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

want some?”
    “Um…sure. Yeah, that would be nice.”
    “Good.” She smiled at him, and he noticed she was wearing one of his mother’s aprons. The one with the tiny pink rosebuds on it. She seemed to notice him looking at it, and quickly untied it, pulled it off.
    “I’m sorry. I really look like I’ve made myself at home, don’t I? But Sean has been in bed for hours, and I didn’t want to wake him to ask him to explain the television remote to me, so I’ve been…well, I’ve got a thing for kitchens. Mine is this cramped little galley deal, so when I saw yours, it was like I’d stepped into heaven. I hope you don’t mind that I…cleaned it up a bit.”
    Nick got a quick mental picture of how he’d left the kitchen as he and Sean raced off to the community center, piling the dinner dishes on top of the breakfast dishes that were still in the old-fashioned farm sink. “You didn’t have to do that,” he said, following her down the hall and into the kitchen. “Wow,” he said once they were there and he was looking at the clean sink and uncluttered counters.
    No stack of newspapers on the bar. No bags of corn chips or boxes of cereal out in the open becauseit was easier than putting them away. No small army of assorted superhero action figures or their vehicles and equipment littering the kitchen table. No dry cat food scattered on the floor around the cat dishes because Sean never seemed able to hit the dish and not the floor when he poured from the bag.
    The entire kitchen seemed to…sparkle.
    “It gave me something to do. I’m not good at having nothing to do, never quite mastered the art of sitting still and doing nothing. Derek calls it a failing, but since he’s been able to have more weekends off since I joined his practice, he stopped complaining. Let me get you some soup, and then I’ll get out of your way.”
    “Only if you have a cup of coffee with me before you go,” Nick told her, pulling out a chair at the large square white-painted wood table that could easily seat eight, and motioning for her to sit down. His grandfather had built the table. He felt this weird urge to tell Claire that, but didn’t. “Where did you find the placemats? I forgot I had these.”
    “I wasn’t snooping,” she said, sitting down, reaching out to finger one corner of the blue and white checked mat in front of her. “I was looking for spoons, and found them—top drawer of the island, in case you’re wondering. They match the curtains, so I’m supposing someone made them? I can’t imagine how you missed them.”
    “My mother, yes, and you’d be surprised what I miss in this place,” he said, grabbing a can of ground coffee from a cabinet and loading the coffeemaker.The clean and shiny coffeemaker, he noticed, with no brown drip stains on the base of it anymore. He’d been meaning to do something about that. Maybe even run some vinegar and water through it, which he was pretty sure he was supposed to do once in a while…probably more than once every two or three years.
    “It’s not like most men care about placemats,” she said as he ladled soup into a bowl and carried it and a spoon over to the table. “I suppose having a son and a job keeps you busy. And it is a big house.”
    He found himself telling her about the house, its history, and the way it was passed from generation to generation. He even told her about the table.
    She sat with her chin cupped in one hand, clearly fascinated, and let him talk. She didn’t interrupt, didn’t ask questions, and he heard himself saying things he’d never said aloud before.
    Ending with, “My ex-wife hated it here. Said she felt smothered.”
    By now they were both on their second cup of coffee.
    Claire lowered her mug and looked around the kitchen, and then nodded. “I can see that. A young bride, thrust into all of this tradition. She must have been afraid to touch anything, for fear she was messing with some treasured family