Page 5 of Vodka and Chocolate Drops

“I think I should avoid town for a while.”

“The community will side with you--you’re one of us.”

“I don’t want them to side with me, I want them to pretend nothing happened in my life over the past year. That Russell never existed.”

The hurt and humiliation at what Russell had done seared through her once again. In a city, something like this was no big deal. It would be in the papers for a day or two, then drift away. But in a town such as Blueberry Springs, the fact that she was in a book would follow her forever. Add in that Russell had kept secrets from her, and she’d destroyed his well-known writing cave in return, and she was going to be the topic of some pretty hot gossip from now until she lucked out and an alien invasion overshadowed her life.

“Amber…” Scott’s voice was rough.

“You don’t understand.” Sudden anger ripped through her. There was no way a man like Scott could ever even begin to understand what she was feeling. “This kind of stuff will never happen to you. You date Wonder Women. You’re perfect. Kind.”

Scott simply took her hand, leading her toward his truck.

She slipped from his grip, softening the physical rejection by tentatively placing her palm against his chest, stopping him from herding her toward his vehicle. “People expect great things from you, and you pull through every time. You’re a perfect catch, Scott. A perfect man for any woman lucky enough to snag your affection. I truly hope you never understand what my day has been like, but don’t say you understand or that I’m overreacting.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. Russell wasn’t…” She could see Scott fighting with the urge to say something unkind about her ex. “He didn’t deserve you. He never did.”

Amber swallowed a lump in her throat, which she figured was the last of her pride. “I made myself try when a part of me knew all along that he wasn’t the real deal. I blinded myself to what was really going on.”

How could she blame Russell for walking all over her when she’d all but put out a welcome mat? She’d known and yet she’d still hoped, like the foolish woman she was.

Scott wrapped his hand around the one she still held against his chest.

She tipped her chin up so tears wouldn’t fall, trying to be strong and brave--the kind of woman her best friend respected and didn’t pity.

“Starting now, Amber Thompson’s eyes will be kept wide-open,” she said. “No more ignoring facts. No more surprises. No more secrets.”

* * *

A sedan pulledup the driveway and Amber walked outside, heading off Mary Alice and her sister, Liz, the town’s two biggest gossips. They were peering over the edge of the gulch at the tendrils of smoke. Gossip time.

Amber had managed to dodge Scott’s meat loaf offer and had instead spent the past half hour prepping herself for the inevitable onslaught of gossipers. She planned to downplay what had happened here and on TV. She would control the message and image they spread about her and her failed relationship with Russell.

Easy.

“Hey, what’s up?” she called, running her hands down the thighs of her jeans as she met up with them on the driveway.

“Amber, hon.” Mary Alice pulled her into a massive hug, squeezing her against her massive bosom, a tin of mints digging into Amber’s collarbone through their jackets. The woman didn’t smell like herself without her usual cigarette scent, but she’d given it up after a medical scare earlier that year.

Amber broke free, rubbing the sore spot. “Mary Alice, you have to stop carrying mints in your bra. You’re a danger to all that you hug and you hug aplenty.”

Liz asked Amber, “Are you okay?”

“It’s just a bruise,” she replied, rubbing the spot.

“I meant…” Liz gestured to the cliff “…what happened?”

“Oh, just a mishap,” she said dismissively. This was where she had to tread carefully. Anything she said to Liz could end up in the local paper, seeing as the woman wrote articles for them when she wasn’t working in John Abcott’s law office.

“We brought you some food,” Mary Alice said, directing Amber to the sedan, which was hopefully loaded to the gills with chocolate. “We’ll feed you and get you feeling as right as rain again.”

“Actually, I’m okay,” Amber replied.

“I read Russell’s new book today,” Liz said. “But I really don’t understand you running his ‘writing cave,’ as he called it, over the side of the mountain. Seems a bit much.”

It was a trap. Liz wanted her to defend herself and in the process tell her too much.

“It was an accident,” Amber said carefully. “I was trying to move it for him.”

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