Married in Seattle Read Online Free Page B

Frankly, she didn’t know what to tell him. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, marry Zach—even if he was willing to marry her—but she hated disappointing her grandfather.
    “What’s so difficult? Either you marry him or not!”
    “I don’t understand why you’ve decided to match me up with Zach Thomas,” she cried. “What’s wrong with Peter?” She’d been dating the other man casually for the last few months. Her heart was too bruised after what had happened with Brian for her to date anyone seriously.
    “You’re in love with that whitewashed weakling?”
    Janine signed loudly, regretting the fact that she’d introduced Peter into their conversation. “He’s very nice.”
    “So is chocolate mousse!” Gramps muttered. “Peter Donahue would make you a terrible husband. I’m shocked you’d even think about marrying him.”
    “I hadn’t actually thought about him in those terms,” she said. Peter was witty and fun, but Gramps was right; they weren’t suited as husband and wife.
    “I thank the good Lord you’ve been given some sense.”
    Janine took a deep breath and finally asked a question that had been nagging at her all afternoon. “Did—did you arrange my father’s marriage?”
    Gramps lowered his eyes, but not before he could disguise the pain there. “No. He fell in love with Patrice whilehe was in college. I knew the match wasn’t a good one, but Anna reminded me that this was America and young people fell in love by themselves. She convinced me they didn’t need a father’s guiding hand the way we did in the old country.”
    “Do you think he would’ve listened if you’d wanted to arrange a marriage?”
    Her grandfather hesitated, and his hand tightened on his water glass. “I don’t know, but I’d like to believe he would have.”
    “Instead he married my mother.”
    Neither spoke for a long moment. Janine remembered little of her parents, only bits and pieces of memory, mostly unconnected. What she did recall were terrible fights and accusations, a house filled with strife. She could remember hiding under her bed when the shouting started, pressing her hands to her ears. It was her father who used to find her, who comforted her. Always her father. Her memory included almost nothing of her mother. Even pictures didn’t jar her recollection, although Janine had spent hour upon hour looking at photographs, hoping to remember something. But the woman who’d given birth to her had remained a stranger to her in life and in death.
    “You’re the only consolation I have from Steven’s marriage,” Anton said hoarsely. “At least I had you after Steven and Patrice died.”
    “Oh, Gramps. I love you so much and I hate to disappoint you, but I can’t marry Zach and I can’t see him agreeing to marry me.”
    Her grandfather was silent after that, apparently mulling over her words as he finished his dinner. “I suppose I seem like a feeble old man, still trying to live the old ways.”
    “Gramps, no, I don’t think that at all.”
    He planted his elbows squarely on the table and linked his fingers, gazing at her. His brow was puckered in a contemplative frown. “Perhaps it would help if you told me what you want in a husband.”
    She hesitated, then glanced away, avoiding eye contact. Once she’d been so certain of what she wanted. “To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure. Romance, I suppose.”
    “Romance.” Gramps rolled the word off his tongue as though he was tasting an expensive wine.
    “Yes,” she said with a nod of her head, gaining confidence.
    “And what exactly is romance?”
    “Well…” Now that she’d been called upon to define it, Janine couldn’t quite put that magical feeling into words. “It’s…it’s an awareness that comes from the heart.”
    “The heart,” her grandfather repeated, smacking his palm against his chest.
    “Romance is the knowledge that a man would rather die than live his life without me,” she said, warming to the