The Tiara Club by Beverly Brandt

Author:Beverly Brandt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Published: 2012-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

What an awful day.

Georgia pushed open the door of the gift ship and grimaced as the cheery bells jangled their warning. She popped open her umbrella and held it over her head. There was an overhang on the building that should have kept her dry, but the wind blowing in from the north was driving the rain against the front windows of the store and down the collar of her lightweight coat.

Georgia shivered.

All day today, people coming into the shop talked about nothing but the cold front that had swept through Ocean Sands, pushing their normally mild autumn temperatures down into the fifties. This was, of course, still mild by other states’ standards, but the residents of Ocean Sands were more accustomed to warm weather than cold and, thus, any deviation from the expected became the subject of endless discussion.

Georgia turned the key in the lock and tugged on the door just to be certain it was locked, even though she could clearly see that the dead bolt had latched. An automatic gesture, she supposed, like checking the mail chute to be sure it was empty after you’d dropped in an envelope.

As she checked the door again, she looked down Main Street to Callie’s dress shop. The lights were off, so Georgia assumed that Callie had gone for the day. Not that it mattered. Callie still wasn’t speaking to her.

Georgia sighed. She hadn’t expected to feel this badly about doing what she knew was the right thing. Nor had she expected Callie to get so angry about it. Sometimes, friendship really sucked.

Georgia took a step back from the door of the gift shop … and then screamed when someone tapped her on the shoulder. She spun around, instinctively holding her umbrella out as a weapon.

Daniel stood watching her with a dubious look on his face. “You’d never survive a week in L.A.”

Putting a hand to her racing heart, Georgia put the umbrella back over her head. “Am I supposed to apologize for living in a place where your life is not threatened on a daily basis?”

“Touché.” He raised his hands, palms up in mock surrender, and Georgia found herself feeling even grumpier than before. She had no idea how he managed to look so perfect, even in the dripping rain. He had on a chocolate brown leather coat, a pair of worn blue jeans, and a lightweight fisherman’s sweater, and he looked better in the standard male attire than any man Georgia had ever seen.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, wishing he’d just go away.

“Could we go inside? It’s cold out here.”

“Yes, of course,” Georgia said politely, although what she really wanted to say was, “It’s probably warm and sunny back in California.”

She unlocked the door she had just finished locking and turned to her left to flick on the fluorescent lights overhead. The lights blinked on in that way they had, as if someone were jabbing them with a cattle prod to make them come on. She set her pocketbook on the counter and leaned her umbrella on the floor to let the rain drip off.

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