Read New Leaf for Free Online Page A

about her. She felt sure that one’s marital history was a fairly common topic to arise when two people were getting to know each other. “I’m divorced.”
    “Ah. Any kids?”
    Taffeta’s mouth went dry. “A little girl. My ex-husband has temporary custody.”
    The twinkle in his eyes dimmed and blinked out. “That must be really hard. Do you get frequent visitation?”
    Taffeta couldn’t do this. If she told him that she no longer exercised her visitation rights, he’d onlyfire more questions at her. Clamping a hand to the crown of her head, she cried, “Oh my gosh, I don’t know what I’ve been thinking. I’m sorry to be rude, but I forgot to do something very important.”
    She hurried into the back room and then stood there holding her breath, listening for him to leave. She had to let her lungs expand again and concentrated on her breathing for several minutes before she finally heard his boots ring out on the wooden floor, followed by the overhead bell and a thump of the shop door closing. She went limp against a storage shelf.
Good riddance, and don’t come back
.
    If he did, no matter how charming and friendly he was, she’d give him the cold shoulder. No more Q&A sessions. No more friendly chats over coffee. She couldn’t believe that she’d told him she liked to read in the bathtub. What had she been thinking? If he felt physically attracted to her, her saying that had been the equivalent of waving a red cape in front of a bull.

Chapter Three
    Barney drove his beat, which he normally enjoyed, on autopilot for the rest of the morning. Most times, he’d see people he knew and stop to talk, partly because it kept him in the know about what was happening in town, but also because he liked to check on folks. Mystic Creek was a close-knit community. People watched out for one another. Barney found it rewarding to lend a hand when needed. Sometimes he’d give a lift to someone who’d gone shopping and was trudging home with an armload of groceries. Cars with flat tires on the shoulder of a road always brought him to a rolling stop. He saw his share of dogs that had gotten out of their yards as well, and he had gotten to know the habitual runners almost as well as he did their masters.
    Today he had blinders on, and barely noticed the faces of those he saw in other vehicles or walking along a road. His conversation with Taffeta had left him even more curious about her than he’d been before. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d invented an important task she needed to do in order to end their chat. Maybe talking about her child was too painful. That made sense, he guessed. She seemed like a nice woman. He couldn’t imagine acourt refusing to grant her a generous visitation plan. That said, though, it wasn’t often that the father of a young child, especially a girl, was given custody. It was a commonly held belief that young kids needed the gentle nurturing that only a mother could provide.
    Barney didn’t necessarily agree with that. His dad, Jeremiah, had been a wonderful parent, a firm disciplinarian only when required, and all about making his children feel loved the rest of the time. It was a toss-up which of his parents had read to him more, and unless his memory failed him, he’d fallen asleep in his father’s arms as often as he had in his mother’s. Men could be just as gentle and nurturing as women.
    Barney sighed. What was it about Taffeta Brown that kept him so focused on her? He had enjoyed talking with her. It wasn’t very often that he met a gal who’d enjoyed reading
The Catcher in the Rye
or
To Kill a Mockingbird
. Not that he normally asked a woman what she liked to read. His mind usually wasn’t on novels when he was surfing the nightspots of Crystal Falls, and truth be told, he had little interest in getting to know most of the gals he met that well.
    Suddenly he felt shallow. Was he becoming an opportunist, a man who cruised the honky-tonks as if they were meat