We Are Made of Stardust - Peaches Monroe #1 Read Free Page B

matched her red shoes, her toes pointed demurely together as she gazed up at Dalton.
    I introduced everyone, and it only took little Kyle all of thirty seconds to say something Kyle-like.
    Kyle tilted his head up in that cute way only a seven-year-old can and said, “Are you Peepee's boyfriend?”
    Dalton did a double-take. “Peepee? I don't know anyone by that name.”
    “Kyle!” I admonished. “Don't call me that, you little turd monkey.”
    “I'm a future old friend of Peepee’s,” Dalton said, shaking Kyle's hand.
    “You're taller than my dad,” Kyle said. “Can I sit on your shoulders? I want to see everything.”
    In response, Dalton knelt down like a trained circus horse and let Kyle climb on top his shoulders.
    My mother caught my eye and loudly whispered, “He's so handsome, Peachy.” (Most people call me Peaches, but Mom calls me Peachy, or Petra if she’s annoyed.)
    I glanced over at Dalton, running up and down the chapel steps with Kyle squealing on his shoulders.
    “Is he?” I said, smirking. “I hadn't noticed, Mom. I'm not shallow like you, marrying Dad for his good looks.”
    At this, my father beamed, and I felt a wave of gratitude for all my riches. My family is not perfect, and we have our fights and secrets, but most of us genuinely like each other, and that's just as important as love.
    ~
    I kept expecting Dalton to disappear the way a too-good dream evaporates upon waking, but he instructed his driver take us over to the dance hall where the rest of the celebration was happening. I got out of the fancy car, which wasn’t quite as long as either of the two limousines in town people rent for special occasions, but it did have a glass separation between us and the driver.
    I thought Dalton was stepping out to say goodbye, but he actually nodded toward the door, so we walked up together. Like he really was my date, and not the worst kind of Torture Bite.*
    *When someone is eating a delicious dessert, they always try to make you take one bite, out of what? Cruelty? This is the worst of all nibbles, because if it’s good (and it’s always good) then you have to sit and suffer while they eat the rest. The taste is all up inside your mouth, tantalizing you with the torture of pleasure denied.
    Dalton Deangelo holding me in his arms had been my tasty bite, and now I wanted more.
    We walked into the dance hall and started mingling. He had his hands in the pockets of his gray slacks, and he looked as comfortable as any of the other men in attendance.
    He asked me a bunch of questions, about everything from the plastic carnation decorations to the projection screen showing James and Marita’s engagement photos.
    “Why are they posing like depressed catalog models in front of a brick wall?” he asked.
    “It’s just what people in Beaverdale do.”
    “Why are there so many photos? Oh, here they are in a field. Okay, well, I like that one. That’s a good one.”
    Marita was lying amongst wildflowers with her head in James’s lap, gazing skyward.
    “That is a good one,” I agreed.
    “You and she both have a woodsy look. Natural. Like you’d be right at home running naked through the woods.”
    “Shut up! You’re making fun of me.”
    His handsome dark brown eyebrows rose, so thick and expressive. “Oh, am I?”
    We were standing near the bar, he with a light beer and me with a glass of sparkling white wine, plus the giddy sensation one gets at her first family function where she’s legally allowed to drink.
    “Don’t tease,” I said.
    “You say that now…”
    I sipped my wine as he tore my dress off with his gaze. I know you’re supposed to hate your bridesmaid dress and complain bitterly about having to wear it, but I liked mine. The bodice was cut to frame my chest demurely, with just a hint of naughty cleavage—or at least that’s how it started out. The heat of my body had loosened up the fabric on the straps somehow, and now the front was dipping down, anything but