Free Fated by Allyson Young

FATED
     
    Marking Time, 2
     
    Allyson Young
     
    Copyright
© 2014
     
     
     
    Chapter One
     
    Candy Grant stared down at her
phone, setting it on the front counter of her boutique, all the while blinking
furiously against the moisture threatening to spill over her lower lids and
drag her carefully applied mascara in dirty rivulets over her cheeks. That
wouldn’t do. Not only did she have customers perusing the high priced items
stocking the shelves, but her tears would signify both envy and ridiculous self-pity,
two emotions she wasn’t going to let herself sink into.
One errant tear somehow escaped, fortunately from the eye further away from the
clientele, and she dashed it harmlessly aside, rubbing her dampened finger
against her skirt.
    The Russell brothers had obviously
figured out they’d driven away the best thing that could ever have happened to
them, and she could picture them in hot pursuit of her best friend, Sinclair
Renton. A smug smile, in direct contrast to her previous emotional reaction,
twitched her lips, and she could only picture Sinclair’s mixed reaction when
they caught up with her. Candy had total faith they’d work it out, and her
friend wouldn’t blame Candy for snitching on her. Besides, who ran away on a
bus? To Canada ? What about the fact Candy had had to make do with email and phone contact for
all those years while Sinclair was away at school? It was high time her best
friend stayed home so they could spend more time together. That was, if Craig
and Ashton ever let Sinclair out of their bed.
    Pushing away thoughts of the
presumably happy threesome, Candy turned her attention to the immediate present.
She’d decided to close a little early, and head out of town and hit a club in Sheridan , nearly a two
hour drive away. Not really qualifying as a city, but at least it wasn’t here, and far
enough from here to give her some anonymity.
Lord knew her small town kept no secrets, and the county wasn’t any better. Her
daddy’s money and status focused more attention on Candy than she preferred,
especially when it curtailed her activities and carried tales back to her
father, who was big on presenting a shiny image to the public. But that money
also enabled her to dabble in things that interested her, like Sweet ’n Sassy
Things, her boutique, a storefront that brought a little class to small town
Barrister. And, she fervently hoped, some excitement.
    With another smirk, she watched old
Mrs. Leffert heft a gorgeous piece of sculpture, a
well turned piece of erotic bronze that would set any red-blooded, heterosexual
woman’s blood heating. Mrs. L ran a thorny finger down the muscled back of the male
cast in the age-old pose of coitus, his partner a lithe beauty, writhing
beneath him. It was the gorgeous strain on his features, and the pleasured
agony wrought on the woman’s face that told the true story, however. Not
pornography. Not even close. Candy wished someone would gaze upon her with that
kind of love and devotion to her pleasure, and her heart actually ached at the idea.
She thought someone had, once upon a time, and hadn’t been able to forget him.
    An image of a scowling face, craggy
brows drawn together over a pair of piercing green eyes filled her mind’s eye. Before
she allowed herself to recall a finely crafted, sensuous mouth, Candy jerked
into action.
    “May I be of help?”
    Mrs. L twitched, her stooping
shoulders beneath the floral print of her dress dropping another inch before
she faced Candy. The older woman’s face wasn’t pinched with judgment or
distaste, although her pale eyes might have flickered with guilt or
embarrassment.
    “This is beautiful, my dear.”
    “It is.” It was easy to agree when
Mrs. L spoke the truth, but Candy wanted to ease her out of the shop, along
with the two other women examining some diaphanous lingerie in the far corner.
    “I’ll take it.” That was a
surprise. The bronze wasn’t priced cheaply.
    With what she hoped passed