Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) by Gail Roughton Read Free Book Online Page A

homing in on the cashier who’d rung up Paul Everett’s purchases . “T hat last man you checked out. What did he look like?”
    The clerk stared. Customers. They were crazy and here was proof.
    “Aren’t you with him?”
    “Well, yes, but what does he look like to you?”
    “Real fine, honey, I’d say you’re lucky.”
    “Yes, but what—”
    “Blond hair, blue eyes. Tall, lean, grea t voice. Looks sort of like—no, that’s not it. Re minds me of Matthew McConaughey when he first got big. You got good taste, I’ll say that. He’s a looker.”
    “He didn’t pay with a card, did he?”
    “Nope, used cash.”
    Shit. No way to confirm he’d really said his name was Paul Everett. Oh, well. At least she wasn’t talking to thin air.
    “Thank you,” she said, and went back out. The clerk shrugged and returned to her duties. Customers. Crazy.
    “Your book’s not in?”
    “No. Oh, well. Where do we eat?”
    “You pick,” he said, and spread his hand out towards the fast-food kiosks standing cheek by jowl in the F ood C ourt. Ria didn’t hesitate.
    “Atlanta Bread Company, please. Roast beef on French,” she said, “but if you’d rather have something else, please feel free.”
    “That’s great. Why don’t you claim a table and I’ll be right back.”
    “Can’t I buy dinner? You already bought my book.”
    He smiled. “I’m a little old-fashioned. Be right back.”
     
    * * *
     
    “So you’re not from Macon?” she asked again when they settled in with their sandwiches.
    “No .” H e shook open his napkin. “Actually, I’m in town on sort of a research trip.”
    “Research?”
    “I’m on a leave of absence from a very small newspaper you never heard of. Sounds sort of self-important so I don’t usually tell anybody but seeing as how you’re a f an of fine literature, I’ll tell you anyway. I’m working on—trying to work on—my first novel.”
    “ Really? Here?”
    “Yes, here. To be honest, I put my finger on a map of the south and it landed closer to here than anywhere else.”
    Ria laughed. “You ’re joking?”
    “No. And you?”
    “I’m an attorney.”
    “Now you ’re joking.”
    “No. Male chauvinism much?”
    “None at all. You just look too young to be an established attorney.”
    “I said attorney, I didn’t say established. Actually, I’ve been practicing a little over two years and a couple of months ago I went out on my own with a friend of mine. It ’s our office and home, we redid the second floor into two apartments. The first floor is Bishop & Knight, Attorneys at Law.”
    “You didn’t get top billing?”
    “Always start with the name that goes first in the phone book. Sound business practice. Johnny says we should have made up a silent partner. Aabco, Bishop & Knight. So folks thumbing through the phone book see our name first.”
    H e laughed just like Paul Devlin laughed. Coincidence. Nothing else. Or maybe his people came from Macon after all and he just didn’t know it. Maybe he was a Devlin descendant. She’d always heard everyone had a double .
    “Johnny? Your partner’s not another lady lawyer, then?”
    “Not hardly. We go back a long way , friends from the cradle. O ur mothers are best friends, we were sort of automatic brother and sister. ”
    Ria caught the glint of metal on his finger. His wedding ring finger. She put down the potato chip in her hand and stood up, calling herself a first-class idiot, letting her self get picked up by a married man in a bookstore just because he looked and sounded like her Paul .
    “ Thank you for the book, Mr. Everett. And for dinner.”
    “Bu t you haven’t finished! What—”
    “And do be sure to give my regards to your wife. I hope she knows what a charming husband she has.”
    He glanced down at his hand.
    “Oh, hell! Look, please sit down. My wife died several years ago. I’ve just never met anyone who ever gave me a reason to want to take her ring off.”
    Ria searched his face. Her