Prelude to a Wedding by Patricia McLinn Read Free Book Online Page A

reached her lips.
    And then, when the waiting had finally ended,
all he did was brush his mouth against hers—top lip, bottom, top
lip again. Softly, quickly.
    "Good night, Bette."
    He turned her around and headed her inside.
Automatically, she closed the storm door and wooden door behind
her. But she couldn't move any farther. She heard his car door
shut, heard the engine start, heard his car back up and pull away,
and still she stood, leaning against the door's wooden panels,
staring into the hallway's familiar shadows.
    One thought; filled the yawning emptiness his
touch had made of her mind.
    Uh-oh.

Chapter Three
     
     
    Paul turned the corner and caught one last
glimpse of the neat neighborhood. A neighborhood where all the
corners were squared, all the houses in a straight line, all the
lawns trimmed and the trees big. Someone with a ruler had probably
plotted out the whole thing, including the flower beds filled with
yellow mums.
    It suited Bette Wharton right down to the
ground.
    A vague vision of his apartment rose in his
mind as he accelerated onto the tollway and headed north. Although
he'd lived there several years he couldn't form a clear picture of
it. The walls were light, maybe white, and the windows good-sized
so a good bit of tree-dappled sunlight made it into the rooms. He
had an old couch his mother gave him when she redecorated the room
over the garage. But he could envision it better in that hideaway
of his teen years than in his own living room. Books, a TV and
stereo equipment rested on shelves of boards and bricks, smacking a
bit of college days. But he'd been reluctant to put up shelves.
That seemed too permanent, too attached.
    He rolled into the exact-change lane for the
tollbooth, flipping coins in left-handed with practiced ease.
Merging into the traffic, which couldn't be considered light even
at this hour, he found his mind repeated his earlier thought:
    That seemed too permanent, too attached.
    Maybe that was what bothered him about the
museum deal.
    Jobs he'd done for several museums around the
country as one-shot deals had worked out fine. In fact, he'd
enjoyed them. The people sure weren't in the business for money,
and he liked that about them. Plus, he appreciated that museums
these days were acknowledging the lighter side of everyday life,
the toys, the games, the hobbies. And he enjoyed visits to
Washington, especially since they gave him a chance to visit
Tris.
    But now, with the Smithsonian talking about a
regular arrangement . . . He just didn't know.
    Someone like Bette Wharton would probably
jump at this kind of opportunity. He suspected that, to her, it
would be a building block in some great life plan.
    He checked the rearview mirror as he steered
toward the exit, caught sight of his half smile and turned it into
a grimace. All right, so he was attracted to Bette, despite the
suspicion she actually had one of those god-awful five-year plans
the yuppie magazines always wrote about. Why? What was so great
about Bette Wharton?
    She wasn't classically beautiful or a sex
goddess knockout. And he found himself absurdly glad she wasn't
either one. Anybody could spot a woman like that, but he'd made a
discovery not every man would be astute enough to make.
    He'd listened to the crisp coolness of her
voice and heard that hint of spiciness beneath. He'd touched the
no-nonsense wool of her suit and felt the softness of her skin.
He'd acknowledged the common sense coming from her mouth and
recognized the uncommon sensuality of that maddening upper lip.
He'd looked into the forthright navy blue of her eyes and seen that
she had secrets there.
    Secrets . Maybe that was it. Maybe that
defined the whole thing. This feeling that she'd hidden her teasing
and laughter beneath a life ruled by an appointment calendar, and
the challenge of luring that teasing and laughter out of
hiding.
    So, maybe what he felt came more from the
challenge of making her see that other side of herself, the