Whisper Beach by Shelley Noble Read Free Book Online Page A

the bottle and glass down, the menus slid out from under her chin and cascaded for the most part to the coffee table.
    â€œDamn.” She leaned over to retrieve the ones that were on the floor while Van cleaned off the ones that had landed in the artichoke dip.
    Conversation was put on hold while Dorie and Suze flipped through the take-out menus, settled on a local Italian place, then spent the next few minutes deciding what to order. Van didn’t join in; she’d eaten a couple of crab puffs, and a piece of cheese, and her second glass of wine sat untouched on the coffee table. None of it was sitting well in her stomach.
    â€œAnd what about Gigi? Does she have a job?”
    â€œDid,” Dorie said. “Suze, hand me your phone so I can call the take-out place.”
    Suze handed her the phone.
    â€œWorked at Gifford’s Furniture. Stopped though when she got pregnant. Another one of Mr. No-Wife-of-Mine-Is-Gonna-Work Daly’s pronouncements.
    â€œI swear, I think the men in this town were dropped down by some unfriendly alien space ship just to make stupid decisions.”
    Suze barked out a laugh. Even Van smiled. She had to admit, itfelt good to be here with Dorie; she never pulled her punches and had an opinion—most of them totally un-PC—about everything.
    Dorie called their food order in and spent a couple of minutes commiserating over the demise of Clay Daly with whoever was at the other end of the conversation. Then she turned off the phone and gave Van her full attention.
    â€œSo does she have a plan?” Van asked.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œGigi.”
    â€œHa. Has that girl ever had a plan?”
    Once, thought Van. Once she’d wanted to go to nursing school. But she’d given Van her college savings so she could get away. And even though Van had paid Gigi back and more, she must have given up on the idea by the time it was all repaid.
    Van sat still on the couch as the familiar tendrils of hurt wrapped around her throat. She tried to breathe it away. It was stupid to react like this. It wasn’t her fault that Gigi hadn’t gone to college, or that she’d married a man who sounded like a Neanderthal.
    Was it?
    â€œWho paid for the funeral?”
    â€œNate and Amelia; they paid for everything.”
    â€œCatering, too?”
    â€œThey’ll pay me back, someday. So enough about Gigi. What I want to know about is you.”
    Van shrugged. “I’m doing great. I own my own business. A lifestyle management service. It started out as a glorified cleaning service. Something I learned working at the hotel and the restaurant all those summers.”
    â€œHa,” Suze said. “It developed into much more than a cleaning service. It’s a total organization service for rich Manhattanites.Apartment living the Van Moran way. She takes your messes, your schedules, your laundry, your bratty children and makes them run smoothly. Down to recommending a nanny.
    â€œShe’s been featured in the New York Times and New York magazine.”
    Van held up her hands. “Thanks for the endorsement. I should hire you to do advertising, but I don’t think Dorie is interested in the daily grind of it all.”
    â€œI am, I am,” protested Dorie. “But first I have a question.”
    Van knew immediately that it wasn’t going to be about her business. She reached for her wineglass with an unsteady hand. “What do you want to know?”
    Dorie pulled the magnum of zinfandel over and filled her glass to the brim. “Why don’t you start with why you left and where you went? I can’t believe this was all because you and Joe Enthorpe had a lovers’ spat.”
    Even though Van had expected Joe’s name to come up sooner or later, hearing it out loud was a shock, and she bobbled her wineglass. Put it down.
    â€œIt wasn’t Joe’s fault.” Not exactly. The fact that he’d turned into one more