Sweeter Than W(h)ine Read Online Free

toast to the next year. I’ll take a pain pill, and you can drink sparkling grape juice.”
                  “Sounds like a plan.”
                  “You don’t really have to visit, Dr. Far…”
                  “If you’re going to be my date for the evening,” he said, in the mock-scolding tone he’d used when he’d called her “young lady” the other day. “you’ll have to call me Rafe.”
                  “Okay, Dr…I mean…Rafe. If you’ll stop calling me ‘young lady,’ and call me Dina. My real name’s Adina, but most everyone calls me Dina. And I think I’ll call you Doc. Just so people won’t get the wrong idea, y’know?”
                  His smile grew wider, and his eyes sparkled. His eyes were so expressive and such a rich shade of brown. Dina scolded herself a second later. She had no right to be thinking about the Wellstone Village doctor’s eyes, for crying out loud.
                  “No, we can’t have people getting the wrong idea. I like the name Doc. It makes me think of baseball, which I do a lot these days. I miss it.”
                  “Me, too,” Dina said. “But it’s only a couple more months ’til spring training.”
                  “We’ll celebrate that tonight, too,” he said. “I’m going to see my next patient and then I’ll see you later.”
                  “Okay,” Dina said, with a laugh. “Party on!”
    ***
                  “Please, Rafe,” he heard the voice of his sister-in-law, Merissa, come across his cell. She’d called during his lunch break to wish him a happy new year and to beg him to come to his niece’s unveiling next year. “Gracie’s unveiling is next month, and Adam and I want you to be there. We’re coming to Cincinnati. I know you still miss her. We all do, but…”
    “Fine,” Rafe said. “I’ll come to the unveiling. We can even have lunch afterward at my house. I just don’t know why you and Adam had to…” He stopped himself. He wasn’t getting into a confrontation with his sister-in-law, or his brother. He knew they’d left town because if they had stayed, Adam would most likely have lost his job as a reporter for daily paper.  Rafe had loved his niece, Gracie, but when the teenager had died of leukemia at the age of fourteen, he hadn’t been able to understand. 
    He tried to block out the unpleasantness of dealing with his Uncle Moe’s death, as well as Gracie’s, by surrounding himself with his favorite things like chestnut sauce over vanilla ice cream as well as good music and season tickets to the Reds home games. He sought out people who made him laugh, which was why he found Dina Edelman’s job as a grief counselor depressing. Yet he had a “date” with her for New Year’s Eve. She had possibilities.
    Now his sister-in-law was calling and wanting him to come to Gracie’s unveiling. Reality hit him in the face, and he couldn’t find one thing funny about her phone call.
    “Never mind. I’ll see you next month if I don’t talk to you sooner.”
    “Great!” Merissa said. “Oh, Rafe, I’m so happy you’ll be there. Gracie loved you so much. By the way, Adam and I might have some good news for you when we get to Cincinnati.”
    The only good news that would make him happy would be to find out his niece wasn’t really dead. Of course, things like that only happened on soap operas or in movies. This was real life; Gracie wasn’t coming back. “I loved her, too,” Rafe said. “I’m anxious to hear your good news. I’d better get going. I’ve got a date later and…”
    Merissa’s cheerful tone made him want to get off the phone. “You’ve got a date for New Year’s Eve? Are you serious? Did you meet her at the singles dinner thing you organized?  What’s she like? I’m so glad you’re socializing again! I thought I was going to have to nominate you to be on