Fortune in Name Only by Tara Taylor Quinn

Author:Tara Taylor Quinn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2023-12-08T20:26:14+00:00

* * *

Esme had been gone about an hour on Saturday, when Asa stopped by the office.

“This place looks great,” he said, looking around from just inside the door. It was the first time he’d been to her new space since their first day of ownership.

Lily had rearranged furniture so she had a picturesque view of the property from her desk. She had also thrown out two grocery bags of things that were of no use to her and Asa, and had been through the entire filing system. Fortunately, Val Hensen had kept great records, and had them in easy to follow order.

“It’s getting there,” she told him with a happy sigh. “Now that I know I’m going to be working here long term, I’m thinking I’d like to paint the walls—they’re so smudged and dirty—but that can wait a good while.” Business. It was all they talked anymore.

“You want to go get some beers?”

He wanted to go to the Corral? Had he read her mind? Did he know how badly she missed his friendship? “Now?”

His shrug was off, not easy and casual like before. “Maybe after dinner.”

“Okay.” She glanced over at him, still bothered by the somber look on his face. “Or we could go now and have wings for dinner.”

It was the Corral. It wouldn’t be a date.

And dinnertime was for business talk, so if that was what he needed, if he had something to discuss with her that he wasn’t sure she’d like, best do it at the Corral.

Where her feelings would be under wraps, as though held by the people in town who, collectively, were her family. In the house she was currently sharing with Asa, she felt too raw.

Made no sense, but there it was.

He offered to drive. She accepted. No way she could see him riding around in her little beater. And it would be too weird for them to drive separately. In the past it had made sense. They’d been coming from and returning to two separate places.

So much change, so many nuances, she hadn’t considered.

She led the way into the bar, waving at people as she went, heading for the only open table, in a back corner of the front room. She and Asa usually sat at the bar. But for some reason, she didn’t want to eat up there that night.

He didn’t say anything about her change in seating location. Just dropped into the chair across from her and pulled the wing menu out of the metal holder at the end of the table. He suggested a combo platter. She agreed, and, rather than waiting for table service, he went up to the bar to place their order. Came back carrying two beers.

She took hers. Sipped. Telling herself to relax, as she faced another first.

The first time she was nervous sitting at the Corral with Asa. They’d promised to be friends forever, but it was beginning to seem like, after only one week of marriage, they were hardly friends at all.

His

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