Flower Girl Bride Read Online Free PDF Page A

his father’s admission, Sam turned those enormous blue eyes, so like his father’s, on me. “Mommy died.”
    My breath caught, the truth so bluntly laid out before me. Here I’d been worrying about, first, being set up and, second, mistakenly assuming I’d been set up, and this poor little boy had lost his mother. Shame felt heavy on my chest.
    â€œI’m so sorry,” I said when I finally had my voice back.
    â€œThanks,” Luke said automatically. “Car accident. It was a while ago.”
    Not long enough for the pain to become less raw, I observed, as his hands tightened around the steering wheel. I had once told myself it would have been easier if Alan had just died instead of leaving me. Divorce was a death of sorts—of promises and dreams. But the stark look of loss on Luke’s face suggested more pain than I could even fathom. He pointedly looked away then, making it clear he wasn’t interested in my pity.
    â€œGuys, we need to get going,” Eleanor said as she put a hand in the small of my back and propelled meforward. Instantly, I was glad Luke drove a truck. Had it been a car, I would have clipped my head on the door-frame. As it was, the side of the seat just caught me in the stomach, making the air whoosh out of me. Scrambling for balance, I somehow ended up in the seat next to Luke without collecting any visible marks.
    â€œSee you all at the restaurant,” Aunt Eleanor called out as she closed the door behind me.
    Sam’s head bobbed over the back of the seat before his dad had pulled into the traffic lane.
    â€œHey, lady, what’s your name?”
    Luke looked sharply over his shoulder. “Sam, what did we discuss about you unbuckling your safety seat?”
    â€œYou said it’s dangerous.”
    â€œThen could you please tell me what you’re doing out of the harness?”
    A chuckle rumbled in my throat, and I pressed my lips together to keep from grinning. Nobody could say that young Sam Sheridan didn’t listen when his dad spoke. Now following his advice, he hadn’t quite mastered that one. His dad might have been a stick-in-the-mud, but I had no doubt Sam and I would be fast friends. I’d never met a kid I didn’t like, and I could tell already that Sam Sheridan wouldn’t be my first. Adults were a different story.
    â€œBack in the harness, and I want to hear two clicks right away,” Luke told him.
    Sam made a face only his father could love, but he clicked one buckle and then the other.
    When order had returned inside the vehicle, I peered over the seat at Sam. “Oh, you asked my name. It’s Cassandra Blake, but you may call me Cassie.”
    â€œMake that Miss Cassie,” Luke corrected.
    â€œOf course.”
    I smiled at Sam when my expression was really targeted at his father. I felt inordinately pleased that Luke was trying to instill a respect for adults in his son, a lesson that some of my students hadn’t learned at home.
    â€œMiss Cassie.” Sam rolled my name around on his tongue to see if it fit.
    â€œMiss Cassie works at a school,” Luke continued.
    I barely had time to be surprised that Luke knew how I made my living or to process the fact that my aunt had given Luke my vital statistics after all because Sam chose that moment to let out a squeal. I studied the boy more closely. He had a starstruck look in his eyes.
    â€œAre you a real teacher? Like at preschool? I go to preschool. I’m four.”
    He appeared so in awe of me that I didn’t want to burst his bubble. Why was it that little ones always assumed only teachers worked at schools instead of administrators, paraprofessionals and other support staff?
    â€œNo, I’m not a teacher, but I still work with a lot of children. I’m a speech pathologist.”
    â€œOh.” He nodded, my answer seeming to satisfy him, but since he started playing with his handheld video game, I took it my