A Bride Until Midnight / Something Unexpected: A Bride Until Midnight. Sandra Steffen
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pushed in a chair, then went to the bed to finish the job Kyle had started. As she fished an open novel from under one of the pillows, a sheet of paper fluttered out, landing face-up on the bed.
She picked it up automatically and couldn’t help noticing her name scribbled at the top. Beneath it he’d compiled a list.
1. Baltimore
2. Merlot
3. Mackinaw Island
4. Ancient Mythology
5. Six years
6. The Orchard Inn, free-and-clear
7. Refined and educated
8. Evasive—hiding something
Suspicion reared, and the pit of her stomach pitched. Her average guests didn’t make a list of perceptions and things she’d told them. In fact, this discovery was a first.
Her hand shook at the implications, the words on the paper blurring before her eyes. Making a list of things she’d told him didn’t make him a thief, but Kyle Merrick was an investigative reporter. That wasn’t the same as a private investigator, but it didn’t mean she should trust him, either, chocolates and flowers notwithstanding.
She slid the paper into the book where she’d found it and placed the book on the nightstand as she normally would, as if she’d discovered nothing out of the ordinary. She smoothed wrinkles from the sheet, tucked in the blanket and made up the bed with her signature hospital corners. All the while, the word ordinary resonated inside her, for what she wanted, all she wanted, was an ordinary life.
From the door, her gaze strayed to the top edge of the paper peeking from the book on the nightstand. She didn’t know what Kyle was up to, but finding that list was a reminder to her to remain cognizant of everything she stood to lose.
At a few minutes before five o’clock, Summer showed Betty Ryan from Knight’s Bakery and Confectionary Shoppe to the back door. Behind her, four neatly labeled miniature wedding cakes were lined up on the inn’s kitchen table beside a large bouquet of bright yellow daffodils.
Several of her guests had already headed home for the weekend. In the ensuing lull, Summer called Madeline. “The cakes are here, right on schedule,” she said while getting plates from the cupboard.
“I don’t like asking this of you,” Madeline said.
“You know I don’t mind,” Summer murmured. “In fact, I’m happy to do it.”
“I know you say you don’t mind, but I’m lying here doing nothing and you’re—” Madeline burst into tears.
“And I’m about to eat cake. Madeline, what is it? What did Talya say at your appointment today? Better yet, you can tell me when I get there. I’m on my way.”
“No! It was a good appointment. I don’t need you to come over. I just sent Riley out. I love all of you so much, but all this hovering is making me crazy. Riley and I just had our first fight over it.”
Summer paused, her hand suspended over the drawer where she kept the cake knife. While Madeline gave Summer an update on her condition and progress, Summer put forks and napkins on the table next to the dessert plates. Madeline had received good news from her nurse practitioner/midwife this afternoon. Talya confirmed that Madeline’s beta levels were still elevated, a wonderful indication that she was still pregnant.
“Yesterday there was minimal spotting,” Madeline said over the phone. “Today there’s been none. Talya said that as long as this continues, today is my last day of prescribed bed rest. As of midnight tonight I’m relieving you of fill-in bride duties. Poor Riley doesn’t know what to do with me, crying one minute, pointing my finger toward the door the next. What if he doesn’t come back?”
Madeline sniffled again, and Summer’s heart swelled. “Are you kidding me? He’s a smart guy. He’ll be back, probably sooner than you think. In fact, he’s probably pacing outside in the driveway right now. You’re marrying the man, Madeline. It’s called for better and for worse.”
“I’m afraid Riley’s getting the worse first.”
“Riley is getting the best, and he knows it,” Summer declared.
“I hope you’re right,” Madeline said, sounding more like herself. “Just this morning we were talking about names ….”
Laughing at Madeline’s anecdotes, Summer looked around the room. Everything was ready in the kitchen. She was prepared in other ways, too. Madeline had said that as of midnight tonight, Summer would no longer be a fill-in bride. She wasn’t going to wait until midnight to demonstrate a new-and-improved, friendly-but- businesslike manner with Kyle. No more shared middle-of-the-night crème brulee, no more laughing over morning coffee, no more heartrending emotion over something as sweet and simple as a bouquet of daffodils.
Her guard had slipped but she’d resurrected it. She felt a twinge of disappointment over that, for Kyle was a hot-blooded man, and he’d brought out her passionate side, too. But it was something she—
“Summer are you there?” Madeline asked.
“Hmm,” Summer said.
“Summer?”
“Hmm?”
“You seem distracted.”
Kyle had just entered the room. He stood in the doorway, feet apart, one hand on his hip. She could see him taking everything in, the cakes, the flowers, her.
“I’m still here, Madeline,” Summer said quietly.
“Good. Kyle left a little while ago and should be arriving at the inn any minute.”
“Here he is now,” Summer said.
He’d showered and changed into brown chinos and a white, knit shirt. He was cleaned up, buttoned-up, tucked in. He’d even shaved. Without the whisker stubble, the lines of his jaw and chin were more pronounced, the skin above his white collar tan.
He smiled at her and let his gaze trail over her once from head to toe. The pit of her stomach did a dainty little pirouette, and she faced the fact that the return to decorum was liable to be a steep, slippery slope.
“Ready?” he asked.
She nodded.
Ten minutes later, all four cakes had been cut and Summer and Kyle had tasted each one. Twice.
“Okay,” she said, doing everything in her power to ignore the expression of rapture on his lean face as he took a third bite of the first sample. “Madeline wants a simple wedding. Among other things, that means only one cake. We need to eliminate three. First, let’s narrow it down. I think the one with the coconut can go.”
“You’re kidding.” He reached around her and scooped up another forkful of that one. When his elbow accidentally brushed her breast, her heart jolted.
She drew away as if unaffected, but her body betrayed her. Rather than glance at him to see if he noticed, she said, “Coconut is one of those foods people either love or hate, which is why it’s a logical choice to eliminate first.”
“If you say so.” He pushed the white cake sprinkled with coconut to the center of the table away from the other three. Scooping up a forkful of a light-as-a-feather white cake on the plate closest to him, he said, “I like this one.”
“It’s too sweet,” she insisted.
“Who are you?”
Her gaze swung to him. And time suspended.
Did he know that Summer was only a nickname? Is that what he meant?
“You can’t be the same woman who stood in this very kitchen eating crème brulee at three o’clock this morning.”
He hadn’t meant who was she literally.
She’d jumped