Lori Wilde - There Goes The Bride by Unknown

class.”
    “So you don’t really have a story about how you two first laid eyes on each other?” Trudie asked.
    “No,” Delaney admitted. As far back as she could remember, Evan had been there. Like a security blanket.
    “It’s almost as if you’re marrying your brother, huh?” Trudie asked.
    “No, no.” Delaney forced a laugh. Trudie’s statement disturbed her because her relationship with Evan
was
more like brother and sister than passionate lovers. “It’s nice. Marrying someone you know so well.”
    “I guess I could see it. Built-in trust and all that,” Trudie said. “But I’d be afraid I’d miss the sparks of really falling madly in love.”
    “This window seat is adorable, Lucia,” Delaney said, purposefully directing the conversation off herself as they entered one of the bedrooms on the first floor that had been converted into a library.
    Bookcases lined the walls. Delaney took a peek at the titles. Georgette Heyer, Jane Austen, Mary Stewart, Daphne du Maurier. Many of the same books that lined her own shelves at home.
    “My Leo made it for me,” Lucia said with a sigh in her voice. “So I could curl up and read and still look outside to keep an eye on the children chasing butterflies in the backyard flower garden.”
    “The window seat is definitely the highlight of this room,” Delaney said, relieved that she’d seemed to have sidetracked Trudie from talk of romance.
    Lucia ushered her down the hallway, Trudie bringing up the rear. “And here’s the kitchen. I raised six children of my own here and then my four grandchildren, after my daughter-in-law died and my son, Vincent, needed help with the little ones. They’re all big ones now, but they come back to visit me often.”
    Delaney surveyed the room.
    The wallpaper was faded. It would have to be replaced. The appliances were all circa the mid-eighties. The dining table was even older than the appliances and bore the scars of too many children banging on it with silverware and toys. The linoleum was peeling in the corner by the refrigerator, and there was a burn mark the size of a saucepan bottom on the Formica countertop.
    “This is the heart of the house,” Delaney breathed, surprised at the nostalgia welling up inside her. But that was silly. How could she be nostalgic for something she’d never had? She wished with all her might she could have grown up in such a home where kids were allowed to spill and sprawl and their growth spurts were marked in colored pencil on the wall beside the back door.
    She immediately felt disloyal to her own family at such a thought. She’d had all the privileges the Cartwright money could buy. But that had included hired cooks and maids. She missed the boisterous camaraderie of cousins and siblings, of the numerous aunts and uncles and grandparents that this house clearly boasted. The Vinettis had what Delaney had always longed for. A close-knit, extended family.
    “For sure,” Trudie said. “This is where the family congregates when they visit. And it can get pretty rowdy in here, with all the laughing and teasing and eating. Lucia’s an excellent cook, and she makes the best Stromboli you’ll ever put in your mouth.”
    “So what do you think?” Lucia asked. “What needs to be done? Can you give me an estimate for what this might cost?”
    “Just let me jot down a few notes.”
    “Sit,” Lucia invited. “I’ll make coffee and we’ll have some tiramisu I baked this morning.”
    Delaney sat, took her calculator and her notepad from her purse, and crunched numbers while Lucia served up espresso and the ladyfinger cake.
    Lucia settled in across from Delaney, anxiously pleating her apron with her fingers.
    “I have some good news and some bad news.” Delaney took a sip of her coffee. “Which would you like to hear first?”
    “Oh, definitely I want the good news first,” Lucia said.
    “You have a beautiful home. I can feel the love in every room. Once we get it in shape, it’s