Four Weddings and a Fiasco: The Wedding Caper Read Online Free PDF Page B

either.
    “First, I want to know your house,” she said, breezing past him to the hall.
    “Make yourself at home,” he invited with a wry smile. “My house is your house.”
    She glanced at the now-open bedroom door, decided that could wait. She went down the stairs with him behind her.
    “Myrna’s office is what used to be the front parlor,” he said. Open pocket doors allowed a view of a rigorously neat desk with two guest chairs in front of it, and a settee in the window behind it. Opposite the door, a large armoire sat near a fireplace. “Myrna said she got the front room because it was the one clients see first, and I’m too messy. I think she wanted the fireplace and the bay window.”
    “Who can blame her?”
    “For my humble office,” he said, gesturing her through Myrna’s office and through another open doorway with pocket doors, “we have to repair to the rear parlor.”
    It was smaller. And messier. But it had great built-in bookcases flanking a side window.
    “You don’t look too abused,” she said.
    “Looks can be deceiving.” He ushered her out of the room and down a short hallway that opened into the large living room that . . . glowed. There was no other word for it. Not gaudy like neon, but like a lit fireplace in an otherwise dark room. Curtains were drawn back from a series of windows that held the opposite corner. Wrapped around the outside was a deck with cushioned lounge chairs and potted plants. Red. Petunias? No, something else familiar. Geraniums. The light streaming in from those windows was part of the glow, but not all of it.
    It was what the room did with the light. The way the unadorned woods absorbed it and threw it back, the way the soft cream of the couch reflected it, the way the deep green pillows mellowed it.
    “This used to be the dining room.”
    He didn’t need to say it was now his living room. It was obvious from the clean lines and easy comfort of sofa, chairs, tables and bookcases. Light angled through the windows, like dusty gold.
    Maybe he’d followed her gaze, because he said, “Not going to get Pacific sunsets here, but I like this. It's why I bought it."
    Sunsets were an obvious lure, yet he’d appreciated something different, something subtle. She tucked away that observation.
    "You kept this place in your divorce settlement?"
    "No."
    His tone said there was much more to that answer than two letters. It also saidd badgering him wouldn't get the answer. Sometimes patience was needed in police work. Hammering at a suspect just made some of them harder, like tempered steel. Not that she needed to treat Eric Larkin the way she would a suspect . . . precisely.
    “Want some breakfast?” he said. “I make great scrambled eggs.”
    “I’d make a crack about your lack of modesty, but since my breakfast skills usually run along the lines of opening a carton of yogurt, I don’t want to annoy the cook.”
    “Good decision. Right this way.” Modern rremodeling had opened the living area into an expanded kitchen. “Have a seat.” Eric gestured to a row of stools at an island.
    He pulled out eggs, bagels, butter, and other ingredients, setting to work with confidence.
    “Is this what’s known as a chef’s kitchen?” she asked.
    “No idea. As long as the kitchen has the necessities for scrambled eggs and toasting bagels, I’m good. The reason I’m so good at scrambled eggs is it’s the only thing I can cook. That’s the trick. Don’t spread your skills too thin.”
    She chuckled. “Makes sense. Did you have the remodeling done?”
    "No way. When I moved here, I wanted someplace I could get into right away.”
    “Moved from Chicago,” she said, remembering that from the background packet she’d studied. “You wanted something like you’d had in Chicago?”
    “No. Wanted nothing like we’d had in Chicago.”
    “I’ve always heard Chicago’s a great city.”
    “It is.”
    She felt her brows draw down. Then why’d he leave?
    “Fresh