A Minute to Smile Read Online Free PDF Page B

goddess fallen into his midst. “Why don’t you have dinner with me on Friday, and bring it to me then?”
    A slow smile bloomed on her lips, and a sleepily pleased look flared in her dark eyes. It was an echo of the demure sexuality of her dress. “I’d like that,” she said.
    “Good,” he said firmly and forced himself to straighten, shake off the heat in his loins and act like the gentleman he’d been raised to be. “I’ll be by to pick you up at seven.”

Chapter Three
    T he next week whirled by in the blur that seemed to mark early summer for Esther. Daniel passed with stellar grades from first grade to second and happily put aside scholarly pursuits for the heartier pleasures of bike riding and baiting his little brother. She planted her vegetable garden with tomatoes, peppers, garlic and onions, along with basil, sage and bay leaves, all for the spaghetti sauce she made each year to sell in the shop. It was amazing what people would pay for one jar of “one hundred percent organically grown homemade pasta and spaghetti sauce.”
    She took her children on picnics and swimming, and set aside a plot for each of them to grow what they chose. Daniel planted enormous sunflowers, filling his whole space with them. Jeremy chose watermelon and popcorn.
    In between the other activities, she found herself daydreaming about the elusive Alexander. All week she was alternately delighted and sick about the idea of going out to dinner with him. It was the first date she’d had in a long, long time, for one thing. Her divorce had left her wary of men, particularly when it seemed most of them were interested primarily in a tumble in the hay.
    And what did she really know about Alexander? Aside from the fact that he had a riveting, lean body and changeable, intriguing eyes, of course. That sort of physical attraction could be put down to hormones—not a very reliable barometer of a man’s possibilities as far as she was concerned.
    But it had been a long time since she’d even felt a quickening in a man’s presence. She’d forgotten how delicious it was to imagine kisses. Particularly when the mouth she imagined kissing was sensual and firm and surrounded with a silky-looking beard and mustache.
    As she stood on her dining-room table Friday afternoon to replace a burned-out light bulb, her thoughts were still chasing themselves in circles, and she blew out an aggravated breath. Facts.
    Only one should matter to her: the fact that he was a man who had experienced enough tragedy that it had turned his beard prematurely silver. That alone ought to set the warning bells ringing in her mind.
    “Mommy!” called Daniel, slamming through the front door. “Daddy’s here.”
    “Tell him to come in!” she yelled in return.
    “I can hear you!” John yelled from beside the table, imitating her bellow.
    She laughed. “Sorry. I’ll be done in a minute.”
    John crossed his arms. “You must spend a fortune on light bulbs. Every time I come over, you’re changing that one.”
    “Hardly.” She replaced the glass covering and jumped down from the table, and as she did, she remembered that she had been changing this very bulb the last time he had come to get the kids. “We spend a lot of time in here,” she said, more to herself than to John.
    “It’s the only room with heat, right?” he said, tongue-in-cheek.
    Esther rolled her eyes, declining to respond to the barb. “I’ll call Jeremy. They’ve already got their things together.”
    He picked up the used light bulb and followed her into the kitchen. Just then, Jeremy bounded in. “Daddy!”
    John hugged him hard, kissing the rosy cheek. Esther admired the picture they made, her dark little son and his tall, reed-thin father.
    But as she looked at her former husband, she realized she didn’t think he was handsome anymore. Once he’d looked like the devil himself in her eyes. Now he looked like the rake that he was, and it amazed her that she hadn’t seen it