Green Calder Grass Read Free Page B

What in heaven’s name will you do? You’re too young to retire.” Then another thought hit him. “Where will you live? That apartment upstairs has been your only home for years.”
    “More like decades.” Sally finished the thought with a sigh. “To be honest, I haven’t decided where I’ll go or what I’ll do. And I probably won’t until I actually receive an offer. Finding a buyer for a place like this out in the middle of nowhere won’t be easy, you know.”
    “I know, but—why list it for sale now?” Chase argued, struggling with a sense of loss he couldn’t name.
    “Because I’m tired,” she replied. “Tired of working fifteen, sixteen hours a day, sometimes more. I’m tired of never having a vacation. And the clientele—it isn’t the way it used to be, Chase. Most of the people who come in now are rougher, coarser.”
    His expression darkened. “Has somebody stepped out of line?”
    “With me?” A laugh bubbled toward the surface even as she glowed at the implied compliment. “Chase, I’m not a young redhead anymore.”
    “Just the same, if someone isn’t showing you the proper respect, I want to know about it.”
    “Of course.” Suddenly this entire discussion was becoming painful and Sally couldn’t explain why. “Would you like more water, Jessy?”
    “Please.”
    But Chase wasn’t about to let her slip away so easily. “Are you sure this is what you want to do, Sally?”
    She paused. “Chase, when you don’t like your work anymore, it’s time to quit. With any luck, one of the guys working for Dy-Corp has a secret dream about owning a bar and will take this place off my hands. Lord knows they get paid high wages out there.”
    “If this is what you want, Sally,” Chase began, clearly unhappy with her decision, “I’ll spread the word around that you’re looking for a buyer. But—it won’t be the same here without you.”
    She could have told him she wasn’t necessarily leaving the area. She could have told him a hundred different things, but the words wouldn’t come. Something in his remark had a ring of finality, and it knifed through her. At that instant, Sally knew that she had always secretly feared that if she ever sold the restaurant, she would never see Chase again, that he wouldn’t come see her elsewhere because that would start talk. His comment had all but confirmed it.
    “I appreciate your help, Chase.”
    When Sally moved away from their table, Jessy wondered if she was the only one who noticed the sudden welling of tears. Every time Jessy observed Sally and Chase together—and the love for the man that shone in Sally’s eyes—it tugged at her heart. She had loved Ty from afar for too many years not to understand and empathize with the ache of that.
    The memory of those times prompted Jessy to reach up and caress the strong hand resting on her shoulder, simply because she was his wife and she could. Tara was gone now; no longer did she have Ty caught under her spell.
    The front door to the restaurant burst open, followed immediately by the bang of the screen door slamming shut, as loud as the crack of a rifle. Jessy jumped in her chair and half turned in her seat, her glance racing to the entrance.
    Something inside her froze at the sight of a slender woman with sable-dark hair. It was Tara, chicly dressed in some blue concoction that looked straight off the pages of a high-fashion magazine.
    Maybe it was the old fear that made Jessy dart a look at Ty. She observed the flash of surprise on his face—and something more, something like the pull of attraction. The anger of old resentment and dislike knotted Jessy’s stomach.

Chapter Two
    L ike a Texas whirlwind, Tara Dyson Calder swept up Sally the instant she spied the older woman.
    “Sally. Thank God, you’re here.” Relief quivered through her voice. In the next second, her dark gaze bored into Sally, a kind of frantic distress in her expression that was totally alien to her nature. “Is it