Read Online Yesterday's Love by Sherryl Woods - Free Book Online Page A

Victoria’s ramshackle house, this one looked as though it had been in top condition for a hundred years, its appearance so solid and dependable that Tate was sure it could withstand another hundred.
    As he turned off the car’s engine, the front door flew open, and Katherine Marshall stood framed in the doorway, her simple cotton print dress topped by a ruffled apron, her cheeks flushed prettily and her hair—a shade darker than Victoria’s—coiled into a neat bun. As Tate and Victoria approached, she positively beamed at them. Tate thought she looked exactly the way a mother should look—comfortable, warm and assured. She looked like a mother who would bake cookies. His own mother had burned the one batch she’d ever tried and hired a cook the same afternoon. She’d told Tate she’d rather take him hang gliding and leave the baking to someone else. Having a mother who wanted to be his pal had given him a rather distorted view of things. He’d always yearned to come home from school to someone a bit more traditional.
    â€œTate, how wonderful that you could come. Victoria’s father and I are so looking forward to getting to know you.”
    Tate saw no hidden meaning in the friendly words, but Victoria mumbled, “I warned you,” under her breath. As her mother linked arms with him and drew him into the living room, he shot Victoria a reproachful glance before gazing down at her mother with a smile.
    That’s all I need, Victoria thought in disgust. A couple of hundred-watt smiles like that and my mother will start buying frames for pictures of the grandchildren. As the evening wore on, her mouth settled into a grim line. Tate was actually enjoying himself and her parents were clearly infatuated. They couldn’t seem to believe that she had finally brought home someone who was down-to-earth and seemingly financially stable, someone her father could talk to and her mother could…well, mother.
    When Katherine brought out warm apple cobbler topped with mounds of melting vanilla ice cream, Victoria knew for certain that wedding bells were already pealing in her head. Homemade cobbler was her mother’s specialty, prepared only when she wanted to use her biggest guns to make a sure kill. The last time she’d baked one the town scrooge had forked over ten thousand dollars to beautify a park. He was still grumbling about Katherine Marshall’s sly, underhanded tactics.
    Tate caught the dismayed expression on Victoria’s face and briefly wondered about it. Then he dismissed it as her father deftly steered the conversation over a fascinating range of topics—from the intrigues of small-town politics to rampant, unrestricted development and poor zoning, from bank failures to the national debt. All were things Tate understood and felt comfortable with. He’d grown up discussing these subjects with his own father. It was both nostalgic and satisfying to find someone older with whom he could share his thoughts again. He’d missed that since his father’s death.
    As for Mrs. Marshall, she reinforced his earlier impression of her straightforward, brutally honest approach to life. She was clearly a perfectly contented homemaker, a self-assured woman who would never whimper about life’s harsh realities or pretend they didn’t exist. She’d roll up her sleeves and pitch in to make things better, always with that sparkling sense of humor that made her bright blue eyes, that were so like her daughter’s, crinkle with laughter.
    Despite Victoria’s dire warnings, he found the Marshalls to be exactly the kind of people he most enjoyed. It was Victoria herself who baffled him. How such an unconventional, impractical woman could have turned up on that very sensible family tree was beyond him. Yet though her parents teased her unmercifully about her more unique friends and crazy lifestyle, it was obvious that they doted on and worried