Finally a Bride

“Your wedding get canceled?”

“It wasn’t my wedding.” It wouldn’t have been—he’d accepted long ago that he would never marry. “But, yeah, it was canceled. That’s why I left you the voice mail saying I wouldn’t need my vacation time. And if you want me to come in right now…”

“No, Eric, that’s not why I called. In fact, I called for the exact opposite reason.”

“You’re firing me?”

Steve laughed outright, the phone crackling with his raucous chuckle. “I’d like to clone you, not fire you.”

“Then I don’t understand…”

“I’ve already made up the schedule for next week, and I’m leaving you off it.”

“But I don’t need the time off.” Especially now, when he had such a distracting houseguest.

“Yes, you do, Eric. In the two years you’ve been working for me, you haven’t taken a single day off. Not a personal day. Not a sick day and none of your vacation time.”

“I like my job.” He couldn’t help Uncle Harold—or the comrades he’d lost in the Middle East. But as an EMT he could help other people. Sometimes.

“I’m glad you like your job,” Steve said, “and I want to keep it that way. You already arranged for the week off, and I’m going to make sure you stick to it.”

“But I don’t want to.”

“But you need to, Eric. You need to take some R & R or you’re going to burn out. I’ve seen it happen too many times. I don’t want it happening to you.” He laughed. “Hell, I can’t afford to have it happen to you.”

“I appreciate your concern, but I’m fine.”

“So take the time off and stay that way,” Steve insisted. “Everyone’s been warned. No calling you to work for them, either. I don’t want to see you back here for a week, South. That’s an order. I know that you’re too good an employee to disobey an order.” But the supervisor must have doubted him because he hung up before Eric could begin to argue.

Molly ducked her head out of the bedroom doorway. “I take it that wasn’t one of my bridesmaids?”

“Not this time.” He sighed. “Seems like I’m going to be around more than I thought next week.” More than he’d hoped.

“That’s good,” she said, but she sounded about as convinced of that as he was.

“Don’t worry, though,” he assured her. “I’ll stay out of your way. Give you time to…read.” Maybe he would have to borrow a few of her books. Anything to get his mind off the thought of her here, lying in a bed just a few yards away from his.

“Hmm?” She turned toward him, obviously distracted.

“Nothing,” he said. “Your mind is somewhere else.” Or on someone else. Did she regret running out on her groom?

“They didn’t cancel the reception, you know,” she informed him.

“I know,” he admitted. “Your bridesmaids have been calling from the American Legion.” The post was the only facility in Cloverville big enough for parties. Even if the new construction expanding the town included a banquet hall, he doubted any true Clovervillians would use anyplace but the American Legion. The town, like his uncle Harold, was loyal and steeped in tradition.

She groaned. “Didn’t Abby read them the note?”

“You didn’t ask them to leave me alone,” he pointed out.

She grinned, amused by their friends’ ingenuity. “Leave it to them to find a loophole.”

“To find you.”

“Even though they know where I am, I think they’ll leave me alone for a while,” she said, her earlier panic seeming to have subsided.

“If they let you be, it’s probably only because of your mom.” Mrs. McClintock would make sure the others laid off.

“Probably,” she agreed.

“I guess it doesn’t matter why—as long as they agree to do it,” Eric allowed.

Molly glanced up at him and blinked, as if she hadn’t heard a word he said.

“That’s what you want, right?” he asked, wondering if she’d changed her mind. “Time to think?”

“Yes,” she said vaguely, leaving Eric to consider whether she was answering his question or another one she’d asked herself.

“If you’d rather be completely alone, I can take off,” he offered. “I have a buddy I can crash with in Grand Rapids. I stay with him when I work doubles. He’s closer to the hospital.” Maybe that would be far enough away so that he wouldn’t think of her. But he doubted it, since even the Middle East hadn’t been far enough away.

“I don’t want you to leave.” Her dark eyes shone as if something had just occurred to her. “At least I don’t want you to leave without me.”

“I know I’m going to regret asking,” he said, his stomach muscles tightening as he braced himself for her response, “but what exactly do you want, Molly?”

She flashed him a smile as her eyes took on a mischievous glint. “I want to crash my wedding reception.”

Chapter Three

“This is crazy,” Eric grumbled as he handed Molly a glass of punch. But he’d gone along with her plan—just as he always did.

Fighting a smile, Molly tilted her head so she could see beyond the brim of her hat. Eric’s face was also in shadows because of the fedora he wore. In a dark pin-striped suit, with his hat and a bright red tie, Eric resembled the dapper gangsters of old. Dashing but dangerous.

“You look good,” she murmured, pitching her voice low so no one would overhear.

As usual, he didn’t acknowledge her compliment. “You look like Mrs. Hild.”

The elderly widow whose life revolved around her roses…She wore flowered dresses and wide-brimmed hats. Molly smiled. She didn’t exactly consider the comparison an insult. She had always liked the town busybody who lived on Main Street. The hand-carved Cloverville Town Limits sign was planted in the front yard of her little Cape Cod right beside her flowers.

“You were really going to wear that on your honeymoon?” he asked, his voice full of the same disbelief that had been on his face when he’d seen the contents of her heavy suitcase.

She bet his bride wouldn’t bring books, or much of anything else, on their honeymoon. If she had Eric, she wouldn’t need anything else. Her heart clutched at the thought of Eric marrying another woman—any woman but her. Not that she wanted to marry Eric; they were only friends. Despite that night before he’d left for the Marines, that was all they’d ever really been.

She lifted the glass of punch and sipped from the rim, then coughed. She had asked for nonalcoholic, but after he’d worked so hard to get her a drink, sneaking his way over to the bowl, she couldn’t reject what he had brought her.

“What’s wrong with this?” Molly glanced down at the long loose-fitting flowered dress she wore. “I like it.”

And that was all she’d considered when she’d packed for her honeymoon, what she liked—not what her new groom might appreciate. She hadn’t thought about him at all. Guilt tugged at her. Poor Josh. What a horrible woman he’d picked for his bride. She hoped he’d choose a better one next time. She hoped that next time he’d propose out of love, and not from the desire to find a mother for his twin sons.

And she hoped that the woman to whom he proposed would accept out of love—and not just from a desire to escape the choices she’d previously made. Of course Molly had thought she could love Josh. And despite not seeing all that much of his sons, she’d thought she could love Buzz and T.J., too. The four-year-olds made her think of what Eric must have been like at their age, when he’d lost both his parents, not just his mother.