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Carolina Moon

Carolina Moon

Titel: Carolina Moon Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Nora Roberts
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list, one she would take to the hardware store, when someone tapped on the cracked glass of the shop door.
    She studied the spare man in workman’s clothes as she approached. Dark hair, well cut, a smooth, handsome face with an easy, crooked smile. Sunglasses hid his eyes.
    “I’m sorry. I’m not open,” she said as she opened the door.
    “Looks like you could use a carpenter.” He tapped his finger at the crack again. “And a glass man. How’s it going, Tory?” He took off his sunglasses, revealing dark, intense eyes, and a tiny hook-shaped scar just under the right one. “Dwight Frazier.”
    “I didn’t recognize you.”
    “Few inches taller, several pounds lighter than the last time you saw me. Thought I should come by, welcome you as mayor, and shift hats to see if there’s anything Frazier Construction can do for you. Mind if I come in a minute?”
    “Oh, sure.” She stepped back. “Nothing much to see just now.”
    “It’s a good space.”
    He moved well, she noted. Not at all like the awkward, chubby boy he’d been. The braces were gone, and so was the ruthless buzz cut his father had insisted on.
    He looked fit, and he looked prosperous. No, she thought. She wouldn’t have recognized him.
    “It’s a solid building,” he continued, “with a strong foundation. And the roof’s sound.” He turned back, flashing the smile that had helped his orthodontist buy a cabin cruiser. “I should know, we put it on two years back.”
    “Then I’ll know who to come after if it leaks.”
    He laughed and hooked his sunglasses in the collar of his T-shirt. “Frazier builds to last. You’re going to want counters, shelves, displays.”
    “Yes, I was just measuring.”
    “I can send you a good carpenter, at a fair rate.”
    It was smart, and again political, to use local labor. If, she thought, local labor met her budget. “Well, your idea of a fair rate and mine might not connect.”
    His grin was lightning and full of charm. “Tell you what. Let me get some things out of my truck. You can tell me what you’ve got in mind, and I’ll give you an estimate. We’ll see if we can make them connect.”
    He was aware she was measuring him, even as he measured her walls. He was used to it. As a boy, his father had measured him, and had forever found him just short of the mark.
    Dwight Frazier, ex-marine, avid hunter, town councilman, and founder of Frazier Construction, had high standards for the fruit of his loins. His disappointment when that fruit had turned out undersized and soft had been keen.
    Young Dwight Junior had never been allowed to forget it.
    The truth was, Dwight mused, as he scribbled numbers on his clipboard, he had been short of the mark. Short, fat, clumsy, he’d been a prime candidate for jokes and sneers, and his father’s tight-lipped disappointment.
    Worse, he’d had a brain. As a boy, there was no more deadly combination than a pudgy body, clumsy feet, and a sharp brain. He’d been the darling of his teachers, which meant he might as well have painted a kick-my-ass sign on his back.
    His mother had struggled to make up for it the best way she knew how. By shoving food in his face. There was nothing like a box of Ho Ho’s, in his dear mama’s thinking, to make all right with the world again.
    His salvation had been Cade and Wade. Why they’d befriended him had never made full sense to Dwight. Class had been part of it. They had come from three of the town’s most prominent families. For that he had been, and continued to be, grateful.
    Perhaps there was, still, a tiny splinter of resentment in his gut over the whims of fate that had made those two tall, handsome, and agile, while he’d been plump, plain, and awkward. But he’d made up for it. In spades.
    “I started running when I was fourteen.” He said it casually as he drew out his measuring tape again.
    “Excuse me?”
    “You’re wondering.” He crouched, noted on his pad again. “Got sick of being the fat kid and decided to do something about it. Took off twelve pounds of blubber in a couple of months. First few times I ran, I did it at night when no one could see me. I got sick as three dogs. Stopped eating the cupcakes and candy bars and chips my mother packed in my lunch every day. Thought I’d starve to death.”
    He rose, flashed his grin again. “First year of high school I started going out to the track at night, running there. I was still overweight, still slow, but I didn’t puke up dinner

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