The Marriage Charm (Bliss County 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

combination virtually guaranteed a bad attitude—he flung his hat onto the passenger seat and shoved splayed fingers through his hair.
    He hadn’t improved matters, he reflected, by tossing the little hellcat over his shoulder and lugging her to his truck, either. This was real life, present tense, complete with new and often puzzling rules for any male-female interaction—not some vintage John Wayne-Maureen O’Hara movie.
    No question, Spence reasoned grimly; he’d acted in haste, and he would surely repent at leisure.
    And yet he’d had to do something to break the standoff, didn’t he? Otherwise, he and Melody would probably still be standing in that parking lot, bickering like a couple of damn fools, with no end in sight.
    Just when Spence was beginning to think he might be getting some adult perspective on the events of the evening, another rush of frustration came over him, and he was right back at square one.
    He simmered for at least five more minutes then put a foot to the clutch and shifted again. By degrees, he began to calm down. He recalled the way Melody had looked, standing in the bug-specked yellow glow of her porch light, with her makeup worn away in some places and smudged in others. He remembered how she’d bitten down on her lower lip like she did whenever she was stressed out. And how her hair, her gorgeous honey-colored hair, seemed ready to come unpinned of its own accord and tumble down around her shoulders.
    Just picturing that made his groin tighten.
    He sighed.
    Melody was always beautiful, no matter what, Spence admitted silently, with a sad twitch of his mouth that didn’t stretch far enough to classify as a smile.
    The ache between his legs migrated upward, nestling in the uncharted territory hidden somewhere behind his heart, a slow, familiar throb of sorrow and regret.
    He’d lost her.
    That wasn’t exactly breaking news. Whatever he and Melody had had together—or almost had—was part of the distant past. At times, though, it rose up out of nowhere and seared him.
    Like tonight.
    Spence clenched his back teeth, determined to tough out the rush of emotion that had ambushed him, partly because he knew he didn’t have a choice and partly because that was what he did. He endured, knowing all too well that resisting these particular feelings was futile and would merely deepen and prolong the misery.
    Again, he sighed.
    Since both Spence and Melody made every effort to avoid each other, the figurative bodies stayed buried. Invariably, though, some special occasion rolled around, like their friends’ wedding that afternoon, and all the tattered specters rose like howls riding a night wind, reminding him that the dreams and plans he’d once cherished were over for good.
    This, too, he reminded himself grimly, would pass.
    Sooner or later.
    So he just drove.
    Mercifully, his mood improved a notch or two when the outlines of his house and barn came into sight. They weren’t anything fancy, those structures, but they had good, solid bones and so much history they’d probably grown roots over the years. Deep ones, too, stretching far into the earth, gnarled and sturdy, anchoring themselves to the land.
    Spence parked behind the dark house then reclaimed his hat from the passenger seat and got out. The instant the soles of his boots struck the fine Wyoming dirt, he felt the familiar mantle of peace settle over him.
    He was home.
    He smiled at the sounds heralding his return from the outside world—his gelding, Reb, nickered a greeting from the nearby pasture, all but invisible in the darkness, while Harley tuned up a one-dog orchestra, yipping with joyful anticipation behind the kitchen door a few yards away.
    “Hold on,” Spence called out to both critters. “I’m on my way.”
    *
    M ELODY’S THREE CATS, Ralph, Waldo and Emerson, were sitting in a tidy row when she hobbled into the kitchen, barefoot and vowing never to put on high heels again, no matter who was getting married,