Read Online Flirting With Pete: A Novel by Barbara Delinsky - Free Book Online

puzzlement to embarrassment in the wink of an eye. Seeming just as quickly to realize that she wouldn’t figure it out, she turned back to the tray of food. “I did make this,” she said as she pulled the cover off an omelet. “It has cheese, mushroom, and tomato. I’d have added onions, only Dr. Unger didn’t much care for onions.”
    Neither did Casey. “But I see chives.”
    “Just a few,” Meg quickly admitted, “but they’re totally fresh, and they’re organic.” As she talked, she set Casey’s coffee cup aside, poured an iced cup from a carafe, and neatly arranged sugar and cream. “We grow them over there by the shed. Jordan put in an herb patch that has chives and parsley and basil and sage and thyme. Dr. Unger never minded chives.”
    Casey didn’t know if she would. But the omelet looked delicious, and she was suddenly starved. Putting a green-and-white-checked napkin on her lap, she began to eat. Meg stayed only long enough to see her started, then went back into the house. Casey didn’t stop eating until the entire omelet, one and a half croissants, and a glass of orange juice were gone.
    Feeling decidedly pampered, she lowered herself to the warm stone and stretched out in the sun, pulled her cap over her face, and let the food digest. She hadn’t intended to fall asleep any more than she had expected to eat a huge breakfast, but by the time she woke up, the sun was higher, the table was cleared, and a fresh glass of iced coffee had been left.
    Shaking off grogginess, she sat up and looked around. Hers? So hard to believe. The question, of course, was what to do with it.
    Meg came out. She looked a bit neater now, as if she had done some fixing of her hair, her shirt, her socks. Her eyes were eager. “I was thinking I would make chicken salad for lunch. I do it with cranberries and walnuts. It’s really good.”
    “Oh, I don’t know if I can stay that long.” When Meg looked bewildered, she added, “I have my own place in Back Bay.”
    “Won’t you be moving in here now? There’s so much space, with the bedrooms and the office and the garden and the den. I could help make room for your things— you know, clean out his dresser. Oh, but you’d probably want to do that yourself. But you just tell me. I’ll do whatever you want— I mean, really, anything.”
    Casey figured that if anyone was going to touch the contents of Connie’s dresser, it should be his wife. “Has Mrs. Unger been by?”
    “Yes. But she didn’t take anything away.”
    “Not even personal photographs?” That would explain their absence.
    “I never saw any photographs.”
    “Maybe they’re in the storage boxes on the third floor.”
    Meg spun around at the sound of a distant buzz. Then she laughed at herself. “Just the drier. I’m rewashing the bedding from the master bedroom, so it’ll be fresh. It’s yours now.”
    Casey wanted to say that she had her own bedroom, but Meg left before she could get the words out, and it was probably just as well. The girl would be nervous if she thought Casey was considering selling the place.
    Hearing a quiet rattling— the vibration of her cell phone on the patio table— Casey pulled it from the fanny pack, flipped it open, and glanced at the caller’s number. “Hello, Brianna,” she sang, feeling suddenly light-headed. She and Brianna Faire had roomed together in both college and graduate school. Taking different jobs after graduation rather than setting up shop together had been a conscious decision.
    Brianna remained Casey’s closest friend. She had been a lifeline in recent years, filling the void where family might have been. The knowledge that she was on the other end of the line now made Casey feel more herself, which surely explained her excitement.
    Intuitive as ever, Brianna asked a curious, “What’s up?”
    “You have to see something. Are you busy?”
    “Just woke up. It was a late night.”
    “Partying?”
    “Arguing.”
    “Oh