Sweeter Than W(h)ine Read Online Free PDF Page A

upset. ‘You can take five bites,’ she told me. ‘Then you have to throw the rest away. Eating that kind of concentrated sugar isn’t good for you, Dina. I’m sorry.’” She tried to add some dramatic flourish, like Jay did when he told a story. “I wanted to cry, but I savored every single bite. If I had known then that I was Type 2 diabetic, I would’ve asked Bev and Jim to bring me sugar free strawberry custard. They sell a sugar free one, y’know.”
                  Rafe frowned when she used one of Jay’s favorite expressions, so she looked at the book he’d given her. “I’ve been wanting to read this. How did you know I liked Babe Carter mysteries?”
                  “It seemed like something you’d enjoy since the heroine’s a lawyer who runs her business from a taxi and the hero’s her cab driver.”
                  “You’re right,” Dina said, wanting to start reading right there, but not anxious to get rid of Rafe, who was actually starting to grow on her…a little. She moved on to the next gift, a package of twelve blank CDs. “How did you…”
                  Rafe shrugged. “That was a no-brainer.” He looked at the bedside table, where Dina had her CD player and CDs arranged as best she could at her “home away from home.”
                  “Does this mean you don’t have an IPod either?”
                  “I like gadgets, but I don’t need an IPod right now. I have a lot of CDs, and I’d hate to think I wasted all that money buying them. I’ll hang onto them as long as I can.”
                  Dina sent him a smile; she knew exactly what he meant. “Lorrie Galloway says her friends always want her to get an IPod, but she won’t since she invested so much money in her CD collection.”
                  “Lorrie Galloway?” Rafe said, with a low chuckle. “You actually didn’t mention her brother?”
                  Dina laughed, then spoke with mock severity. “I don’t talk about him all the time. What have you got against Lorrie’s brother anyway?”
                  “Nothing. It’s just that you’re always dropping his name.”
                  “What? You don’t want me to mention the name of Jay Galloway? Is that part of your doctor’s orders?”
                  She heard the hesitation in his voice. Gotcha, she thought. “No, but…”
                  “Jay Galloway says he doesn’t like IPods either. People can download stuff for free, and that cuts in on the CD profits. Jay Galloway says I got him hooked on the flavored Tootsie Rolls I bought him for Christmas. He went to Shortencute’s Market, and bought himself another three bags. Jay Galloway says…”
                  Rafe crossed the room in a couple of strides, walked into the bathroom and came back with a pristine white wash cloth. He started waving it. “Okay, okay. I don’t have anything against the guy. Mention him as much as you want. It’s just that you’ve got him up on a pedestal, and I don’t want you to be disappointed if he does something wrong and falls off.”
                  “He’s a good friend, and he helped me out a lot this year. Not only does he take me wherever I need to without having to use a GPS, he makes me laugh when I get too down. And that happens a lot. I know he’s got faults, but everybody does. I think I can handle it if he falls off the pedestal. It’s already happened a few times, y’know.”
                  “That’s good,” Rafe said, smiling at her. He had a nice smile. He’d also brought her drawings of turkeys from the local newspaper, and eight Chanukah presents.
                  She was about to unwrap present number five when Rafe said, “Why don’t we go down the hall and you can open the rest of these out there? You could try to walk