Free A Daring Vow (Vows) by Sherryl Woods

back, if not her old lover.
    She made it through the first week and then the second. By the third she was ready to admit that this had been the third worst mistake of her life. The first had been falling in love with Taylor all those years ago. The second had been not getting over him.
    She ought to quit. She sat at the computer, glaring at his office, and tried to convince herself to walk out and go back to Los Angeles where life was far less complicated.
    “You are not a quitter,” she snapped finally. “You are not.”
    Suddenly she realized she was not alone. She looked up from her computer and caught Taylor watching her with something akin to longing on his face. It was the first tangible sign she’d had that he didn’t outright loathe her for putting them both into this awkward situation.
    “Is everything okay?” she asked, her voice far too breathless to suit her. Obviously she was reading too much into that unguarded expression she’d just witnessed, an expression that had vanished faster than a wisp of smoke.
    “I suppose I was just wondering why I never realized you were so…” He fumbled for a word.
    “Smart? Responsible?” Zelda supplied with an automatic edge of sarcasm. Then her innate good humor crept in. Her tone lighter, she taunted, “It’s hard to pick up on things like that when you’re skinny-dipping at one in the morning or sneaking into Sarah Lynn’s to make ice-cream sundaes in the dark.”
    Taylor’s gaze softened. His chuckle crept in and, like a touch of spring air, it warmed her heart.
    “It’s a good thing Sarah Lynn has a forgiving nature, or we’d have served time for that one,” he said.
    “It was still the best hot-fudge sundae I ever had,” she replied, unable to keep the wistful note from her voice.
    A smile tilted the corners of his mouth, then disappeared in a beat. “Yeah, me, too.”
    While Zelda stared after him with her heart thudding, he quietly closed the door to his office. Now what, she wondered, was that all about?

Chapter Six
    T hat fleeting moment under Taylor’s speculative gaze was the last straw. He’d looked so lost, so lonely in that one instant when his expression hadn’t been guarded. Why? What had happened to him over the past ten years to rob him of the zest for living they had once shared?
    Darlene had already whetted Zelda’s curiosity about what had gone on in Taylor’s life while she’d been in Los Angeles. No one so far had satisfied that curiosity, and she had never tolerated secrets very well. Maybe that’s why she’d taken the paralegal courses, so she could be in a profession that allowed her to probe behind the facade most people displayed to the public and get at the truth of their lives.
    Her one attempt to get Taylor to say anything about his marriage had failed miserably. Obviously if she was going to learn a thing, someone else would have to be the one to tell her. She sorted through the possibilities and picked Elsie Whittingham.
    Elsie was lonely. She liked to talk. She had once provided an after-school refuge for Zelda. And she knew more about what went on in Port William than any other ten people combined, with the possible exception of Sarah Lynn. Zelda didn’t dare ask her old friend. Sarah Lynn might care about Zelda as if she were her own daughter, but she was also loyal to Taylor. Zelda didn’t want to test that loyalty.
    That night on her way home from work, she stopped by Elsie’s for a glass of lemonade and some of her homemade gingersnaps. It wasn’t the first time she’d dropped in unannounced, acting on an old habit from childhood. But this evening was the first time she’d shown any interest in lingering beyond a few polite minutes. Elsie beamed as Zelda settled in a chair in front of the fireplace and sipped on her second glass of lemonade.
    “First fire of the season,” Elsie said. “There’s a real bite in the air tonight.”
    “Feels good,” Zelda said, referring as much to the chill outside