Everyone She Loved
A Novel
Chapter One
Eight years after signing the codicil to her best friend's will, Lucy Vargas was celebrating her fortieth birthday with her closest companions and one perfect stranger. The stranger, a dance instructor and nutritionist who worked at the town's newest fitness franchise, had been picked up along with the gift Lucy was opening, a small bracelet-size box wrapped in gold foil and festooned with white organza ribbon.
The present had been wrapped by Penelope's stepsister, Clover Lindstrom, who was proud of her creativity, and of the guest she'd brought to Lucy's gathering. Who else would have thought of a Kick the Pounds! certificate for a fortieth-birthday gift?
Who else indeed? Lucy was thinking, the color rising in her cheeks, prompting the stranger to wonder if the birthday girl was embarrassed at Clover's generosity.
This question, like so many that the newcomer would raise about Lucy, was completely off the mark.
First of all, Lucy was not a blusher. Her skin, unlike the vast majority of the world's redheads, was the same unruffled bronze as countless generations ... read full excerpt from: Everyone She Loved: 'A Novel ebook
