Next to You
Page 26
That's what she was going to do. In her fog-shrouded field, doing what she always did was the safest way to avoid injury. Doing something out of the ordinary, say driving to Middleburg for drawing lessons, could lead anywhere. Over a cliff. Into a ditch. Stuck in a dead end.
She inserted the key into the ignition and turned. As she backed up the driveway, a hard knot of irritation—at Luc Marchand, at Tricky Dick Macintyre, at herself, at the entire damn world—tightened in her chest.
At the top of the driveway, she looked away from the rearview mirror and down toward Luc Marchand's lawn and the stone wall. She remembered the coolness of the stone through the thin cloth of her pants, the liquidy thing her insides had done, and how edible Luc Marchand had tasted. She had wasted a perfectly good Saturday morning. And yet, as she drove the winding country roads leading back to suburbia, everything looked sharper—the rough bark of trees, the hard glint of cars, the splintered wood of fences—and more in focus than it had in years.
About the Author
Julia Gabriel writes contemporary romance fiction. She lives in New England, where she teaches writing at a university and divides her time between writing, reading and quilting.
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Also by Julia Gabriel
Falling for the Prodigal Son
Cupcakes & Chardonnay
Next to You
Drawing Lessons
Wild Beautiful Man
Trademark Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges the trademarked status of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Atlantis
Audi
Badgley Mischka
Ford
Formica
Habitat for Humanity
Honda
KFC
Lexus
Maserati
New York Post
Porsche
People
Ritz Carlton
Spaghettios
Spyder
Sub-Zero
Taco Bell
Vanity Fair
Volvo
You Tube