A Bride After All by Kasey Michaels Read Free Book Online Page A

front—Claire was driving through the darkening streets, wondering if her brother could recommend a good psychiatrist for her, because she had to be out of her ever-loving mind!

Chapter Three
    I t was past midnight when Nick turned into the driveway leading up to the sprawling, white-painted red-brick ranch house on an outcropping of land overlooking the Rose Gardens in what was still known by the locals as the West End of Allentown. The white paint was old and worn, which was a look that had cost somebody a bunch of money, but went well with the trailing ivy and the slate-blue shutters and doors.
    The house was built along a curve in the road, and the house curved along with it, with a fully excavated lower level that led out onto a series of flagstone terraces and steps down to a koi pond, a gazebo and yet another flagstone terrace. And trees. There weretrees everywhere, planted to look natural, but not to block the view.
    A kid in this house wanted to toss a ball around, he had to find a friend with a real backyard. But it was a beautiful yard, and anyone driving along the twisting macadam road that bordered the Rose Gardens could look up and be damn impressed, and probably think: wow, now there’s a house!
    The house and furnishings had been in the Barrington family for four generations. He’d bought the place, fully furnished, from his parents when they’d moved to Florida. Total cost: one dollar.
    Repairs and maintenance on the house were separate, and pretty much non-stop.
    What he’d always liked best about the house was his childhood bedroom, the one over the attached three-car garage, the one with the steeply pitched slate roof and vaulted ceiling, and the separate outside wooden staircase he’d used to his advantage enough times over the years that it would be a long time before he’d allow Sean to move into that room, if ever.
    Nick cut the engine and remained behind the wheel, looking at the house, well-lit with ground lights and wrought-iron wall sconces, and wondered what Claire Ayers thought of his family homestead.
    He hoped she wouldn’t think he’d picked the décor. It suited him, maybe because it was home, had always been home; comfortable and faintly shabby, but in an old money sort of way; the furniture pretty ancient, but all of the best quality.
    Sandy had hated the furnishings, had made fun of the flowered, overstuffed couches, the old-fashioned kitchen, but she’d also had no interest in redecorating, making the place her own. They’d spent the last two years of their married life in the house, yet there was nothing of her in it, nor had there ever been—something he’d realized shortly after she left for a weeklong tour with her new band, and never came back.
    Because of Sean, because of Sandy, he’d never had another woman in the house. Not for six long years. Not until tonight.
    “And she’s probably wondering when the hell you’re going to get out of the car and come inside, so she can go home,” he told himself as he unhooked his seatbelt and opened the door.
    The heady scents of bougainvillea and jasmine greeted him as he walked the curved slate path to the front door, passing beneath a squared-off wrought-iron trellis heavy with blooms. His grandmother had had a thing for bougainvillea. She’d left her mark, and the memory was a good one. It was a far different “welcome, come on in” than that of the women’s shelter, which had smelled of pine oil and the large pot of chicken and noodle soup he knew from past visits was always simmering on the stove, “just in case.”
    He slid his key into the lock and stepped into the foyer. And stopped in his tracks. The place smelled like chicken and noodle soup. What the—?
    “Hi,” Claire said, stepping into the foyer. “This is the loveliest home you’ve got, Nick. I made some soup for Sean because he was hungry, and then joined him. It’s just canned, well, two cans, so there’s plenty left simmering on the stove. Do you