Newlywed Games Read Free Page B

strained silence. Then her mother excused herself to go to the restroom. Meghann reached for the offered claim stubs just in case the conveyor-belt beast decided to offer up the luggage. She watched her mother retreat into the crowd.
    Her conscience pricked her to tell her mother the truth, but she pushed the notion away. What was the real harm anyway in letting her mom believe what she wanted to believe? It made her happy, and with any luck she would regain her strength. Then Meg would tell her.
    And in the meantime, when her mother was so anxious to meet her husband? Well, it was not going to be easy to placate her, but Meg would do it. Somehow.
    Lord, please heal her quickly and give me the strength to endure.
    “Do you have the time, sir?”
    “Quarter past six,” Bruce Halloway said to the man passing by and grabbed his garment bag and briefcase.As he hurried through the airport, a particular honey-blond caught his attention, her hair pulled back in a braided rope down her back. It took him only a moment to recognize her. He would know her anywhere, especially looking down. That’s the way she looked at work behind the front desk when he would study her. She was also wearing that blue floral dress he liked so well. Though conservative, it flattered her figure. The warm place inside him that she had unknowingly claimed jumped to life.
    He had fought the urge to date her because of his position as her boss. But he couldn’t resist looking for other ways to spend time with her on the job. In the process, he’d found out they had a mutual love for the historic old hotel they both worked in.
    That discovery came when he was on a search-and-seizure mission to locate some old hotel records. He was trying to recount the hotel’s complete history. Meghann knew where she thought some old records could be and offered to show him where they were. Her eagerness to help him—or any of her coworkers no matter how detestable the task—piqued his interest. Her servant’s heart mesmerized him to the point of distraction. He could have gotten directions from her and gone alone, but he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be with her.
    The dim lighting in the musty room gave a dreamy aura to all that was there. While rummaging through dusty old boxes, they stumbled upon an aged scrap-book someone had kept on hotel events fifty-some years prior.
    Meg gasped, and he’d turned to her, surprised atthe delight on her face. The fact that she was so excited at their find warmed him. They whiled away nearly an hour regarding the scraps of yesteryear’s mementos. Page after yellowed page offered tokens of history, voices sounding across time, a library of bygone days. They stood with the book opened on a stack of cartons and sifted through the pages of time.
    One such vintage page captured them both and Meghann squealed with delight. “A masquerade ball!”
    Her enchanting voice awash with enthusiasm tickled his senses and stirred a deep longing in his heart. A longing that was fueled every time he was around her…and even when he wasn’t.
    Together they came up with a plan to resurrect the Palace Hotel’s annual masquerade ball; a tradition that had ceased thirty years ago.
    Laughing, letting themselves get lost in their inspiration, they’d thrown out ideas for decorations, invitations, and costumes.
    He’d grinned at her glowing face. “What would you suggest for me? Something with chain mail and shiny steel? I always fancied myself a knight.” He held his hand out in front of him as if he clutched a sword. “Saving damsels in distress.” He was thinking of her tangle with a cat up a tree last fall.
    Meg shook her head. “No distressed damsels for you.” Her sweet voice brought him back. “You would be the regal prince presiding over the whole affair. Of course, there would be many maidens there, but none in need of rescuing. Your duties would fall to far duller things than slaying dragons. You would have the dauntingtask