Read Online A Minute to Smile by Ruth Wind, Barbara Samuel - Free Book Online Page A

fool.
    It was an impression that was trebled when Esther lifted her deep brown eyes. A sparkle of humor and passion shimmered there as she said, “You just have a kingly way,” she teased.
    He stepped closer. Above the heady mixture of chocolate and irises, he could smell Esther herself now, a soft scent of lavender. Deliberately, he let his eyes skim the scoop neck of her dress, where a luscious swell of breasts peeked out. “I seem to remember Esther is the name of a queen,” he said quietly.
    “So it is.” She didn’t draw back this time. Instead, a throaty chuckle escaped her throat at some private vision. “I have to get these flowers in water,” she said and slipped away from him.
    Alexander watched her at the sink, admiring the fullness of her hips and the dip of her waist, aware that he was deeply aroused by simply talking with the glorious Esther. “I’ll carry these outside, shall I?” he said, picking up bowls of strawberries and chunks of watermelon.
    The meal, as far as Alexander was concerned, was equal parts heaven and hell. The sandwiches went ignored as they all helped themselves to chunks of pears and watermelon, bits of cheese and bread, sips of the crisp wine. Around them, birds twittered and insects zoomed through on busy errands.
    “Not bad, huh?” Abe said, dipping a slice of apple into the common pot of chocolate.
    “It’s delicious,” Alexander agreed. “I gather it’s something of a tradition?”
    Esther laughed, the sound as golden as the thick, late light.
“Food
is our tradition.” She idly lifted a small triangle of watermelon and flicked the visible seeds away with a finger. “No one on the block could eat as much as we could.”
    “You have to understand,” Abe cut in, “that the lovely lady you see before you grew eight inches in a single year.” He chuckled. “Four more in her feet.”
    “And he grew
ten,”
Esther said, slapping his arm.
“Twelve
in his feet.”
    Alexander chuckled at their teasing. He’d not been quite certain of their relationship at first. Now it was plain they were very close, but like siblings. He shifted his gaze to Esther, admiring without urgency the tendrils of blazing hair against her cheek.
    She caught his gaze. “What were you like at fourteen, Alexander?”
    “I can barely remember fourteen,” he said with a frown. Suddenly he did remember. “Ah. Grammar school. My best friend was James Dervish and we used to go to movies to try to pick up girls.”
    “Without any luck, I bet,” Abe put in.
    “Abe!” Esther protested.
    “Hey, I was fourteen once, remember?” He glanced at Alexander. “The ones you like always had—” he cleared his throat “—outrageous figures and a lot of eyeliner, and they wouldn’t give you the time of day for a hundred bucks.”
    “We must have gone to the same movies,” Alexander said with a laugh.
    “Me and my girlfriend Judith were the skinny girls in the balcony, trying to get the big boys’ attention,” Esther said.
    “Until Judith bloomed,” Abe said with a chortle.
    Esther cocked her head, smiling. “That’s when I took to horror novels. You can’t go to the movies alone, after all.”
    “Horror novels?” Alexander echoed.
    Esther held back a smile, her sleepy eyes glittering with humor. “My secret addiction,” she said.
    “Do you mean
Frankenstein
and
Dracula,
that sort of thing?”
    “Well, back then, I had to make do a lot with those creepy comic books—you know,
Tales from the Crypt
and
Eerie Tales.
”
    Alexander had a vision of a thin, young Esther, hair in pigtails, wiling the summer away with gore-splashed comic books. He chuckled. “And now?”
    “There still aren’t many good ghost stories, unfortunately, but there’s almost anything else. It’s practically a horror renaissance.” She shrugged, as if feeling a little defensive. “It’s not for everyone, I admit.”
    “My mother loved ghost stories,” Alexander said, taking up another strawberry. “One