Fiancé at Her Fingertips Read Online Free

Bureau. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” she gushed.
    The young secretary looked up, eyes wide in a “do I know you?” look. “Uh, it’s a Monday, and it’s pouring out there,” she said. “What’s so beautiful about that?”
    Debra laughed. “I wonder who woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, Tanya? Let’s see a smile there.” She squeezed the girl’s mouth between her thumb and forefinger. “Come on, now. You can do it. Let’s see a smile.”
    The receptionist slapped her hand away. “Since when are you all of a sudden a smile broker? Next to you, Oscar the Grouch is a regular little Mary Sunshine.”
    Debra grinned. “Maybe I’ve had a change of heart,” she said.
    “Yeah, and maybe I still believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, that bikini waxes don’t hurt, and that men can not only spell ‘monogamous,’ but actually be it.” Tanya snorted, her bitterness evident. She’d just recently broken up with her boyfriend.
    “Ho, ho, ho,” Debra said, mimicking Santa Claus, for lack of an appropriate response. “By the way, do I have any messages?”
    Tanya’s brow wrinkled. “It’s seven thirty. We don’t start answering the phones around here till eight. Why? Were you expecting a call?”
    Debra shook her head. “Just checking. I’ll be doing paperwork in my office all morning.”
    “Yeah. So?”
    “So, just keeping you informed, that’s all.”
    With a smile, Debra made her way down the hall to her office and greeted other early arrivals to work, aware of Tanya’s puzzled gaze on the back of her head the whole way.
    The morning flew by. Debra spent several hours on the phone conferring with various county attorneys’ offices on restitution amounts for a number of pending cases. She also contacted several clients for additional information and clarification of claims they had submitted to the bureau for reimbursement. Close to noon, Debra stretched and, noting the time, grabbed her handbag. Act one, scene three, of Debra’s Bogus Boyfriend was about to begin.
    She swept out of her office, a spring in her step, a new buoyancy to her stride. Coming to a sudden stop, she looked down to make sure that her own feet were actually the ones supporting her. She wiggled her toes. Yep. Hers. And darn it all if she wasn’t bouncing. She’d never bounced in her life. Unless, of course, one counted bouncing a basketball. She shrugged.
    “I’m heading to lunch,” she announced to Tanya.
    The receptionist did a classic double take. “Uh, you’re going out for lunch?”
    Debra nodded. “Yes. As in, Debra Daniels has left the building.”
    “You’re not working through your lunch hour?”
    “Not today. I’ll be back in an hour.”
    “An hour? You’re taking a whole, entire hour?”
    “Isn’t that the customary lunch break?”
    “Well, yeah, but you never take a whole hour. You pretty much just grab something from one of the machines in vendoland and scarf it at your desk.”
    Debra lifted one eyebrow and shrugged. “I guess I’m changing,” she said. “Growing. I want to take some time to stop and smell the roses.”
    “You’re going out in that downpour to smell roses?”
    Debra almost grimaced at the astonishment in the girl’s voice. Had she really been such a stick in the mud? “I’m going out for lunch. Get used to it, Miss Templeton. You see before you a new woman.”
    Tanya’s eyes narrowed. “Ah. Well, can I sign the new Deb Daniels up as committee chair to or ganize and plan the office Christmas party this year? Everyone else in the office has done it at least twice, with the exception of the former Ms. Daniels, who always arrives unfashionably late and leaves unforgivably early.”
    Debra’s smile lost a bit of its perkiness. “Sure. Absolutely,” she made herself respond. “Sign me up. Put me down. I’d be happy to help out this year.”
    Tanya’s eyes almost crossed. “Uh, oo -kay.”
    “Anything else before I leave?”
    Tanya considered her