Mint Juleps and Justice Read Online Free Page A

nothing that felt like forever. I’d like to have a couple kids, but my career does keep me busy.”
    They ate dinner and Beth carried most of the conversation with chitchat about the church and her ladies club. It seemed like the longest dinner on earth to Mike and he was glad when his phone rang and gave him the chance to pretend he had a business call to go on.
    “Sorry, folks. I’m going to have to run.” He tapped his phone. “Duty calls.” He turned toward Beth. She seemed nice enough and Dad seemed to really enjoy her company. “Thanks for the lovely dinner, Beth.”
    The woman blushed and grinned like she’d just won the blue ribbon at the fair. “It was my pleasure.”
    Mike’s dad rose from the table and followed Mike to the door.
    “You’re not mad, are you?” his dad asked.
    “No, Dad. I’m not mad, but I’m okay. I don’t need you setting me up on dates.”
    Dad’s eyebrows pulled together like they did right before he went into speechifying mode. “Son, you’ve been alone too long. You need to move on. You’re missing out on precious time in your life that you don’t get back. Trust me. You’ll wake up one morning and you’re too old to do all the stuff you put on that list for someday. Make today that someday.”
    Mike cuffed his dad’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about me. I’m not pining away. That Beth seems real nice, though.”
    “She is. Her daughter seems nice too.”
    She was pretty, even seemed nice, but that was a complication he would not be adding to his life. Not now. Not ever again.

CHAPTER FOUR
    E ver since she’d made the visit to the farm on Nickel Creek Road, Brooke seemed to be right in Mike’s path. It seemed funny that she’d never laid eyes on him until that farm visit and now it was like every time she turned around—there he was.
    The next day she’d bumped into him at the post office when she picked up her mail, then he showed up at the grand opening of HAPPY BALANCE . Yesterday he was picking up bear claws at Mac’s Bakery when she arrived to get the order for the office, and this afternoon on her way home he was in the Piggly Wiggly.
    All three times he’d stopped and chatted her up. He hadn’t mentioned dinner again, and she finally had let her guard down deciding he’d just been being polite that day they’d met. Which was a relief.
    They’d talked so long in the parking lot that her frozen goods had all but thawed. Maybe her heart had too since, when he brought up his dinner offer out of the blue, she’d let him pin her down to go together to the local Ruritan Club steak dinner Friday after next.
    At least they wouldn’t be alone. Everyone in town would be there.
    For someone who was almost divorced and sworn off men, she’d had zero willpower when it came to saying no to Mike.
    She left in a hurry, worried about what else she’d agree to if she stuck around. As she pulled into her driveway she was relieved to just be home and be able to put him out of her mind for a while. At least until Friday after next at that dinner.
    As soon as Brooke stepped out of her car, the summer heat sucked the air-conditioned chill from her skin, but that didn’t keep goose bumps from crawling up her arms. She shifted her purse and the grocery bag up on her hip.
    The dense line of red-tip Photinia had been a selling point when she’d bought this house, but now the long row of hedges just looked like a convenient place for someone to lurk.
    Moving here was supposed to have eliminated these feelings, and Keith was nearly a two-hour drive away. Even if he had figured out where she’d moved, it wasn’t likely he’d be riding by her house all the time like he’d been doing when they lived just miles from each other. That had just become unsettling. Out of sight would be out of mind…she could only hope.
    I’m safe here in Adams Grove. When the thought didn’t do anything to relax her, she tried to convince herself by humming the song that had been playing