Heart Echoes Read Online Free PDF Page B

lives.” He stretched across the counter, took the pie from her, and set it down. “You hadn’t heard?”
    â€œNo.” She turned on her heel and strode to the back-room doorway. “Will!” She called out to her husband. “Will!”
    He was seated in the far corner at the desk, phone to his ear, speaking softly.
    Lacey froze again. How often in recent months had she walked in on Will, phone to his ear, speaking softly?
    Softly . . . or furtively?
    But it was his business to talk on the phone. They owned the Happy Grounds Coffee and Gift Shop, a small, popular place on the Oregon coast. Ordering coffee and gifts had been a part of their life for twelve years. She hated the telephone. She loved baking. It was an easy division of two major responsibilities. They shared all the others.
    â€œWill!”
    He glanced over his shoulder and held up a finger. “That’s fine,” he spoke into the phone, his tone normal. “I’ll get back to you. Good-bye.” He hung up. “What’s wrong?”
    Her heart melted. The question that negated her other one about his phone calls was, how often had she clung to him in recent months like a scared child? He was her rock.
    In a flash his arms were around her. “Lacey?”
    â€œThere was an earthquake in Los Angeles.” Engulfed in his arms, her face against his denim shirt, she savored the clean scents of laundry detergent and his soap. The weight of his chin atop her head reassured her that he was there. He was there.
    Sometimes visitors to the shop were surprised to learn that Lacey and Will were married. At first she thought it was because they were physically mismatched. He was model material for men’s underwear ads. Tall, slender with wide shoulders, dark blond, and hazel-eyed, he was—as her mother said—a looker. She, on the other hand, was average in every way, except that she was all nose and mouth and had a coarse, dark-brown horse mane for hair that worked best in a braid when it was long enough.
    Her good friend Holly clued her in on what others were saying. “Lacey, you’re nuts. People assume you’re not married because you and Will are such obviously good friends. Most couples aren’t, you know. No way could most of us work together 24-7 like you do. I can’t imagine teaching in the same school as my ex.”
    Lacey did not totally buy into the explanation. If couples weren’t friends, why did they bother staying together?
    Will kissed the top of her head. “Call her. I’ll cover for you.”
    She nodded and watched him walk into the shop.
    It was August, a busy time of year. Two summer employees worked in the gift section, an area that covered the front half of the shop. A waist-high wall separated it from the coffee bar at the back, where there was seating for twenty-two. At three in the afternoon, Will and the college girls could take care of the light traffic.
    Teal had not seen the shop since long before Will and Lacey took it over from his parents. Lacey was proud of their homey renovations. She wondered if Teal would think the place more inviting than it had been when they were growing up.
    Probably not. It wasn’t Teal’s style to compliment anything about Cedar Pointe.
    Lacey sat down at the desk, picked up the phone, and dialed her sister’s cell phone number. Although she seldom called it, she had committed it to memory.
    Before it rang, the connection went straight to voice mail.
    â€œTeal, are you all okay? Call me as soon as you can.”
    She dialed the house number, also at the tip of her fingers. Again voice mail answered and she left a message. She called Teal’s office number. There was no answer.
    Lacey whimpered, squeezed her eyes shut, and shook her hands like dust rags. “I can’t do this. I can’t do this.”
    Life had become simply too hard in recent months. There was no available nerve ending on