Wynn in Doubt Read Online Free

good to see you.”
    I don’t know words or how to make my mouth work.
    Oliver nods. The smile slips a bit from his face. “So how long have you worked here?”
    What is work? Who works? Me?
    The smile falls into a mildly polite grimace. “I just got back a few days ago. Staying with my parents until I can wrap my head around everything that’s gone on the last few weeks. Maybe you’ve heard?”
    I open my mouth and Oliver perks up, no doubt waiting for me to say something, anything. But my tongue weighs a hundred pounds, so I just swallow and continue to stare at him.
    He pushes a hand against the short crop of black hair on his head. We stand across from one another in complete and utter silence. After years of imagining running into him on the streets of Paris, fresh from my triumphant lecture at the Sorbonne, the reality of meeting him while unearthing a bag of nacho cheese from the deep freezer at Lucky’s Bar seems too unfair to be real.
    “I should get back.” He thumbs at the door over his shoulder. “Lucky’s got me bartending for some insane reason. I don’t know the first thing about mixing drinks. I just keep giving everyone who orders anything a beer.” His laugh is exactly like I remember. Full and uninhibited.
    He steps forward as though he’s going to hug me again, but changes his mind halfway. Instead, his hand connects with my arm, just below the shoulder, and he slaps me lightly a few times. It is the most unbearably awkward, exhilarating moment of my life.
    As he pushes open the swinging door, I finally find my voice. “It’s just that the last time we talked . . .”
    He turns to me. His eyes move down my face and settle on my lips. “I kissed you.”
    I hold my breath and nod in agreement.
    Smile gone, he turns his gaze to mine. “I remember.” Then Oliver Reeves disappears behind a swish of white plywood, leaving me standing beside an open freezer with my heart in my throat.

    “He looked at her the way all women want to be looked at by a man.” Boy, you got that right, Fitzgerald. I run a finger over the imprint of letters. Mesmerized not by the beauty of the words, but by the thought that my Grams might have read them. I close the delicate cover of The Great Gatsby and place it beside me on the bed.
    So he remembers the kiss. Does he also remember the gangly, dorky, unblossomed girl attached to those lips? No doubt I left him in a state of lustful frenzy tonight with the way I fought to pull open the door marked “Push.”
    Oh, yes, a Fitzgerald heroine if there ever was one—never mind the soiled shoes and the inability to open well-marked doors. And the shockingly inappropriate response to polite conversation. Save for those minor things, of course.
    From my spot beneath the lilac-colored duvet, I spy the neck of last night’s champagne bottle sitting in the sink. It’s possible there’s another swig or two. I throw the covers off and roll to the floor. My grandmother’s book falls onto the scored hardwood, landing open. A yellowed scrap of paper is wedged between the pages. I pull it out and carefully unfold it. It looks like newspaper, stiff and brittle with age.
    I turn on the lamp on the small desk near my bed. The article has clearly been cut out of some periodical, although I can’t tell which one. I lower my face to the print and squint to read it.
BARDSTOWN, KY. 1931, August 18 (Special)—Federal Treasury authorities, working with the Nelson County Sheriff’s Department, Monday, Aug. 17, arrested Michael Albert Craig and Lola Elizabeth Harrison, a single woman, east of Bardstown on Bloomfield Road just before five a.m. Mr. Craig was thought to be transporting illegal alcohol. Federal agents, acting on an anonymous tip, apprehended the suspects after the car, a 1926 Ford Model T, was disabled by a road snare set by police. No persons were reported injured.
A dozen pints of corn whiskey were discovered beneath the lining of the rear seat, which had been hollowed