Rescued by a Wedding: Texas Wedding / A Marriage Between Friends. Kathleen O'Brien

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      CHAPTER SIX

      NEWLYWEDS, Trent decided as he watched Chase and Josie try to assemble the new crib, were disgusting. They should be locked up for the first full calendar year, so they didn’t drive everyone else crazy with their cuddles and kisses and lingering looks of hungry adoration.

      Of course, technically Trent and Susannah were newlyweds, too. But that was different. Night and day different.

      It was a bright Sunday afternoon, the last weekend in May, and the two couples had been working on the nursery at the Double C for the past two hours. Well, at least Trent and Susannah had been working. Chase and Josie got very little done, seemingly magnetized to one another. Chase couldn’t pass within six feet of his new wife without scooping her into his arms for a cuddle. Josie couldn’t hand him the screwdriver without ending up kissing his neck.

      Susannah and Trent, on the other hand, seemed to exist in two separate universes, even when they were standing mere inches apart. In the past two hours, Susannah had met Trent’s eyes only once, the moment he arrived. Her shock had been almost palpable. She obviously hadn’t realized, when she agreed to help Josie today, that it would be a double date.

      Trent had glanced at Chase. Good try, pal, he’d messaged silently. Chase had shrugged, his smile not admitting anything.

      Though Susannah was clearly unhappy about the arrangement, she couldn’t be accused of being rude. She worked hard. She laughed at Chase’s jokes, and oohed over Josie’s fluffy lamb mobiles and lamb border stencils and lamb-patterned sheets.

      It was only Trent who got the invisible man treatment. She talked around him, walked around him, worked around him without skipping a beat.

      “Hey, guys. Would you mind working on the stencil border while we assemble the mobile?” Chase wrapped one arm around Josie’s waist. “I don’t want Josie in here with the paint fumes. Not good for the baby.”

      Trent gazed over at Susannah, who frowned. He wondered how she was going to get out of this one.

      “Do you really think that needs to be done today?” She smiled to soften the words. “The baby’s not due till mid-September, and it’s not even June yet.”

      Trent felt her frustration. Back at Everly, peaches were ripening on the trees in record numbers. She’d spent every day of the past month trying to line up buyers. Tomorrow the harvest would begin, with its harrowing fourteen-hour days. Susannah wouldn’t have another free Sunday until late August.

      Josie grinned, unabashed. “I know. But I just can’t wait to see it. I’m so grateful that you guys are willing to help. It means so much to both of us.”

      Trent glanced at Chase, who beamed and planted a kiss on the top of her head, as if she’d said something marvelous.

      Man, the guy was gone on his wife. He clearly didn’t know how to deny her anything. If she’d wanted the baby’s room decorated in angel feathers and bits of the pearly gates, Chase would have driven his truck up to Heaven’s door and demanded they sell him some.

      “Okay, then, we’ll be in the study if you need us.” Chase apparently had decided to take Susannah’s silence as a yes. That was absurd, of course. Chase had been Susannah’s best friend since they were babies, and he knew as well as Trent what her frozen face really meant. “Have fun.”

      They ambled off, still entwined, still teasing each other, still making silly kissing noises between sentences. When they finally disappeared, Trent turned to Susannah with a smile.

      “Wow. You could get cavities, just being in the same room with all that sugar.”

      She didn’t smile back. “I think it’s sweet.”

      “My point exactly. Sweet like six banana splits and a double hot fudge sundae. Stomachache sweet.”

      She studied the stencil. “They’re СКАЧАТЬ