The Bartender's Secret by Caro Carson

Author:Caro Carson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2019-11-08T15:43:08+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Delphinia sat in her classroom, brooding.

It was Friday afternoon. Her students had turned in their midterm papers and bolted for the door to begin their spring break. The building was empty, and the city of Masterson itself would feel like a ghost town while twelve thousand students and half the faculty were away. The businesses that thrived around the college would be operating with only a few employees this coming week. That was life in a college town.

Her parents had resumed their teasing manner with her—or a little worse than normal, now that they’d seen Vincent kissing her in the hallway. Delphinia had disrupted their sherry-and-port tête-à-tête last night to inquire if they had any bourbon in the house, declaring that she’d developed a taste for Irish whiskey. Their resulting amusement—bourbon was apparently not made in Ireland—had made her feel like that awkward teenager all over again, younger than everyone else at school, more naive than everyone else she knew.

Vincent had been as busy as she with midterms, but he’d met her for coffee one morning and lunch another day. Both dates had been on campus because of the midterm schedules, so there’d been no passionate kisses or declarations of love. Professors lived at the pace the university set. She and Vincent were from the same world. They understood this.

But...

In her imagination, there was a lone wolf who was alone no longer, now that he was living happily ever after with his heroine in a castle by a lake. If the two of them were separated by something as trivial as an acre of smooth grass the way she and Vincent were, not one day would pass without them seeing each other. Not one day would pass without them being in one another’s arms, not one day without a kiss.

Fiction.

Delphinia stacked and restacked her pile of midterm exams. The Victorian essayists had done their agriculture-versus-industry thing. Her students had written their essays about those essays, and now Delphinia needed to read and grade every single one.

Make me.

She needed a serious attitude adjustment.

It was five o’clock. Quitting time. Happy hour. Would the Tipsy Musketeer be busy enough during spring break to need Kristopher there? It would be nice to stop by and find out how his Shakespeare performance had gone. Bridget’s, too.

Vincent hadn’t requested Delphinia to be his plus-one this evening, so she would not need to plead her case to him if she spent time at the pub. She could justify it, though. A Friday evening cocktail was a socially acceptable norm. She was far over twenty-one. She wasn’t driving. She wasn’t going to drink to excess. She didn’t have to go to work tomorrow. She didn’t have to go to work for a week.

Connor’s calm voice interrupted her litany. You don’t have to justify yourself. It’s your book. You wanted it back.

A man could make her melt into a puddle by saying things like that.

It was five o’clock on a Friday, and she was going to take a detour to the Tipsy Musketeer on her walk home.

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