Starting Over On Blackberry Lane. Sheila Roberts

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СКАЧАТЬ and hear how the wedding plans were coming along. The wedding plans were coming along fine. The invitations were addressed and ready to send. But she hadn’t mailed them yet.

      As she stepped on the front porch, the burble of voices drifted out to her. Everyone was having fun. She’d be having fun once she got inside. Of course she would. And she and Steve were going to be happy. He’d regain the balance in his life. They’d start doing more stuff together, talk more. He was just going through an adultolescent stage.

      She realized she was frowning, just like her dad when he came to visit. She reminded herself to smile as she knocked on the door.

      A moment later Stef opened it, looking like her usual put-together self, wearing jeans, great jewelry and a really cute blouse that said, I’m new. Stef could afford new clothes. She worked part-time at the bank and her husband made a decent living. She even bought books new at Mountain Escape Books. Griffin bought them used on Amazon and haunted the library.

      “You look great,” Stef gushed.

      She’d had this sweater for three years. The pants had come from a thrift store outing and the shoes weren’t exactly new, either. But classics never went out of style, right?

      She walked into the living room and the misplaced drapes immediately jumped out at her. Oh, boy. Stef had to be happy about that. Not.

      “Brad’s...” Stef stopped, unable to continue.

      “He decided to knock out the wall,” Griffin finished for her.

      “I nearly knocked him out when I came home yesterday. I’m sorry things are such a disaster,” Stef finished as she led Griffin into the room to a chorus of hellos.

      “At least he does something,” Griffin said. Stef’s husband was trying. Steve was...playing video games.

      “We don’t care,” said Bailey Black, who was within hearing distance. “And it’s not that bad.”

      “Yeah, it is,” Stef said, “but thanks.”

      “It’s such a guy thing to do,” Bailey’s big sister Samantha said. “Blake’s favorite trick is to start a project right before we have to go somewhere.”

      “Yeah, but at least he finishes his projects,” Stef muttered. “Here, come into the kitchen and get some punch,” she said to Griffin. “We also have lavender cookies from Tea Time, and Cass made an apricot torte.”

      Griffin followed her out and helped herself to a cup of champagne punch, passing on the other treats.

      “I swear, you’re not human,” Stef said in disgust.

      “When you take pictures of food all day, it kind of turns you off,” Griffin lied. Actually, she loved food, but she’d been fat when she was a kid and she was never going there again, even if she had to starve herself. Which it seemed she did a lot.

      “I was hoping we could move the party to Cass’s place,” Stef said, “but her ceiling fell in.” She nodded at the apricot torte. “You’d better have a bite of that or her feelings will be hurt.”

      Griffin had a bite of a gingerbread boy every week for the same reason when she met Stef on her day off for coffee. Stef always finished her cookie for her. Stef had to be a witch, because she somehow magically sucked the calories out of stuff before she ate it.

      “You got that right,” said Cass, who’d joined them.

      Griffin cut a sliver and put it on her plate. “Your ceiling fell in?”

      “Roof troubles,” Cass said with a sigh. “Thank God Charley loaned me her man for the day. He’s over there fixing the mess while I bury my sorrows in carbs.” She shook her head. “I dug my table out from under all the gook that was on it. Thank God I had a pad covering it, or the whole thing would’ve been toast.”

      Stacy Thomas drifted out to the kitchen. “This is fun,” she said to Stef. “I love showers.”

      “We should’ve had it at your house,” Stef said, frowning at the misplaced drapes.

      “You should’ve said something. I would have. But really, Stef, nobody minds. We just all like being together.” Stacy took another piece of the apricot torte. “This is addictive,” she said to Cass.

      It was good. Griffin had one bite and set the rest aside.

      “You’re killing me here,” Cass said. “Do you rent out willpower?” She cut a piece from the other end of Griffin’s ignored torte and popped it in her mouth. “Never mind. Willpower is overrated.”

      The doorbell rang, and Stef hurried to let in another guest.

      Griffin and the other two women returned to the living room, which was packed with guests and extra folding chairs. Muriel Sterling-Wittman, the town’s local celebrity, was entering the room now. She wrote as Muriel Sterling and all her books were prominently displayed in the bookstore window. One of these days Griffin was going to buy one.

      Talk turned yet again to the remodel in progress. “Men,” Dot Morrison groaned. “If Duncan had done this to me, I’d have beaned him.”

      Dot’s husband had died early. One of the cattier residents of Icicle Falls once joked that he did so to get away from Dot. No one who knew Dot well paid attention to that. She was feisty and a bit of a smart-mouth, but she also had a big heart.

      “I was ready to, believe me,” said Stef. “Why does he do this? Why can’t he finish anything?”

      “I’m guessing it’s his one besetting sin,” Muriel said softly. “Every man has something that makes him human. Just like we do.”

      “Didn’t you say I was perfect?” Samantha joked.

      “All my daughters are close to it,” Muriel replied with a smile. Her daughters, Samantha, Cecily and Bailey, like their mother, were the uncrowned royalty of Icicle Falls. The family owned Sweet Dreams Chocolate Company. Often referred to as Sweet Dreams Chocolates or simply Sweet Dreams, it was the town’s source of both employment and chocolate.

      “The problem,” Muriel continued, “is that when we consider our men’s flaws, we always think we’ll be able to fix them.”

      “But what you see is what you get,” Dot added.

      Griffin couldn’t help recalling what she’d seen before she left the house. Was that what she wanted to get? Okay, he wasn’t all that bad. He was nice, fun-loving.

      Lazy, inattentive.

      “Well, I liked what I saw and I’m glad I got him,” Bailey said with a decisive nod.

      “Me, too,” seconded her sister Cecily.

      “Me three,” Samantha chimed in.

      “I’m keeping mine,” said Dot Morrison’s daughter, Tilda, the cop.

      Stacy laughed. “You’re too newly married to get tired of him.”

      Was Griffin tired of Steve? Was that the problem? And they weren’t СКАЧАТЬ