Sunset Bridge by Emilie Richards Read Free Book Online

Randall’s wasn’t a drugstore. The wooden building with a vintage Coca-Cola chest on the porch was an odd cross between a gourmet food and bait shop, where chicken gizzardsnestled next to prime Angus steaks, and fishing lures winked at French-press pots and bamboo steamers. Surely somewhere on the crowded, chaotic shelves she would find a pregnancy-test kit. She didn’t have the patience to drive into town.
    Inside, she scanned the aisles, just to be sure no one she knew was nearby. Satisfied, she went in search. Ten minutes of digging through dusty boxes in the pharmacy aisle turned up nothing. Finally she cornered a clerk, a scrawny post-adolescent with a goatee and one gold hoop in his earlobe.
    “I need a pregnancy test for a friend.” She had no idea why she was lying to the young man, but it glided across her tongue like extra-virgin olive oil. “I don’t see any.”
    “I’ll see what I can find out.” He ambled off so slowly that at first she wasn’t certain he was moving.
    She looked around for something to do while she waited. Settling at the magazine rack, she was paging through the newest People magazine, counting the faces she had seen at parties when she was still married to CJ, when she heard a familiar voice call her name.
    “Tracy!”
    Startled, she dropped the magazine, but she recovered as she picked it up and was smiling brightly by the time Olivia Symington came skipping toward her.
    “Well, hey there!” Tracy made herself look pleased to see the girl, although for once, she really wasn’t.
    “We’re getting ice cream. My soccer team won.”
    “Congratulations.” They high-fived. Eleven-year-old Olivia was one of Tracy’s favorite people. Pretty, with brown hair, clear skin and startlingly blue eyes, she was already showing the promise of greater beauty. She and Alice, who was now coming up behind the girl, were Tracy’s neighbors. Alice had custody of Olivia, her late daughter’s child, whileOlivia’s father, Lee, was in prison. Olivia would be grown by the time Lee emerged— if Lee emerged—something for which all the neighbors were grateful.
    “I hear your granddaughter’s team is tops,” Tracy told Alice, once the older woman joined them.
    Alice looked tired. She was in her late seventies, and she had already suffered one stroke. As devoted as she was to Olivia, at her age, raising a preteen with an active schedule wasn’t easy.
    “She was marvelous,” Alice said, resting a hand on Olivia’s shoulder.
    Tracy wasn’t sure whether the hand was there for affection or support, but she didn’t have time to worry about it. She scanned the store, looking for the young man who might at any moment plod over and flash a pregnancy-test kit at the little group, or tell her in no uncertain terms that they didn’t have one in the store. She was not ready to explain this situation to Alice, and particularly not in front of Olivia.
    “Well, I won’t keep you from your ice cream,” she said brightly.
    “Would you like a cone?” Alice asked. “Our treat?”
    Tracy’s stomach flip-flopped, and just that easily, she was certain, once again, what the pregnancy test would prove.
    “No, no, thanks. Still watching my weight, and I haven’t had dinner. You two go ahead. I’ll see you soon. Aren’t we coming to your house Thursday night?”
    Alice looked surprised, but she covered it quickly. Tracy wondered if she had forgotten, or if the thought of the work involved was an unpleasant reminder.
    “Listen, don’t overdo,” Tracy said. “Randall’s rotisserie chicken is great. Wanda will bring a pie, and we’ll get Janya to make something with rice. I’ll bring wine.”
    “I’ll be fine, dear.” Alice smiled gamely. Then, after Olivia gave Tracy a spontaneous hug, grandmother and granddaughter crossed to the ice-cream counter.
    Just in time.
    “This what you’re looking for?” a voice said behind her. Tracy whirled to find the young man holding out a battered box