Secret Alibi. Lori L. Harris

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СКАЧАТЬ he understand that as far as she was concerned the only anniversary worth celebrating was March 15, the day she’d been awarded a divorce from him?

      Fed up, she stopped just inside the short hallway where the restrooms were located and quickly manipulated the phone pad keys.

      Don’t drink with murderers. Cruel words, but Dan would know exactly what she meant.

      Only after hitting Send did she notice her hands were trembling. Calm down, she reminded herself. He’s just doing this to get a rise out of you. Or because he was drunk…. It didn’t really matter why he was doing it, though. She was pissed.

      She clipped the phone to her waistband again. Right now, she needed to forget about Dan and keep her mind on business.

      When she returned to the table a few minutes later, something in her face must have given her away, because Rafferty leaned toward her. “Everything okay?”

      She glanced at him. He’d always seemed like such a cold fish, so she was surprised when he picked up on her emotional state. “Everything is fine.” She offered a tight smile. “Can I interest anyone in some coffee and dessert?”

      Rafferty shook his head. “I have an eight o’clock surgery scheduled.” He placed his napkin on the table. “Time to call it a night, gentlemen.”

      “I’ll drop by with samples of Talzepam in the morning,” Lexie said as she, too, stood.

      “Sounds good. Wait up, Dennis.” Joe Lemon shook her hand, then hurried after Dr. Rafferty. Lexie caught the words prolapsed and ICU, and knew the two men were discussing a mutual patient.

      Ken was the last to get to his feet, and he made no move to follow the other two men.

      Here it comes, she thought. He’s going to suggest a nightcap or something. How was she going to turn him down without damaging the professional relationship?

      She bent to retrieve her briefcase. By the time she straightened, Ken had walked around the table.

      “Care to come by my place for that dessert?”

      He didn’t look quite as confident as he usually did. Which surprised her. She tried to formulate some type of reply in her head, but after several seconds realized that the longer she waited to say something, the more awkward it was going to be for both of them. She settled for simple and direct. “No, thanks.”

      He nodded, his mouth tightening ever so slightly. “I didn’t think so, but figured it was worth asking.”

      He offered his hand, and she took it without hesitation. “Thanks, Ken, for helping tonight.”

      Again, his mouth tightened briefly. “It’s a good product, Lexie. In time, it will outsell its competitors. Can I see you to your car?”

      She had barely declined his offer when he tossed his jacket over his shoulder and, with one hand tucked into a pants pocket, strolled toward the front door. Several women a few tables over watched with interest. For a moment, Lexie envied them.

      What did they see that she didn’t? She was twenty-seven, not ninety-seven. Sex was a healthy part of being an adult—one of the few perks, when you came right down to it. But in the eleven months since she and Dan had gone their separate ways, she’d had sex only one time. With a stranger who hadn’t stayed a stranger. Her abdominal muscles tensed at the memory of all the things they’d done that night. But more than the mechanics of sex, she’d been able to do something she hadn’t done in months—she had cried. He’d held her while she sobbed, never asking why, seeming to understand that her pain couldn’t be mollified with words.

      “Excuse me, ma’am.”

      Lexie realized she had no idea how long the busboy had been standing there looking at her.

      “Sorry,” she said, embarrassed. Ducking her head, she moved away from the table. She had to stop thinking about that night, glorifying it as something more than it had been. Pity sex. That’s all it could have been for him. What was more embarrassing and depressing than that? To know a man had taken you to bed because he felt sorry for you?

      After leaving the restaurant, she dropped last month’s expense account report into the box in front of the post office, and then took Alligator Creek Road toward home.

      Temperatures had taken a hard dive into the high thirties—uncommon for early December in central Florida. A misting rain forced her to turn on the windshield wipers. She was used to the fifteen-minute drive, having moved out to Riverhouse, her grandparents’ old weekend retreat on the river, when she and Dan had separated. She’d expected the move to be a temporary one, lasting only until Dan vacated the house in town.

      The majority of the land out this way belonged to the state now, so she was unlikely to see another car at this time of night. The dense line of vegetation, mostly palmettos and scrub oaks, with a few slash pines mixed in, formed a wall on either side.

      Usually the drive relaxed her, but not tonight. She couldn’t seem to quite let go of her irritation over Dan’s interruption, or her uncertainty over the dinner meeting’s success.

      Her headlights skimmed across a small family of armadillos that had wandered out of the undergrowth toward the road. Braking, she hit the horn and watched them scatter back into the brush.

      She had just stopped in front of the house when her cell phone went off again. She checked the message screen.

      paprs signd last dink

      “Do you really think I’m that stupid, Dan?”

      That was a fatal drawback to text messaging—you couldn’t really tell with any certainty the condition of the person on the other end. But the dropped letters in his message suggested that Dan was at least on his way to being drunk.

      She should never have answered the first text message, she realized. As soon as she had, she’d given him what he really wanted from her. Not to be ignored.

      Which was exactly what she needed to do. She reached for her briefcase and then paused, staring down at the phone she still held in her left hand.

      But what if he wasn’t screwing with her? What if this time was different? What if he had signed the amended property settlement? She’d heard talk about his seeing a woman. Maybe he had finally started to move on.

      She glanced through the rain-pocked window toward the front door of Riverhouse, wanting a hot shower and a soft bed. Wanting to forget about her ex-husband and legal documents. She wanted the mindless oblivion of sleep.

      Lexie rubbed her forehead. No. As much as she would like to believe this time might be different, it would be like all the others. She’d lost count of the times he’d agreed to sign the papers, only to refuse when they were face-to-face.

      She flipped the phone back open and, after briefly debating what her response should be, settled for being brutally frank. F off

      She’d wanted to say that for months now, but hadn’t. Partially because she wanted to keep things as civilized as possible between them, figuring as long as she played nice, Dan would also. Boy had she been wrong.

      She was reaching for her briefcase again when the phone vibrated in her hand. Startled, she dropped it on the floorboard. As she СКАЧАТЬ