Read Online Circle of Shadows by Edna Curry - Free Book Online Page A

outburst. “I’m sorry, but no,
that’s not possible. All my stores’ computers and software programs have to be
compatible with mine, so all the systems are alike.”
    “I see.” She drew a deep breath,
listening to the details of his system. What he said made sense. Of course her
system would need to be compatible with his, and she, as the new kid on the
block, would have to be the one to learn new software.
    “There’s no hurry. If you have
time on Sunday, Lili, I could go over the software program with you on mine.”
    “All right.” She glanced at her
watch, and pushed back her chair. “I really must get back.”
    “How about one o’clock on Sunday?
I’ll pick you up.”
    “Fine. Thank you for dinner,
Ken.”
    She picked up her phone and
hurried away. The delicious dinner she’d eaten sat like a lump in the pit of
her stomach. So many changes, so fast. She wanted to go home and cry, but duty
called. Two more hours until closing time. If she was lucky and the tills
balanced, she would be home shortly after that.
    But of course, the tills didn’t
balance. She counted and re-counted the cash, ran two tapes on the checks and
came up with two different totals. Frustrated, she laid the two adding machine
tapes side by side and found the mistake. Then she added the totals on her
accounting sheet three times before she found another mistake.
    It was all Ken’s fault, she
thought unreasonably. She kept seeing his sandy brown hair and the crinkles his
smile made around his hazel eyes on the page in front of her. And thinking of
the way his touch made her tingle, instead of how the charges and paid on
accounts added up. No wonder she was making mistakes.
    Sunday she was going to have to
go to his house to learn the new software program. Why-ever had she agreed to
that? They would be alone in his home! People around here would talk if they
knew. Landers was a small town, full of gossips. But she was looking forward to
it, her traitorous body reminded her.
    She went home, built a fire in
the fireplace, and relaxed in front of it with a tall glass of iced tea.
    She wondered what he was doing at
this moment. He’d said he was getting settled in a house on Long Lake.
    Staring at the flames, she
imagined him moving furniture around and hanging pictures in his new home. His
muscles would be rippling under his tee-shirt, like they had as he swam laps at
the pool. She wondered how those muscles would feel moving under her hands, if
she placed her hands on that hairy chest as he moved his arms to put them
around her.
    Damn the man. She should be
figuring out ways to regain control of Adams’ Foods from him, not mooning over
his body. What was the matter with her anyway? Was she going to let her
hormones rule her head? Couldn’t she control her own feelings?
    By noon Saturday Lili was furious
for another reason. Three people had told her how pleased they were that Mr.
Mills had purchased Agnes’ house. All her employees knew before she did. It was
a dreary, rainy day that suited her mood exactly. The gossip was Mrs. Langley’s
fault, of course. Happy about her large sales commission, she’d told someone,
and then that person had told three others. Lili knew how Landers’ grapevine
worked. Of course, it really didn’t matter that she had told, Lili scolded
herself. The sale was a fact, and in any small town nothing anyone did was a
secret for long.
    Wasn’t she really only angry that
Ken hadn’t told her himself at dinner last night? She should have guessed,
should have put the pieces together. She’d known someone had bought Agnes’ house.
Why did she mind that it was Ken?
    By the time Ken picked her up on
Sunday, she’d brought her temper under control and was able to smile and
converse politely as he drove.
    The rain had washed everything
clean and made the grass and trees a brilliant shade of green. Dandelions
formed a carpet of yellow along the roadsides, as if challenging anyone to call
them an ugly