Secrets Everybody Knows Read Online Free

it, but he couldn’t stop staring at her house and daydreaming about the promise in her kiss.
    * * * *
    Elaine answered the door in her bathrobe. Beth surveyed the scene. “You realize it’s ten o’clock.”
    “I do and I don’t care.” Elaine folded her arms. What sleep she’d managed to get last night had been filled with dreams about Johnny. Not restful in any way.
    “Look, Lily’s having a panic attack. We need to get over there and bail her out before she does a swan dive off the church steeple.”
    “No, we don’t. You do it if you want. I don’t feel well.”
    Beth pressed her palm against Elaine’s forehead. “You feel fine. Go put on some clothes and let’s go.”
    “I told you, I’m not leaving the house today. I didn’t get any sleep last night, and I don’t feel well.”
    “Work is just the thing to distract you from your trauma. Which, by the way, you didn’t cause. We did tell you you didn’t give John a heart attack. He’s been working on that most of his life.”
    “The hospital said this morning that he was still critical.”
    “Sitting around the house worrying about it isn’t going to get him out of ICU either.”
    Elaine rolled her eyes. How little Beth knew. “You took the whole festival off this year.”
    “I have excellent reasons.”
    “And what is Mr. Excellent’s name?”
    “Don’t go there.” Beth put her hands on her hips. “Listen, if this thing tanks, the whole town is going to look stupid. Do you want Weaver’s Circle as a whole to look stupid because you didn’t sleep well?”
    Elaine threw up her hands. “Fine. I’ll get dressed. But I’m not talking to anyone. You guys do the talking. I’m not calling anyone, and I’m not going to anyone’s house.” She trudged through the house to her bedroom.
    “I need to stop at the grocery store on the way, but that’s it.”
    “Grocery store? I need ice cream,” Elaine shouted, pulling her jeans on.
    “You need?”
    “Yes, need. Ben and Jerry’s Chubby Hubby.”
    “Need.”
    “You heard me.” Elaine pulled her t-shirt on and plodded into the bathroom.
    “We’ll pick it up on the way home. You can spend the night in a threesome with Ben and Jerry.”
    Elaine watched her face turn brilliant red in the mirror at the mention of a threesome. Her dreams last night had been plenty graphic, she didn’t need Ben and Jerry thrown into the mix. By the time she’d tamed her blush and returned to the living room, Beth was on her phone asking a favor. Beth never asked for favors, she gave orders. It worked often enough that she hadn’t gotten out of the habit, so whatever she needed now must be important.
    “All right, pit stop at the grocery store to drop off my list, now including Chubby Hubby ice cream, and then to Lily’s. She has a whole flock of disasters to deal with. Are you really going to wear those?”
    Elaine crammed the huge pink sun hat on her head and added the largest sunglasses she owned. “I am.”
    “You look like you shop in the Salvation Army’s Dumpster.”
    “Thank you.”
    “You know you didn’t make John have that heart attack. You don’t have the heart attack touch or anything.”
    Elaine slouched in her seat and peered out the window. Beth didn’t know the half of it, and Elaine liked it that way. After the grocery store, they drove to Lily’s house, a block from Elaine's parents’ house–Elaine's mom’s. Dad didn’t live there anymore. She stared at the woods, trying to find the old path that led to McMannuses’. Lily threw open her door and met them in the yard. “Thank God. I didn’t know what to do. You guys are the natives. I’m just a carpetbagger.”
    “Lily, you’ve lived here for five years.”
    “And you’ve both been here for generations. You know everybody. How are we going to fix this stuff?”
    “I figured we needed reinforcements, so I stopped the new sheriff on the way here and asked him to pick up the cookies from Mrs. Coin.” Beth herded them