Read Online The Groom's Revenge by Susan Crosby - Free Book Online Page B

attention to you all the time, I’m not your man.”
    Cool words and an icy tone, as if he’d been accused all his life of not paying attention. Had he been? A nonconformist forced to conform?
    “Actually, I admire the way you can concentrate like that. I’m always thinking about five things at once.” She watched him relax. “Which is why you’ll probably get totally exasperated teaching me the computer.”
    “I haven’t yet.”
    “Give it time.” She grinned at him. “I know myself. I have a short attention span.”
    “You’ve done great, Mollie.”
    Because you’re the one teaching me. Heck, if he’d wanted to teach her how to scuba dive, she would have followed him, mask, flippers and tank into Lake Superior, even though she could barely swim, even though the dark, icy waters of the lake terrified her.
    “What are you smiling about?” he asked.
    “I don’t know what cosmic phenomenon brought you into my life right now, but I’m grateful for it. I’ve been sad for too long. My mother wouldn’t have liked that.” She leaned across the console and kissed his cheek, wished she could snuggle against him. She needed him. Couldn’t he see that? “Thank you.”
    “I wish I’d met her.”
    “She was really something. She’d been married to a man who abused her. It took a lot for her to escape that life and start over. She had proof of him beating her, so he didn’t fight the divorce. I don’t think he ever learned where she moved. Their divorce was final right before I was born, and she took back her maiden name.”
    “I see where you get your strength.”
    “She had plenty of it I’m really proud of what she did with her life after that. It was an uphill battle for a long time, though, especially with a baby to provide for all by herself. We were closer than some mothers and daughters, probably, because of what she’d gone through.”
    He glanced in her direction. “Are you wary of men because of it?”
    “Not at all. One bad apple, you know.”
    “She never remarried?”
    “No. But she had men friends, relationships that lasted for years, even. And it was a little difficult finding single, compatible men at her age.”
    “Yes, I imagine it would be.” Gray had his answer. Mollie believed her mother’s ex-husband was her father. Why hadn’t her mother told her the truth? Karen had been compensated well—
    He gripped the steering wheel. Stuart had paid her off. Bought her silence. And Karen Shaw had been an honorable woman who’d kept her end of the bargain, while Stuart had gotten off scot-free.
    Mollie watched Gray’s expression close up. She hoped she hadn’t caused it. “I’m a little worried about what’s going to happen tomorrow,” she said. “Do you think your parents will believe we’re having an—a...relationship?”
    “Why not?”
    “Don’t lovers—” she struggled getting that enormous word out “—act, I don’t know, loverlike?”
    “Not in front of my parents.”
    “Oh.” Disappointment surged through her. She wanted to show him what he was missing, keeping his distance. “You mean, it’s okay to be lovers, but we can’t act like we are?”
    “Exactly. Displays of affection are reserved for moments of extreme privacy.”
    Darn. She’d hoped to get in a little practice with him before they left tomorrow, so they would look right together.
    Comfortable with each other. Practice makes perfect—
    “Just be yourself,” he said as he parked in front of her shop. “No one can resist that.”
    His offhanded compliments were treasured gifts. He’d told her she was beautiful—she could add a star to her nineteenth-birthday candle because of that She was a hard woman to resist, he’d said. Then there were the other gifts he gave without knowing it—her tenth-birthday wish, when she’d wished to take a trip— anywhere! —would come true this weekend.
    She turned toward him. “Thank you for dinner and for taking me shopping.”
    “My pleasure. Do