Deep Secrets. Beverly Long

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

      His raft had overturned and his body had never been recovered.

      Then it was not just the rooms of her house that were empty.

      Her heart. Her soul.

      Her spirit.

      She’d wished she was dead, too. But she’d lived. And somehow, someway, had managed to crawl her way back. Didn’t expect to ever feel full again but had developed an odd contentment with the emptiness. Except for nights like this, when it became unbearable.

      She’d expected to feel blue today. That was probably why earlier in the week she’d jumped at something Mary Ann Fikus had said. M.A., as everyone called her, worked at the bank and ate lunch almost every day at the café. She was just back from a week in the Ozarks. She’d been going on about the cottage where she’d stayed.

      Trish had been to the Ozarks, the lake-filled, mountainous area in southwest Missouri, several times and had even stayed at the particular lake that M.A. had visited. It was a lovely area.

      And when M.A. described the cottage, it had sounded like the perfect place to rest and read books and maybe, just maybe, СКАЧАТЬ