Dear Mystery Guy (Magnolia Sisters Book 1) by Brenda Barrett Read Free Book Online

his driver's license.
    She looked at the ID closely. His name was Luca Lawson. His address was 112 Norbrook Avenue. His birth date was June 3, 1979. He was 34. Thirteen years older than she was; that wasn't too bad. He certainly didn't look it.
    She swiped the card and handed it back to him, along with a pen for him to sign his name. In the meantime she inhaled his perfume greedily. He smelled good, expensive.
    This was first contact. She knew his name and now his address and even where he was going on Sunday.
    This was more than she ever thought she was going to get in her fantasyland when she wrote to him. And she had written to him every day this week, sometimes twice per day. She was having the dream almost constantly now and it still had the added element of the ring.
    Tonight she would write him again but this time he was no longer Mystery Guy. He was Luca Lawson. He had a name. She twirled the name in her head. Luca, Looka, Luke. She liked it.
    He picked up his few items and gave her another smile and left. He was just being polite.
    He hadn't really seen her. She was just one face in a sea of people that he probably saw and didn't register, but he had been unfailingly polite and effortlessly charming.
    If she wasn't already under his spell, she would surely have been spellbound by his smile tonight.
    She watched him as he strolled through the door. He was tall and broad-shouldered. He didn't look as if he had an ounce of surplus fat on him.
    It was the first time since coming to the supermarket that he had paid with a card. He usually paid with cash, even when he had several more items than he had this evening. She thought that it was fate that he got a phone call when he came near her. This was supposed to happen. She was supposed to know his name and address.
    There was a reason why she was so drawn to him. God wanted them to meet. It was that or she was slowly going off her rockers and had turned into a stalker.
    After all, she had been traumatized when she was younger. The possibility was always there that some day she would have a complete mental collapse. Maybe she was degenerating slowly.
    She shook her head and quelled the urge to laugh at herself. She had never been this fanciful before.

Chapter Six
     
    "It's nice of you to suggest that we go somewhere today." Mike gave her a boyish grin. "You know, I was thinking that you were trying to avoid me."
    Della felt guilty when she saw his happy face. She had suggested that they go out this Sunday because she wanted to go to Hope Gardens and he had a car; it was more convenient to go in a car than to take the bus.
    It was something that they had done in the past too, drive around and chat. Well, Mike chatted and she signed. They hadn't done that in a long while and when she texted Mike, suggesting that they go somewhere today, he had been over the moon happy.
    But she had thought about it all weekend. Going to Hope Gardens would help her unravel one more layer of the Luca Lawson mystery. She would see his friends or family and she would get to see his plus one.
    That had bothered her all weekend. He had a plus one. She was obsessing about it. Who was his plus one?
    The thought had occurred to her that she was being a bit weird and this was stalker behavior, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she needed to see him.
    It was puzzling, this driving need to see him today. She looked across at Mike, who had opened the car door for her and was regarding her with a smile in his eyes.
    "You are so pretty, Della, with your hair out like that."
    Della smiled and mouthed, "Thanks." She had thought that a change was in order. She had combed out her hair and had marveled at its length; it was in her mid-back, thick and wavy. She had quite forgotten how long it was.
    Maybe Keisha was right in saying that she had been hiding. She had also worn one of her nicer sweater dresses in a nice lavender shade, her favorite color.
    Mike cleared his throat and held her arm before she