A Week Till the Wedding Read Online Free Page B

didn’t eat this way when he was in California. Not that he could’ve gotten fried chicken, turnip greens, fried okra and fried green tomatoes, served up with a mess of cornbread, in San Francisco. Even if he could’ve found those foods in a specialty restaurant, they wouldn’t have been the same. The smells and tastes transported him back to his childhood, to family dinners followed by the front porch swing or an hour or so spent working on whatever car he was remodeling at the time.
    He and Caleb—they were the middle boys of the four, and Caleb was almost two years older than Jacob—had both had an interest in rebuilding cars from the age of fourteen or so on. It was something they’d enjoyed doing together, even though they didn’t have much else in common. Jacob hadn’t touched an engine since he’d moved to San Francisco. He didn’t even change the oil in his own car. No, he paid someone else to do it for him. Jacob hadn’t missed tinkering with engines at all, hadn’t even thought about that old hobby until he’d come home.
    Funny how the scents of his youth were the ones plaguing him this week. Food. Engine oil. Daisy. Daisy, most of all.
    For a while they enjoyed a reprieve from wedding talk. Everyone talked about the weather, the food, baseball and the upcoming football season and the relatives who were not in attendance. Daisy was quiet in the beginning, and she just picked at her food. But after a while she relaxed. She ate, participated in the conversation and completely and totally ignored him.
    Which was good, in one way. He could stare at her all he wanted, and she wouldn’t realize that he studied the gentle curve of her jaw and the tempting length of her neck. He didn’t dare look any lower—not for more than a split second here and there—for fear that she’d turn in his direction and catch him with his eyes on the swell of her breasts. He knew better. He didn’t ogle women. But this was Daisy, and he might never get another chance.
    Their reprieve ended as peach cobbler was served. Grandma Eunice began again to discuss her plans for the wedding. The ceremony would be held Sunday afternoon of the three-day Tasker Reunion, she’d decided. It would be the culmination of the annual event, a formal wedding to be held in the house. Family only, since space would be an issue. Besides, Grandma Eunice added with her nose in the air, family was all that mattered.
    She looked at him as she added this last dig. It wasn’t a secret that she was annoyed at Jacob for throwing himself so wholeheartedly into his career, for not coming home and taking his place here. The Taskers owned interests in several successful restaurants, a department store—there were three locations, now—a steel mill and a sock factory. Jacob’s grandfather and great-uncles—three of them—had gone into business together. They’d done well. These days this branch of the family was the most prosperous, but Jacob had many cousins—close and distant—who continued to hold a portion of old family businesses.
    He could’ve taken a job at any one of them, or else begun working with his mother with the objective of eventually taking the reins from her. But he was determined to make it on his own, to be independently successful. Yes, his ambition had taken him away from his family for too long, he could admit to that. Was that why when his grandmother’s mind had started to go she’d immediately honed in on this wedding business? Was she, somehow, determined to see him married to a local girl before she died so he’d be tied to Bell Grove in yet another way?
    Jacob had hoped his grandmother would forget about having Daisy try on her wedding dress before the meal was done, but no such luck. No, she was anxious to see Daisy in the gown, prepared to get Lurlene to take care of any alterations that might be necessary. Daisy paled at the thought, he caught a hint of a return of that tremble that told him how hard this was for