Tiny Little Thing by Beatriz Williams Read Free Book Online Page A

ormolu clock above the mantel. Five fifty-nine.
    “Thank you.” I accept the martini from my father-in-law and turn to leave. “If you’ll excuse me. It looks like somebody in this family has a basic respect for punctuality, after all.”
    I nearly reach the foyer before it occurs to me to wonder why a Hardcastle would bother to ring the doorbell of the Big House, and by that time it’s too late.
    Caspian Harrison stands before me in his dress uniform, handing his hat to Mrs. Crane. He looks up at my entrance, my shocked halt, and all I can see is the scar above his left eyebrow, wrapping around the curve of his temple, which was somehow hidden on the television screen by the angle or the bright sunshine of the White House Rose Garden.
    A few drops of vodka spill over the rim of the glass and onto my index finger.
    “Major Harrison.” I lick away the spilled vodka and smile my best hostess smile. “Welcome home.”

Caspian, 1964
    W hen Cap arrived at the coffee shop the next morning, nine thirty sharp, the place was jammed. Em rushed by with an armful of greasy plates.
    “What gives?” he called after her.
    “Who knows? There’s one booth left in the corner, if you move fast.”
    He looked around and found it, the booth in the corner, and moved fast across the sweaty bacon-and-toast air to sling himself and his camera bag along one cushion. Em scooted over and set a cup of coffee and a glass of orange juice on the table, almost without stopping. He drank the coffee first, hot and crisp. You had to hand it to Boylan’s. Best coffee in Back Bay, if you liked the kind of coffee you could stand your spoon in.
    He leaned against the cushion and watched the hustle-bustle. A lot of regulars this morning, a few new faces. Em and Patty cross and recross the linoleum in patterns of chaotic efficiency, hair wisping, stockings sturdy. Outside, the pavement still gleamed with the rain that had poured down last night, shattering the heat wave in a biblical deluge, flooding through the gutters and into the bay. Maybe that was why Boylan’s booths were so full this morning. That charge of energy when the cool air bursts at last through your open window and interrupts your lethargy. Blows apart your accustomed pattern.
    “What’ll it be, Cap? The usual?” Em stood at the edge of the table, holding a coffeepot and a plate of steaming pancakes. They had an uncomplicated relationship, he and Em; no menus required.
    “Well, now . . .”
    “If you love me, Cap, make it snappy.”
    “Bacon, four eggs over easy, lots of toast.”
    “Hungry?” She was already dashing off.
    “You could—” Em was gone. “—say that.” Across the crowd, someone dropped a cup loudly into its saucer, making him jolt. He converted the movement into a stretch—nothing to see here, folks, no soldier making an idiot of himself—and plucked the paperback from his camera bag, but before he could settle himself on the page the goddamned bells jangled again, clawing on his nerves like a black cat, and he jerked toward the door.
    His chest expanded and deflated.
    Well, well. Jane Doe. Of all the girls.
    She took off her sunglasses to reveal an expression of utter, utter dismay. (With another girl he might simply have said
total dismay.
) Her shiny dark hair bobbed about her ears as she looked one way and the other, searching for a booth around which to enact her invisible force field. She wore a berry-red dress, sleeveless, a white cardigan pulled around her shoulders. Her face glowed with recent exercise, making him think instantly of sex (vigorous, sweaty morning sex on white sheets, while the early sunlight poured through the window, and a long hot shower afterward that might just end up in more sex, if luck were a lady, and if the lady could still walk).
    Em passed by. Miss Doe tapped her on the elbow and asked her a question; Em replied with a helpless shrug and moved on.
    Miss Doe’s elegant eyebrows converged to a cranky point. She had