Steps to the Altar Read Online Free PDF Page A

Antonio’s, Gabe had already ordered for us and was flipping through a stack of official-looking documents. He’d taken off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his crisp white dress shirt, revealing one of my favorite parts of him, hard, corded forearms covered with coarse black hair.
    “You’re late,” he said, standing up to kiss me.
    “I was at a historical society meeting. You want to know what Edna McClun wants me to do?”
    “Hold that comment,” he said. “I need to have you sign these papers for the house before we get distracted.”
    After signing where he indicated, our lunches came—vegetarian lasagna for him, beef ravioli for me. I picked at my meal, not really hungry.
    “What’s wrong?” He pointed at my plate with his fork.
    “Ate too many cookies this morning.”
    He shook his head in reproach and began a story about a new rookie who had injured himself when he’d been on the job only three weeks and was now trying to sue the city. I half listened, thinking about what else I had to do this afternoon, until he rapped on my water glass with his knife.
    “Dispatch to Benni,” he said. “What’s got your attention? It’s certainly not me.” He smiled that devastatingly sexy smile of his—white, white teeth against tanned olive skin. A smile that could stop most women in midsentence and make them imagine physical pleasures that they’d never confess to even their closest girlfriends.
    I smiled back, not as seduced as I would have been two and a half years ago when we first met, but warmed by it because I saw the self-mocking twinkle in his eye. “Friday,” I said, using my favorite nickname for him, based on his adherence to the original Joe Friday’s straight-and-narrow view of life. “I love you with all my heart and you are the sexiest male thing walking on two legs, but sometimes I’m just busy with my own thoughts, and hard as this is for you to believe, they don’t always include you.”
    His laugh rumbled deep in his chest. “ Te amo mucho, querida. You are good for my ego.”
    “And a great and mighty ego it is, Papacito, ” I said, toasting him with my water.
    “See you around six,” he said. “Guess dinner is Big Top Pizza again.”
    “Since all our pots and pans are packed in a box that someone forgot to label, that’s a good and safe bet.”
    He grinned, not fazed by my criticism. “We’ll find them eventually. Just think, once we move into this house, we’ll never have to move again. The only boxes coming out of that house will be pine ones with us in them.”
    “And on that cheery thought, my dear Sergeant Friday, I’ll make my exit.”
    We kissed goodbye, both lightened by our midday break together, an unusual occurrence, given both our hectic schedules. I was excited that we’d finally found the perfect house. It felt like we were officially starting our life together even though we’d been married two years ago this coming Sunday. This was only the second thing we’d bought together, the first being my new Ford Ranger pickup truck, a two-month-old purchase I was still being razzed about by Daddy and all my ranching friends.
    For one thing, it was a Ford. A dirty word among most ranchers on the Central Coast, who were diehard, Mom and Apple Pie, Chevy-till-I-die fanatics.
    And it was purple.
    The official color was listed as sapphire blue, but it was blue with a clear top coat of red that, any way you looked at it, made purple. Since this was my truck, Gabe said the color choice was up to me. There were white, brown, red, turquoise, and purple ones on the lot.
    I don’t know what came over me, but the purple one just called my name. And I’d been the butt of every grape, eggplant, and Barney joke that every rancher I knew could think up.
    Gabe said he liked it because it was easier to keep an eye on me, something I certainly hadn’t considered when we bought the truck. Nevertheless, it ran like a dream, had air-conditioning, a working tape deck, and