The Groom Said Maybe!. Sandra Marton

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      CHAPTER TWO

      STEPHANIE sat down.

      What else could she do? Everyone at the table was watching them, eyes bright with curiosity.

      David Chambers sat down beside her. His leg brushed hers as he tucked his feet under the table. Surreptitiously, she moved her chair as far from his as she could.

      He leaned toward her. “I carry no communicable diseases, Mrs. Willingham,” he said dryly. “And I don’t bite unless provoked.”

      She felt her face turn hot. His voice had been lowpitched; no one else could have heard what he’d said, but they’d wanted to—she could see it in the way they leaned forward over the table.

      Say something, Stephanie told herself. Anything.

      She couldn’t. Her tongue felt as if it were stuck to the roof of her mouth. She cleared her throat, moistened her lips...and, mercifully, an electronic squeal from the bandstand microphone overrode all conversation in the ballroom.

      The guests at table seven laughed a bit nervously.

      “Those guys could use a good sound engineer,” the man with the glasses said. He grinned, rose and extended his hand toward David. “Too bad that’s not my speciality. Hi, nice to meet you guys. I’m Jeff Blum. And this is my wife, Roberta.”

      “Call me Bobbi,” the plump brunette chirped, batting her lashes at David.

      The other couple introduced themselves next. They looked as if they’d both been hewn out of New England granite, and had the sort of names David always irreverently thought of as Puritan holdovers.

      “Hayden Crowder,” the man said, extending a dry, cool hand.

      “And I’m Honoria,” his wife said, smiling. “And you folks are?”

      “David Chambers,” David said when Stephanie remained silent. He looked at her, and the grim set of his mouth softened. Okay. Maybe he was overreacting to what had happened when he’d first seen her, and to her reaction to it.

      Actually, when you came down to it, nothing had happened—nothing that was her fault, or his. A man looked at a woman, sometimes the moment or the chemistry was just right, and that was that—although now that he was seated next to the widow Willingham, he thought wryly, he couldn’t for the life of him imagine why his hormones had gone crazy back in that church. She was a looker, but so were half a dozen other women in the room. It was time to stop being an ass, remember his manners and get through the next few hours with something approaching civility.

      “And the lady with me,” he said pleasantly, “is—”

      “Stephanie Willingham. Mrs. Avery Willingham,” Stephanie blurted. “And I can assure all of you that I am not here with Mr. Chambers, nor would I ever choose to be.”

      Bobbi Blum looked at her husband. Hayden Crowder looked at his wife. All four of them looked at Stephanie, who was trying not to look at any of them.

      Ohmygod!

      What on earth had possessed her? It was such an incredibly stupid thing to have said, especially after the man seated beside her had made an attempt, however late and unwanted, at showing he had, at least, some semblance of good manners.

      “Do tell,” Bobbi Blum said with a bright smile. She sat back as the waiter set glasses of champagne before them. “Well, that’s certainly very, ah, interesting.”

      Honoria Crowder shot a brilliant smile across the table. “Champagne,” she said briskly. “Isn’t that nice? I always say champagne’s the only thing to serve at weddings, isn’t that right, Hayden?”

      Hayden Crowder swallowed hard. Stephanie could see his Adam’s apple bob up and down in his long, skinny neck.

      “Indeed you do, my dear.”

      “Oh, I agree.” Jeff Blum, eager to do his part, nodded vigorously. “Don’t I always say that, too, Bobbi?”

      Bobbi Blum turned a perplexed smile on her husband. “Don’t you always say what, dear?”

      “That champagne is—that it’s whatever Mrs. Crowder just said it was.”

      “Do call me Honoria,” Honoria said.

      Silence settled over the table again.

      Stephanie’s hands were knotted together in her lap. Everyone had said something in an attempt to ease the tension—everyone but David Chambers.

      He was looking at her. She could feel the weight of his gaze. Why didn’t he say something? Why didn’t she say something? A witty remark, to take the edge off. A clever one, to turn her awful words into a joke.

      When was the band going to start playing?

      As if on cue, the trumpet player rose to his feet and sent a shattering tattoo of sound out into the room.

      “And now,” the bandleader said, “let’s give a warm welcome to Dawn and Nicholas!”

      The Crowders, then the Blums, looked toward the dance floor as the introductions rolled on. Stephanie breathed a small sigh of relief. Perhaps David Chambers’s attention was on the newlyweds, too. Her hand closed around her small, apricot-silk purse. Carefully, she moved back her chair. Now might be the perfect time to make another strategic retreat to the ladies’ room...

      “Leaving so soon, Mrs. Willingham?”

      Stephanie froze. Then, with as much hauteur as she could manage, СКАЧАТЬ