Our Now and Forever (Ardent Springs #2) by Terri Osburn Read Free Book Online Page A

that.”
    Arguing was getting him nowhere, so he held his tongue and stepped past Snow onto her tiny porch. Once outside, a wave of pure satisfaction washed over him. Caleb waited at the bottom of the steps for Snow to lock the door. When she turned, reality struck. The look on her face was priceless.
    They’d left her car in town the night before.
    Caleb pulled his keys from his pocket, saying, “Good thing I brought these with me.” He held the passenger door for his wife, who climbed inside without a word. Not that he needed her to tell him what she was thinking. The tic of her jaw said it all.
    Finally. He’d won a point.

    Snow had never considered herself a competitive person, but the hint of even a minor defeat left a bitter taste in her mouth. She should have insisted on driving herself home the night before. Did he really think she’d lead him on a high-speed chase?
    He probably never thought she’d disappear into thin air two months after their wedding, so maybe his suspicious nature was justified.
    As the Brambleton house came into view, Snow realized they’d made the entire trip in comfortable silence. She’d been irritated when they’d left her place, but there was something calming about sitting next to Caleb. A sense of security, as if she could relax because she wasn’t on her own. That sense of feeling protected had been a big draw for her. Few men she’d come across in her life had carried the kind of confidence and strength that emanated from the man in the driver’s seat.
    Maybe that was the problem. He made her feel too comfortable. If she let her guard down completely, and then everything fell apart, where would she be? And deep down, she knew things were bound to fall apart. Caleb was the very definition of too good to be true.
    Except for his annoying little quirks. Like insisting on being the big man behind the wheel.
    A crowd had already gathered on the front yard of the estate. The items would likely be auctioned from the front porch, but not until potential buyers had the chance to examine the merchandise. Snow almost hated to think of the items that way. These were likely family heirlooms. Pieces that had sentimental value to someone, and that had each absorbed the history of its owners. Sometimes she could look at a piece and a scene would unfold in her head.
    Ladies drinking tea and sharing the latest gossip across a Seymour card table. A lonely little boy hugging his Steiff teddy bear as he watches his parents drive off to some society gathering. Or a teenage boy in the seventies huddled over his grandfather’s old Fender guitar with dreams of being the next Jimmy Page.
    Years of being dragged through endless flea markets with her grandmother had given Snow both an extensive knowledge of anything old, and a love of the stories the antique pieces could tell. Granny Cameron had worked in a fine old house when she was young, and she’d been responsible for polishing the furniture that had been built before the Civil War. Sometimes it seemed as if Granny were a walking history book, and she’d passed the knowledge, along with a desire to learn more, down to her granddaughter.
    “Is there something in particular we’re looking for?” Caleb asked as they approached the crowd in the yard.
    Snow kept her voice down so no one around them could hear the items she had her eye on. “Three things,” she said. “An old dresser I can make into a bathroom vanity. The old mantelpiece, if they put that up. I’m not sure they will.” She already had a buyer for the mantel, so hope sprang eternal. “And lace doilies.”
    Caleb stopped walking. “Doilies?” he asked loud enough for all around to hear him.
    She couldn’t stop the eye roll. Tugging Caleb away from the others, she scolded, “Keep your voice down or I’ll have a bidding war on my hands.”
    Her husband looked clueless. “Bidding war? Over doilies?”
    Nitzi Merchant, the high school secretary, smiled from across the lawn.