Return to the Beach House by Georgia Bockoven

Author:Georgia Bockoven
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780062195258
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-04-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Carrie artfully placed lettuce leaves on the Williams-Sonoma Poisson salad plates, impressed that even the casual dining pieces at the beach house were first-class. Someone had given a lot of thought to every detail of the finishing touches, from the Egyptian towels in the bathrooms to the assortment of magazines on the coffee table. The soaps and lotions tucked into the welcoming baskets on the beds were thoughtfully purchased, containing neutral, fresh fragrances that disappeared quickly but left a wonderful, silky feel to her skin. She didn’t know the brand and had a feeling it was something custom-made for the owner of the house.

Carrie knew people who lived in that kind of luxury, but only peripherally, and most of them were clients—especially since she’d taken on the job of heading the new art brokerage division of Pearson Inc.

Danielle cut into the loaf of San Francisco sourdough bread that they’d picked up on their way to the airport that afternoon. She sliced off the end piece, put it up to her nose, and inhaled deeply. “Oh. My. God. I’m going to have drool running down my chin if I keep this up.”

Carrie stepped closer. “Let me smell.” Danielle handed her the slice. “This is nothing like we get at home. It actually has a tanginess to it.” She broke off a piece, took a bite, and handed the rest to Danielle. “You don’t even need butter.”

“Oh, yeah?” Danielle reached for the butter dish. “Didn’t your mama ever teach you that everything tastes better with butter?”

“It’s looking at my mama and the three hundred pounds she packs that keeps me from putting butter on anything.”

Danielle wound up with traces of butter on the corners of her mouth and a smile that reached all the way to her eyes. “I’ve been meaning to tell you how great you look. Is that part of the new job?”

“In what way?” Carrie took the shrimp and crab out of the refrigerator and started opening cupboards looking for a colander.

Danielle took one down from the cupboard beside the stove and handed it to her. “I just thought that maybe all the traveling you do now and all the wealthy people you’re dealing with . . .” She shrugged. “You’re not exactly in the flip-flops and cargo-pants world anymore.”

Carrie didn’t smile at the memory the comment stirred, she looked wistful. “I left that world a long time ago.”

Danielle couldn’t put her finger on what was going on with Carrie. She was not only uptight but distracted. And of the three of them, it should have been Bridget, who’d lost a baby, who would have bittersweet feelings about Angie’s pregnancy, not Carrie, who’d never tried.

“Do you like the new job?”

Carrie leaned against the counter and folded her arms. “I think I do, but I’m still at the walking-on-eggshells stage. There’s so much riding on this career-wise that there’s no room for me to make a mistake. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll feel like I’m running around the city with a big ‘L’ stamped in the middle of my forehead.

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