The Bridesmaid by Julia London Read Free Book Online Page B

sandwich.
    “What’s this?”
    “Supper,” she said. “I got them from the dining car before they closed. I hope you like tuna.”
    Joe did like tuna—from his kitchen. He was entirely suspicious of a prewrapped tuna sandwich from an Amtrak dining car. But then again, he was starving, and desperate times called for desperate measures.
    Kate reached in her bag again and produced two cans of iced tea—another cause for gag reflex—and the pièce de résistance, a carefully wrapped chocolate-chip cookie that was the size of a small dinner plate. “Last one,” she said proudly, and placed it on her lap, then unwrapped her tuna sandwich.
    They both took a bite, chewing carefully. “May I ask you something?” she asked before taking another bite of a sandwich that looked just as soggy as his.
    “Sure,” Joe said.
    “Do you believe in fate?”
    Joe almost choked on the tuna. Generally, when a woman asked him if he believed in fate, it was the lead-in to a conversation about feelings. Joe did not like to talk about feelings. Most of the time he didn’t even like to acknowledge he had them. Feelings, especially where women were concerned, were never clear-cut for him. They were messy and sticky, and he never seemed to say or feel the right thing.
    He looked at Kate, who was making nice work of a disgusting tuna sandwich. She didn’t really strike him as the kind of woman who wanted to discuss feelings, either. “Why do you ask? Do you?” he asked.
    “I don’t know,” she said, and glanced at the window. There was nothing but black out there—they were passing through desert. “Most of the time, I’d say no. But today has been kind of weird. It almost feels like this was supposed to happen.”
    “What was supposed to happen?” he asked carefully.
    “Me having such a difficult time getting to Seattle,” she said, and Joe felt a rush of relief. “I mean, Lisa is teetering on the edge, and I am the only one who can get through to her. So I have to wonder, all these obstacles…” She looked at Joe and shrugged. “If, for some stupid reason, Lisa canceled the wedding, it’s possible it’s fate, right?”
    Joe didn’t know Lisa, but having listened in on two conversations, he figured it was more likely that Lisa was just a nut. “I think it would be more of a coincidence.”
    “Don’t look at me like that,” Kate said with a wry smile. “I may sound like a loon, but I’m not really. I’ve just been sitting on a train for the last few hours with nothing to do but think.”
    “I wasn’t thinking you were crazy, Kate. I was just looking at you.” He liked looking at her. She had some really expressive eyes, and he liked the way her nose was slightly upturned. And her mouth—hell, her mouth .
    Joe made himself look at his sandwich. He wanted to kiss her. Just… kiss her.
    “So, do you?” she asked.
    “Pardon?” he asked with a small cough.
    “Believe in fate.”
    “Ah…” He risked a look at her again. “Depends,” he said noncommittally.
    “Right,” she said, nodding as if they’d just exchanged some meaningful ideas. “For me, too.”
    But Joe was thinking only about sex at the moment, imagining that mouth and those eyes beneath him. He looked away to give himself a good and silent talking-to. Thinking about sex wasn’t going to help anything. It wasn’t going to get them to Seattle, and it would only complicate this fragile, weird alliance they’d formed.
    But he couldn’t stop thinking about it at two in the morning on a train crossing the desert.
    “I’m so tired ,” Kate said, and put down what was left of her sandwich. She leaned back and closed her eyes. “You can have the cookie,” she said through a yawn.
    Joe smiled. He gazed at her, wondering how he could have missed just how pretty she was when she knocked into him this morning in New York with the pink raft. Was that really just this morning? He felt as if he’d known her a lot longer than that.
    He silently