The Bride-In-Law. Dixie Browning

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СКАЧАТЬ pelvises were thrust forward in a way that was unsettling, if not actually indecent.

      Not that his was. Thrust forward, that was.

      She snapped her gaze back up to his face to find that he was glaring right back at her, taking in everything from her wet shoes to her soggy silk scarf, her rain-spattered glasses, her wrinkled old trench coat and the hair that was dripping down on her face.

      His opinion couldn’t have been more obvious.

      All right, so she was damp and a bit disheveled, at least she was decent. His jeans were not only wet, muddy and ragged, they showed every bulge on his body. And if that jaw of his had seen a razor in the past three days, she would be very much surprised. He looked like the kind of man parents of impressionable teenage girls warned their daughters against, and with just cause.

      A stick figure done in shades of brown. That was Tucker’s opinion of the woman who clumped past him, lifted a fist and banged on the door of number five, which, according to the zombie in what passed for an office, was registered to a Mr. and Mrs. H. Dennis.

      If this was the broad who’d sunk her hooks into his father, then the old man had lost his last marble. Coming up behind her, he said, “After you.”

      She glanced over her shoulder, not bothering to hide her uneasiness. “My next-door neighbor knows where I am. He’s a deputy sheriff.”

      “Yeah, well mine’s a retired dairy farmer. You going to knock again?”

      “Bernice doesn’t have any money. I don’t know what she led you to believe, but—”

      “Bernice? You’re not her?”

      “She. And of course I’m not.”

      “She, her—Lady, there’s no ‘of course’ about it. My father’s in that room with some woman named Bernice, and if you’re not her—”

      “She. Your father?”

      He reached past her and pounded on the door. “Harold, open up!”

      The draperies were drawn, but there were lights on inside, and the sound of TV. They waited together, Tucker and the stick figure. She was almost as tall as he was, but then, she was wearing some kind of ugly thick-soled shoes that lifted her a good two inches above the puddle of rain that had collected in front of the door.

      His own boots were wet, caked with mud. So were his jeans. Riding like a bat out of hell, he’d taken back roads and shortcuts, splashing through half the mud holes in the county.

      The door cracked open. One faded blue eye under a bushy gray brow peered out over the chain. “Tuck?”

      “Pop, what the devil—”

      “Now, don’t get your shorts in a twist, Son, everything’s on the up-and-up.”

      “The hell it—”

      “Bernice, are you in there?” the stick figure called over his shoulder. She was practically draped all over him, trying to see through the crack. She smelled like wet wool and strawberries.

      Strawberries?

      “You must be Bernie’s cousin, Annie.” The eye in the doorway shifted. The door closed a moment, then opened again minus the chain. “Honey, are you decent? Looks like we’ve got company.”

      The furniture was bottom-of-the-line motel, showing both age and wear. One of Bernice’s favorite TV shows was just coming on. Annie called it World’s Tackiest Videos. On the lopsided vinyl table was an unopened bucket of fried chicken and a bottle of domestic—extremely domestic—champagne.

      Dead silence persisted for all of thirty seconds, then Bernice emerged from the bathroom holding a plastic glass in each hand, and everyone started talking at once.

      Harold moved to his bride’s side and laid a protective arm over her shoulder. On the other side of the bed, Annie and Tucker glared at each other.

      Annie got in the first shot. I’m warning you, if your father seduced my cousin with any thought of—”

      “Seduced! My father never seduced a woman in his life.”

      “Now, Son, you don’t know—”

      “And you tell your—your cousin for me that if she thinks I’m going to allow some brass-haired bimbo to feather her nest at my father’s expense, she can damn well think again!”

      Annie gasped. “Don’t you—you can’t—”

      “No? Try me.” His eyes narrowed on a deadly glint.

      “Don’t tempt me,” she shot back, forgetting in a single moment the training of a lifetime. “If you think for one minute some thick-necked Neanderthal with a steroid-inflated ego is going to cast aspersions at my cousin, you can just—”

      “What did you call me?”

      “If the shoe fits...” She glared at his big muddy boots.

      “Now, just hush up, you two. Tucker, I taught you better than that. You’ve got no call to go insulting my wife.” The older man turned to the woman at his side. “Honey, I’m ashamed to tell you, but this is my boy. He’s not a bad sort, once you get to know him, I guess we just took him by surprise. Tucker, say hello to your new mama.”

      Annie could almost find it in her heart to feel sorry for the man called Tucker, who looked as if he’d swallowed a mouthful of fish bones. Second cousins were one thing. Father and son were another. She didn’t know who was trying hardest to protect whom, but it had been battle stations from the time Tucker and Annie wedged through the doorway, both determined to rescue their respective relatives.

      The older man, dressed in navy blue suit pants and a white shirt, looked as dignified as any man could look wearing an earring, a gray ponytail and matching goatee.

      Bernice was at her flamboyant best in a two-piece purple silk suit and fuzzy pink bedroom slippers. There was a wilted bouquet of pink roses on the bed beside a man’s coat and Bernie’s best hat, the one with the rhinestones and white fake fur.

      There were tears in her cousin’s eyes. Oh, Lord, if they overflowed, so would the layers of turquoise shadow and navy-blue mascara. No bride, regardless of the circumstances, deserved to be seen with makeup streaking down her cheeks to settle into all the creases.

      Annie’s shoulders drooped as the fight went clean out of her. “You’re really married, then,” she said with a resigned sigh.

      Bernie beamed and nodded, her clumpy lashes glistening like sweet-gum twigs in the rain. Harold’s chest swelled. He looked from one to the other and his gaze returned to his son. “All right and tight. Had it done this morning. You can be the first to wish us luck.”

      Annie looked at Tucker, who looked back at her, daring her to speak up.

      “Bernie, it’s not too late,” she said. “There’s a new apartment going up near Clemmons. I thought we might drive out this weekend and look СКАЧАТЬ