Love Blooms on Main Street Read Online Free PDF

and Thyme at the corner of Second Avenue. It was entirely possible that Brett would have stopped by to spend time with his brother. Or maybe he was at Hastings, the diner up the street that was owned and run and by their mother, Sharon. She chewed her lower lip as they crossed the street, wondering if she should ask Kara directly.
    â€œI ran into your cousin the other day.” Damn. Her voice sounded tight and overly cheerful. She tried again. “He was over at Forest Ridge Hospital when I went for an appointment.”
    â€œYeah, Mark took Sunday night off from the restaurant to have dinner with him and their mom.”
    â€œHow’s he doing?” Ivy pressed, wondering if she was really prepared for the details. Did she really need to hear that he’d moved on, found a girlfriend? That some other girl was enjoying the tingling pleasure of his hands grazing her hips? He could even be engaged for all she knew. That kiss had happened more than half a year ago. And from the looks of things, he’d already forgotten it.
    â€œI didn’t get to see him,” Kara replied. “He went back to Baltimore yesterday morning.”
    Well, that cemented it. Ivy did her best to mask the disappointment that landed square in her chest, and quickened her pace up the hill to the dance studio, where small girls wearing pink tutus were spilling from the door. So he was gone. Come and gone without so much as a goodbye. She swallowed back the lump that had wedged tight in her throat, knowing she was being ridiculous, that she was holding on to a kiss, of all things.
    It’s just that it had been such a good kiss. Such a long, heavy, passionate kiss. Full of such… promise.
    Somewhere deep inside her, in a tiny little corner she didn’t want to acknowledge, a part of her had still held out a tiny morsel of hope that something wonderful would happen, that the door to her shop would open, and she’d look up, and there he’d be, with that dazzling wide smile and those twinkling eyes. It would be like a scene out of a movie…
    Except real life was never like the movies, was it? She
had
seen Brett again. And it had been far from magical. And that was just the cold, hard truth.
    Kara was hiding behind a large maple tree, completely shielded from any view of the studio, when Ivy reemerged a few minutes later. Rosemary hadn’t been particularly thrilled to learn that her favorite pink roses wouldn’t be in until next week, but after a few tight pinches of her heavily lipsticked mouth, she’d finally admitted that the current arrangement was a refreshing change and a cheerful burst of color for the otherwise pastel-hued room.
    â€œDid she see me?” Kara asked, darting her eyes to the left, her back firmly to the trunk.
    â€œNo,” Ivy replied, glancing back at the renovated red barn Rosemary had long ago transformed into a dance studio. “But you can’t hide from her forever. She’s your mother.”
    â€œMy very smothering mother,” Kara insisted. “Believe me, if she knew I was out here, she’d come running out, waving her lipstick, telling me I should never leave the house without it because… you never know who you might run into!” The last part was mimicked in Rosemary’s larger-than-life trill, and Ivy had to laugh, until she was reminded of the bitter truth in the statement.
    If she’d been wearing that cute dress she’d spotted rather than old jeans, looking freshfaced and calm instead of sporting a beaded sweat ’stache, would Brett have maybe reacted a little differently to her?
    Guess she’d never know. Probably best not to think about it, either.
    â€œFeel like grabbing a coffee?” Ivy asked. The thought of going home to her empty apartment was far from appealing.
    Main Street Books was just around the corner and down Main, and Ivy was happy to spot her friend Grace through the big, lead-paned windows as they