by Jessica Hart
She flicked it off disapprovingly while Sophie stood docile, thinking that her mother had borne enough that morning. ‘Now, is that everything?’ She stood back to inspect her daughter critically from top to toe, to reassure herself that she had done the best that she could.
Until she came to Sophie’s feet.
‘Sophie,’ she said in an awful voice, ‘tell me that you’re not wearing Wellington boots under your wedding dress!’
‘I just grabbed the first thing I could find,’ said Sophie, peering down at the black rubber boots, liberally splattered with dried mud, that peeked out from beneath the ivory silk.
Harriet gave a small moan. ‘We’ll have to go back for your shoes. We must have forgotten them in all the rush.’
‘No,’ said Sophie. ‘We’re late already. I’ll go as I am.’
‘No daughter of mine is going up the aisle in gumboots!’ said Harriet, scandalised at the very idea.
‘I’ll take them off, then.’ Sophie was already stepping on the back of one boot to pull her foot free. Her father’s old socks were thick enough to keep the chill off the soles of her feet. ‘I’ll get married in my socks,’ she said, and took her father’s arm with a brilliant smile.
‘I’m ready,’ she said, and he led her into the church.
Bram was waiting at the altar, and the look on his face as he saw her told Sophie everything she needed to know. Her heart swelling with happiness, she took her place beside him and smiled back at him. What more could she ask for at Christmas? Bram was everything that she needed. Her best friend. Her lover.
Her husband.
ISBN: 978-1-4603-6673-8
MISTLETOE MARRIAGE
First North American Publication 2005.
Copyright © 2005 by Jessica Hart.
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