Moonlight Man Read Free

Her little golden crown of tinsel glittered in the lights. Reaching behind him, he lifted her bridal bouquet and placed it in her arms. The gray satin of her eyes silvered over with tears for just an instant as she stared in awe at the huge armful of golden daffodils he had given her, then lifted her face to his with a smile that nearly stopped his heart. “Hi,” she whispered, stepping from the last stair. “Have you been waiting long?”
    He reached out and flicked free a few little kinks of hair so they sprang out and caught the light around her face. “Only forever,” he said, and took her arm, linking it through his, seeing the gleam of a single gold bangle on her wrist. Something old. With a smile, he stepped forward with his bride, leading her to their welcome fate.
    “It was a beautiful wedding, Sharon,” Zinnie McKenzie, her sister’s new mother-in-law said as she sat down, kicked off her shoes, and put her feet on the coffee table. Then, with a guilty start, she set them on the floor again.
    “Oh, for heavens sake, go ahead,” Sharon said, leaning back, kicking off her own shoes, and putting up her feet. “That’s what coffee tables are for in my house.” She took a long drink from her glass of soda water, sighed, and looked at the children’s stockings she and Max’s mother had just finished stuffing and hanging from the mantel. “I’m beat!”
    “And so you should be. You did your sister proud,” Zinnie congratulated her. “A Christmas Eve wedding was a lot of work, but you came through like a trouper. And I just know those two are going to be as happy as Harry and I have been all these years.” She picked up her glass and sipped, looking at Sharon over the rim. “Now tell me, since you caught that whole whack of daffodils right smack in the face, who’s the next groom in this family?”
    Sharon loved the way she and her children had been automatically included in Jeanie’s new family. What she didn’t love was the way Zinnie’s words brought a startling image to her mind, an image of a golden-haired, bearded man with shoulders no drifter should have. He had no more business infiltrating her secret thoughts than he did coming into her living room.
    “Don’t look to me for an answer,” she said quickly, and forced a laugh. “My little sister threatened that she’d get me, even with her back turned, and if your friend Marian hadn’t ducked when she did, I wouldn’t have caught that bouquet. I’m beginning to suspect there was some kind of conspiracy.”
    “Oh, pooh! Marian’s just as bad as you are. She ducked because she doesn’t want to be the next bride either. Her family has lived next door to us since she was a toddler. She followed my boys everywhere. For a while she thought she was a little boy, I’m sure, and since she grew up, she’s driven her mother to despair. There are literally dozens of men after her, but she can’t see them for apples. Don’t tell me you’re the same. I understand you’ve been alone for three years now.”
    More than that. Much more , Sharon could have said but did not. Instead, for reasons she didn’t understand but which she suspected had a lot to do with that mental image she couldn’t quite dispel, she shrugged and said, “I am seeing someone, but it’s still a very casual relationship. He’s a banker. You’d have met him today, but he’s away.” She shocked herself with the lie. She doubted very much that she’d have invited Lorne Cantrell to the wedding even if he’d been in town. It just seemed … expedient, somehow, to drag him into the conversation. He was the only man she’d dated for a long time.
    “You’re fond of this man?”
    Sharon shrugged, feeling uncomfortable. “Yes. I guess so. I mean, of course. He’s very … nice. He’s kind, gentle, and well bred.” Then she frowned. It sounded as if she were discussing a dog she’d seen for sale. “Why do you ask?”
    Zinnie smiled. “Your face doesn’t exactly