No Stranger to Danger Read Online Free PDF Page B

laugher as she elbowed Mara.
    Mara groaned and fidgeted with her hair, her cheeks hot now, too.
    "Don't worry. It's all natural, honey. Your uncle doesn’t know I keep one, you know—" She put her hand to the side of her mouth and leaned in.
    Mara shrank back from the obvious admission that was coming.
    "Since he don’t work no more—" Rose said in a loud whisper, and wiggled her finger in a little circle, "—down there." She dropped her hand and the hushed tone. "Since you still haven’t found a man … I thought you could appreciate one of these, too. A lot better than Tiffany. Gawd ." She rolled her eyes to the sky as she fanned herself. Rose stopped and scrunched up her nose, then grabbed Mara in a crushing hug.
    "Thanks, Aunt Rose," Mara said.
    She wanted to cry.
    Or die … she wasn’t sure which at the present moment.
    "Like Grandma said, don’t fret. Just ‘cause all your cousins are married and you're … well…" She bobbed her head from side to side and gave a little hum.
    Yes, Mara thought, because I am divorced and don’t have any real prospects for a husband.
    Maybe if she gave a shit about that as much as every single person in her too-big family, then she might put more effort into finding another man.
    But the simple fact was she wasn’t ready.
    Turned out, five years just wasn’t enough to get over the most devastating pain a person could feel aside from losing a child.
    She had lost the man she'd loved—and she didn’t have a clue why.
    Mara re-plastered her smile as her aunt's wide hips brushed her as she headed to the car. Mara watched as Uncle Brian opened the door for her aunt and helped her squeeze inside the front seat. The car sank down as Rose leaned around Brian to wave. Uncle Brian slammed the door, leaving the tail end of her aunt's pink dress hanging from the door, and hurried to the driver's side where he also gave Mara a short wave.
    Mara started to stop him, to tell him Rose's dress would be ruined … but she would be crazy to delay their departure one second more.
    Mara waved rapidly, as though if she waved faster, they would leave quicker. She had never been more thankful that the wedding shower for her cousin Tiffany was over as her uncle and aunt’s car started, Rose's dress beginning to drag away against the gravel.
    Somehow, since she was the only unfortunate —otherwise known amongst her family as desperate—divorced single woman, her family had elected her to host the shower. Why that had to be, she didn’t know.
    Tiffany's shower couldn’t have come at a worse time either.
    As the old silver Buick backed up, Mara continued to wave with the same smile frozen in place, but as soon as the dust rose over the back of the car, she dropped her hand and sighed. The sound came out as more of a disgruntled uugh .
    Mara brought the box around to give it a strange look.
    What in all the hell could Aunt Rose have been thinking?
    And why did being around family have to be so exhausting?
    Mara dropped her arm to her side and turned beside the Alberta spruce.
    If she didn’t have to answer constant questions like, when are you getting hitched again? Or take more gentle grandmotherly suggestions like, you should really look for a man, Mara —then she might not want to pull her hair out like a crazy woman every second she was around them.
    Mara took a step toward the pool where elegantly clothed tables with big coral-colored bows sat around the glistening water dotted with floating, lighted lily pads. The setting sun matched those bows and her evening gown perfectly.
    She looked on the pool forlornly with thoughts of putting her home on the market tomorrow. Unfortunately, she had no choice in the matter now. Before the guests arrived, she had called a realtor to arrange a meeting for Monday morning.
    Since she was out of a job, and had no good prospects for another at the moment, she couldn’t afford to stay here any longer.
    It sucked.
    It really, really sucked.
    Mara started