A Minute to Smile Read Online Free PDF

Camelot.”
    Behind her Alexander said, “That was my favorite legend as a child.”
    She turned. “Mine, too. But I never believed it was a legend. I think it really happened—maybe not exactly the way they say it did, but there was a Camelot and a great king.”
    “And a beautiful queen?” He lifted an eyebrow.
    He shook his head. “Perhaps you need my class as much as any of the students. History is never as romantic as we’d like it to be.”
    “Perhaps,” she said lightly, “you’re in need of a pair of rose-colored glasses.”
    He met her gaze for a minute, and a thousand things rushed over the surface of his eyes. “I don’t think so,” he said finally.
    A fat gray cat wandered into the room and leaped with surprising nimbleness into a chair, then stared at the lot of them with unmistakable malevolence in its yellow eyes. “Are we invading your territory?” Esther asked it quietly.
    It was a scruffy Persian mix with missing tufts of fur and a fat face and enormous paws. One ear was battered, half torn away a long time ago. It glared at her.
    “That’s Piwacket,” Alexander said. “Don’t bother to treat him like a cat. He thinks he’s a reincarnated pirate.”
    Esther considered the notion. “All he lacks is the eye patch.”
    Piwacket looked at Alexander with an almost human expression of smugness. As if he’d spoken, Alexander said, “Don’t let it go to your head.” He turned to the boys. “Would you like some tea, gentlemen?”
    “No, thanks,” Daniel said, speaking for both of them as he often did. “Can we play outside?”
    “I don’t mind.”
    “Go ahead,” Esther said with a nod. As they raced for the door, she called, “Don’t pick the flowers!”
    That left Esther and Alexander standing in the middle of the room. She found her eyes traveling over the slice of skin visible at the unbuttoned edges of his shirt, and hurriedly dipped her head, brushing hair nervously from her face.
    Alexander cleared his throat. “Well,” he said. “Shall we go to the kitchen? I’ll pour you a glass of tea.”
    It was crazy to have agreed to coming in, Esther thought. This man was way out of her league—he ought to be offering cool drinks to a lawyer or a sleekly intelligent psychologist, not a disheveled and motherly shopkeeper.
    But since she’d already agreed, she followed him toward the back of the house, unwilling to be rude. She’d drink her tea and get away as quickly as she could.
    Alexander led her into his kitchen, a spacious room with an oak table and long windows. He gestured Esther into a chair, then took tall glasses from a cupboard. “What did you think of the notes I sent you?”
    “It looks like a great class,” she said. “I think I’ll be able to work out some lessons you’ll like.” She leaned on the table as he sat down across from her. “If I bring my plans to the first class, will that work all right?”
    As he settled in his chair, Alexander was struck with her full beauty, just inches away from him. Her hair floated around her oval face in soft red waves, and her lips were as plump as September plums. The dress she wore this afternoon was as unusual as the other things he’d seen her in. It was a style copied from the thirties—a sheer black and floral pattern over a dark slip. Winking white rhinestone buttons traveled up the front.
    Alexander had been finding it difficult since he’d first caught sight of her in the street to avoid the alluring glimpses of pale flesh he could see beneath the sheer fabric. Sitting so close to her, he found it impossible. Beneath the loose fitting sheer, her round shoulders and arms were delectably female, and the dark slip beneath caressed her breasts in a way that conjured up distinctly erotic visions.
    And yet, there was no way the dress could be thought of as anything but feminine and lovely.
    “Alexander? Will that be all right?”
    He looked at her. To hell with routines—a man would be insane to resist a