In This Town Read Online Free

gaze assessing. “What do you go?
About one twenty-five?”
    A sound of outrage escaped her even as she sucked in her
stomach. “I’ll have you know—” she jabbed a finger at Griffin’s chest, wished it
was a fork “—I weigh one-fifteen.”
    Give or take…oh…five pounds.
    “If you say so.” Then he smirked.
    Her hands fisted. God, what she wouldn’t give to knock that
stupid grin off his face.
    She tossed her hair back, her high heels bringing them almost
eye to eye. “Listen, as much as I’m sure you two enjoy playing Bonnie and Clyde
in your spare time, leave me out of it. Because if you lay one greasy finger on
me, I’ll have Layne arrest you for assault after I’ve taken my hedge clippers to
your—”
    “Now, now,” Nora said. “No need to get all threatening and
violent. It was only an idea.” She patted Griffin’s arm. “A sweet one.”
    Tori gaped at her usually levelheaded sister. “There is
something seriously wrong with you. What did he do? Perform a lobotomy on you
while you were sleeping?”
    “We need to go,” Griffin told Nora.
    She sighed, as if dealing with Tori taxed the last of her
usually limitless energy and patience. Well, it wasn’t exactly a day at the
beach on Tori’s side of things, either.
    Nora nodded. “I guess we’ll just tell Layne she couldn’t get
away.”
    It took a moment for Tori to realize she was the “she” Nora was
talking about. “Okay, first of all, I’m standing right here and you acting as if
I’m not is really irritating. Secondly, I don’t need you or anyone making
excuses for me.” Didn’t want anyone doing so. She stood up for herself. Took
care of herself.
    After she’d realized the hard lesson that no one else was going
to take care of her.
    Too bad taking care of herself and her son wasn’t as easy as
she’d thought it would be.
    Nora sent her a beseeching look, one made all the more powerful
by her sister’s sweetness. “Layne really wanted us both there. She wants you
there.”
    Tori’s resolve started dissolving like sugar in hot water. “I
guess she’s going to be disappointed, then,” she said lightly before brushing
past Griffin and heading back to work.
    But guilt nudged her, hard and insistent as a toothache. Damn
Nora. Damn Tori’s love for her. That’s what love did. It trapped you. Made you
worry all the time about pleasing someone else, about putting your own wants and
needs aside.
    Love made you weak.
    And Tori couldn’t afford to be anything but strong.

CHAPTER TWO
    “W HAT ARE YOU doing?” Celeste Vitello
asked Tori.
    Tori set a stack of dirty dishes into a heavy, plastic bin.
“Giving Mr. Jeffries a lap dance,” she said dryly, glancing at her boss.
“You?”
    “Now that is a horrifying thought.” Celeste’s dark, wildly
curly short hair was held back from her face with a wide, black headband making
her brown eyes appear larger, her cheekbones more pronounced. A white apron
covered her stretchy black pants and orange T-shirt. “And while I admire your
clever wit as much as, if not more than, the next person, shouldn’t you get
going? Layne wanted you at the station at nine and it’s already eight
fifty-five.”
    Using the back of her hand, Tori brushed her long bangs aside.
“Not you, too.”
    “Me, too, what?”
    “You’ve joined the Layne Brigade,” Tori said, tossing
silverware into the bin with a loud clang. “Bad enough she sent Nora over here
to fetch me like I’m some sort of disobedient child, now you’re waving at me
from the front seat of the bandwagon? For God’s sake, don’t drink the Kool-Aid,
people. Fight the power.”
    She wasn’t surprised Celeste knew about Layne’s important
meeting. Layne probably called her, too. Or else Nora had swung by the kitchen
to tell Celeste Tori was being stubborn.
    Nora always had been a little tattletale.
    Celeste pressed the tips of her forefingers against her temples
as if seeking inner peace or warding off a headache. “Times like