Secrets in the Sand - Carolyn Brown Page 0,25
to work.”
***
At five thirty, Angel got into the elevator, pushed the button for the first floor, and found all her friends waiting in the lobby.
They chatted about Red coming back to Texas and how they were glad Angel hadn’t caved and sold him their office spaces. When they reached the Italian restaurant on the other end of the block, the waitress seated them at the back and brought a menu. There was something about the way the other five kept exchanging long looks that told Angel something was going on. She looked at Susan’s face first, knowing full well her friend couldn’t keep a secret in a bucket with a lid on it. She shifted her focus over to Patty to find her eyes were twinkling, and just as Angel shifted her gaze to Mindy, she caught her winking at Allie. Bonnie was the only one who didn’t act as if she were sitting on a keg of dynamite with a short fuse.
Angel pursed her lips and said, “Okay. ’Fess up. What’s going on?”
Bonnie produced a big yellow envelope and they all yelled, “Surprise!”
“We’ve got an early birthday present for you. Lord knows you deserve it, but you wouldn’t think of doing it for yourself, so we bought it for you. You’re going to Panama City Beach, Florida, for two weeks, to a beachfront motel. Your room has a balcony where you can sit out and listen to the ocean waves come in and smell the salty air. When you get bored with that, you can put on your bathing suit, sink your toes in the warm sand, and lay out on the beach until some knight in shining armor comes racing down the beach on his big white four-wheeler and steals your heart away. But remember, it’s only for two weeks. If he wants you to run off to a castle in France, the answer is no, because at the end of that time, you’ve got to come back to Conrad Oil and go back to work!”
Angel’s eyes misted. That they were thinking of her was so sweet, but she did not intend to leave her business or her friends for two weeks.
“You’re all sweethearts.” She unfolded the napkin at her fingertips and dabbed at the tears, leaving a black mascara smudge on it. “But the answer is no. I can’t stand to be away from you all for that long.”
“Bull,” Patty said. “And we didn’t ask a question so you can’t answer no. You’re goin’ to be on that plane if I have to hog-tie you and hire some beach bum that looks just like Kenny Chesney to throw your body over his shoulder and put you in the plane seat.”
“You know how much I like Kenny’s singing, but the answer is still no,” Angel argued.
“You need to unwind. There are plane tickets and reservations for the motel, and I took your business papers out of your briefcase and put in three trashy romance novels. You’re goin’ home tonight to pack, and we don’t want to see your face at the office until two weeks from Wednesday. I’ll even drive you to the airport,” Patty told her. “Everything’s taken care of.”
Bonnie slid the envelope with the plane tickets across the table. “Happy birthday, Angel. Go down there and find a handsome guy to make your eyes sparkle and your heart float. You’ve got all the money you’ll ever need, so you don’t have to look for a rich man.”
“Thanks a lot.” Angel sighed. There was no getting out of it, so she might as well accept their offer. She’d flown all over the United States and abroad but had never dreamed of doing anything this self-indulgent. Lie on a beach somewhere with a trashy book and read to her heart’s content?
She started to refuse—just one more time. “Now, you know I love you all—”
“Good,” Allie butted in. “That’s all the thanks we need to hear. I vote we order a bottle of sparkling wine to celebrate. I can’t drink it, but I can enjoy watching y’all have a glass. And I’ll be taking time off when this baby is born, and I betcha Bonnie’s going to ask for a couple of weeks off for a honeymoon soon, so right now it’s your turn, Angel, and you can’t say no. We love you too.”
Angel decided to give up arguing. She reached for the envelope and promised herself she would indulge her well-meaning friends and go—but she’d only stay until