Rescued in a Wedding Dress Read Online Free PDF Page A

father had been, his carefully constructed world blown apart by forces—fury, passion—that could rise up in a storm that he had no hope of taming.
    It was the reason Houston did not even allow himself to contemplate his life in the context of fairy tales represented by a young woman in a bridal gown. There was no room for a compartment like that in the neat, tidy box that made up his life.
    There was a large compartment for work, an almost equally large one for his one and only passion, the combat sport of boxing.
    There were smaller compartments for his social obligations, for Beebee, for occasional and casual relationships with the rare member of the opposite sex who shared his aversion for commitment. There were some compartments that were nailed shut.
    But now the past was not staying in the neat compartment system. The compartment that held Houston’s father and his mother was being pried up, despite the nails trying to hold it firmly shut.
    Houston’s father had written his only son a letterthat asked nothing and expected nothing. And yet at the same time Houston was bitterly aware that how he reacted to it would prove who he really was.
    After nineteen years, his father was getting out of prison.
    And it felt as if all those years of Houston outdistancing his past had been a total waste of energy. Because there it was, waiting for him, right around the next bend in time.
    The scar across his nose flared with sudden pain, and Houston pressed a finger into the line of the old break, aware he was entering a danger zone that the mean streets of Clinton had nothing on.
     
    “Have a seat,” Houston invited Molly several hours later, after he had personally waved goodbye to Beebee and Miss Viv at the airport.
    “Thank you.” She took a seat, folded her hands primly in her lap and looked at him expectantly.
    It was his second encounter with her, and he was determined it was going to go differently than the first. It was helpful that Miss Viv was not there smiling at him as if he was her favorite of all charity cases.
    And it was helpful that Molly Michaels was all business now, no remnant of the blushing bride she had been anywhere in sight. No, she was dressed in a conservative slack suit, her amazing hair pinned sternly up on her head.
    Still, it was way too easy to remember how it had felt underneath his hands. He was not going to allow himself to contemplate the fact that even after untangling her from that dress several hours ago he was no closer to knowing her truth: was she sexy? Or innocent?
    Not thoughts that were strictly professional. Infact, those were exactly the kind of thoughts that made a man crazy.
    “I’m sorry about the dress. You must think I’m crazy.”
    Damn her for using that word!
    The nails holding a compartment of Houston’s past shut gave an outrageous squeak. Houston remembered the senior Whitford had been made crazy by a beautiful woman, Houston’s mother.
    Who hadn’t she made crazy? Beautiful, but untouchable. Both of them had loved her desperately, a fact that had only seemed to amuse her, allowed her to toy with her power over them. The truth? Houston would have robbed a bank for her, too, if he’d thought it would allow him to finally win something from her.
    The memory, unwanted, of his craving for something his mother had been unable to give made him feel annoyed with himself.
    “Crazy?” he said. You can’t begin to know the meaning of the word. “Let’s settle for eccentric.”
    She blushed, and his reaction was undisciplined, unprofessional, a ridiculous desire, like a juvenile boy, to find out what made her blush and then to make it happen often.
    “So, you’ve been here how long?” Houston asked, even though he knew, just to get himself solidly back on the professional track.
    “As an employee for several years. But I actually started here as a volunteer during high school.”
    Again, unprofessional thoughts tickled at him: what had she been like during high