Four Weddings and a Fiasco: The Wedding Caper by Patricia McLinn Read Free Book Online Page A

elbow and steered her toward a far display.
    “What about this, dear? Have you looked at things for fall?”
    He gave her credit. Though her jaw was working and her arm under his hand was tense enough to
boing
, she didn’t say a word until they were out of earshot. And even then kept her voice low enough that Mrs. Cavendish wouldn’t hear even the staccato rhythm of anger.
    “
She dresses beautifully
? What kind of crack is that? And
in the end
? What does that mean? Sounds like
She cleans up well once you scrape the grime off her
. Like I’m some show horse she dug out of the mud pit and has been grooming all afternoon. Or like I’m one of these mannequins — these
dummies
— whose only use is to hold up the clothes she chose to put on me. Because
she dresses beautifully
sure wasn’t her reaction to my real clothes. You should have seen her face when she saw my —”
    She clamped her mouth shut. A renewed glare descended on her face. She started to aim it at him, apparently saw something in his face that made her look bounce away. She spun free of his hold on her arm and took three jerky steps toward another display.
    What was that about?
    Mrs. Cavendish had seen her . . . what?
    At that moment, she stopped abruptly and tried to turn around. But he was right behind her, and she slammed into him. It wasn’t that hard of a collision, yet it knocked the breath out of him.
    That surprised him . . . for about half a second, until several things clicked in his head.
    For starters, a likely interpretation of what she’d just said. Plus the way her glare had bounced away from him. And the red rushing from her throat and up toward her cheeks.
    Add in that the display she’d turned away from like it was a burning building was of an undergarment that caught his attention and dried his throat by where it
wasn’t
. It plunged from a nonexistent neck to well below the waist and slashed up high on each hip.
    It was suggestive on a mannequin. On a body like K.D.’s, it would go from suggestion to command.
    Oh, yeah, and a recognition that his breathlessness didn’t come from the force of their collision, but from that momentary sensation of her softness against his chest and groin.
    Put it all together and it was a safe bet that K.D. had cut herself short from telling him that Mrs. Cavendish had looked down her narrow nose at K.D.’s underwear. Most likely utilitarian, sturdy, inexpensive underwear.
    His mouth started to stretch into a grin.
    She’d stopped herself because she was uncomfortable talking about her underwear in front of him. That probably should have concerned him. Because a man and a woman who hoped to convince an audience that they were married shouldn’t be that shy with each other.
    But she wouldn’t react that way to almost mentioning her underwear or coming face-to-unnaturally-pointed-breast with the mannequin barely wearing that — what did they call those things? Teddies? Yeah, that was it — if she didn’t have some awareness of him as a man.
    “What?” she abruptly demanded. Having backed up a step, she propped her hands on her hips. But that made her elbow brush the teddy-wearing mannequin’s thigh, and she quickly switched to crossing her arms over her chest. “What’s that look for.”
    He’d heard testosterone blamed for a lot of things. At the moment it was responsible for his failure to fight down the grin stretching his lips. From K.D.’s expression she considered it self-satisfied at best and more likely a leer.
    “Just wondering if you need anything else?” He gestured toward the mannequin beyond her shoulder. “That, maybe?”
    “You have got to be—” She bit that off and darted her eyes toward the register where Mrs. Cavendish appeared to be wrapping up her labors. Her next words were heavy with the kind of restraint that couldn’t be good for the teeth she clearly was gnashing. “Thank you,
dear
. But no thank you.”
    “Ah, Mr. Larkin. If you’re ready. . .?”