The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True Read Free

very least he’d have done his best to stall it. And who knows? He might have succeeded. Alice, both girls in fact, had idolized their father. And he, in turn, had lavished on them…
    … everything he withheld from you.
    The thought was startling, like a rude noise breaking the hushed stillness. Where had it come from? Hadn’t Martin been as devoted a husband as he had been a father?
    Sam forced the thought from her mind. At the moment her daughter’s happiness was all that counted. And just look at her! Alice seemed to glow like the bank of votive candles lighting the painted wooden Madonna to her right, the only hint of nervousness the faintly discernible quivering of her hands. Behind her veil, her smile was like sunshine finding its way through a morning mist. Her blue eyes fixed on Wes as he responded in a clear baritone: “I do.”
    Sam blinked hard, the sturdy oak pew, polished by generations of Delarosas, like a firm hand holding her upright. So far, so good. She’d managed to keep the waterworks at bay. Her gaze strayed to her eldest, who wasn’t having nearly as much success. Laura, standing alongside her sister, was holding the bouquet tilted askew in one hand while dabbing at her eyes with the other.
    Dear Laura. Anything could set her off: sentimental songs and movies, old photos in family albums. No wonder her door was Mecca to every poor, starved creature for miles around. It probably hadn’t occurred to her—she was the least vain person Sam knew—that she didn’t exactly fit the part of dying swan. Tears had left her olive skin blotchy, and pills of Kleenex dotted the front of her dusty-rose chiffon sheath, a dress chosen by Alice that was as stylish as it was spectacularly unsuited to Laura’s less than willowy figure.
    Sam’s heart went out to her. Not in pity. How could you feel sorry for someone as smart and talented as Laura? Certainly, she wouldn’t have been able to manage Delarosa’s without her. If only Laura’s husband had seen her for who she was, not for what she hadn’t been able to give him. Peter’s walking out on her had been a crushing blow; a year and a half since the divorce and she still wasn’t over it. Sam could only hope she would one day fall in love again and be as happy as…well, Alice and Wes.
    The priest turned his gaze to Alice. “Do you, Alice Imogene Kiley, take this man…”
    Moments later Wes was slipping the ring onto her finger, its four-carat diamond catching the light in a wink of such brilliance Sam didn’t have to dab at her eyes to know they were wet. Alice, in turn, slipped onto Wes’s finger the plain gold band that had been her father’s.
    Father Reardon closed his book. “I now pronounce you man and wife. And what God hath joined let no man put asunder.” The light from above seemed to radiate from the billowing sleeves of his surplice as he lifted his arms in benediction. With the wry twinkle that, along with his Black-Irish good looks, had inspired some decidedly un-Catholic thoughts in a number of the female parishioners, he turned to Wes. “You may kiss the bride.”
    A knot formed in Sam’s throat as she watched her new son-in-law lift Alice’s veil. Their kiss, though chaste, hinted at a passion she could only wonder at. On her own long-ago wedding day had she felt about Martin as her daughter clearly did about Wes? Her most vivid memory of that time was how young they’d been, still in college; young enough for her friends to joke that there must be a baby on the way. Three months later, when she actually did get pregnant, all she could remember was feeling sick to her stomach most of the time. Then, when Laura came, overwhelmed.
    It’s hard to stay in love, she thought, with a baby crying and the PG&E meter ticking and Joy of Cooking wedged between Logic I and Poets of the Romantic Age. A different kind of flame burns, low and steady like a pilot light, when you’ve slept alongside the same man for years.
    But all that was