The Next Always by Nora Roberts

Author:Nora Roberts
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-09-21T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

MONDAY MORNING, WELL SHY OF OPENING, CLARE USED her key to get into Vesta. She heard the enormous mixer chugging along, and went straight back where she knew Avery would be making dough.

“Hi! I wanted to talk to you before—” She stopped dead, stared as Avery rolled already mixed and cut dough into balls. “Your hair! It’s . . . Is that magenta? You dyed your hair.”

“You had sex.”

“I—You dyed your hair because I had sex?”

“No. I dyed it because I didn’t have sex. Okay, not really.” She huffed out a breath as she rolled. “Maybe a little. Mostly I just wanted a change. Something to stir things up.”

“You definitely stirred.”

Avery looked down at her far from spotless baker’s apron all the way to her Old Navy sneakers with their gel inserts. “I’m in a rut, Clare. No, I am the rut.”

“You’re not the rut. I like it. It’s . . . fun.”

“I think I like it. Sort of.” Her hands coated with flour and dough, Avery rubbed an itch on her chin with her shoulder. “I scared myself this morning when I looked in the bathroom mirror. I forgot about it, then it was like eek, who the hell is that! Anyway, it’s just one of those wash-in-and-out rinses. I’ll live with it awhile and see.”

Privately, Clare thought: Thank God.

Movements practiced and quick, Avery began placing the rolled dough in rising pans. “Now, about that sex. You had sex Friday night and—”

“And into Saturday morning.”

“Bragging is the tool of the small and the petty. Am I or am I not your best friend?”

“BFF.” Clare tapped a finger on her heart.

“And what do I get, a measly little text message. Spent night with B. Fabulous.”

“Didn’t I leave that bit of Shania Twain on your answering machine, the ‘I Feel Like a Woman’ cut?”

“Okay, that made me laugh, but these are not the details given to the BFF.”

“Birthday party Saturday, and you worked here until what, midnight?”

“About.”

“I’m not used to having lots of sex. I went to bed Saturday right after the kids. Then Sunday, it’s enough to say I didn’t have any privacy, and you were working again.”

“See. I am the rut.”

“You’re not.” Clare laid her hands on Avery’s shoulders, gave them a good rub and shake. “But I came in early especially to talk to you. God, I really want to talk to my BFF.”

“You’re sucking up. I like it. Please continue while I deal with the rest of this dough.”

“That’s an awful lot of dough for a Monday, isn’t it?”

“Private party tonight, and I’ve got a lunchtime delivery on the books for six large. Now talk.”

“It was great. Everything. Dinner—”

“I’ve had dinner recently. I haven’t had sex. Move along.”

“Well . . .”

Clare told her about her concerns when she and Beckett left the restaurant and on to her change of plans at the door.

“You pulled the ‘oh, I need a big, brave man to walk through my scary, empty house’?”

“I did.”

“I’m proud to know you.”

“He had the idea I needed everything to go slow.

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