good fifteen minutes in here before she grew too bored… or too hungry.
In fact, there were some slivers of chocolate to sample in a little dish on the counter. She took one, and glimpsed a paradise made of dark sweetness and a tang of fig and pistachio, as it melted on her tongue. Did Sugar have the kind of palate that would appreciate chocolate like this? Mom said she’d given up smoking, finally, but less than a year ago.
Maybe one of these pre-packaged and gorgeously gift-wrapped boxes, instead? They came in so many sizes, the choice confronted Tully with the murky ambivalence of her own feelings.
How much are you worth to me, Sugar?
The $250 Deluxe Copper Mountain Gift Stack?
The $180 Limited Edition Single Source Truffle Assortment?
Or just the Milk Chocolate Gift Mix, with twelve pieces, for ten bucks.
What price did you put on forgiveness? As an accountant, should she know?
Someone came into the shop while she was still very busy feeling appalled at herself. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that he was male, dark-haired, built like an athlete, wearing a brown leather jacket on top of dark pants, and not in an especially patient or happy mood, judging from the rhythm of his footsteps. There could be a lot of emotional blackmail in the air on Valentine’s Day.
He went directly to the shelves containing the pre-packaged gift boxes, and she eased out of his way without really looking at him, back to the main counter where all the expensive gourmet specialties bathed themselves in soft golden lighting behind the glass.
Wow, spicy mango? Candied lime? Cornflake and chili? Inspirational!
I’ll get some of these for her.
It was a decision that made Tully feel a little giddy and scared.
What, she was actually going to choose a candy assortment for Sugar piece by piece, as if it
mattered?
As if they might find some common ground together, in exploring the exotic flavors? She was going to make a choice based not on her inner emotional balance sheet of anger and pity and, yes, shame, but on the hope of something
meaningful
?
Wow. Way to go, Tully.
The new customer plunked a medium-sized copper-wrapped box down on the counter to Tully’s left, adjacent to the cash register. After her attempt to quantify love and forgiveness in candy form just a minute or two earlier, she pegged his choice as a very ambiguous one.
Neither stingy nor generous, neither token nor whole-hearted.
This was either a boss with a valued secretary that he genuinely wasn’t trying to hit on, or a long-married husband who was very much over the whole thing.
Then Sage came hurrying back to the front of the store, and said, “Ren! Hi!” and Tully’s feelings about chocolate and Valentine’s Day suddenly became a whole lot more complicated. This man right next to her, with the seriously buff body filling his jacket and the aura of professional confidence all over him was
Ren
? Ren
Fletcher
?
Buy The Sweetest Thing:
Lilian Darcy
is a five-time Rita™ Award nominee who has written over eighty romances for Harlequin, as well as several mainstream novels. She has also written for Australian theatre and television under another name, and has received two award nominations for Best Play from the Australian Writers Guild. In 1990 she was the co-recipient of an Australian Film Institute award for best TV mini-series.
Watch for the other books in the River Bend series…
After The Rain –
Kira Shepherd’s story – June 2014
Long Walk Home –
Gemma Clayton’s story – October 2014
Love Me, Cowboy
– Anthology with all four Copper Mountain Rodeo novellas
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