“Just try,” she said, the tears gone and that tomboy gleam back in her eye.
He grinned and held her close to his heart. “I’m afraid.”
“Good,” she said. “I want you to be afraid. Be very afraid.”
And Brett was. It scared him that he’d almost turned his back on such happiness.
FRANCESCA automatically moved her feet in the old-fashioned dance steps. Over her father’s shoulder, she held out her left hand and admired the wedding band now snuggled close to the engagement ring Brett had slipped on her hand four months ago. She’d only wanted the band, but once they’d shared their news with Pop he’d insisted on giving them her mother’s diamond solitaire.
Knowing how happy her parents had been together, it only seemed fitting.
Her veil drifted over Pop’s sleeve, and she reached up to adjust her headpiece. Brett had smiled so tenderly when he’d seen it. She’d had it especially made, delicate white tulle attached to the tiara he’d given her that magical night.
Speaking of nights…she sighed. It would be hours before she could be alone with Brett. The reception was going to last forever. Her brothers and Pop had turned startlingly romantic on her and sworn they wouldn’t feel right if she didn’t have a fancy wedding with every trimming known to man, er, wedding planner.
Her Aunt Elizabetta, dear sweet Sister Josephine Mary, had crocheted tiny bags for each guest, which held the traditional Italian good-luck almonds. If those didn’t get her great-aunt into heaven, Francesca didn’t know what would.
Rising on tiptoe, Francesca looked over her father’s shoulders to survey the other dancers. All the brothers had been pressed into Fred Astaire service. Only old Fred never looked as pained as the four tuxedoed men shuffling across the dance floor. She shook her head. They needed women to whip them into shape, but she was sidestepping the job to concentrate on the man who’d taken her heart as easily as he’d taken her up on his bicycle all those years ago.
She loved her husband so very much.
Movement at the edge of the dance floor caught her eye. Brett. She grinned, squiggling her fingers at him in a little wave. He waved back, then pointed to the bowl of sugared almonds on the table beside him. As she watched, he scooped up a huge handful of them and stored them in his already-bulging side pocket.
A little shiver ran down Francesca’s spine. Somehow he’d gotten the Italian almond tradition all wrong. Though she’d tried to correct him and explain it was a fertility charm, he insisted it was a sexual charm and claimed he was going to give her a climax for every almond he left the wedding with.
She blew Brett a kiss. It was hard to argue with such a delightful idea.
HARLEQUIN DUETS
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6129-1
WITH A STETSON AND A SMILE
Copyright © 1999 by Vicki Lewis Thompson.
THE BRIDESMAID’S BET
Copyright © 1999 by Christie Ridgway.
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With a Stetson and a Smile & The Bridesmaid’s Bet Page 31