Read Online Just Desserts by Tricia Quinnies - Free Book Online Page B

installation of the skylights and solar panels on the house had been a pain in the ass all summer. And the tail end of the job would be no different. He stared at the single missing panel until sunspots blocked his vision and then put on his mirrored Ray-Bans.
    “Eddie, get a couple of the guys. Find a piece of tarp and secure it over the hole. There should be some fieldstones that we didn’t use for the hearth near the front entrance. They should be heavy enough to keep it in place, if they don’t roll off first. I’m going to get my roofer over here, I hope, by tomorrow morning.”
    “Lindy’s right; you are hot and demanding,” Eddie joked, batting his eyelashes.
    “Don’t get me started on your woman, Eddie. She was damn demanding herself last night. After Sadie left—” He broke off, distracted. “—after she left, Lindy kept selling the five o’clock dinner special, liver and onions, to piss me off. I don’t like meat but I hate innards. She pinched my ass every time I had to fry up one of those blood red fillets.”
    “Good protein, dude.”
    “Thanks, I’ll eat some pistachios.”
    “Lindy said the diner was busy last night. You did the right thing helping Sadie and Paul out.”
    “Yeah.”
    It worked out better than he’d expected. While driving Paul home after sleeping off his night of binge drinking in his Jeep, he had woken up and announced to Quinn that he’d sell him the diner. Quinn had veered off the road almost landed in a stupid country ditch.
    After he’d delivered Sadie’s dad to his front door, the man talked his ear off and before Quinn knew it, the two of them were half-done designing the diner’s expansion on scraps of paper. Had Paul not just come off a Jameson bender, Quinn would have offered him a shot to celebrate.
    But, Sadie. She undoubtedly knew the turn of events. Since he still hadn’t made amends with her after running away from her like a dickhead…no worse, dickwad . At this point, he decided that he definitely had fallen a notch lower on her pig-man totem pole. And probably sunk below hippie-boy, Bryan.
    “I’ll get on the roof, boss-man.”
    “Wait, Eddie, have you talked to Lindy this afternoon? Does she know where Sadie is?”
    “No, but I can pass her a note during study hall, dude.”
    “Ha. Go plug up my roof, asshole.”
    Eddie jogged across the well-manicured Wrigley lawn and through the trellis into the French garden.
    Quinn called the diner. He hadn’t expected Sadie to answer the phone, but was disappointed when Paul picked-up.
    “Ms. Katie’s Diner.”
    “Paul? Quinn. If Lindy’s delivering food for the bash, can she add on a dessert of some sort?”
    “Sure. I’ll have Lindy bring it over after the dinner rush. How do the rest of your barbeque fixings look? The burgers should just be defrosted enough, in an hour, for them to seer clean on the grill.”
    “Haven’t seen any food.”
    “Should be there. Two coolers. Sadie left an hour ago and rowed it over to the boathouse. Maybe she unloaded and started up the grill, ‘cause she would’ve been back by now.”
    “Maybe. I’ll sort it out. Thanks.”
    Most of the men had left the property to clean up and come back for the party, so none were around to ask if they’d spied a woman trolling around the boathouse. He stood at the highest and most southern point of the estate. The overgrown foliage blocked his view of the boathouse. He could barely see the pier. Damn.
    He didn’t have Sadie’s cell number so he jogged into the greenhouse and found the old bird-watching binoculars. Adjusting the viewfinder, he looked down toward the lake and saw Sadie’s aluminum rowboat bobbing against the pier. But there was no sight of Sadie.
    Maybe she was in the boathouse. He looked through the binoculars again and caught sight of a shoe. Only one on the end of the pier. What the fuck?
    Quinn yelled up at Eddie laying tarp on the roof, “Can you see Sadie down by the boat house?”
    “Dude, you