Three Brides, No Groom by Debbie Macomber

Author:Debbie Macomber
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780778313540
Publisher: MIRA
Published: 2012-06-25T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

When Carol booked her airline tickets to spend Christmas with her parents, her spirits lifted considerably. Spending the holidays with her family and all that was familiar was sure to ease the disappointments and frustrations of the past year. She had been away from those she loved for far too long.

On a Tuesday a couple of weeks before Christmas, she sat in the Softline cafeteria finishing the last of her lunch. But her mind wasn’t on her chicken-salad sandwich. It was on her two older brothers and their families. Both Jeff and Jerry were married and had children of their own. She enjoyed being an auntie to her two nieces and her nephew. And although she dearly loved Seattle, it would be good to be home again.

Sipping the last of her tea, she was about to return to work when Mrs. Derby, Clark’s secretary, approached her.

The older woman greeted her with a rare display of warmth. Mrs. Derby wasn’t the chatty friendly sort. What made her such an excellent assistant was her dedication to duty. And to Clark.

Carol returned her greeting, and for a moment, an irrational fear took hold that somehow Mrs. Derby had unearthed a soy-sauce stain on her desk. She smiled when she realized how ridiculous she was being. Clark would have covered for her.

Her thoughts brightened at the thought of him. They saw each other on a fairly regular basis these days. They’d come to rely on each other, although she recognized that she derived far more from the relationship than he did.

In her own way she’d tried to thank him for being her friend. She’d helped him Christmas-shop for his parents and Mrs. Derby, and he’d done the same for her. They never did make it to the ballroom dancing classes. The one evening he was free to accompany her, he had arrived, looking tired and worn to a frazzle. He’d wanted to know how much it would cost him to get out of it. She had laughed, hugged him, and let him off easy with pizza in front of the television.

It surprised her how often they laughed together. A few months earlier she never would have guessed that he had such a wonderful wry sense of humor. She appreciated his wit and wondered how it was that no one else had recognized it during their four years of college.

Clark helped her in other ways, too. He diverted her from obsessing about Eddie. Thoughts of him didn’t plague her as they once had. She was no longer in a state of constant anticipation, metaphorically sitting on the edge of her seat, waiting for him to phone, to knock at her front door. He hadn’t and he wouldn’t. She knew that now. But her life had ceased to feel so empty without him.

They saw each other once, sometimes twice, a week, but always on a casual basis. She didn’t consider their outings dates. They were friends. Good friends. Nothing less, nothing more, nothing else. And

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.