A Minute on the Lips by Cheryl Harper Read Free Book Online Page B

Mandarin now? Because I’m afraid the conversation has gotten away from me. And that never happens. I’m a writer. I live on words, you know?”
    “It’s like...the facts might be that someone broke into the Country Kitchen. You can put in the time and the amount that was stolen. You might even be able to put in the name of the thief and a confession, but that’s not the truth of the story. Or not all of it anyway. You’d be missing the context. I want to know the why. And I can’t help but look for it. That makes me good at my job. I don’t think most reporters spend a lot of time thinking about that context.” Andi shook her head. “Just let me eat my salad in peace, please.”
    He reached across the table to squeeze her hand. “I’m not sure I agree, Sheriff, but I think I understand.” He shook his head. “What I don’t get is why in the world you’re still here. If you win this election, you’ve got two more years of the town’s scrutiny to look forward to. Why not head out for greener, more crime-ridden pastures? FBI experience would probably open most any door you wanted around here, wouldn’t it?”
    Andi bit her lip as she tried to figure out a way to shunt him out of the Smokehouse. She’d get up herself but not without her cheesecake. “I can’t leave Tall Pines, not yet. My grandmother’s still...she needs me.” Two years ago, when she’d heard about her grandmother’s fall, Andi was frantic to get home. Her career hadn’t meant much then. Gram wouldn’t move to Atlanta, so Andi had to make her way in Tall Pines. Unfortunately, that meant old history, elections and politics.
    Mark wadded up his napkin as Sarah returned to take his empty plate. He smiled up at her, then smiled at Andi. “You’re ready for your dessert now.”
    Andi had cleared a bald spot in the middle of the forest of her salad. He was right. She was ready for her reward.
    Before Andi could give Sarah her usual order, he said, “She’ll have her usual and I’ll have what she’s having.” Sarah smiled and marched back to the kitchen. Mark and Andi both watched her go, then Mark turned back to look at Andi. “I do appreciate your jealousy but I’m not sure you know what you’re talking about. She seems fine to me.”
    Andi pointed to the table with a single twentysomething man near the window. “I think she’s got someone else to attract at this point.”
    He heaved a troubled sigh. “Well, all right. At least I’ve still got you.” The corner of his mouth tilted up, but he didn’t say another thing about jealousy. “I’m surprised I hadn’t heard about your FBI experience. The first thing some people did when I moved to town is trot over to tell me all about Tall Pines’s most famous citizen.”
    Andi was ready to blast out a defense. Her father had quit his job at the radio station, divorced her mother and left town to pursue his dream. He’d landed in Nashville where he hosted a popular country music talk show, and every Christmas he sent her a card with a check. Until she was eighteen, she’d lived with the morbid curiosity and sometimes pity of the people in town who knew he hardly called and never visited his daughter. She didn’t want to talk about her father, either his successes or his monumental failure.
    Sometimes she had to face the bitter truth that she could place a big part of her drive to be the best and build a successful law-enforcement career at her father’s feet. She was determined to prove herself better than him, better than anyone who’d pursue their own selfish goals like that, through serving the public and excelling at all she did. But now was not the time to get into that.
    Mark held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “But I don’t want to talk about that. It’s nice to know more about you. Why don’t you ask me whatever burning questions you have? You might start to see me for the fine, upstanding citizen I really am. Then maybe we could work