"Bennett, Cherie - Sunset Island 009 - Sunset Scandal" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bennett Cherie)

"I didn't even know Trent had a drinking problem," Carrie said.
"Neither did I," Emma admitted. "I mean, I knew he drank a lot, but so do a lot of people. That doesn't make them alcoholics."
"Sometimes the person doing the drinking
is the last one to know," Sam said meaningfully.
Emma got the message. When the problems with her parents had gotten worse, she'd starting drinking wine. It had seemed like nothing at first, just a way to relax. But she knew now she'd been very close to being out of control. Luckily, with the help of her friends, she had stopped.
"I'm going to get some more popcorn," Kurt said, giving Emma a kiss. "I'll be right back."
After he was out of hearing range, Carrie and Sam started in on Emma about him. Sam chanted in a singsong voice, "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comesЧ"
"He's crazy about you, you know," Carrie chimed in. "Did you see how embarrassed he was when Diana stopped by?"
Emma smiled dreamily. "I think he's the greatest. And what he did for those poor people during the hurricaneЧI'll remember it for the rest of my life."
"Which reminds me," Carrie said to Emma, "we were going to tell Sam about that COPE meeting tomorrow night, right?"
"Right," Emma said, turning to Sam.
"There's a hurricane recovery meeting. Carrie and I are going, and we need all the help we can get. There's a lot of work to do."
Sam laughed. "I surrender! I'll come with you. How can I resist? I mean, what if Diana and Lorell decide to show up? You'd need someone to protect you."
"Now why is it I don't think those two charmers will show up at a COPE meeting?" Carrie asked, raising her eyebrows.
"Because you have a brain," Sam explained.
Emma and Carrie grinned at each other. Samantha Bridges at a COPE meeting tomorrow nightrЧit must be a full moon, Emma thought.
"Okay, okay, enough politics," Sam said. "Let's go break a few iiearts." And she led her friends out to the dance floor.
The next morning, Emma was straightening the Hewitts' kitchen after breakfast when Katie's voice called from the front hall. "Emma!" Katie sang out. "Mail's here!" Emma turned the sink tap off and went into the hall to gather the mail. She flipped through it disinterestedly. Mostly bills for
the Hewitts and junk mail. Then she stopped and stared at one envelope addressed to her in elegant calligraphy. No return address. An invitation, she thought. But from whom?
Emma tore open the envelope and scanned the invitation. / can't believe it, she thought. It's an invitation to my mother and Austin Payne's engagement party. And the party's going to be right here on the island, at the Sunset Country Club. On Tuesday! Why, that's less than a week from now!
Emma simply could not abide her mother's fiance. Austin Payne was only twenty-five years old. An artist of some renown, he was only after her mother's fortuneЧEmma was certain of that. She knew Austin fooled around behind her mother's back. She considered him a total snake.
Emma strode right to the telephone and dialed her mother in Boston.
She was surprised when her mother, rather than one of the staff, answered. "Kat Cresswell speaking," came a frosty voice.
"Mother," Emma said, playing with a pen, "it's Emma. I just received the invitation to your engagement party."
"Emma! My secretary sent that invitation to you weeks ago!" Kat exclaimed. "You really should have responded sooner."
"She didn't send it weeks ago," Emma said evenly. "I'm telling you, it just arrived." She looked at the envelope. "It's postmarked the day before yesterday, Mother," she added pointedly.
After a moment of silence, Kat spoke up. "Well, the post office must have made some kind of error."
"Mother," Emma said, "didn't it seem odd to you that I hadn't called you about this?"
"Why, Emma," Kat continued in her animated voice, "I tried to phone you. But there was that silly storm, and then your employers don't have an answering machine."
She's lying to me, Emma thought bitterly. She never called. In fact, she simply forgot to send me the invitation. Marshaling all her composure, she said, "I'm not sure I believe you."
"Emma!" her mother exclaimed, a hurt tone in her voice. "Of course I tried."
"Mother, even if you did try, why are you having the party here on Sunset Island?
Couldnt you find someplace . . . well, closer to home?" Emma dreaded the idea of her mother's engagement party on what she thought of as her island.
"But Emma, Sunset Island is so, well, magical! It will be a magnificent party. Please bring that handsome young manЧ what's his name?Чas your escort. See you at the party!" Kat hung up.
Emma continued to speak into the receiver, though she knew her mother couldn't hear her. "His name is Kurt. And by the way, I loathe the guy you're marrying. Actually, the two of you make me sick."
She had thought that saying it out loud might make her feel better, but somehow it didn't help at all.
That night, at the COPE meeting, Emma met up with Carrie and Sam and told them all about the upcoming engagement party and about the conversation with her mother. She had hoped to tell Kurt about it, too, but he was busy that night driving a taxiЧhis other part-time jobЧso he couldnt be at the meeting. Emma was just getting to the part about how her mother had invited her to
bring "that handsome young man" whose name she didn't remember when a rap from a gavel silenced the group of approximately sixty people gathered for the meeting.
Jade Header, the sprightly older woman who was one of the leaders of COPE, rapped the gavel again and called for order.
"Okay, thank you for coming," she said in a strong voice that belied her years. "As you know, we've got a tremendous amount of work to do. For the moment, we're going to put aside our work to stop the developers. Instead, we've got to raise enough money to resettle those poor island residents who lost their homes to the hurricane."
"Good thing their homes weren't worth that much!" Sam quipped in a whisper.
"Shut up!" Emma and Carrie whispered back.
"Now, this is not an easy job," Jade continued. "But we're going to do itЧstep by step, brick by brick, dollar by dollar!"
"Right on!" someone shouted from the back of the room.
"And we're starting tomorrow," Jade continued in a firm voice. "There's plenty of money on Sunset Island. And we're going to
get donations from everyone who lives here. Because we're not going to be afraid to ask." Jade banged the gavel on the lectern for emphasis.
When Jade was done speaking, COPE volunteers went through the crowd, assigning everyone an area for the fundraising drive. Carrie, Emma, and Sam were given official COPE membership cards to show people when asking for contributions, and each got a map of the island with an area circled in red.
"This is where you guys go door-to-door," the volunteer explained to them. "Remember, always be polite, but try to get our message across. And any amount of money is helpful."
"How about we meet at the boardwalk at eight-thirty," Emma told her friends, "and go from there, okay?"
"Eight-thirty? You mean A.M., in the morning, before noon?" Sam groaned. "The only thing I want to be doing at that hour is sleeping!"