Twice in a Blue Moon Read Online Free Page A

graced every flat surface. The air was close and stale, smelling of garbage. Barney snapped at a buzzing fly.
    All the pain she’d held inside since Harry’s death gathered, filling every space in her body, pushing, pushing. Every slight, every abuse, every loss started to boil. Her skin tightened in an attempt to contain it, but the pressure built in her soft parts—in her gut, behind her eyes.
    She clapped her hands over her ears as the pressure exploded from her in a howl of pain. “Getout-getout-getout. Get out before I kill you!”
    Delaney flinched, his mouth open.
    Barnabas threw his head back and howled, raising the hair on her arms.
    Delaney scrambled, snatching clothes from the furniture, stumbling between the bathroom and the bedroom.
    She couldn’t watch. Couldn’t bear seeing the rest of the house just yet. Sinking to her knees, she gathered Barney in her arms, but the dog wouldn’t be consoled. His howls echoed through the large two-story room as if he, too, were pouring out his grief. She rocked him in shaking arms, whispering to him in an attempt to calm them both.
    Delaney shuffled back and forth, loaded down with boxes, clothes hanging out of them. She wasn’t letting go of Barney to look through them. Knowing firsthand how demeaning that was, she couldn’t do it to another human being, even someone as useless as this manager.
    Besides, everything precious had already been taken.

CHAPTER TWO
    F ROM THE PORCH , Indigo watched the ex-manager’s rattletrap truck pull out onto the road below. “Well, it’s up to you and me now, Barn.”
    The dog lifted his mournful face.
    â€œCheer up, bud. We may suck at making decisions, but we can’t do worse than
that
guy.”
    A lead blanket of responsibility dropped onto her shoulders, making it hard to draw a full breath. No one to look to. No one to call. The success or failure of Harry’s last lifeline was in her hands. Her incompetent hands.
    Oh, come on. You’re not totally clueless. After all, you’ve run your own yoga business.
    A tattered remnant of a memory floated through her mind, of a carmine-red scrap of a dress that had cost her more than a good chunk of her bank account.
    Yes, and that worked out so well.
She slammed her mind shut on it.
    She should start shoveling out the cabin. Turning, she stepped to the open door, then hesitated. The sun dipped below the edge of the world. The breeze blew colder than it had a moment ago. The dark played in the straggling vines, and she thought she heard the scurrying of rat-like claws in the dirt.
    Ghosts whispered from the open doorway.
    Blue? She’s a little chit, but I’m just glad to see Harry’s still got the interest.
    He’ll tire of her. Smart men always do, once they start thinking with their bigger head.
    You were less than nothing before you met my dad. You’re now free to go back to that.
    The ghosts chuckled, breathing the smell of boozy sweat-stained sheets and failure into her face. Turning her back on the past, she blindly reached for the knob and shut the door.
    She’d deal with the cabin when she felt stronger. “Let’s go, Barn.”
    As they walked down the hill to the winery, a white panel van pulled into the parking lot, the name of the air-conditioning company she’d called on its side.
    The dog woofed.
    â€œIt’s okay, Barn. The cavalry drives panel trucks nowadays.” She unlocked the front doors for the repairman, but that was about all the help she could render, having no idea what a compressor looked like, much less where it was located. She told him where she’d be and left him to it, imagining dollars ticking by on a taxi’s meter.
    She and Barn walked through the tasting room and took the door on the left that led the way to the manager’s quarters. She shot a glance to the ceiling. “Oh please, God, I can’t take any more today.” Bracing herself