Saving Forever - Part 4 by Lexy Timms Read Free Book Online Page A

there?”
    “I’m here… I, uh, kinda told Simon today who went and told Julie, like, thirty seconds after I asked him.”
    Charity laughed. “What did Julie say?”
    “She screamed in the cafeteria and scared a nurse who dropped her tray of food. Julie ran over to help the woman and then slipped on the spilled soup.”
    “Is she okay?”
    Elijah laughed. “She’s totally fine. Her pride might not be, but her body was. Julie’s pumped. She was going to call you but I made her swear to wait till you called her. She’s supposed to pretend she doesn’t know yet.” He hesitated, then added in an obvious fake-worried voice, “You’re not mad, are you?”
    “Furious. You are in such big trouble when I get back”
    “Really?” His voice perked up. “I’ve been a bad boy.”
    “Are you looking for some kind of punishment?”
    “Of the sexual kind?”
    “I’m on speaker phone in my office.”
    A shuffling and scraping came across the phone. “Is anyone in the room with you?”
    She enjoyed the worry in his voice for a moment. “No. I’m all by myself. I’m about to head back to my place.” She yawned suddenly, not realizing she did feel tired. “Been quite the day.”
    “That it has. Hey, can you hold on a sec?”
    She heard muffled talking.
    Elijah picked his phone up again. “I’ve got to go. Time to wrap myself into some hospital goo.”
    “Go be superman. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She sat a few minutes going through some more mail before finally calling it a night. She put the donation checks into the small safe under her desk and grabbed her phone. As she gathered her stuff, she dialed Julie’s number.
    She expected to get Julie’s voice mail and was surprised when Julie picked up. “Hey girlllll... How’s Atlanta?”
    “It’s good. I—”
    “Elijah told me,” Julie gushed. “I’ve been shopping online and saw this gorgeous blue dress. Strike that, it’s sapphire blue. It’ll be perfect.”
    Charity smiled. “I’m sure it will be.”
    “I’m sending you an email with a pic of it. Tell me what you think.”
    “I’m on my way home now, I’ll check it when I get to my place.”
    “When do you want to go dress shopping for you?”
    “I hope to come back next weekend. I—”
    “Next weekend? Elijah said the wedding’s in three weeks. Girl, we need to shop now! I’ve booked Simon, me, Elijah and your Dad off. I hear Elijah’s mom is taking care of everything down at the massive house.”
    “What else did Elijah tell you? Or didn’t tell you.” She laughed. “I don’t need anything fancy. It’s going to simple so as long as the dress is white or creamy white or something close to white, I’ll be good to go.”
    “Are you pregnant?”
    “What? No! Is everyone going to think that?”
    Julie giggled. “Probably, but who cares? Start looking at stuff online and fly home Friday night. You and I are going dress shopping in New York City Saturday. We’ll take the train into town and hit a few of those off the rack shops. You can buy it there, they’ll do whatever simple fitting it needs and voila! We take it home.”
    “Sounds too easy. Have these dresses been worn before?” She knew it was silly, but she didn’t want to wear some wedding dress from a broken marriage. She wanted her own, only to be worn once, dress.
    “Dresses are brand new. I’ll get it all settled. Just pretty-please be here so we can leave early Saturday morning.”
    “I’ll try. If I plan on taking another two weeks off after—”
    “Nope. Not good enough. Say: I’ll be there. I promise.”
    “Stop cutting me off!” Charity laughed. “Has anyone ever told you how frustrating it is to talk to you on the phone?”
    “Simon says it all the time. I’ll keep doing it till you promise.”
    “Fine! I promise!”
    “Perfect. See you Saturday at seven am.” She hung up before Charity could even respond.
     

 
    Chapter 6
     
    Charity came back to her office an hour before the ribbon