A Bride Until Midnight / Something Unexpected. Wendy Warren

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СКАЧАТЬ there are five classifications of men,” he began as he spread jelly on his toast. “The butt heads are by and large the worst. Normally I would refer to them as something more crass, but I’m going to try to do this delicately, so we’ll stick with butt heads. These are the guys who make promises they have no intention of keeping. They’re hard and heartless. These are the liars, stealers, cheaters, politicians, CEOs, anybody with no conscience. They give all men a bad name.”

      She was listening, for she’d once known a few of those. Intimately.

      “Next are the sorry-asses. Forgive me but there’s no delicate way to describe this category. They’re the drunks, the guys who mean well but are too lazy to bring home a paycheck, get their own beer or mow the lawn. You know, your basic losers.”

      She couldn’t help smiling again.

      “Third is the—let’s call the third category the dumbbells. If sorry-asses are your basic losers, dumbbells are your basic users. This is the guy who doesn’t have any money with him on Pizza Friday, who has to be shown repeatedly how to use the business system at work but can navigate every search engine for his personal use on company time. He’s more obnoxious than harmful.”

      She made an agreeable sound, which earned her an appreciative masculine grin that went straight to her head.

      “The last two categories are the smart alecks and the wise guys. At first glance you might think they’re one and the same. They’re both on the mouthy side, but smart alecks are irritating and wise guys are charming and entertaining.” He took a big bite of his pancakes and smiled smugly, as if his work here was done.

      “You’ve certainly cleared that up,” she said over the rim of her coffee cup. “Tell me this. Why do women put up with any of you?”

      Those green eyes of his spoke a full five seconds before he said, “Because some of us are irresistible.”

      “You don’t say.”

      They fell into a companionable silence. She finished the plain pancake and sipped her coffee, and he made a good-sized dent in his breakfast.

      Thunder rumbled overhead. Kyle felt an answering vibration that was more like the pulsing beat of a distant drum than weather. It started deep inside, radiating outward. This was desire, the kind that burned slow and got hotter. There was only one way to appease it, and she was sitting across the table from him.

      Summer’s dress was the color of pecans today. When was the last time he’d met a woman who wore a dress every day? He wasn’t referring to buttoned-up suits with pencil-thin skirts and stiletto heels with toes so pointy they could draw blood. Summer wasn’t out for blood. Was that why she drew him?

      No. There was something far more elemental at work here.

      Her dress was sleeveless, and the neckline covered all but the inside edges of her collarbones. It wasn’t formfitting or tight and had no business looking sexy. He wanted to push his plate away and reach for her, but burning off this hunger with her wasn’t going to be that simple.

      Luckily Kyle was a patient man.

      When his plate was empty, she came around to his side of the table and took it. Pausing at the kitchen door, she glanced back at him and said, “Which type are you?”

      He wiped his mouth on his napkin and stood. “If you have to ask, I’m doing something wrong.” With that he sauntered out the front door.

      In the kitchen, Summer turned on the hot water and squirted in dish soap. As suds expanded over the dishes in the bottom, she placed one finger over that little indentation at the base of her neck. Feeling the pulse fluttering there, she thought, a wise guy, definitely.

      Since there were no parking spaces in front of Rose’s Flower Shoppe, Summer parked in front of Knight’s Bakery and Confectionary Shoppe a block away. The steady pitter-patter of raindrops on her umbrella muffled the click of her heels as she started toward Rose’s, but it didn’t dampen her mood. Betty Ryan smiled from the window of her daughter and son-in-law’s bakery when she saw Summer walking by. Looking up from the newspaper he was reading in his barber chair, Bud Barkley wiggled his fingers at Summer. She couldn’t help returning his classic wave.

      She hurried past two clothing stores that had survived the ongoing feud between their owners and the recession. The big chains had drained the life out of the old drugstore on the corner. Now the building was home to Izzy’s Ice Cream Parlor. Summer loved that she knew the stories and the struggles of the courageous, tenacious people who called Orchard Hill home. Being accepted by them was an honor and a gift.

      As if on cue, her phone jangled in her purse. Sliding it open, she began talking the moment she put it to her ear. “I’m on my way, Chelsea. How’s Madeline this morning?”

      “She’s going stir-crazy and Riley’s hovering.” Chelsea’s voice in her ear was clear and concise. “I don’t know who I feel sorrier for. Let me know what Josie says about Madeline’s bouquet, okay? I know you can’t be away from the inn more than absolutely necessary, so somebody from Knight’s Bakery is bringing four samples of wedding cake to the inn later.”

      Flowers. Check.

      Wedding cake. Check.

      There was something Summer was forgetting, but Chelsea was on a mission, and, when that happened, there was no stopping her. “Reverend Brown has agreed to go to Madeline’s house after services on Sunday to talk to her and Riley about the ceremony and vows. That’ll take us to the final five-day countdown. Can you believe it?”

      Summer thought it was amazing how fast the wedding was approaching, but she didn’t have an opportunity to make more than an agreeable murmur before Chelsea had to take another call. Outwardly Chelsea Reynolds was the most organized young woman on the planet. But underneath her buttoned-up shirts and practical manner smoldered a dreamer. Only those closest to her knew the reason she kept it hidden.

      The world was feeling like a good place as Summer dropped her phone back into her shoulder bag and walked into Rose’s Flower Shoppe. As always, the scents of carnations and roses met her at the door.

      “I’ll be right with you.” Josie Rose’s muffled voice sounded as if she was speaking into the cooler. Eight months pregnant with her third child, she entered the room with one hand at the small of her back and the other on her basketball-size belly. “There you are, Summer. Someone was here a little while ago asking about you. A man,” she said in a stage whisper.

      For the span of one heartbeat, Summer’s only thought was, they’ve found me. She waited, unmoving.

      “Can you say tall, dark and handsome?” Josie asked, oblivious to Summer’s inner turmoil.

      Oh. Okay. Summer could breathe again, because that description ruled out Drake and her father.

      When she’d first moved to Orchard Hill and shortened her name and bought her inn, she’d often caught herself looking over her shoulder. There had been times when she’d been certain someone was following her. She wasn’t afraid, physically, of her former fiancé or her father. It was the havoc they could wreak and the media circus they were capable of creating that she so dreaded. Her father had connections to people in high places. She’d seen him in action with her own two eyes and knew he had the ability and the capability to ruin people for pleasure or personal gain.

      Nothing СКАЧАТЬ