The Man You'll Marry Read Online Free Page B

seeing Mark again unless—”
    “Unless it’s absolutely unavoidable.”
    “I take it this means your aunt Milly’s first encounter with your uncle John wasn’t her last.” Jill giggled. “Silly me. Obviously it wasn’t.”
    “No. Even though Aunt Milly didn’t want to see him again. My uncle was a wonderful man, don’t get me wrong, and he was perfect for Aunt Milly, as it turned out, but they were as different as night and day. Aunt Milly was a college graduate and Uncle John never completed high school.”
    Shelly sighed wistfully. At one time the story of their romance had been like her own personal fairy tale. But now she didn’t find it nearly as enthralling. “He helped Milly fix her car the night it broke down. The very next day she was in court defending a client in a lawsuit—”
    “Let me guess,” Jill interrupted, “your uncle John was the man suing her client.”
    Shelly nodded. “Yes, and that was only the beginning. Every time they turned around they were bumping into each other.”
    “How soon after they met did they get married?”
    This was the question Shelly had dreaded most. She closed her eyes and whispered, “Ten days.”
    “Ten days,” Jill echoed with an incredulous look.
    “I know. It seems that once they kissed, they both realized there wasn’t any use fighting it.”
    “Did your aunt tell John about the seamstress and the wedding dress?”
    Shelly shrugged. “I don’t know, but my guess is she didn’t…at least not at first.” She hadn’t touched her salad yet and paused to savor a forkful of her favorite seafood. Then she said abruptly, “They eloped without telling anyone.”
    “Children?” Jill wanted to know.
    “Three boys. My mother’s cousins.”
    “What about granddaughters? You’d think your aunt Milly would want to hand the dress down to one of them.”
    “All three of her sons had boys themselves. I guess you could say I’m the closest she’s got to a granddaughter.”
    “Ten days,” Jill repeated. “That’s really something.”
    Forking up another succulent shrimp, Shelly continued her story. “That old Scottish woman knew about the wedding even before the family did. When Aunt Milly and Uncle John returned from their honeymoon, there was a wedding card from the seamstress waiting for them.”
    Jill propped her elbows on the table and gazed at Shelly. “Tell me what Mark Brady looks like.”
    Shelly frowned, trying to form her impressions of him into some kind of reasonably articulate description. He was compelling in ways she didn’t quite understand. She sensed that he was principled and headstrong, but what made her so sure of that, Shelly couldn’t explain. “He’s tall,” she began slowly. “And he was wearing a suit.”
    “How tall?”
    “Basketball-player tall. He must be about six-five.”
    “Brown hair?”
    Shelly nodded. “With blue eyes. Really blue eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever met a man with eyes that precise color. They seemed to…” She hesitated, unsettled by the emotion that stirred within her when she thought about Mark. Although their encounter had been brief, Shelly was left feeling oddly certain that she could trust this man, trust him implicitly. It wasn’t a sensation she could remember experiencing with any other man. She didn’t like the feeling; it made her uncomfortable. Until Jill had started asking her about Mark, Shelly didn’t realize she’d experienced any emotion toward him—except for embarrassment, of course.
    “Why do you want to know?” she asked.
    Jill gave her a knowing grin. “Because if he’s as tall as you say, with dark brown hair and deep blue eyes, and he’s wearing a suit, he just walked into this restaurant.”
    “What?” Shelly felt her stomach sink. “Mark’s here? Mark Brady?”
    “That’s not so unusual, is it? This is, after all, the same shopping mall where you, uh, met—” Jill made a show of glancing at her watch “—thirty or so minutes