Read Online Here Comes the Bride by Gayle Kasper - Free Book Online Page B

missing.
    Buying the antique bauble for her felt good. Strangely good.
    He didn’t want to ponder why.
    “Let’s stop at the Gold Slipper for a cool drink,” he said when she’d checked out every nook and cranny of her third antique shop in a single block.
    When they were seated in the red-and-gilt room off the lobby of the old town’s restored hotel, sipping icy lemonades, he set the small filigree box in front of her. “For you,” he said simply.
    Her eyes widened. “You … you bought it?”
    “I wanted you to have it.”
    “But …” Her gaze diverted from the small jeweled square to his face. “Oh, Nick, I—I can’t accept this. It’s too valuable.”
    “It was too valuable to leave there for someone else to buy, Fiona, someone who wouldn’t appreciate it the way you would.”
    “That’s not fair, Nick. To put it that way.” A way he knew would get to her, appeal to her sentimental side. How had he known that was her weakness? She often bought antiques she knew she couldn’t afford—and would never want to resell—just because she couldn’t bear to have them go to some grasping dealer.
    She ran the tip of one finger gently over the box, knowing this was one time she should be strong. She and Nick were two peoplewho’d been brought together by a strange quirk of fate, nothing else. And to accept such a gift implied more.
    She drew her eyes from the small trinket and looked up at him, her lips ready with a firm no, but he was smiling, a pleased-as-punch grin, and she couldn’t do it.
    Nick was a puzzle to her. One moment he was as tough as an old miner’s boot, and the next he was—She decided not to finish that thought. It would be better to think of him as a tough miner’s boot than someone warm and—Skip that thought, too.
    She was beginning to care entirely too much about Nick Killian. And that was not good. She’d only known him a few days. And in another few days she’d be out of his life, back in her own world.
    For now she would accept his gift graciously. And perhaps later she could find a way to repay him. “Thank you. I know just the spot in my apartment where this will go.”
    “Ah, where?”
    “I have this big rosewood four-poster, something I bought to resell then couldn’t bring myself to part with. I’m going to set this on the night table beside it.”
    “Beside your bed?”
    “Yes.”
    Why did the word
bed
falling from Nick’s lips sound so intimate? Fiona swallowed hardand glanced away from the heat she saw in his eyes. It had been an innocent remark, but now it seemed far from that.
    Nick glimpsed the sudden rise of color in Fiona’s cheeks. He wanted to see them heat like that in the throes of passion. He wanted to make love to her in that big four-poster, her flame-red hair spilled across the pillow. Wild love. Slow, thorough love.
    A pulse point beat in her neck and he wanted to lean in close and kiss it. He wanted to sample every inch of her skin, taste its silken heat.
    Damn, what was this woman doing to him?
    He didn’t even know himself anymore. She had him acting erratically, rambling through old stores, perusing purple bottles, and wanting to know every little thing about her life.
    “So, where do you find stuff like big rosewood four-posters?” he asked. He’d rather ask what she wore at night when she slipped between its covers, but decided it was better that he didn’t know. “Do you prowl around old dusty shops, go to sales, what?”
    “I keep my eye open for any possibility,” she said. “I scour the newspapers for estate sales. I go on buying jaunts through every tiny burg within a hundred-mile radius of Boston.Sometimes I travel farther afield, wherever I get the whiff of a good sale.”
    “Like a bloodhound?”
    She laughed and Nick loved the sound. It trickled up from her throat, more beautiful than the ripple of water purling over smooth stones in a brook.
    “It takes a lot of hours to find the special things my customers will