A Bride Until Midnight Read online

  He uncrossed his ankles and straightened, leading her to assume he was going to take the rejection with a grain of salt and go back upstairs. Instead he joined her in front of the sink.

  “Sunrise or sunset?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Sunrise or sunset?” he repeated.

  She’d turned the radio down when he’d first joined her in the kitchen. Now the low hum barely covered the quiet. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “I’m getting to know you. I think the modern terminology refers to this stage as the date interview. You’re right, that’s an easy one. You are sunset all the way. It’s your turn. Go ahead, ask me anything.”

  She started the faucet and squirted dish soap into the stream. “This isn’t a date,” she reminded him sternly, but she couldn’t help thinking he was right about her and sunsets.

  What could it hurt, she thought, to participate in a little harmless middle of the night conversation? After considering possible safe topics, she said, “Bourbon or Merlot?”

  “Bourbon, hands down.”

  She was surprised. She’d have pegged him as the kind of man who had an extensive wine collection.

  “Hard rock or Rap?” he asked when it was his turn. “First, what are you doing?” He pointed at the sink she was filling with sudsy water.

  “The dishwasher’s broken, and there won’t be money in the budget to have it repaired until July,” she explained. “Hard rock and Rap are both okay on occasion, but my favorite musician of all time is Leonard Cohen.”

  As two iridescent bubbles floated on the rising steam, he said, “So you’re a romantic at heart.”

  Had he moved closer? Or had she? Putting a little space between them again, she scoured a saucepan.

  Kyle said, “I’d offer to fix your dishwasher, but I’m afraid my brother Braden is the mechanical genius in the family. I’m good with my hands in other ways.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be very happy with yourself.”

  His laugh was a deep rumble, the kind that invited everyone to smile along. They were standing close again, her shoulder nearly touching his arm. This time he was the one who moved slightly. Picking up a towel, he began to dry. “I believe it’s your turn.”

  Hmm, she thought as she washed measuring cups and spoons. “Baseball or football?”

  “Football, but I like races the best. European Auto Racing is my favorite, probably because my youngest brother is trying to break records and hopefully not his neck. Chicken or fish?”

  “I’m more of a pasta girl. Dogs or cats?”

  “Dogs,” he said. “Friends or family?”

  Rinsing her wine glass and carefully handing it to him by the stem, she said, “I don’t have much family.”

  “Then it wasn’t a family connection that brought you to Orchard Hill?”

  Keeping her wits about her, she said, “Madeline likes to say Orchard Hill found me. The elderly couple that used to own The Orchard Inn had been looking for someone to take it over. I applied, and the rest is history.”

  “So you work for this old couple?” he asked.

  “I bought the inn from them with the money my grandmother left me. She’d been very ill and died right after I moved here.” Summer’s grandmother had been the only one who knew where she went, and the estate attorney had promised to keep her location confidential.

  “The grandmother you and your sister spent summers with on Mackinaw Island?” he asked.

  She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised he’d been listening when she’d mentioned that. Keeping her eyes on the dish she was washing, she said, “I wasn’t kidding when I told you I don’t have much family.”

  “If you’d like, you can borrow some of mine. Other than Riley and Braden, most of our relatives are female. One mother, two stepmothers and too many grandmothers, aunts and family pets to count. Action-adventure or horror?”

  She laughed at the awkward segue. “I live alone in a hundred-and-twenty-year-old inn. Definitely not horror.” It was her turn to ask a question. She took her time deciding which one. “Crime dramas or reality TV?”

  “Could I get another choice here?”

  “You don’t watch much television?” she asked.

  He made a sound universal to men through his pursed lips. “Three hundred channels and there’s still nothing on half the time.”

  She looked up at him and smiled, for she’d often thought the same thing.

  “See what I mean?” he said, his voice a low croon befitting the dark night. “We have a lot in common. We’re practically soul mates.”

  She wished she could blame the warm swirl in the pit of her stomach on the lateness of the hour or the wine. “Out of all these questions,” she said, “we’ve found only one thing we have in common. I don’t believe in soul mates.”

  His gaze went from her eyes, to her lips, to the base of her neck where a little vein was pulsing. He folded the towel over the edge of the sink and got caught looking at her lips again. He didn’t pretend he didn’t want to kiss her. And yet he waited. A man who had enough self-confidence to want a woman to be sure wasn’t an easy man to resist.

  A gentle breeze stirred the air. Somewhere a night bird warbled. Moments later an answering call sounded from across the river. Summer didn’t recognize the bird-song, but she understood the language of courtship. It seemed to her that birds had a straightforward approach to life. They built a nest in the spring, raised a brood and, as if guided by some magical internal alarm clock, they gathered in flocks and flew south to a tropical paradise for the winter, only to return and start all over again in the spring.

  Summer had started over once. She never wanted to do that again, which brought her right back to where she and Kyle had started. Whatever this was, be it a date interview or simply a pleasant interlude, it was ending. It had to.

  Taking a deliberate step back, she said, “Good night, Kyle.”

  He handled the mild rejection with a degree of watchfulness and his usual charm. She wasn’t expecting the light kiss. Little more than a brush of air, it was over by the time she’d closed her eyes. The dreamy intimacy lingered as he walked to the door.

  “Thank you for the midnight snack,” he said quietly, “and for having a sunset personality.”

  She smiled. And he was gone.

  It was a few minutes before Summer’s heart settled into its normal rhythm. Occasionally Madeline used to join her in the kitchen late at night. Kyle was the only man who ever had. Strangely, his presence hadn’t been an intrusion. Without even trying, he’d made her feel understood. Kyle Merrick would make a good friend.

  He would have been a good lover, too. Of that, she had no doubt. All things considered, his middle of the night visit had gone well. He seemed to have accepted the limits she’d set. It was a relief, and yet, with every swish of the drawstring at her waist and every rustle of the fabric at her midriff, she was reminded of what she was missing.

  She stuck her hands on her hips and huffed. She supposed there was always the next best thing.

  On the counter sat the uncorked bottle of wine and the bowl containing the remaining crème brulee. She pushed the wine out of the way and reached for a spoon.

  Friday morning dawned cloudy and gray. The temperature had dropped overnight and the barometric pressure had been on the rise ever since. Spring had returned to Orchard Hill.

  Seven of Summer’s eight guests had shuffled to the breakfast table groggy or grumpy or both, adversely affected by the atmospheric change. Kyle was the last to amble downstairs. Looking surprisingly rested and amiable, he took a seat at the long dining room table as she was clearing away the place settings of five men who’d already left for their day’s work restoring the train depot.

  “Good morning,” she said, as she did to each guest every day.

  “Morning,” he answered. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  The last two remaining carpenters looked askance at him. When thunder rumbled an ex
clamation point disguised as weather, Kyle had the grace to counter his sunny outlook with, “Easy for me to say. I’m not being forced to work in it today.”

  With a few grumbles, he was forgiven.

  “Coffee and juice are on the sideboard,” she said. “I’ll be right back with your breakfast.”

  Kyle was alone at the table with his coffee when she returned with his plate of crisp bacon, whole wheat toast and a stack of piping hot pancakes. In a separate bowl was a generous serving of fresh strawberries sans crème brulee.

  “Have you already had breakfast?” he asked.

  She thought about the slice of toast she’d eaten two hours ago while the bacon was frying and answered simply, “Yes.”

  “A cup of coffee, then?” he asked.

  Summer had hit the snooze button once, and then she’d hit the floor running. She hadn’t slept well the previous night, and, after only three hours last night, sleep deprivation was catching up with her. Caffeine sounded wonderful. In fact, she could have used a direct IV line of the stuff. She went to the sideboard and poured herself a piping hot cup.

  It wasn’t unusual for her to have a cup of coffee with a guest. Her boarders all happened to be men this month, but that wasn’t always the case. Sometimes families stayed here. Throughout the year, groups of women came for girlfriends’ weekends of wine tasting and shopping and marathon chick flick rentals. Summer’s mainstay came from sales reps and other men and women employed by companies with projects too far away for a reasonable commute.

  She sipped her coffee while Kyle dug into his breakfast. They talked about everyday things. He told her about a book he was reading, and she relayed a funny story from a former guest. Out of the blue, he asked her if she’d ever been married.

  She looked him in the eye and with complete honesty said, “No, have you?”

  He offered her a pancake before he drizzled the stack with syrup. She took it and daintily ate it with her fingers while he explained why he’d never married.

  She was laughing by the time he summed it up. “Women are complicated.”

  “And men aren’t?” she asked.

  Cutting into his stack of pancakes, he said, “I’d be happy to explain the differences to you, but I have to warn you, it’s not a topic for sissies.”

  Somehow she believed he was only half joking. In a like manner, she said, “I’m fairly certain I can handle it.”

  He seemed to be enjoying the opportunity to share his expertise. The man obviously had a playful side to go with his voracious appetite. The pallor she’d glimpsed yesterday was less noticeable this morning. His eyes crinkled at the corners, as green and changeable as the weather. He hadn’t bothered to shave. The stubble on his jaw was a shade darker than his hair. The collar of his shirt was open at his throat, the green broadcloth a color and style that would fit in anywhere.

  “Basically there are five classifications of men,” he began as he spread jelly on his toast. “The butt heads are by and large the worst. Normally I would refer to them as something more crass, but I’m going to try to do this delicately, so we’ll stick with butt heads. These are the guys who make promises they have no intention of keeping. They’re hard and heartless. These are the liars, stealers, cheaters, politicians, CEOs, anybody with no conscience. They give all men a bad name.”

  She was listening, for she’d once known a few of those. Intimately.

  “Next are the sorry-asses. Forgive me but there’s no delicate way to describe this category. They’re the drunks, the guys who mean well but are too lazy to bring home a paycheck, get their own beer or mow the lawn. You know, your basic losers.”

  She couldn’t help smiling again.

  “Third is the—let’s call the third category the dumbbells. If sorry-asses are your basic losers, dumbbells are your basic users. This is the guy who doesn’t have any money with him on Pizza Friday, who has to be shown repeatedly how to use the business system at work but can navigate every search engine for his personal use on company time. He’s more obnoxious than harmful.”

  She made an agreeable sound, which earned her an appreciative masculine grin that went straight to her head.

  “The last two categories are the smart alecks and the wise guys. At first glance you might think they’re one and the same. They’re both on the mouthy side, but smart alecks are irritating and wise guys are charming and entertaining.” He took a big bite of his pancakes and smiled smugly, as if his work here was done.

  “You’ve certainly cleared that up,” she said over the rim of her coffee cup. “Tell me this. Why do women put up with any of you?”

  Those green eyes of his spoke a full five seconds before he said, “Because some of us are irresistible.”

  “You don’t say.”

  They fell into a companionable silence. She finished the plain pancake and sipped her coffee, and he made a good-sized dent in his breakfast.

  Thunder rumbled overhead. Kyle felt an answering vibration that was more like the pulsing beat of a distant drum than weather. It started deep inside, radiating outward. This was desire, the kind that burned slow and got hotter. There was only one way to appease it, and she was sitting across the table from him.

  Summer’s dress was the color of pecans today. When was the last time he’d met a woman who wore a dress every day? He wasn’t referring to buttoned-up suits with pencil-thin skirts and stiletto heels with toes so pointy they could draw blood. Summer wasn’t out for blood. Was that why she drew him?

  No. There was something far more elemental at work here.

  Her dress was sleeveless, and the neckline covered all but the inside edges of her collarbones. It wasn’t formfitting or tight and had no business looking sexy. He wanted to push his plate away and reach for her, but burning off this hunger with her wasn’t going to be that simple.

  Luckily Kyle was a patient man.

  When his plate was empty, she came around to his side of the table and took it. Pausing at the kitchen door, she glanced back at him and said, “Which type are you?”

  He wiped his mouth on his napkin and stood. “If you have to ask, I’m doing something wrong.” With that he sauntered out the front door.

  In the kitchen, Summer turned on the hot water and squirted in dish soap. As suds expanded over the dishes in the bottom, she placed one finger over that little indentation at the base of her neck. Feeling the pulse fluttering there, she thought, a wise guy, definitely.

  Since there were no parking spaces in front of Rose’s Flower Shoppe, Summer parked in front of Knight’s Bakery and Confectionary Shoppe a block away. The steady pitter-patter of raindrops on her umbrella muffled the click of her heels as she started toward Rose’s, but it didn’t dampen her mood. Betty Ryan smiled from the window of her daughter and son-in-law’s bakery when she saw Summer walking by. Looking up from the newspaper he was reading in his barber chair, Bud Barkley wiggled his fingers at Summer. She couldn’t help returning his classic wave.

  She hurried past two clothing stores that had survived the ongoing feud between their owners and the recession. The big chains had drained the life out of the old drugstore on the corner. Now the building was home to Izzy’s Ice Cream Parlor. Summer loved that she knew the stories and the struggles of the courageous, tenacious people who called Orchard Hill home. Being accepted by them was an honor and a gift.

  As if on cue, her phone jangled in her purse. Sliding it open, she began talking the moment she put it to her ear. “I’m on my way, Chelsea. How’s Madeline this morning?”

  “She’s going stir-crazy and Riley’s hovering.” Chelsea’s voice in her ear was clear and concise. “I don’t know who I feel sorrier for. Let me know what Josie says about Madeline’s bouquet, okay? I know you can’t be away from the inn more than absolutely necessary, so somebody from Knight’s Bakery is bringing four samples of wedding cake to the inn later.”

  Flowers. Check.

  Wedding cake. Check.

  There was something Summer was forgett
ing, but Chelsea was on a mission, and, when that happened, there was no stopping her. “Reverend Brown has agreed to go to Madeline’s house after services on Sunday to talk to her and Riley about the ceremony and vows. That’ll take us to the final five-day countdown. Can you believe it?”

  Summer thought it was amazing how fast the wedding was approaching, but she didn’t have an opportunity to make more than an agreeable murmur before Chelsea had to take another call. Outwardly Chelsea Reynolds was the most organized young woman on the planet. But underneath her buttoned-up shirts and practical manner smoldered a dreamer. Only those closest to her knew the reason she kept it hidden.

  The world was feeling like a good place as Summer dropped her phone back into her shoulder bag and walked into Rose’s Flower Shoppe. As always, the scents of carnations and roses met her at the door.

  “I’ll be right with you.” Josie Rose’s muffled voice sounded as if she was speaking into the cooler. Eight months pregnant with her third child, she entered the room with one hand at the small of her back and the other on her basketball-size belly. “There you are, Summer. Someone was here a little while ago asking about you. A man,” she said in a stage whisper.

  For the span of one heartbeat, Summer’s only thought was, they’ve found me. She waited, unmoving.

  “Can you say tall, dark and handsome?” Josie asked, oblivious to Summer’s inner turmoil.

  Oh. Okay. Summer could breathe again, because that description ruled out Drake and her father.

  When she’d first moved to Orchard Hill and shortened her name and bought her inn, she’d often caught herself looking over her shoulder. There had been times when she’d been certain someone was following her. She wasn’t afraid, physically, of her former fiancé or her father. It was the havoc they could wreak and the media circus they were capable of creating that she so dreaded. Her father had connections to people in high places. She’d seen him in action with her own two eyes and knew he had the ability and the capability to ruin people for pleasure or personal gain.