Mortal Sin by Laurie Breton

Author:Laurie Breton [Breton, Laurie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Adult, General, Contemporary, Fiction
ISBN: 9780778320258
Google: 9AA7mFP0aS8C
Amazon: 0778320251
Goodreads: 690000
Publisher: MIRA
Published: 2004-02-29T13:00:00+00:00

She made a point of wearing her oldest clothes, faded jeans and a baggy, moth-eaten sweater she’d inherited from her second ex-husband. She didn’t bother to freshen her makeup, left her hair hanging in loose waves. There could be no hint of impropriety, no suggestion that this dinner even marginally resembled a date. It was merely a gesture of goodwill, payback for a kindness extended to her. She made sure the house was well lit, the blinds wide open, so if anybody looked in, they’d see nothing more than two friends eating a meal together.

The jambalaya was thick and hot and fragrant, made from a recipe that had been passed down through three generations of her family. She concocted a salad from various greens, topped with ripe red cherry tomatoes, and she’d bought a fresh-baked loaf of crusty bread at the bakery two doors down from Bookmark. The pecan pie was her own creation, sweet and elegant, the recipe one she’d learned as a girl at her momma’s knee.

Seven o’clock came and went with no sign of her dinner guest. Sarah left the jambalaya on the back burner with the heat on low, wiped her nervous hands on a dish towel, and sat down with a magazine to wait for Clancy’s arrival. By seven-thirty, she’d abandoned her magazine in favor of standing at the window with the curtains drawn back, anxiously watching the street. He didn’t seem the kind of man to just blow her off. What if something had happened to him? He could have been in an accident, could be lying bloody and battered by the side of the road.

Or worse.

At eight o’clock, she called the rectory and left a message on his answering machine, then called his cell phone and did the same. Disappointment welled up in her, disappointment that was totally disproportionate to the situation. This wasn’t a date, she reminded herself, only a friend coming to dinner. There was no sense in reading more into it. The chemistry between them was unmistakable, but it didn’t matter. Nor did it matter that, had the circumstances been different, something more might have come of their friendship. The circumstances were what they were, and there was nothing left to say.

But, damn it, he could at least call. If something had come up, all he had to do was pick up that damnable cell phone that was permanently attached to his hip and dial her number. She wasn’t an unreasonable woman. She understood as well as anybody that shit did, indeed, happen. But she wasn’t a woman to be trifled with. She expected reason in return for reason.

At nine-thirty, she turned off the stove and dumped the jambalaya in the trash, flipped off all the lights, and sat in the dark with Patsy Cline and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. She didn’t often brood, but occasionally, when she had a mad on, she liked to throw her own personal pity party, and Jack and Patsy were invariably her companions of choice.

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