Barbecue and Bad News Read Online Free Page A

husband died, she’d inherited all his newspapers across the country. Most of them were failing, but she’d been smart enough to revamp a couple of the good ones and then collapse all the others into one huge online company that no one else had been able to match. “I hate that column, you know.”
    “Don’t you complain to me. You brought that on yourself.” Evelyn’s voice didn’t hold a bit of compassion. “I’ve compensated you well for it too.”
    “It’s not that I’m not grateful. I am. It’s been a wonderful opportunity for someone with so little experience, but I’m ready to move on to something new. Something I can tell people about.”
    “I know you’re chomping at the bit for something else. Write that article for me. Folks will get a kick out of that kind of story. We need something light to balance all the heavy stuff going on these days. Plus it might be fun. Stick around there a couple of days and consider it a vacation. When you get back we can talk about your assignment.”
    Savannah would do just about anything to get out of that Advice from Van gig, but hanging out in a little town didn’t seem much like a vacation, and she had some serious doubts that Evelyn was going to let her off the hook completely. “I’ll have to get back to you on that.” But her mind was already looking for a story angle. If she couldn’t get out of the column, maybe a break from it would do her good.
    “Yeah. You do that, dear.”
    And when wasn’t Evelyn right?

CHAPTER TWO
    S cott Calvin jumped into his car and set his coffee in the cup holder. It was time to check that all the barricades were in place so the parade could start on time. Just as he dropped his sunglasses from his head to his nose and pulled his cruiser out onto Main Street, that pretty brunette walked out of the bakery. He pressed his foot on the brake, watching as she took a seat on one of the benches in front of Mac’s. She balanced her coffee next to her and laid the bag of goodies in her lap. She had to be warm in that sweater set.
    Savannah Dey.
    Sounded more like a description of something, or a pop song, than a name. And why the heck did he even remember it?
    She was cute, but he knew lots of cute girls. It was rare that he ran radar, so what were the odds he’d pick a speeder who looked like her? Maybe there was a correlation between fast cars and pretty girls. And who the heck knew a Mini Cooper could go that fast? Not that it mattered.
    She’d looked taller sitting in that little blue car, but standing in line at the bakery she’d barely come up to his shoulder. And her chestnut hair was longer than he’d realized. Pretty girl. Not cute. Definitely pretty.
    He pressed the gas pedal and turned onto the street, nodding to the volunteers as he slowly passed the corner. He glanced in his rearview mirror, then pushed the whole mirror up and out of the way to resist the temptation to look back at that girl again.
    Waste of time . Every girl he picked out was the wrong girl. That guy who said there is a match out there for everyone hadn’t met him, because he’d rolled the dice on a lot of women and not one of them had worked out. It had to be him. He slowly made his way down the entire parade route to confirm everyone was ready to go.
    His eye was surveying the progress, but his mind was still on that woman. Odd name.
    Who would name their kid that? Maybe Ms. Savannah Dey was one of those people who changed her name to make some point. But then again, her driver’s license said she lived in DC. It had to be her parents who had been the creative types. That’s got to be it. His own laugh caught him off guard. That girl was definitely more jet-set than flower child.
    Of course she was jet-set. Wasn’t every woman he ever found attractive a big-city kind of girl?
    It was his fatal flaw and what would probably ensure him a life of bachelorhood. Not that being a bachelor was so bad. Maybe somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind