“I’m sorry,” Dara sighed, turning back to Jessica, “I didn’t realize you were closed. The door was open.”
“I forgot to lock it,” Jessica repeated. Her voice sounded strained, and her expression had hardened in an uncharacteristic manner. Lucy looked at her in confusion until she remembered—Jessica and Dara had been in the same grade in high school. And Jessica didn’t like Dara. Something about Dara having “stolen” Jessica’s boyfriend with her “shy goody-two-shoes act.” Only Lucy was pretty sure it had never been an act. She wouldn’t have admitted it to Jessica, but she thought maybe her friend was just jealous of Dara. A lot of people had been.
“Look, can’t you just make an exception for an old friend?” Dara attempted to smile through obvious emotional discomfort. “I’ll only be a few minutes, and I promise I’ll buy something.”
Jessica’s brows lowered. “Old friend? We hardly knew one another in school.”
Understanding crept into Dara’s gaze. She took a deep breath. “This is about Paul Cargill, isn’t it?” she sighed.
Jessica folded her arms. “He and I were supposed to go to the winter formal together. I’d already bought my dress and everything.”
“But he hadn’t asked you yet, had he?”
“That’s not the point. We’d been going out for almost a month. Of course he was going to ask me! But then you came along out of nowhere, cozying up to him at some stupid yearbook committee meeting, and suddenly he never called me again. He dated you the whole rest of the school year!”
“I’m sorry, Jessica.” Dara sounded exhausted. “I didn’t know any of that until later. You and I didn’t exactly run in the same circles, and, well…Paul never mentioned you to me. Look, if it makes you feel any better, he cheated on me about a week after school ended. I haven’t spoken to him since.”
Jessica’s mouth dropped open. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.” Dara tried another smile.
“But…you’re married,” Jessica’s gaze zeroed in on Dara’s left hand, wrapped around her purse strap, and the hefty diamond glinting from her ring finger. “At the five-year reunion I heard you’d been married since right after graduation.”
“Not to Paul!” Now Dara let out a genuine chuckle. “I met Jason at work, about six months after Paul and I broke up. We’ve been together ever since. My last name’s Donovan now.”
“Oh,” Jessica’s mouth formed a small circle. Color started to blossom along her cheeks.
Dara’s right hand came up. She touched the diamond on her finger, and tears welled in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Jessica said. “I shouldn’t have…I mean, I didn’t know…”
Dara waved at her. “It’s fine. I’m not upset because of you. It’s just my husband, Jason…Something happened to him, and...” Her lower lip quivered.
Lucy felt a sharp stab of pity. Rushing forward, she put her hand on Dara’s arm. “Come inside,” she said. “Sit down for a minute. Tell us what’s wrong.”
“Lucy,” Jessica shot her a look that asked her what in the world she thought she was doing.
“I don’t…I don’t want to impose,” Dara said, sniffling.
Lucy gazed up at her, admiring the way the bookstore lights made her curls shimmer like coils of spun copper, and thinking that even when she was overwrought, she still looked amazing. “You’re not imposing,” she insisted. “Just tell us what’s wrong. Please. We want to help you.”
Jessica shot another gimlet gaze Lucy’s way. “We do?”
“Jess!” Lucy hissed, appalled at her friend’s callous behavior.
At the same time, Dara opened her purse and yanked out a tissue. She blotted her eyes. “It’s fine, really. I’ll come back another time…Maybe.”
Lucy narrowed her eyes at Jessica, and Jessica rolled hers at Lucy. But then Jessica stepped past Dara, flipped the sign in the window from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed,’ and locked the deadbolt. “Lucy, take her in the back,” she instructed tersely. “I’ll make us some tea.”
◆◆◆
Settled in one of the velvet armchairs in the paranormal reading nook, Dara blinked around, seeming to notice the details of her surroundings for the first time. She examined the feminine furniture and gothic trappings, so different from the dark wood and leather that had decorated the space years before. “Wait, is this not Morris’s Books anymore?” she asked.
Jessica passed a steaming mug into her hand. “Sure it is. Well, sort of. Rand Morris, the owner, died a few months ago and left the store to me. I run it now.”
Dara looked impressed. “You do? That’s amazing. I’d love to own a bookstore.”
Satisfaction gleamed in Jessica’s eyes.
“What happened to all the rest of the books, though?” Dara wondered. “Mr. Morris used to have all kinds of things in here. Classics and collectibles. Occult stuff. All I see now are romance novels.” She gazed at the gigantic three-dimensional pink letters on the wall, spelling out Happily Ever After in cursive. Underneath them hung giant, blown-up reproductions of romance novel covers, encased in gilt frames and assembled in one long row to create a fleshly panorama of sultry-eyed women and shirtless men.
“It’s a romance bookstore now,” Jessica explained. “Rand realized a few years ago that romance was his best-selling genre, so he started to convert the whole shop to cater to his most loyal customers. It saved the place from going under, but he got sick before he could complete the renovations. I’ve been finishing where he left off.”
Dara’s eyebrows went up as she sipped her tea. “Really,” she said. “That’s…interesting.”
Jessica’s smile faltered. Lucy knew her friend was accustomed to snide reactions anytime the subject of romance novels came up, and she also knew it usually didn’t bother her anymore, but it had to rankle coming from an old rival like Dara.
Lucy cleared her throat. “So, um, Dara, what do you do?” she asked.
“I’m a housewife,” she answered quickly. Then, seeing the other girls’ surprise—but hardly seeming surprised by it herself—she added, “Jason’s a programmer. He does well enough to support us, so I stay home and, you know, hold down the fort. Cooking, cleaning, the
