Scrapped by Mollie Cox Bryan Read Free Book Online Page B

Paige,” Cookie said. “If you bite me, I taste really, really sweet.”
    Laughter ensued.
    “Let’s turn up the music. Gosh, I love that new Usher song,” Sheila said.
    Annie emptied her glass of beer, smiled at Sheila dancing between the chair and the shelves that held every color of paper you could imagine. Tomorrow she would be slaving over her next article for the paper, trying to keep Ben and Sam occupied, fixing some kind of supper, and trying to keep some semblance of sanity. But tonight she’d finish this book, eat some chips and salsa, and drink another one of those dark chocolate stouts. Yes, indeed.

Chapter 12
    Vera loved the train. But as it moved away from the city this time, she felt it in her guts. Leaving Tony was getting harder and harder. They had both said this relationship was just for fun. Both of them divorced. She with a baby. He with a new teaching job. And besides all this, he was in New York and she was in Cumberland Creek.
    She felt an intense pang for him move through her body—like a wave of heightened awareness. She ached; her guts twisted; her heart sank. And then she caught herself. Wasn’t this the stuff of cheap romance novels? She was almost forty-two years old and couldn’t continue this emotional roller-coaster ride with him. For how many years could it go on? Where could it lead? She could never leave Cumberland Creek to be with him—because of Elizabeth. She couldn’t take the child away from Bill and Beatrice. Meanwhile, he was so Brooklyn. It wouldn’t be fair to ask him to leave behind his city—this place that pulsed with energy and life—for her sleepy little town.
    Perhaps it wasn’t so sleepy anymore. Two murders within a month of one another. Both young women with red hair. Unique markings called runes were carved into their bodies.
    “You don’t hear about that stuff in New York,” Tony had told her over bagels that morning. “It’s so safe here now.”
    “Yes. I feel safer here now than I used to,” she said, looking around his tiny studio apartment. His years of dance had not left Tony well off—quite the contrary. He had to give up the touring because his knees finally gave way. But he was able to teach and commanded a decent salary, most of which he was saving for a knee replacement.
    But she loved the simplicity of his place and his life. A wall with a desk that held his computer, next to that a keyboard and stereo, then what counted as his kitchen—just a wall with a sink, stove, fridge, and a few cupboards. She smiled at the thought of the first time she baked him an apple pie there. It was a challenge. But, oh, he loved it. Raved about it between fork-fed bites from her own hand.
    Of course, along the opposite wall was mostly just his huge bed, where his touch made her feel more alive than she had in years.
    Someone gave a laugh on the train—it had the same quality as Tony’s. He laughed again. It was so similar that she had to turn around and look. Of course, it wasn’t him. But when the laugh came again, Vera realized she was crying. That laugh. She could picture Tony’s smiling mouth, open, framed in deep dimples, with that sound rolling out of it. How could he fill her with such pleasure and such bittersweet longing at the same time?
    Every time she left him, she was grateful for the transition time on the train or plane. The train was nicer for this very reason. She felt as if it was transporting her between two worlds. Two lives that she struggled to keep separate. Tony wanted to come to Cumberland Creek, and that thought made her uneasy.
    “Are you ashamed of me?” he’d asked her just last night, his deep brown eyes softly looking at her through long black eyelashes. “What?”
    She’d wanted to cry. “This time together has been like a dream I don’t want to wake up from. I don’t want to share you.”
    He’d kissed her with such passion at that moment that it almost took her breath away. The next thing she knew, they had