Happily Never After. Kathleen O'Brien

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СКАЧАТЬ pocket, patted it to be sure it was secure, then zipped up his jacket against the fresh, high wind that hinted at a squall before sunset.

      Darlene paused, her mouth half-open. She obviously knew the next few moments were dangerous and was looking for the right words.

      “It’s really too cold for a boat party, don’t you think?” He hunched his shoulders. “But I guess Saroyan couldn’t wait till spring to show off his new baby.”

      In his head Tom begged Darlene to be very careful, to take the conversational fire exit he was offering. He didn’t like being cornered, and she’d gone too far when she’d pawed through his mail. And he damn sure didn’t want to talk to her about Sophie.

      If she forced him to do this now, he might say things he’d regret.

      She wasn’t great at reading his thoughts, though, and he knew his face revealed only a tilted smile and a slightly sarcastic arch to one brow. It was an expression he’d perfected over the last decade.

      The arched brow probably tipped her over the edge. Darlene had odd moments of self-respect, and though she might let a man cheat on her, she wouldn’t stand for being mocked.

      “Who exactly,” she demanded, “is this Sophie Mellon?”

      What a stupid question. What did it matter? When a love affair was over, did it make any difference exactly what, or who, had killed it?

      When he didn’t answer, Darlene’s jaw tightened. “So far I know this much. She writes your name like a lovesick adolescent, and she soaks her cards in cheap perfume. Things haven’t been right between us lately, Tom. Is this why? Is she someone I should worry about? Or is she just a—”

      A what? Darlene seemed to understand she’d gone too far, but the echo of the unspoken thought seemed to hang in the air between them. What word had she been going to say?

      And what was the right word, anyhow? What was Sophie? Slut? Stalker? Psycho? Maybe all those labels applied. And many more, as well.

      Maybe the best word was cursed. Poor beautiful, tormented Sophie was cursed, and still she signed his name with a heart.

      Suddenly Tom realized he was furious. If Darlene insisted on doing this right here, right now, he was ready. He felt his smile tilt another inch. It probably looked like a smirk by now. He didn’t give a damn about that, either.

      “Sophie Mellon is the woman I almost married.”

      “What?” Darlene’s eyebrows knitted hard. “Married? When?”

      “Ten years ago.”

      She shook her head, looking confused and slightly annoyed. She looked, he thought, like an infant rejecting an unappetizing spoonful of strained peas. “But surely…” She took a breath. “If that’s true, why—why didn’t you ever tell me about it?”

      “It wasn’t important.”

      Her chin went up. “Wasn’t important?”

      He shrugged. “Not to you.”

      That was rough. Two circles of hot pink broke out on her skin. But her chin didn’t waver. She was a strong woman, and a distant part of Tom admired her. Maybe she was strong enough that, someday soon, she’d thank him for setting her free.

      “When you say you almost married her… What does almost mean? How close did you come?”

      “Close enough to hear the wedding bells at my back as I drove out of town.”

      “My God. You mean you left her waiting at the altar?”

      “No,” he said, still smiling. “Technically, that’s what jilted grooms do. I believe the bride waits in an anteroom off to the side until her husband-to-be shows up and takes his place.”

      She hesitated. “But you didn’t. Show up, I mean.”

      “No.”

      The pink cheeks had faded, leaving behind an ivory pall of shock. It was finally sinking in. Her gaze scoured his face, as if she wondered where her charming Tom had gone.

      He wouldn’t be receiving cards from this one for the next decade, that was sure. Good. One tearstained ghost, annually rattling the rusty chains of his ruined conscience, was enough for any man.

      She swallowed. “But why? Why didn’t you go through with it?”

      For the first time, he hesitated, too.

      “Let’s just say…I decided I’d make a rotten husband.”

      Amazingly, she balked at that. She wasn’t ready to let go of all her illusions—or her plans.

      “Oh, Tom,” she said, reaching out with gentling fingers. “Honey. Don’t say—”

      He backed up a quarter of an inch and restored his tilted, insulting smile. “Why not? It’s true—I’m not good husband material. I think I knew that the night I almost screwed her bridesmaid.”

      A gasp. And then, as if by instinct, she reared back and slapped him.

      It would have caused quite a stir, except that, at the exact same moment, Trent Saroyan shoved Coach O’Toole over the yacht’s elegant teak railing and into the Atlantic Ocean and, as Tom had predicted, all hell broke loose at the party.

      THOUGH IT WAS ONLY about eleven-thirty, the darkness out here in the rural Georgia woods was cool, deep and damp, the kind of night that predicted pea-soup fog in the morning.

      Kelly stood at her worktable, so absorbed in cutting a very expensive sheet of purple drapery glass that she listened to the muffled twig-cracking sound several seconds before she realized it was the wrong sound at the wrong time. Most of the little animals that shared these woods with her went to bed early—and few of them were capable of producing such big noises anyhow.

      Carefully she put down the glass cutter and listened. The sounds continued, quite close now.

      It was probably nothing. Maybe something bigger than usual, like a deer, had wandered into her yard.

      Still, a shiver of fear shimmied through her.

      She stared at the studio window. She couldn’t see anything, of course. Nothing but her own reflection. The old, warped glass distorted a lot, but she still saw a skinny, scruffy redhead with a sad, wide-eyed face.

      A sudden heavy, muffled thud came from just beyond the back door.

      What was wrong with her? She couldn’t just stand here, frozen. When she’d bought this old place for her stained-glass studio three months ago, her ex-husband Brian had warned that she’d be a nervous wreck way out here with no neighbors. She hadn’t been, though. She’d done fine until two nights ago, when Lily had…

      When Lily had died.

      In the long, painful forty-eight hours since then, Kelly had been reduced to a mass of singing nerves and emotional confusion. Tears were never more than one thought away. And fear, too. Not active terror, but a shadowy sense that the world СКАЧАТЬ