Married in Seattle Read Online Free

fine young man, and he’ll make you an excellent husband.”
    “You…Zach talked…agreed?” The words stumbled over the end of her tongue.
    “Do you mean have I suggested this arrangement to Zach?” Gramps asked. “Heavens, no. At least not yet.” He chuckled as if he found the thought amusing. “Zach wouldn’t appreciate my blatant interference in his personal affairs. With him, I’ll need to be far more subtle. To be honest, I considered making this marriage part of my handing over the chairmanship, but after thinking it through, I changed my mind. Zach would never have agreed. There are other ways, I decided, better ways. But I don’t want you to worry about it. That’s between Zach and me.”
    “I…see.” At this point, Janine wasn’t sure what she saw, other than one determined old man caught between two worlds. In certain respects, the old ways continued to dominate his thinking, but his success in America allowed him to appreciate more modern outlooks.
    Gramps inhaled deeply on his cigar, his blue eyes twinkling. “Now, I realize you probably find the idea of an arranged marriage slightly unorthodox, but you’ll get used to it. I’ve made a fine choice for you, and I know you’re smart enough to recognize that.”
    “Gramps, I don’t think you fully understand what you’re suggesting,” she said, trying to gather her scattered wits, hoping she could explain the ridiculousness of this whole scheme without offending him.
    “But I do, my child.”
    “In this country and in this age,” she continued slowly, “men and women choose their own mates. We fall in love and then marry.”
    Gramps frowned. “Sadly, that doesn’t work,” he muttered.
    “What do you mean, it doesn’t work?” she cried, losing her patience. “It’s been like this for years and years!”
    “Look at the divorce rate. I read in the paper recently that almost fifty percent of all marriages in this country fail. In the old country, there was no divorce. Parents decided whom a son or daughter would marry, and their decision was accepted without question. First comes marriage, and then comes love.”
    “Gramps,” Janine said softly, wanting to reason this out with him. Her grandfather was a logical man; surely, if she explained it properly, he’d understand. “Things are done differently now. First comes love, then comes marriage.”
    “What do you young people know about love?”
    “A good deal, as it happens,” she returned, lying smoothly. Her first venture into love had ended with a broken heart and a shattered ego, but she’d told Gramps little if anything about Brian.
    “Pfft!” he spat. “What could you possibly know of love?”
    “I realize,” she said, thinking fast, “that your father arranged your marriage to Grandma, but that was years ago, and in America such customs don’t exist. You and I live here now, in the land of the free. The land of opportunity.”
    Gramps gazed down into his brandy for a long moment, lost in thought. Janine doubted he’d even heard her.
    “I’ll never forget the first time I saw my Anna,” he saidin a faraway voice. “She was sixteen and her hair was long and blond and fell in braids to her waist. My father spoke to her father and while they were talking, Anna and I sat at opposite ends of the room, too shy to look at each other. I wondered if she thought I was handsome. To me, she was the most beautiful girl in the world. Even now, after all these years, I can remember how my heart beat with excitement when I saw her. I knew—”
    “But, Gramps, that was nearly sixty years ago! Marriages aren’t decided by families anymore. A man and a woman discover each other without a father introducing them. Maybe the old ways were better back then, but it’s simply not like that now.” Gramps continued to stare into his glass, lost in a world long since enveloped by the passage of time.
    “The next day, Anna’s parents visited our farm and again our two fathers