Sisters Found. Joan Johnston

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СКАЧАТЬ was grinning when she stomped into the kitchen. “All right. I’m ready to go. Are you satisfied?”

      “God, you’re so beautiful.”

      Amanda’s grin faded. What was she doing? What was she thinking? She had no business running off with Rabb Whitelaw for an afternoon of…merriment. She had dishes to wash. And plans to make. For her wedding. To his brother.

      She gripped the back of a kitchen chair so hard her knuckles turned white. Because she had to hang on or go tearing out the door with him. “You’d better go,” she said.

      “Mandy—”

      “Just go, Rabb. Now. Please.” When he didn’t move, she said, “Get out!”

      A moment later he was gone. And she was alone. Again.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      AMANDA WAS STILL IN BED LONG past the time when she normally would have been up and busy. She’d tossed and turned all night, feeling guilty over her treatment of Rabb. She wouldn’t blame him if he never came back to fix her gazebo. He probably thought she was crazy. She certainly had no rational explanation for her behavior.

      She sat bolt upright at the first sound of hammering, then threw off the covers and scrambled out of bed, heading for the window. She turned and hopped right back into bed when her feet hit the frigid wooden floor. She reached down under the bed, found her bunny slippers and put them on, then trotted to the window. Well, the summer temperatures were gone.

      She could see Rabb was putting up new lattice, but he was wearing a shearling coat and leather gloves. She shoved the window up and yelled down at him, “What are you doing?”

      He smiled and waved and said, “Good morning, Mandy,” as though the events of the previous afternoon had never happened.

      Well, if he wanted to pretend things were fine, she was happy to forget the way she’d acted.

      “I could use a cup of coffee,” he said. “When you’re up.”

      “I’m up now,” she said, shivering as a blast of cold air hit her face.

      “You’re still in your pajamas,” he countered. “But I like them. You look cute.”

      Amanda glanced down at the baby doll pajamas she’d slept in. They were impractical in a way none of her everyday clothes were. Skimpy and sexy and very…pink. No one had ever seen them but her. And no one was supposed to see them.

      “I’ll be down in a minute,” she said, slamming the window and yanking down the shade.

      He thought she looked cute. She ran and stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. Cute was a word for teenagers. Thirty-two-year-old women were never cute. She looked…ridiculous. She ought to be wearing something more appropriate for her age.

      But she’d had to be up several times at night with her mother during those years when she could have worn silly, flighty, fun clothes to bed, so she’d made up for it once her mother passed away by buying things like the girlish baby doll pajamas she wore now.

      She ruthlessly yanked them off, washed her face, brushed her teeth and put on the clothes she wore on cold days. Slacks, loafers with socks, an Oxford cloth shirt and a pullover crew-necked sweater. She shoved a brush through her short hair, slicked on some lipstick and headed downstairs.

      No sense pretending she was anything she wasn’t. Forget being cute. She kept her hair cut short because it was easy to take care of and, except for her pajamas, bought practical clothes that would last.

      She boiled a cup of water in the microwave and added a teaspoon of instant coffee. No coffeemaker for her. Speed was of the essence. Time was something she never seemed to have enough of. Or at least, that was the way it had been for eleven years. It had been difficult to readjust her mindset in the years since her mother had passed away. All right, impossible. She had the feeling she could never catch up, never get back those years she’d lost.

      She stuck her head out the screen door and said, “Cream and sugar?”

      “Lots of both,” he shouted back.

      Jake liked his coffee black. Another little difference.

      She preferred just about anything hot to drink except coffee, but she didn’t feel like making either tea or cocoa right now. She wanted to get outside and apologize to Rabb.

      She’d learned not to put off unpleasant business. Better to get it over with. She put on her goose-down vest and headed outside with Rabb’s coffee.

      He stuck the hammer in his tool belt when he saw her coming and turned to reach for the coffee mug. “Aren’t you having any?”

      “I don’t drink coffee,” she said. “I only came out here to say I’m sorry for yesterday.” There, it was done.

      He sipped at the coffee, winced, then blew on it. “Uh-huh,” he said. He looked at her and waited.

      She stuck her hands in her vest pockets, because it was colder outside than she’d expected it would be. Her breath plumed in the air. “Guess a norther came in overnight,” she said.

      “Uh-huh,” he said. And nothing more.

      “I’m sorry now I didn’t take advantage of your offer to go riding yesterday. That was probably the end of the warm weather.”

      “Uh-huh,” he said and sipped again at his coffee.

      “I know I was rude,” she said, agitated at his lack of speech. “But I…” How was she supposed to explain how she’d felt? What she’d feared?

      “But you’re not used to having fun,” he said.

      She frowned. “That’s not true.”

      “Prove it,” he said. “Come riding with me today.”

      She shivered and scoffed, “It’s freezing!”

      “It’s refreshingly cool,” he countered with a smile.

      She found herself smiling back at him. And sobered when she realized what she was doing. “I have things to do to get ready for the wedding.”

      “Oh, yeah. Let’s see, the flowers. And the dress. And…What was the other thing?”

      “The cake.”

      “Right. Which one needs doing today?”

      “The fitting for the dress, I suppose.”

      “Okay. We’ll do that and then go riding,” he said.

      She pursed her lips and wrinkled her forehead. “You don’t want to watch me try on my wedding dress.”

      “Sure I do,” he said. “So long as you agree to come riding with me afterward.”

      “How much more work had you planned to do on the gazebo?” she asked.

      He looked at the СКАЧАТЬ