Once Tempted A Silver Creek Novel [Paperback]

USLaura Moorelives in Rhode Island with her husband, two children, and their Labrador retriever.Chapter One

Her husband was dead and she couldn’t cry.

Tess Casari clutched the phone. “Anna, it’s me. It’s over. David died two days ago.”

“Oh, Tess! I’m sorry. Where are you?”

“At my parents’. I needed to break the news and there was stuff I had to arrange—”

“Do you want me to come over? Or would you like to get away for a while? Giorgio is covering tonight’s event so I have the night off.” Giorgio Bissi was the manager of La Dolce Vita, the events planning company where both Anna and Tess worked—rather, where Tess had worked until two months ago.

“I’ll come to your place. It’s been rough going. But I don’t want to talk about it in front of Mom and Dad. You understand.”

“Of course.” Anna’s voice was a well of sympathy. “Come as quickly as you can. There haven’t been too many delays on the lines lately.”

Having grown up in the same neighborhood in Astoria as Tess, Anna knew to the minute how long the subway ride to Manhattan from Queens would be, coupled with a quick walk to the brownstone apartment on Sixty-Second between Second and First Avenues. That’s where Anna lived with her boyfriend, Lucas, an associate at a law firm who logged insanely long hours.

Forty-five minutes later, Tess was outside Anna’s building and shivering despite the unseasonably mild December evening. Distracted as she was, she’d left her parents’ house without thinking to put a coat on over her long sweater and leggings. She pressed the button for apartment number three and Anna’s voice came over the intercom.

“I’m here,” Tess said and was buzzed inside. She stepped into a small entry hall illuminated by a shiny brl£Ç