With Strings Attached by Kelly Jamieson Read Free Book Online Page B

bottom lip tucked between her teeth, she started unloading her chocolates, taking some back into the house. She packed up as many boxes as she could carry and started hiking up the street to Deep Sea Drive, the nearest major street on a bus route. Her arms started to burn and by the time she reached the bus stop, she thought she might drop all her beautiful chocolates. She lowered them to the bench there, arms trembling, and tipped her head back. Geez. This was crazy.
    She checked the bus schedule and used her phone to find out when the next bus would come along. Supposedly in ten minutes. Okay. Good. She sat on the bench beside her boxes of chocolates, one hand resting on top of them, and took a deep breath. The morning air still held a chilly dampness. Though she couldn’t see the ocean, she could sense the fog lurking around the beaches. She shivered a bit in her hoodie and pulled it closer around her. She watched the sparse Sunday-morning traffic whizzing by on Deep Sea Drive.
    This wasn’t exactly the life she wanted. But she was getting there. She was going to get there. Soon. She’d left her boring job at Matterhorn Chocolate partly because she wanted do something more than work on shelf life and quality-specification settings, and partly because her heart had been broken by yet another commitment-phobic loser. She’d come to San Amaro, where she’d gone to college, where her good friend Matt lived, to start over. She’d taken a damn waitressing job while she tried to build her chocolate business, making chocolates so different from the blah waxy chocolate that Matterhorn produced. And she’d been doing well. Her chocolate was good. There were a lot of well-off people in San Amaro who were willing to shell out big bucks for high-end chocolate, and the beach town also attracted a lot of well-to-do tourists. She had many clients now who placed custom orders, but what she really needed was a storefront where she could sell her confections and build her business.
    What she didn’t need was to be sitting at a bus stop with boxes of chocolates that she had to transport across town to sell. Shit.
    Oh yay, there was the bus. She leaped to her feet but waited until the bus was close before picking up all her boxes.
    Sunday morning didn’t have a lot of commuters, luckily, and she was able to pile her boxes onto a seat. Thankfully the morning was cool so her chocolates wouldn’t melt, and the ride to the market took only about twenty minutes. She gazed out the window and admired the town she now lived in. They passed Coast Boulevard, which led to the country club and Breaker Beach, turned onto Shore Drive, which ran along the beach. Sunday morning all the posh little shops were closed, other than the Black Bean Coffee Shop, but they all looked so pretty and elegant. Big pots held blossoming shrubs and flowers, and the red brick sidewalk shone from the early morning mist. Fog lurked along the edge of the ocean and shrouded the pier, even the palm trees looking pale in the low hanging clouds, but it was all still so beautiful it made her chest tighten.
    The bus stopped at South Beach Park, a wide expanse of grass at the south end of San Amaro Beach, and she unloaded her chocolates and carried them across the field to the booth she paid to rent every Sunday. People were already arriving to start shopping, looking at all the different vendors—fruits, vegetables, flowers, hand-crafted jewelry, jams, pottery. And chocolates. She unpacked and set out her wares and pasted a cheerful look on her face even though she felt utterly frazzled.
    A couple hours later, she was almost sold out, happy but frustrated by thinking of all the unsold chocolates at home. She looked up to see Matt and Dylan approaching her booth.
    “Hey, guys,” she said, always happy to see Matt, and a little thrilled to see Dylan, though seeing him limp along in crutches pulled at her heartstrings. “What’re you doing here?”
    “Checking out the