Talk of the Town Read Online Free

right smack in themiddle of Mayberry, USA. Main Street. It really was Main Street! Colorful fall maple trees lined both sides of the road. There was Miller’s Hardware, Van Decker’s Ice-Cream Parlor, Esther’s Fabrics, and Cora’s Café. From where she stood she could even see a movie theater marquis with DORIS DAY ROCK HUDSON PILLOW TALK in large black letters.
    Kelly stood on the clean sidewalk and gawked like a country hick come to New York City for the first time, only in reverse. There should be a sign that read WELCOME TO THE TWILIGHT ZONE .

Chapter 2
    Sam Grayson scanned through the “Woman Seeks Man” ads in the Seattle Weekly, a yellow highlighter poised for action.
    SWF, 27, HWP, Seeks SWM HWP no STD’s for possible commitment. Must be open to interesting combination sex and leather.
    Possible commitment to what, the nuthouse? Maybe he was going about this the wrong way. Maybe he should write his own. He set his highlighter down and took up his best black pen and a legal pad:
    Regular Guy, 32, 6'2" HWP, seeks regular girl to settle down and have some kids. No drugs, no bugs, no trouble !
    Well, that was sixty-eight dollars’ worth. Heshould have done this in Philly. Maybe then he wouldn’t have ended up engaged to Chelsea.
    No, that wasn’t fair. Chelsea had looked and acted perfectly normal when he met her. Okay, a little wild, a little bipolar, but that passed for fun at first, like a roller coaster ride. Trouble is, roller coasters lose their thrill after too many trips and just make you dizzy and sick and boy do you want to get off the ride.
    Sam drew geometric cubes on the side of his paper. Chelsea had some great qualities. But her party never ended. Maybe if he hadn’t been so immersed in his law career, he would have seen her heading for a fall.
    He sure didn’t blame her for breaking up with him. He wanted to settle down, she didn’t. He was ready to go to work. It was her last year at the University of Pennsylvania, and she was out to party. That was never so clear as when Chelsea got herself arrested for driving under the influence. Then Chelsea’s party came to an abrupt stop.
    Sam still couldn’t believe he’d ended up being the public defender assigned to Chelsea’s case when Chelsea’s society parents wrote her off and left her with no funds for legal counsel. He’d thought he could have gotten her off on a first offense with probation and treatment, but uppopped her prior conviction. How he hated surprises like that.
    He would never forget the look on her face as she heard the stiff sentence. There wasn’t much he could have done. They were in the hands of a no-nonsense judge, she had caused an accident, and hey, she obviously needed a wake-up call. Even so, there is nothing quite like seeing your former fiancée handcuffed and taken out of the courtroom. The backward glance she had given him—he would have to live with that forever.
    It bothered him that he hadn’t seen Chelsea’s growing problem with alcohol. If he’d only known about her past, he would have kept an eye on her or encouraged her to get help. But then again, they had already broken up when he got the call to defend her.
    Sam stood and paced the length of his office to the large window. He could see the whole of town from his sixth-floor viewpoint. At seven stories, the building that housed the law firm of Grayson and Grayson was the tallest building in town.
    He was happy with the decision he’d made to come back home. Sure, it was partly because of what had happened with Chelsea, but it was also because of his growing distaste for big-city law and big-city life. He wanted to shake off the pastand focus on his future in Paradise. He wanted to contribute to the community in a big way.
    Paradise was like swimming a perfect, easy lap. Just smooth water. Even his legal cases were easy: wills and estate planning, with an occasional property dispute that seemed to resolve quickly with his guidance. All that was