Read Online Flower Girl Bride by Dana Corbit - Free Book Online Page B

dinner.”
    Frustration must have buried my sense of self-preservation because I took two menacing steps toward the cat. The hiss drowned out even the sound of the pouring water. Swallowing, I retraced my steps back to safety on my own side of the room. When I was out of range of any waving claws, I tried my tough-gal role again.
    â€œWell, if that’s how you feel about it, then you’ll have a thirsty afternoon.” I made a big production of pushing down the handle to shut off the faucet. “See what meanness will get you?”
    In the doorway, Princess still hadn’t moved. She was watching me as if I was the most interesting thing she’d seen next to the flock of nasty seagulls that hung out on the beach.
    Turning away, I filled the cat’s bowl with fresh water and set it on her personalized place mat next to the counter. Though I might not have been her favorite person, I wasn’t an animal, either. I know my aunt said her pet never drank from the bowl, but these were desperate times and maybe she would lower herself to the indignity of it.
    How had I ever thought I could be a good parent? I couldn’t even get a ten-pound cat to take a drink. I probably would have been just as much of a failure if I’d tried to convince a whining first grader to go to bed or tried to take the car keys from a belligerent teen. Maybe God had had a plan after all in denying me the thing I’d wanted most.
    I popped the top off a single-serving can of gourmet cat food—this one ocean perch with salmon soufflé or some such—poured it into the porcelain bowl and set it next to the water, just as my aunt had demonstrated that morning.
    Princess didn’t bother to show any curiosity let alone come over and sniff her lunch. Instead, she turned tail and sauntered to parts unknown in the house.
    â€œFine,” I called after her. “Don’t eat anything. But you’re going to get hungry if you keep this up until your mommy and daddy get home. Go take a nap, you ungrateful cat. Just go.”
    â€œBut we just got here.”
    I whirled to see Sam with his face pressed against the slider screen. A baseball cap sat lopsided on his head, a ducky float ringed his waist and a frown pulled like gravity on his face. Next to him, Luke stood with a bag of sand toys hoisted over his shoulder.
    Luke had his lips pressed together as if he was trying not to laugh. My face probably looked as though I’d made a fashion faux pas with a whole container of rouge.
    â€œYou want us to go?” Sam pressed, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion.
    â€œNot you guys.” I brushed my hand aside in frustration. “It’s just—” I gestured toward the place where Princess had last sat. Of course, the spot beneath the door frame was empty now. “Oh, forget it.”
    â€œOoooh-kay.” Luke stretched out the word to its maximum length.
    I shot a look toward the door again. “Oh. Sorry. Why don’t you come in?”
    Sam glanced back and forth a few times as if checking for danger before he risked opening the door. I understood just how he felt.
    Luke followed him through the door. “Having some problems with the lady of the house?”
    The look I shot him hit its mark before he even had time to hide his smirk. But I had to admit that the situation was laughable.
    â€œJust a few,” I answered finally.
    Instead of poking fun at me as I expected he would, Luke strode past me into the great room. Dressed for the beach in a faded Michigan State T-shirt and a pairof long, royal-blue swimming trunks that matched his eyes, he started peering over and under things, lifting a pillow here and shifting a chair there. It dawned on me that he was hunting for the cat.
    And without a top hat, a whip and a chair?
    â€œLuke, wait—”
    He wasn’t listening, though. He was making this quick, clucking noise with his mouth.
    â€œHere, kit, kit,