Read Online His Darling Bride (Echoes of the Heart #3) by Anna DeStefano - Free Book Online Page B

cleaning? That makes you, what, a citified cowboy?”
    “I’m not a cowboy, remember?”
    She wiped her own mouth, telling herself to stop teasing him.
    He smiled every time she did, making her think far too seriously about how easy it would be to chat away the afternoon. She had a class of kids in Atlanta she and her sister needed to get to. And she was already enjoying herself way too much for flirting to be a good idea under any circumstances.
    “So, Grapes & Beans is great.” Mike polished off another wrap.
    She nodded. “I usually stumble in here for breakfast after I’ve been—”
    “Up all night painting?”
    “How did you . . . ?”
    She followed his glance to the gossamer peasant blouse she’d thrown on yesterday under her cut-off overalls. Paint was blotched here and there on all of it. She crossed her legs, her boots clunking into the café table’s center leg. A wedge of her super-short hair slid in her eyes. She waved it back and discovered a smudge of oil paint at her temple, where she often tucked a smaller brush behind her ear.
    She’d been working with shades of reds and pinks and oranges. Which one had made it to her face? She hadn’t even bothered to check her reflection in the bathroom mirror.
    “Everyone’s used to me like this,” she admitted, not caring if he understood. Really. What did it matter?
    “Everyone?”
    “Nic’s staff. Customers who know I eat here because my friend lets me mooch on whatever she’s made too much of.”
    “So you stumble in here most mornings . . .” He checked his watch. “Afternoons. And you wield your cake fork like a lethal weapon at whoever snags your attention?”
    “No.” She took a less-outrageous bite of her cake. “Evidently you bring out the worst in me.”
    “Or your painting is making you cranky, hence the all-night grudge match.” He smiled, as if he approved.
    “I couldn’t get something . . . right.”
    “Something?”
    “The canvas I’m working on. The light, the way it’s reflecting off everything. The dimensions. The depth. The heart of it. It won’t come to life. At least not the way I’m used to painting. It’s been that way for a long time. I . . .”
    She realized she was rambling and he was listening and that she was telling him things she hadn’t yet worked up the courage to even discuss with her parents. And he’d been right: no one was paying them any attention anymore. Well, almost no one. She glanced toward the pastry case, where Nicole was on the phone still. She and Shandra both smiled, Shandra giving Bethany a campy thumbs-up.
    The kid would be chattering about Mike all the way to Midtown. And Bethany would have to indulge her—this was Shandra’s day. All while the things Bethany didn’t understand about the guy or her reaction to him would continue to swirl inside her, distracting, agitating, refusing to take shape, just like her painting.
    “I’m working on a piece for my foster parents,” she explained, cautioning herself that Mike was simply listening to be polite. That his seemingly genuine interest in what she was saying was a figment of her imagination.
    Her paintings meant nothing to a total stranger. And maybe that’s why it felt so easy to vent to him—someone, unlike her family and friends, who wouldn’t be trying so earnestly to help, who’d just let her talk so she could figure things out for herself.
    “It’s important to get it right, you know?” she asked him.
    He nodded, as if he did. “For your foster parents?”
    “They come with the foster brothers who welcomed you to town the other night. And another foster sister, Dru, who’s half-owner of the Dream Whip, in case you’re hankering for the best burger, fries, and shake around. Just please . . . try not to make another scene if I’m on the clock.”
    “You work there?”
    “I help out when they need me, which has been a lot lately. Dru and Brad are pretty distracted.”
    “By the wedding? Your sister’s