I Do! Read Free

covered in grime. The screen door hinges squeaked and her gaze slipped down his back to his waist and that stupid spiky belt. What a jerk.
    “Your photos are probably in the house.” He paused halfway inside and glanced over his shoulder at her. “Come in out of the heat while I look for them.” The darker shadows of the porch hid the top of his face and slashed across his nose to the corner of his mouth and the dark stubble on his chin.
    Go inside Nathan Parrish’s house? She didn’t think he was a demented pervert. At least she hadn’t heard anything about him being a demented pervert. But she didn’t know him, and it wasn’t smart for a girl to go into the house of a man she didn’t know. “I’ll wait here.”
    “Suit yourself.” He shrugged.
    The screen door slapped shut behind him and Becca tried to recall what she did know of Nate. She let out a puff of breath as she dug back into her memory. She hadn’t heard much about him for a while now. Not since the big scandal involving him and Lindsey Dale when Lindsey had gone around town telling everyone that one night of passionate love with Nate had created a love child. The town had fed on that gossip for seven months until it became obvious to everyone that Nate was not the father. The dates just hadn’t matched, neither had the DNA test Nate demanded on Lindsey’s baby girl.
    For one whole summer people whispered and wondered about that baby’s daddy. There had been a ton of speculation, but no real confirmation until the day Bug Larson’s wife had chased him through a field down by the high school, swearing “You cheating son of a bitch” at the top of her lungs and swinging a baseball bat.
    Becca shook her head. Sometimes Lovett, Texas, was as scandalous as the Maury Show . Not that she watched.
    A frown creased her brow above the frame of her sunglasses. When had that been the hottest event in town? Three years ago maybe? She knew it had been right after she’d graduated beauty school and landed her first job at Karla’s Kuts and Kurls. She’d spent that summer squandering her versatile talents with cut and color on the shampoo-and-set ladies for minimum wage and dollar tips. All they’d talked about was Nathan Parrish and Lindsey Dale and how they weren’t the least surprised, given that Nate’s parents had created enough of their own scandals and how Lindsey was just the last in a long line of Dale loose women.
    She looked at her watch. After the baseball bat incident, Lindsey’s mom had packed up her and her baby and sent them off to her cousin in Huntsville, which just seemed like cruel and unusual punishment, as far was Becca was concerned. She remembered hearing that Nate had returned to college up north somewhere, but she hadn’t heard much about him after that.
    Of course, she’d moved and didn’t pay attention to gossip.
    Her hand fell to the side and her gaze returned to the front door. If Nate didn’t hurry, she was going to be late for her meeting with Sadie. What was taking him so long? Had he fallen and hit his head again? She was baking beneath the Texas sun. The top of her head was getting cooked and it was apparent that he was in no hurry to reappear and didn’t care if she died of heatstroke.
    Bless his pea-pickin’ heart.
    The heels of her shoes tapped on the concrete as she walked up the steps and across the wooden porch. While it might not be smart to go into a man’s house alone, time was money, and he was wasting hers. Instead of knocking again, or calling out, she slowly opened the front screen door.
    A BROAD SLICE of sunlight slipped between toile curtains, bleached with age, and spilled across Nate’s bare shoulders and chest. He scrubbed his face with a clean washcloth, thick with suds from a bar of Irish Spring. He stood in his work pants at the chipped single-basin sink, his shoes planted in the spot worn thin by generations of Parrish men washing up after work. Cold water from the faucet streamed full