Tess's Tale (The Chanel Series Book 3) by Donna Joy Usher Read Free Book Online Page B

see him much?’
    ‘Who Dick? Well he is one of Dad’s right-hand men.
    I punched him lightly on the shoulder. ‘Billy, not Dick.’
    ‘Oh.’ His smile told me he had known what I was talking about the whole time. ‘Well Cindy moved to her sister’s after she had him. So I don’t get to see him much. But he’s a good kid. Real smart too.’ It was impossible to stay mad when he was looking so proud.
    ‘Do you have any photos?’
    He pulled his wallet out, removed a photo from its depths and handed it to me. It showed a small boy with dark blonde hair and deep brown eyes. He had a baseball mitt on one hand and the ball in the other.
    ‘He’s a cutey,’ I said.
    Harry smiled in relief as I handed him back the photo. ‘You’re the best.’
    ‘You better still be saying that after tomorrow night,’ I said.
    He laughed and lay back down, drawing me to him. ‘Well I guess we could practice a little,’ he said. ‘Just to make sure.’
    I gave myself up to the glory of his mouth and his hands as we had a dress rehearsal for the wedding night.
     
    ***
     
    To say our wedding was small was an understatement. Liss and Thor were our only witnesses. I was sad that Mom wasn’t there, but Liss had been more of a mother to me over the last year than Rose ever had been.
    Harry said he didn’t care that his family was absent, that I was everything he needed. I think that was mostly true, but what person wouldn’t have a moment of reflection, a second of inner remorse that their family was missing at the most important event of their life.
    We had our reception at the Chinese restaurant Harry took me to for our first date. The duck was as good as the first time we had gone there, but I had a different type of appetite on my mind.
    Liss and Thor had given us a night at ‘The Bellagio Casino’ for our wedding present, and even though I was about to get what I had been after for the last few months, I was suddenly nervous.
    I mean, it’s one thing to know the theory of what was about to happen, it was another thing to think about it in the cold light of day when passion was absent and only nerves ruled my head.
    We didn’t speak during the elevator ride. Nor in the walk down the hall. Harry opened the door with one arm and swept me up against him with the other, then he carried me into the room.
    The view was amazing, the room was sumptuous, the bed was enormous. That didn’t help with the tap-dancing concert going on in my stomach. I placed my over-night bag on the table and slipped my shoes off. Then, even though I was about to get what I had been wanting for the past few months, I walked over to the window.
    Doubt had set up residence in my frontal lobe. What if I wasn’t any good? What if I was a lousy lay?
    The sun was setting behind the Las Vegas night skyline. The flickering lights had a surreal quality. I concentrated on that as I took some deep breaths.
    Harry joined me at the window and took my hand in his.
    ‘Look at that?’ He pointed at a couple of bulldozers sitting next to a huge hole near the front of the casino. I knew he was trying to distract me.
    ‘What’s going on?
    ‘They started landscaping without a planning permit.’
    ‘You need a permit to build a garden?’
    ‘It’s going to be an ornate garden with fountains. Lots of big holes to dig for mature plants. Now they need to wait for the permit to come through. It’s going to take months.’
    I shifted my gaze from the huge hole in the ground back to the setting sun. ‘It’s beautiful.’ My face was so close to the window a little circle of fog formed.
    ‘Not as beautiful as you.’ He pulled me against him and wrapped his arms around me.
    I leant back into him and sighed. He felt so big and strong. ‘My husband.’ I turned to him as I ran my tongue over those words.
    ‘My wife.’
    I liked the sound of those words even better.
    He bent his head and kissed me and all my nerves flew out the window. Suddenly there were no pretty