Read Online To My Senses The Nicci Beauvoir Series Book 1 by Alexandrea Weis - Free Book Online Page A

tomorrow. He’s someone I find interesting because he is
intelligent and only interested in talking with me.”
    “ It’s not the conversation
I’m worried about, Nicci.”
    “ Dad, I’m not going to run
away with a gigolo. I’m going to finish school and become a nurse.
Then maybe later on, I’ll find a nice, normal guy and get
married.”
    “ I don’t care if you marry
a pimp, a gigolo, or a dog catcher. I would have reservations, but
as long as he makes you happy…I know he would do right by you if he
loved you. Unfortunately, women always seem to love men that don’t
return that love in kind. They only find out after an irreversible
event has occurred, that the man they loved was no good all
along.”
    “ Dad, I went fishing with
the guy. We mutilated worms together. We did not plot our escape to
the Fiji Islands or anything.”
    “ I know you won’t do
anything like that. You’re too sensible.” He got up from his chair
and gave me a kiss on the forehead. “Just don’t get hurt, Nicci.
Scars like that never really go away. They just become barricades
to happiness.”
    “ Care to tell me about your
scars?”
    He stepped back.
“No.”
    “ That’s not fair. I’m not
the only single person in this house. I know how you feel, but Mom
has been gone for a while. You need to think about perhaps dating
again, Dad.” He groaned and started walking away from me. “Come on,
you’re still young…ish and you could find someone nice to grow old
with.”
    “ Grow old with? Someone
nice?” He gaped at me in horror. “What makes you think I don’t want
a twenty-year-old stripper with a great body and no
brains?”
    “ Because she would never
get into the house alive.”
    “ We could double. I get the
stripper and you get the gigolo.” He laughed. I didn’t.
    I stood from the table.
“I’m worried about you being alone and you’re making
jokes.”
    “ I appreciate your concern,
darling, but I don’t want to marry again. I had your mother and I
have you.” He sighed, the way he usually did at the mention of my
mother. “That’s enough. I don’t need anyone else.”
    “ What about when I’m gone?
What if I decide to marry someday? I don’t want you to be alone.” I
stepped to closer to his side. “You weren’t really serious about
the stripper?”
    He grinned. “I’d like to
give it a try.”
    “ Do it and I’ll break every
bone in her body.”
    “ God, you’re
tough.”
    ***
    Sammy kept her promise of
showing David’s paintings at her gallery. She made it a premier
event and invited all her wealthy friends. Even Aunt Hattie and
Uncle Ned went and acquired one of David’s pieces.
    Hattie invited me over the evening after the
showing to see her purchase. When I arrived, I found Colleen and
Hattie covered with flour and up to their eyeballs in stuffed
crabs.
    “ They’re for the Garden
Club ladies luncheon,” she told me as she led me into her large
kitchen. “Everyone always asks me to bring them. What can I do? I
can’t disappoint them.”
    “ Why don’t you just give
them poison, Mother? It would be much more merciful,” Colleen
commented.
    “ That’s enough out of you
young lady!” Hattie chastised.
    Hattie then handed me an
apron and pointed to a knife and a bag of onions waiting on the
kitchen counter. I had obviously been invited over to work, not to
socialize.
    After we had chopped a
small mountain of onions, a teary-eyed Hattie nodded approvingly
and said, “Let me show you my picture, dear.”
    I barely had time to wash
my hands before she dragged me out of the kitchen.
    “ We went to the showing at
Sammy’s gallery on Magazine Street…or is it Prytania Street? I
always get those two streets confused,” Hattie muttered, as we
walked down the hall from the kitchen.
    “ Mother, you get lost in
your own house,” Colleen ribbed, following behind us.
    We entered Hattie’s white
cypress-paneled den. With an array of dark cherry furniture, and
one very bright pink