The Comeback Kiss by Lani Diane Rich Read Free Book Online

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    Margie smiled. “ Oh, I know. Happens to me all the time.”
    Izzy put the stapler down and looked at her watch. “ I have to run. I ’ m meeting Sosie at the mall, and then I ’ ve got to che ck in with Tessa at Max ’ s. You know how she gets when I ’ m late.” She rolled her eyes, playing up more annoyance than she actually felt because petulant teenagers don ’ t arouse suspicion as easily as compliant ones.
    “ Don ’ t give her a hard time. She just worr ies about you,” Margie said. As Izzy passed, Margie reached out and touched her arm. “ It ’ s been really good having you here, Izzy. It ’ s a little like having your mom back.”
    Izzy nodded, smiled back. “ Yeah.”
    She grabbed her backpack from under the counter a nd hightailed it out, not letting the smile fade from her face until the door had shut firmly behind her.

 
    Chapter Four
     
    Tessa stared out the front window of the diner as she poured Astrid ’ s coffee. Her eyes focused lazily on the backward image of the Max ’ s Diner logo painted on the front window, but her mind definitely qualified as being somewhere else.
    Or, more accurately, with someone else. It was about three o ’ clock, almost eight hours since she ’ d been caught kissing Dermot Finnegan behind the drugstor e, and she could still feel him. His fingers in her hair, his breath on her lips, his everything all smooshed up against her everything...
    God. Izzy ’ d been right. If kissing Finn, the man who had been the bane of her existence for ten years, had this effec t on her, maybe she really did need to get laid.
    “ Watch it there, sweetie,” Astrid said, putting her wiry hand on Tessa ’ s pouring arm. Tessa pulled the carafe back just as the coffee was about to flow over the mug.
    “ Oh.” Tessa stared down at the mug. Good thing Astrid took her coffee black; there was no room for sugar or cream. “ Sorry.”
    “ No problem,” Astrid said, her smile overly bright, her eyes focusing tightly on Tessa, watching for anything worth reporting. It hadn ’ t taken long for the news of Finn ’ s re turn to fly through town. Stella Hodgkiss was the heart of the gossip mill in Lucy ’ s Lake, and by seven-thirty that morning, Max ’ s breakfast business had tripled with people wanting to be at the heart of the action should Finn want to visit his uncle or h i s old girlfriend. Nothing happening followed by a whole lot more nothing had driven out most of the voyeurs, and now it was pretty much just the die-hard gossips — Astrid the laundry lady and a passel of PTA moms.
    “ You look awfully distracted,” Astrid said. “ There something you want to talk about, honey?”
    Tessa thought seriously about that. Did she want to talk about the most surreal morning of her young life, in which the car she ’ d been mourning for ten years had been mysteriously returned, and she ’ d practic ally gotten busy in public with a man she thought she hated? Did she want to talk about the aching and irritating disappointment she ’ d felt when she ’ d gone back to take him out of town, and he was nowhere to be found?
    She met Astrid ’ s grin with a distracte d smile. “ No. Thanks. No.”
    Astrid leaned forward over her coffee, the official Lucy ’ s Lake body language for There ’ s gossip a-comin ’. “ So .. . I hear they haven ’ t gotten in touch with Vickie yet. She didn ’ t tell Stella where she was going, just that she wa s going on vacation. And then her place catches fire. Don ’ t you think that ’ s strange?”
    Tessa shrugged. “ For this town? Not so much.”
    “ I bet she ’ ll want to give Finn a reward. You know, for saving the place. Is he going to be in town for a while, do you kno w?”
    Tessa forced a tight-lipped smile. “ I really don ’ t know.” And I ’ m not conflicted at all about it. “ Can I get you anything else?”
    Astrid ’ s disappointment registered on her face, and she sat back. “ No, thanks, hon. I