Read The Wedding Tree for Free Online Page B

“Where do you live, Sophie?”
    â€œNext door.” She pointed to the left.
    â€œWell, as soon as you finish your cookie, I think you should go ba—”
    â€œSophie!” A deep male voice drifted through the front screen door. “Sophie!”
    â€œIn here!” the girl yelled, so loudly I jumped.
    Steps sounded on the porch. “Hello?” called a male voice.
    â€œI’m in the kitchen with a lady who looks like the tooth fairy,” Sophie shouted. “Come meet her!”
    The screen door squealed open, and a moment later, a tall manfilled the doorway. He had dark hair and blue eyes, and he was wearing a starched white shirt unbuttoned at the neck, with a loosened blue-and-gray-striped tie. He was good-looking, if you’re shallow enough to notice such things—which, unfortunately, I am.
    I’d like to think it was the element of surprise that turned me into a tree and made me just stand there, rooted to the floor, but the truth is, he looked like a cross between Jake Gyllenhaal, Hugh Jackman, Bradley Cooper, and a young George Clooney, with a nose that looked like it might have once been broken, because it was just a little bit skewed to the left, and something about that slight imperfection made my stomach speed-bump. It took several beats of silence for me to realize he was staring back in a way that made me highly aware of my state of deshabille.
    Deshabille—
another of those old-fashioned, peignoir-related French words. Once something enters my head, my thoughts keep circling back to it at the most inappropriate moments. A friend who majored in psychology said it sounded like OCD, but I never talked to a doctor about it, because having ADHD was bad enough and if I was more screwed up than that, I really didn’t want to know about it.
    Anyway. Here was this smoking-hot man in my kitchen, and I’m dressed like a 1940s screen siren, and it felt all kinds of weird. I shifted the cookie to my left hand.
    â€œWant a cookie, Daddy?” Sophie asked.
    â€œUh, no thanks.” He pulled his eyes from me and knelt down by his daughter.
    I couldn’t help but notice the way his thigh muscles bulged under the summer-weight wool of his gray pants. The guy was ripped.
    â€œSophie,” he was saying to his daughter, “you know you’re not supposed to wander off.”
    â€œI came to see Mizz McCauley, but the tooth fairy princess lady was here instead.”
    The man turned Gyllenhaal-blue eyes on me. “I apologize for my daughter barging in on you.”
    â€œOh, she didn’t barge in . . .” I hesitated. I didn’t want to get herin trouble, but on the other hand, I didn’t want him to think I’d been standing out in the yard dressed like Mata Hari, luring stray children inside. “. . . exactly. I mean, apparently she regularly visits my grandmother.”
    â€œSo you’re Mrs. McCauley’s granddaughter,” the man said, straightening.
    Sophie scrunched up her brow. “You’re really a granddaughter?”
    I smiled down at her. “We come in all ages.”
    â€œReally?” Sophie asked.
    â€œSophie!” called a woman’s voice from outside. “Sophie!”
    â€œIn here!” Sophie bellowed. “Come on in.”
    Great, just great. At this rate, the whole town would soon be in the kitchen, wondering why I was dressed like Lana Turner. The porch door squeaked again, and a moment later, an attractive blonde about my age walked in. Her eyes widened as she took me in. She glanced at the man, then back at me, then rushed to Sophie. “Honey, we were so worried! You know you’re not supposed to leave the yard without an adult.”
    â€œI didn’t. I came over to see Mizz McCauley.”
    The woman smoothed Sophie’s hair.
    â€œI’m Hope Stevens,” I explained, extending my cookie-free hand. “I’m Mrs. McCauley’s