Page 34 of Beach Bodies


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Getting through checkout as quickly as she could before her mother reappeared, Lisa wondered when she had started to feel like a prisoner in her hometown.

A mile away, Shelly Markham finished up charting on the last patient of the day. She was leaving the hospital early; after Alan’s disclosure about having an affair with his best friend’s wife, she couldn’t shake her despair. It was the icing on the cake of her worries. This information about Alan just added to the pain she felt about her relationship with him.

Until recently, Alan had been her rock. Shelly had a cunning sixth sense. In nursing, it had served her over and over, revealing issues that others had failed to see in their patients. The sixth sense had worked against her in relationships, however, because she saw every flaw and shortcoming. For some reason, she’d attracted losers in the past, and no one had ever shown any interest in marriage or starting a family. At the start of their romance, Alan had been everything she’d ever wanted in a guy: a successful detective, handsome, giving in bed, goal oriented, and stable.

They’d met at a wedding reception the previous summer; Alan had been a guest and she a bridesmaid, although Shelly had felt she was getting a little old to be in the wedding party. The dress was the least hideous bridesmaid dress she’d worn, and she’d been a bridesmaid several times. Before the bride’s turn down the aisle, the bridesmaids had theirs, and the first face Shelly had laid eyes on was Alan Stone’s, grinning at her with a huge smile.

During the ceremony, she felt his eyes on her, and she couldn’t wait for the reception, hoping he was going to be there.

“I debated ducking out of this until I saw you,” he said. “Then I knew I had to stay, to at least see if I could catch your eye.”

“You caught it,” she said. “This might be the first wedding I don’t regret standing in. Shelly Markham,” she said, smiling up at him.

“Alan Stone. Can you join me?” He nodded to his table.

“As soon as we’re through with the speeches, I’ll be right over. Don’t disappear on me.”

They ate the meal together, and then, when the music started, she danced every dance with him.

“What do you do for a living?” she asked.

“I’m a cop,” he said. “Homicide detective, Babylon PD.”

“I love cops!”

“Ha! What about you?”

“I’m an ER nurse at the medical center. Are we cliché or what?”

“I love it,” he said. “I thought you looked familiar. I’ve probably seen you a hundred times.”

“I wear my hair up when I’m working, no makeup, and scrubs.”

At the end of the evening, when they could escape without offending anyone, she gathered her belongings from the back of the hall and met him at his car in the parking lot.

“Do you want to go to my house to change?” he asked. “I’m ready to get a real meal.”

“I’d love it.”

His house was in an area that was revitalizing. Signs of rehabilitation were everywhere. His little bungalow had all the state-of-the-art alarm systems.

“Is it necessary here?” she asked, grimacing.

“It is. I’m a pioneer,” he said, laughing. “It’s getting better, more homeowners, fewer squatters.”

Inside, he showed her to the guest bathroom and bedroom, where she could have privacy to change into shorts and a T-shirt.

“Wow,” he said when she walked out. “I thought you were gorgeous in the gown, but in shorts, you are a knockout.”

Tall and lanky, with a flat chest and rear to match, her body type wasn’t exactly his preference, but she was beautiful.

“Ha! Thank you.” She had to keep from putting herself down. If he thought she was good-looking, who was she to refute that? “I’m glad you think so.”

He’d changed into madras shorts and a ratty rugby shirt, making her laugh.

“You look like a college boy.”

“My wardrobe is mostly crap from those days and the business suits I wear to work. Your hair is fabulous,” he said, running his hands through her long auburn curls.

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