A Bride In Waiting. Sally Carleen

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СКАЧАТЬ stopped again, one foot on the front step.

      “I don’t know your name or anything about you.”

      “Sara Martin. I’m a librarian. I’m from Deauxville, Missouri.”

      He smiled, and Sara’s fears somehow vanished in that flash of white teeth against tanned skin, of his dark eyes lighting from within. “Hi, Sara Martin. I’m Lucas Daniels, and I’m a doctor from Briar Creek who’s greatly in your debt.”

      He took her hand and they went into the church, into the hushed atmosphere of a huge auditorium with burgundy carpet that sank beneath Sara’s feet. Pews upholstered in velvet fabric of the same color sat in quiet, orderly rows. The place even smelled like burgundy velvet...rich and dignified and established.

      The intimidating hush was shattered in the next second by a chaotic crowd of people bustling and shouting.

      “Thank goodness you’re here! We were getting worried.”

      “Analise, can’t you ever be on time?”

      “Analise, my dress hasn’t come in yet!”

      “Will everyone please settle down so we can get started here.”

      Sara took an instinctive step backward and felt Lucas’s strong hands on her shoulders, supporting her and urging her forward.

      “It’s all right,” he murmured, his voice deep and reassuring in her ear.

      “The bride and her attendants stay at the back. I need the groom and his attendants here,” a slim, elegant woman standing to one side up front directed, and Lucas left Sara.

      Three laughing, confident young women converged on her instead, and Sara shrank inside.

      “Cool hair,” a brown-eyed blonde said. “Makes you look sophisticated. Kind of like a real wife.”

      “Cool dress, too,” a short brunette added. “Wish I could carry off that look. On me, it’d just be dowdy.”

      What was it with these people and her dress?

      “Quiet, everyone,” the authoritative woman ordered. Obviously she was the coordinator Lucas had mentioned. “The minister, the groom and his attendants will enter from the front and stand looking to the back, waiting for the bride.”

      As the men, including Lucas, moved solemnly into their places, the whole thing took on a dreamlike quality.

      “Marilyn sings the solo, then as soon as the organist begins to play, Judy starts down the aisle. When she’s halfway, Kathy starts, then Linda. Okay, pretend the solo’s just finished. Nancy, begin the music.” Strains of organ music floated through the auditorium. “Judy, start down the aisle. As soon as you get to the front, turn and face the back, all attention focusing on the bride. Stop giggling, Judy, and, for goodness’ sake, don’t be chewing gum during the actual wedding.”

      One by one, the three women moved down the aisle, leaving Sara alone with everyone staring at her.

      Lucas had been wrong. She’d been wrong. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t pull off something so daring as masquerading as another woman. The most daring thing she’d ever done before was...well, the only daring thing she’d ever done was sell everything after her mother’s death and come to Briar Creek, Texas. And right now she regretted that, big time.

      She half turned to run from the church, get in her car and go back to Deauxville, forget all about finding her real mother or this unlikely possibility of a twin sister.

      But a tall, portly man moved up beside her and, smiling down at her, took her arm, and she was mesmerized by the total acceptance and love in his eyes. The organist broke into the strains of the wedding march.

      “Okay, bride, you’re on. This is your show. Take it slow and graceful. Do not run down the aisle.”

      The tall man winked. “My baby girl went straight from crawling to running. What makes that woman think you’re going to change now?”

      Analise’s father.

      The love that emanated from him was for his daughter, not for her.

      But it was so hard not to luxuriate in the paternal adoration, something she’d never experienced before.

      In a daze she walked down the aisle beside Analise’s devoted father, moving toward Lucas, Analise’s beaming groom. It was hard to fight the urge to become lost in the pretense, to believe she really was Analise Brewster, beloved daughter and fiancée, the person who belonged in this church, in this community, in this wedding.

      “Who gives this woman in marriage?”

      “Her mother and I.”

      The older man placed her hand in Lucas’s. He gave her a conspiratorial smile, and she could no longer resist becoming hopelessly lost in the wedding fantasy.

      “The minister reads the vows. You each answer ‘I do’ and exchange rings.”

      “I do,” Sara whispered, holding her hand out for Lucas to slip on the invisible ring, then doing the same for him.

      “Then you kiss the bride, turn to face the congregation, and the minister introduces you as Mr. and Mrs. Lucas Daniels.”

      Lucas’s dark gaze held hers for an instant then dropped to her lips. As if in slow motion, his face lowered toward hers, his lips touching hers gently, possessively, lighting unexpected fires inside her while promising a lifetime of love and belonging. For that brief moment she almost believed that promise was for her.

      “Now you walk down the aisle together.”

      The voice of the wedding coordinator yanked Sara back to reality.

      What on earth was the matter with her? Had she lost her mind? She’d agreed to this charade in exchange for promised assistance in her quest. Losing herself in a game of make-believe wasn’t part of that quest.

      She was not Analise. This was not her wedding, the older man was not her father and Lucas was not her fiance.

      She pushed against Lucas’s chest.

      His heart pounding furiously, Lucas released Sara.

      Around them the wedding party buzzed while the loudmouthed, pushy coordinator tried to get them quiet for another run-through or even two. They needed to have it down pat, she said, since it would be an entire week before the wedding, a lot of time to forget.

      That was the last thing Lucas needed—to have to pretend to marry Sara again, to kiss her again.

      Not that the kiss was a requisite part of the rehearsal. No, that had been entirely his idea. Actually, it hadn’t even been his idea. His body, his lips had taken control, demanding to touch this woman who looked so much like his fiancée but affected him in a way Analise never had.

      That was how he’d known for certain she wasn’t Analise. Heaven help him, Analise had never set his hormones to boiling the way this woman did, and certainly never made him want to take care of her СКАЧАТЬ