The Sweetest Thing Read Online Free PDF Page B

Harper dialed Jasmine who answered on the first ring.
    “You know I need to get to bed early and you’ve kept me waiting all damn day,” her friend chimed. “Are you okay?”
    Harper smiled into the receiver. “I’m hanging in there.”
    “Did you call Mama Pearl?”
    “I did. I actually just hung up with her.”
    “Good. She was worried about you, too. How was the funeral?”
    “Depressing, but I met my father’s two sons.”
    “What?” Jasmine exclaimed.
    Harper could just imagine the expression on the woman’s face. She laughed heartily. “My father has two sons. Foster kids that he raised.”
    “I bet you were just peaches and puppies when you found out,” Jasmine said sarcastically.
    “I handled it very well actually. I didn’t foam at the mouth or spit nails.”
    “Not much you didn’t!”
    “I didn’t!”
    “So, are they younger or older than you? Are they cute? Rich? Give me the four-one-one!”
    Harper laughed again. “Older. Quentin is thirty-one and Troy is thirty-five. Both are very cute and they run my father’s bakery. Quentin is the pastry chef and Troy manages the books.”
    “How cute is very cute?”
    Harper paused, reflecting on the two men. Cute didn’t adequately describe either one of the brothers but it didn’t seem appropriate to tell her best friend that Quentin Elliott was the most delectable man she’d met in a very long time. And she definitely had no intentions of sharing that Quentin had her feeling some kind of way whenever he was near. Just thinking about him suddenly fired a ripple of heat through her feminine spirit.
    She shook her head, squeezing her pelvic muscles to stall the sensation. None of it made an ounce of sense to her. She wasn’t even sure she liked the man, his prickly personality not overly encouraging. He had barely cracked one smile since they’d met and if it hadn’t been for the one or two questions he’d asked about her business, she would have sworn he’d already written off getting to know her. But then she’d caught him looking at her and his stare had fired her nerve endings.
    She had no business lusting after a man she’d just met and definitely not at the funeral of the man they both considered a father. Her grandmother would have been mortified. Mama Pearl had not raised her to be so scandalous. This was almost as bad as when her own mother, Janie, had pulled Ben Flattery aside at his wife’s funeral, intoning that if he ever needed “anything” all he had to do was call. Janie had completely ignored the fact that everyone could see where her hands were resting as she did. The memory reminded Harper of all the other reasons she despised funerals.
    She finally responded. “They’re nothing special.”
    “Okay, what are you not telling me?” Jasmine questioned, knowing her all too well.
    “I’ve told you everything, Jasmine. They both seem very nice. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
    “Uh-huh,” her friend said, nodding into the receiver as if Harper could see her. “So can you hook a sister up?”
    “Desperate much?”
    “I’m not desperate at all. In fact, I have a date this weekend, so there!”
    “A date? With who?”
    “Mike Something-or-other. He’s Pastor Hill’s nephew’s cousin’s son from Atlanta, coming in for the Saxton wedding.”
    “And you have a date with him?”
    “Yep! We plan to hang out on Sunday.”
    “Have you even seen him?”
    “No, but he sounds like a dream come true over the telephone. His voice is so damn sexy he made me cream in my panties just saying hello.”
    “You are so nasty!” Harper exclaimed.
    Jasmine laughed with her. “On a serious note, the band cancelled for the Moore party next month.”
    Harper tapped her palm against her forehead in frustration. “No, no, no! That’s not good. She insisted on that band. She said they were her husband’s favorite.”
    “The lead singer has to have an operation or something. They returned their deposit and gave me a