Read Online Cara Colter by A Bride Worth Waiting For - Free Book Online Page A

they wanted to be left alone, only that the interrogation should stop!
    “Adam, will you be here tomorrow night?”
    Tory watched out of the corner of her eye and felt something in her relax when he said he would.
    “Come have dinner with us? Please? Oh, Frank will be so thrilled. You wouldn’t mind if I asked the Mitchells, too, would you? I know they’d be over the moon to see you.”
    The Mitchells—Mark’s parents. She saw him hesitate, and then he smiled and said yes, he’d like that very much.
    “Oh, Tory, you come too,” her mother said casually, as an afterthought. “I do have to go. I just stopped to give you that begonia. It’s got to go in quick. By the way, what is that thing parked out front?”
    “What thing?” Tory asked.
    “That thing belongs to me,” Adam said.
    “What thing?” Tory asked again.
    “Did you hurt your knee, honey?” her mother asked, noticing the ice pack.
    “Yes. What thing?”
    “How did you do that? It’s hard to hurt your knee making flower arrangements.”
    She glared at her mother for letting Adam know, not very subtly, that her daughter didn’t have a life. Her mother knew darn well she could fall down the steps as easily as anyone else.
    “I went in-line skating,” she said defiantly.
    “In-line what?”
    “Skating.”
    “Skating,” her mother said with pleasure. She shot a look to Adam. “Did you have anything to do with this?”
    “Well, yes ma’am, I did.”
    “Uhm,” she said, somehow managing to load that noncommital word with lots of satisfaction. She glanced at her watch, gave a quick and unconvincing cry of dismay and, with a quick wave, left them.
    “She didn’t give a fig about my knee,” Tory said, glaring after her. “And what have you got in front of my house. Some kind of disreputable bike?”
    “Yeah. But not my normal kind. A pedal bike. Kind of like a bicycle built for two, only this one is for one person with good legs and one person with a bum leg.”
    “What are you up to?”
    He sighed. “Tory, I don’t even know anymore. Just come for a damn bike ride with me, okay?”
    “Well, since you put it so nicely,” she agreed. And found she wanted to. A lot.
    He helped her up. They left the ice in the sink. She saw the ricksha and burst out laughing.
    “Adam, have you lost your mind?”
    “That would explain it as well as anything else. Madam, your chariot awaits you.”
    “All right. But no whinnying. Absolutely not. If you whinny, I’ll throw myself under the tires. I swear I will.”
    “No whinnying,” he promised solemnly.
    He helped her down the walk to the ricksha. It looked as if it was going to be a great deal of work to pedal this thing.
    She noticed her neighbor’s new drapes, and decided they weren’t as bad as she had originally thought they were. Her neighbor seemed to be peering out from them now. She waved jauntily and climbed into the carriage part of the ricksha.
    Her plan for the day had been not to get any further enmeshed with him, she reminded herself. To set boundaries. To send him packing.
    She settled herself back and watched as he climbed onto the bike. How long had it been since she went into a day with no plan at all? When had she become this person who had to compulsively control every second of every day? She suddenly felt deliciously free.
    “Want to hear the horn?” he called.
    “Why not?”
    It sounded just like a donkey braying. She wondered if it was possible to die from laughing. She hoped so.

    Her mother, he thought, as he pulled out onto the road, was a beautiful woman. She looked exactly how Tory was going to look in maturity. Really, it was something a man could look forward to.
    He had never thought of Kathleen’s mother in terms of what Kathleen would someday be. Why was that?
    The ricksha felt like it weighed precisely the same as a baby elephant. He glanced back at Tory. She was smiling. She waved at some open-mouthed children riding on their tricycles on the