Just Married! Read Online Free

, but she couldn’t. She didn’t quite know what to make of his attention. She was enjoying it, and hating the fact she was enjoying it. “Home.”
    “I’ll walk you.”
    No one ever walked her anywhere. She was not seen as the fragile type; in fact her bravery was legend. She was the first one to swim in the ocean every year, she had been the first one out of the plane when the guys had talked her into skydiving. When they were fourteen and had played chicken with lit cigarettes, she had always won. She was known to be a daredevil in her little sailboat, an old Cape Dory Typhoon named the Hall Way.
    Sam was a little taken aback that she liked his chivalry. So she said, with a touch of churlishness, “I can look after myself.”
    “I’ll walk you home, anyway.”
    There was nothing argumentative in his tone. Or bossy. He was just stating a fact. He was walking her home, whether she liked it or not.
    And she certainly didn’t want him to know that she did like that feeling of being treated as fragile and feminine.
    “Suit yourself.”
    He stopped after a moment, slid off his shoes and socks. Since she was stuck with him anyway, she waited, admiring the way he looked in the moonlight, silver beams tangling in the darkness of hishair, his now bare feet curling into the sensuousness of the sand.
    He straightened, shoes in hand, and she saw the moonlight made his dark eyes glint with silver shadows, too.
    She started walking again, and he walked beside her.
    “Do you want to talk about the proposal?”
    A renegade thought blasted through her of what it would be like to actually be married to a man like him. To taste those lips whenever you wanted, to feel his easy strength as part of your life.
    Maybe that’s why Amanda and Charlie had rushed to get married even when the odds were against them, pulled toward that soft feeling of not being alone anymore.
    “I already said I’d marry you,” she said, her careless tone hiding both her curiosity and the vulnerability those thoughts made her feel. “My brothers, strangely enough, liked you. What’s to discuss?”
    He laughed, and she didn’t feel like he was laughing at her, but truly enjoying her. It would be easy to come to love that sensation. Of being seen. And appreciated.
    “Setting a date?” he kidded.
    “Oh. I guess there’s that. How about tomorrow?” She reminded herself most of his appreciation was thanks to the costume: the dress and the hair and the makeup.
    “I’m free, and by happy coincidence that’s when I need a wife. Just for the day. Want to play with me?”
    The awful thing was she did want to play with him, desperately. But what she considered playing—a day of sailing or swimming—was probably not what he considered playing. At all. His next words confirmed that.
    “I’m a real estate investor. I buy higher end properties that have gone to seed, fix them up and flip them.”
    Oh, he played with money.
    “I thought the market was gone,” she said. She thought of the real estate sign hanging in front of her own rented premises, and thanked the wedding for its one small blessing.
    She hadn’t thought of that all day.
    Because ever since the sign had gone up, she’d been getting stomachaches. Her business relied on its prime Main Street, St. John’s, location, the summer people coming in and buying grooming supplies, the cute little doggy outfits she stocked, the good-grade dog foods, the amazing and unusual pet accessories that she spent her spare time seeking out. But she knew she’d been getting an incredible deal on the rent, which included her storefront and the apartment above it. A new owner meant one of two things, neither of them good. She would be paying higher rent, or she would get evicted.
    “I’m in a position where I can buy and hold if I have to,” he said with easy self-assurance, “thoughthe market is never really gone for the kind of clients who buy my properties.”
    “Oh,” she said. He dealt with the old