The Bridal Path: Danielle Read Online Free PDF Page B

that okay?”
    She laughed. “Given the reputation of your cooking, I’d say pizza would be perfect.”

Chapter Three
    S lade wasn’t at all sure what had possessed him to invite Danielle Wilde over for dinner. The house, which had fallen into disrepair after the deaths of his grandparents, was still in a state of chaos. His cooking skills were nonexistent. And he hadn’t spent an evening with a woman other than his wife in over a decade. Idle chitchat had never been his specialty in the first place, which was why he and Amanda had gotten along so well.
    Amanda had chattered enough for ten people, which had foolishly led him to believe she found him to be a good listener. Only later had he discovered that she simply liked the sound of her own voice. She hadn’t wanted or needed any response from him. The distance between them had widened and widened until by the time she had been in the terrible accident that ultimately took her life, they were merely coexisting. The boys had been the glue that held them together. For their sakes, he and Amanda had kept up a sad front until her tragic death.
    Oddly, now that she was gone, he missed her in unexpected ways. He realized that despite their differences, despite her wandering attention and frequent affairs, Amanda had provided something he needed and had no idea how to create for himself–a home.
    He glanced around the old Victorian house he’d visited only a few times as a child and tried to put a finger on exactly where he’d fallen short. The rooms were bright and airy. The furniture was exactly the same as it had been in the Denver home he and Amanda had shared, albeit a little dustier. There were even a few remnants of his grandparents’ belongings, genuine family heirlooms.
    Goodness knew, the house looked lived in, he thought as he snatched up a handful of recently laundered underwear that had never made it past the sofa. And it was as charming as he’d remembered, a fact which had lured him back when Denver had begun to feel claustrophobic after Amanda’s death.
    Even with the evening sun splashed across the polished wood floors and a soft breeze filtering through the sheer curtains, it lacked something. Maybe Danielle Wilde, whose house practically radiated a friendly, inviting, homey atmosphere, could help him pin it down.
    Despite that hopeful thought, he wished he hadn’t impulsively uttered the invitation for tonight. Now he was stuck with it, an endless evening of trying to make conversation with a woman he barely knew.
    His only consolation was that the boys were ecstatic. They had even eagerly agreed to help him straighten the place up before her arrival. Of course, their idea of tidying up consisted of tossing everything into the nearest closet, a habit they’d no doubt learned from him. Thank goodness it was summer and there would be no need to hang up their guest’s coat and risk a tumbling of hidden clutter.
    He took another quick survey of the downstairs and nodded. “I guess that does it.” He called the boys, who came clattering down the stairs the very first time, for a change. “Did you both wash up and change your shirts?”
    Even as he asked, he realized he should have been able to tell without asking, at least about the shirts. Unfortunately, Kevin and Timmy’s taste ran to multiples of the exact same T-shirt. Each of them had at least a half dozen, all in red, except for those that had accidentally fallen into a load of laundry with bleach. Having declared them dorky, they refused to wear the resulting pink shirts anyway.
    A close inspection indicated that the clothes they had on now were indeed freshly laundered. Their faces were scrubbed. Even their hair had been plastered down with enough gel to hold it in place through a hurricane. He found their desire to impress Dani Wilde touching. That she had endeared herself to them so quickly was a surprise. For all of their high-spirited mischief, his sons were innately shy, just as he had