Read Online Candy Kisses by Bernadette Marie - Free Book Online

makes? You have to really love playing a game to risk injury.” He poured her beer and then poured one for him. “This place has the best calzones.” He took a sip from his glass. “We used to frequent this joint in college.”
    “Where’d you go?”
    “University of Denver. How about you?”
    Tabitha shook her head. “I didn’t have the opportunity. Step-dad number three took off with all of mom’s savings. Needless to say that meant my college education.”
    “Sorry.” He placed his hand over hers and gave it a squeeze. “No wonder you’re not a big fan of her getting married.”
    “They weren’t all bad. And Peter seems to be a nice guy.” She shrugged. “You just can’t help but wonder for how long.”
    “You don’t think this is the one?”
    Tabitha laughed. “God, no. Is there really just such a thing for anyone?”
    His hand stiffened over hers and then he pulled it away. “My parents have been married forty years. They fell in love at fifteen.”
    “I think that’s very special, but not the norm.”
    “My father’s parents were married for fifty years before my grandfather died. My mother’s parents have been married almost seventy years.”
    She gave it some consideration, but she couldn’t think of anyone in her family who’d stayed married. Her grandmother was a single mother. She didn’t know her father’s parents. Even Brie’s parents were divorced and remarried. Obviously the marriages Preston spoke of were flukes of luck.
    Preston sat back against the booth and looked her over as he drank his beer. “How come you went into a business that feasts on people’s happiness?”
    His tone offended her and she stiffened her shoulders. “I like what I do.”
    “I know that. I mean, you buy a Snickers bar if you’re depressed. Or you buy a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. You don’t go to Tabitha’s Chocolates and buy expensive truffles to drown your sorrows. You buy Tabitha’s Chocolates for people you love. You buy them to impress people or to show them you care.”
    “I’m good at what I do. That’s why I do it.”
    “You are. But you’re so hell bent on love and relationships being such a bad thing, doesn’t it depress you everyday to see people happy.”
    Tabitha puckered her lips and shook her head. “Just because I don’t believe in love and marriage doesn’t mean I’m not a happy person.”
    “But how can you sell your creations, which you put your heart into, to people celebrating something you don’t believe in?”
    “It’s what I do.” Who was he to question her motives for her work? She didn’t ask him why he chose luxury cars over used ones on some street corner, though she knew he’d fallen into the field, but the point was he’d stayed and made it his life’s work.
    “Tell me, Tabitha,” he said as he lifted his hand to her cheek. “What makes you happy?”
    Her mind drew a blank as she stared into his dark eyes. That very moment should have made her happy, shouldn’t it have? Why did she feel she had to fight him off?
    The waitress arrived with the pizza and Preston backed away from her and smiled up at the woman. “That looks wonderful.”
    She dished them each out a slice onto a paper plate and headed back to the kitchen.
    Preston carefully picked up the hot slice, which strung cheese from the plate to his mouth. “Oh, you’re going to love this,” he said trying to bite into the hot pizza.
    Tabitha looked at the large slice of pizza on her plate. Her appetite seemed to have diminished.
    She couldn’t help but notice everything that surrounded her was about love and she hadn’t completely realized it before. The very word made her nervous. How many times had he said the word love since they’d walked into the restaurant? He loved the pizza and the restaurant itself. Hockey players loved playing hockey, his grandparents were in love, his parents were in love – he never quit.
    What was she missing?
    Love was everywhere. If it weren’t for