Secrets over Sweet Tea Read Online Free PDF Page A

morning.
    Not one had been moved.
    Grace’s body ached just looking at them. All she wanted to do was get unpacked and back into some kind of normal routine. For a moment she was grateful she had waited to open the garage door until after she had hung up with Rachel. She was too tired for another comment.
    Miss Daisy greeted her at the door. “Hey, beautiful girl.” Grace slipped her hand down into the champagne fur of her shih tzu and rubbed. Miss Daisy’s moans came out soft but clear. “Oh, I know. I know.”
    The dog wriggled free from Grace’s hand and went to stand by her bowls. Grace followed her. Both were empty. “Didn’t Daddy feed you this morning?”
    Miss Daisy looked at the bowls and then back at Grace, her meaning clear. Grace set her stuff down on the kitchen counter and filled the bowls, then left to the sound of slurping. She made her way down the unfamiliar hallway to the bedroom. Tyler was still sleeping. No surprise. That’s the way she found him most mornings lately.
    At thirty-three, Tyler was considered old for professional hockey. Hockey wasn’t an old man’s game. Few players stayed around until their forties. Or rather, she should say, few were kept until their forties. About the time Tyler hit thirty, he’dstarted getting yearly renewals in place of the multiyear agreements he’d signed before. The three years since then had been a spiral down to painful places.
    Grace moved quietly to the closet for her pj’s and her black ballerina bedroom slippers. After she had changed, she walked over to the bed. Tyler never stirred. His sour-sweet breath seemed to fill the room.
    Her feet moved slowly back to the kitchen, where she poured a large glass of sweet tea. Her mother had always made sweet tea so thick it practically oozed out. Grace didn’t think the recipe needed changing. Since turning thirty-five, she had thought occasionally about switching to an artificial sweetener, but then she’d decided there was enough in her life that was artificial. This was the one place she was going to let the real thing have its way. She didn’t care if it had its way with her hips as well; she wasn’t giving it up. Sweet tea was her liquid sunshine. And she needed some sunshine in her life.
    She picked up a wadded napkin from the floor and opened the garbage can to toss it in. An empty Jack Daniel’s bottle lay at the bottom. She dropped the napkin in the can and closed it, then went to the garage and found a box she could carry. She had deliberately used small boxes to pack, knowing this would probably happen—a true sign of how low her expectations had dropped. She set it down in the kitchen and picked up her utility knife, expertly slicing the tape that sealed it. Dining Room was written large in black Sharpie across the side.
    She could close her eyes and do this, she had done it so many times. She should be a professional mover. In ten years of marriage she had lived in two apartments, one town house, and three different houses—not counting all the remodelingjobs she’d endured in many of those homes. She had the process down pat. That didn’t mean she liked it.
    This was Tyler’s pattern—the same pattern he had with cars and electronics and new clothes. To her it felt like some desperate attempt to fill a vacancy in his soul with something new. When they moved the last time, she’d told him that was it. They didn’t need another house. They didn’t need another car. And she wasn’t moving again.
    She had told him that, hadn’t she?
    She put down the knife and wandered aimlessly through the rooms. This house was big—bigger than the two of them could fill up. But it had been a foreclosure, so they had gotten a good deal—something they really needed, considering their experience with their previous house. Tyler had been so excited about buying in a “high-end” gated community on the outskirts of town, going on and on about what a good investment it was. But he hadn’t