Somewhere Only We Know Read Free

suggested Maddie return to the kitchen and change her wet server's blouse for a dry one.
    She was moving in that direction when Emma Callaway intercepted her, a happy, surprised smile on her face. "Maddie Heller? Is it really you? I thought you were living in Europe."
    "I was for a while," she said as the always affectionate Emma gave her a quick hug.
    While she'd been better friends with Emma's older sister Nicole, she'd gotten to know Emma in high school. Once Nicole had her driver's license, she'd often been tasked with driving her younger siblings around, and Maddie had accompanied Nicole on many of those trips.
    "So you're back now," Emma began. "And you're…"
    "Working here part-time," she finished.
    "What are you doing the rest of the time?"
    "Still figuring that out."
    "Last I heard you were dating some handsome Italian restaurateur and living on the Amalfi Coast."
    "That was a couple of years ago. It didn't work out."
    "Sorry about that."
    "Nothing to feel sorry about." She paused as her gaze came to rest on the diamond ring on Emma's left hand. She grabbed Emma's hand and pulled it up to take a better look at the ring. "This is beautiful. You're married?"
    "Over a year now. His name is Max. He's a police detective, and we're amazingly happy."
    "I'm so glad," she said, thinking Emma looked really happy. There was a sparkle in her eyes and a glow to her skin.
    "I should make sure Burke is okay," Emma said, glancing over her shoulder. "Where did he go?"
    "I think he left. Who was that man who hit him?"
    "A friend of his former fiancée, Leanne Parker. She died a couple of years ago. They were planning their wedding at the time."
    "That's so sad," she said, her heart twisting a little for the pain Burke must have gone though.
    "It was horrible. Burke has had a rough time since then. He didn't want to come tonight. I guess he should have followed his instincts."
    She nodded, then saw her supervisor sending her a pointed look from across the room. "I'm sorry, Emma. I would love to catch up, but I need to get back to work."
    "Give me your number," Emma said, pulling out her phone. "Nicole would love to catch up with you."
    "Sure, that would be great," she said, giving Emma her number. "I'll see you soon."
    She hurried back to the kitchen where her friend Alicia stopped her with a wide-eyed expression of curiosity. "What is going on out there? I heard you got in the middle of a fight."
    "Wrong place, wrong time—story of my life." She moved toward the dressing room to change her shirt. She'd hoped that returning to San Francisco would change her luck, but trouble seemed to follow her around. She tossed her damp shirt into the laundry basket and quickly put on another one.
    "Do you know why those men were fighting?" Alicia asked.
    "I have no idea. It's a memorial celebration, so I guess grief must have had something to do with it."
    As she took a quick look in the mirror, she wished now she'd put on a little more makeup, that her blonde hair wasn't pulled back in a tight ponytail and that she wasn't wearing a white shirt, black skirt, black nylons and a pair of really ugly but practical and comfortable black pumps. It would have been nice to show Burke that she was looking better these days. But for some reason she and Burke always seemed to meet up at the oddest times, in the most unusual places.
    Not that anything romantic had ever happened between them. Well, almost nothing…
    "Who are you primping for?" Alicia asked curiously.
    "No one." She quickly turned away from the mirror and made her way back into the dining room.
    As she took up her new post at the buffet table, she looked around for Burke, but he was gone, as were the rest of his family members. She felt a wave of disappointment, which was ridiculous. She should be glad Burke was gone. He'd rarely seen her at her best, and she was nowhere near her best right now, so it was just as well he was gone.
    Maybe the next time they ran into each other there would be