Free Flamingo Diner by Sherryl Woods Page B

a few years. Don had believed in building up the equity they had in Flamingo Diner. Every spare penny had been put back into the business. That equity ought to be worth something. And it was on a prime piece of real estate now that downtown Winter Cove was turning trendy.
    “I could sell it,” she said slowly.
    “You wouldn’t,” Helen replied with shock.
    “Why wouldn’t I?” Rosa challenged. “Emma and Jeff aren’t interested. That leaves Andy, but why should I tie him down to a business he might not even want? Why not sell it and invest the money?” She was already warming to the idea. In fact, she could move back to Miami to be closer to her sisters. No one there would stare at her with pity the way so many of her friends had today. Of course, she wasn’t as close to her sisters as she was to Helen, Sylvia and Jolie, her three best friends.
    “And do what?” Helen asked. “How would you spend your days?”
    Right now the only thing that appealed to Rosa was sleeping through them. “I’d find plenty to do,” she said confidently. “Especially if I went back to Miami. I could work in my uncle’s restaurant. I could have Sunday dinners with my family, go to Mass at the church where I had my First Communion.”
    And best of all, there were few memories of Don in Miami. They had met there, but the courtship had been brief and tumultuous. Then, immediately after the wedding, they’d moved to Winter Cove andopened Flamingo Diner, using every penny of both their savings to invest in their future.
    Helen was staring at her as if she didn’t even know her. “Would you honestly rip Andy out of school here, just before his senior year? Would you be that selfish?”
    Rosa felt Helen’s jab hit its target. She couldn’t do that to Andy. It would destroy his chances of getting into a good university with the football scholarship they were counting on. She sighed heavily, filled with regret.
    “You’re right,” Rosa admitted reluctantly. “I’d have to wait.” She met Helen’s gaze and added defiantly, “But it’s still something to consider.”
    “If I learned nothing else when Harrison died, I learned that it is not wise to make any sort of major decision when you’re grieving,” Helen told her. “Whatever you do, don’t make any hasty decisions. Promise me.”
    Since Rosa didn’t feel capable of deciding what clothes to put on, much less what to do about the future, she nodded. “I promise.”
    “That’s good, then,” Helen said, linking her arm through Rosa’s. “Now let’s get back out there. This will be over soon.”
    “Not nearly soon enough,” Rosa said grimly.
     
    Matt hovered in the background as the gathering at the Killians’ finally began to wind down. People had been coming and going for a couple of hours now, sharing stories about Don, reminding Emma and her mother of how much Flamingo Diner meant to them. He could see from the weariness in Emma’s eyes and the distance in Rosa’s that the words weren’t reallyregistering. As for Jeff and Andy, they had disappeared back into the tree house. Matt had reassured himself on that point the second he’d realized they were gone. As long as Jeff focused on getting Andy through his grief, he couldn’t be somewhere else getting into the sort of mischief that could ruin his life.
    Matt glanced around at the few remaining guests, most of whom were longtime friends. He wondered if any of them had any inkling of what had gone wrong in Don’s life. If they knew, would they eventually share what they knew with the family, stirring up the doubts about Don’s death that were already plaguing Emma?
    If it was a suicide, then finding a motive wasn’t really his job, but Matt felt compelled to investigate, because Emma wouldn’t be at peace until they had one. She was going to push this, no matter where it led.
    He spotted Gabe Jenkins and Harley Watson huddled together in a corner and wondered if they knew anything about what had