Newlywed Games Read Online Free PDF Page A

you already know that. Meg told me it was your idea to marry before she came out to see me in the hospital. It put my mind at ease to know she had a good man to take care of her. Then I thought about the grandchildren I would never see. I’m convinced wanting to see my grandchildren pulled me through.” She looked up at Bruce with a mischievous grin. “I’d like to order up half a dozen, one to be delivered within the year, maybe?”
    “Mother!”
    “You have talked about children, haven’t you?” She turned to Meghann. “How can I be a doting grandmother with no grandchildren to dote over?”
    “We’re going to wait a while,” she said through grittedteeth and rolled her eyes.
    “With the wedding being so hurried we thought it would be best to wait before having children,” Bruce added. “I’m traveling a lot right now. When my job settles down, I promise we will discuss it. I don’t want Meg to go through a pregnancy by herself.”
    “I have something to say about your traveling.” Her mother waved her index finger in the air.
    “Mother!”
    “It’s not healthy for a newly married couple to be apart so much.” She held her hands up in front of her. “That’s all I wanted to say. I won’t bring it up again.”
    “Here’s the car.” Meghann pointed to her seven-year-old cream Honda, then glanced up at Bruce. His smile told her he was still taking this all in stride. Calm, cool, and collected, while she was a nervous wreck inside. They couldn’t have reached her car any sooner for her sanity.
    Meghann opened the trunk for him, then the front passenger door for her mother. When her mother was seated, she went back to help Bruce with the bags. He put in his garment bag, then closed the trunk.
    “All set,” he said, turning to her with a devastating smile. “You going to drive or shall I?”
    She took a quick breath to give strength to her weakened knees. His smile distracted her to no end. “I-I’ll drive. I’m afraid that only leaves the backseat.”
    “That suits me fine.” He held open her door for her, then climbed in the back and stretched his long legs across the back seat floor—filling it as completely as he’d filled her thoughts and heart.

     
    “I should be the one sitting back there.”
    Meg’s mother looked over her shoulder at Bruce, and he marveled again at how much she and Meg resembled one another.
    “Nonsense. I’m quite comfortable. I’m just going to get a little shut-eye, if you two don’t mind me being so rude.” He folded his arms and leaned back against the corner where the door and seat met. “It was a long flight.” He yawned and closed his eyes.
    Bruce listened to the two women in the front seat. No, he wasn’t tired. He feigned sleep to collect his thoughts and keep his supposed mother-in-law from asking him something he couldn’t answer. Like when were they married, or where did they meet? He could answer the easy stuff like favorite color or flower. He had found out as much about Meghann as he could without her knowledge. But if her mother asked something more personal like shoe size or, heaven forbid, a birthmark only a husband would know about. No, he couldn’t risk it.
    Why did you risk getting involved at all?
    He frowned at the question. To help Meg, of course…to avoid humiliating her in front of her mother.
    By lying?
    By playing along. He hadn’t told any lies…not really. He just hadn’t come out with the truth.
    A sin of omission is still a sin.
…
    It was too late to back out now. If he was going to do so, he should have at the beginning. It would hurt both women if he changed his story now. No, better togo along, at least for now.
    But even as he presented his case, he knew it wasn’t the whole truth. There was something more to his involvement in this charade. It opened the door to something he’d longed for: the chance to get to know Meghann.
    As her supposed husband, he could do what he longed to do for so long. He could hold