Runaway Bridesmaid by Karen Templeton Page A

Good Lord—it wasn’t as if she hadn’t been aware of his problem, considering how many tests she’d tried to help him pass. But if there was one thing Dean Parrish wasn’t, it was stupid.
    The more she thought about it, the madder she got, because the more she thought about it, the more it sure sounded as if he was saying she hadn’t been smart enough to know he wasn’t good enough for her, so he played the big macho man and made the decision for her.
    The toad.
    Someone told an off-color joke, sending Melanie into paroxysms of shrill laughter. Itchy and bitchy, Sarah decided Melanie Kincaid was just about what Dean deserved. She couldn’t wait to see him squirm out of those L’Oréal-polished claws.Which he would, right? I mean, Melanie wasn’t even his type…right?
    She flicked a glance at Bubbles and started to chew on a hangnail.
    Hey—whatever happened, there wasn’t anything she could say, was there? She was the one who’d made it clear they had nothing to say to each other, right?
    Right?
    She switched fingers and started in on another hangnail.
    She wished she could figure out what was really going on in Dean’s head. His eyes—remorseful, haunted—slipped into her thought just as the anger slipped out of it. Again.
    Oh, no, you don’t, she thought, snatching it back, cramming it down by her heart.
    They’re just eyes, girl. And he’s just a man. Remember that.
    Like she could forget.
    Her nipples heaved against her bra the same time this little tingling sensation jolted through a part of her body she basically had no use for. She squirmed.
    And swore.
    Six sets of eyes turned to her, six mouths open in midsentence. She smiled, pointed to her ribs, prayed her skin was a normal color. “Pin.”
    The eyes turned away and the mouths resumed their conversations.
    Remember what happened the last time you let those little tingling sensations have their way?
    She wiggled in the chair again as if she could get away from her treacherous body, winced, then sank her chin into her hand and stared out the window. Oh, crud…she knew him too well, knew he wasn’t going to give up on this fence-mending business, just because she’d told him, more or less, to go to hell. Which meant he was only going to keep getting in her way. Which meant…
    Melanie giggled again, and Sarah dredged up a little smile.
    Throwing him off the scent, she believed this was called.
    Â 
    There were more memories than cobwebs in the old farmhouse, invading Dean’s psyche as insistently as the musty, closed-up smell invaded his nostrils.
    As farmhouses go, it was fairly modest—large kitchen, dining room, living room downstairs; three bedrooms and a bath upstairs. But it had been pretty, once. Before his father died. Granted, his mother would never have won an award for her housekeeping, caring much more about her crafts than whether or not anyone could eat off her kitchen floor, which, as she pointed out, was rather silly, if you thought about it. Otherwise, why have dishes?
    But the house had always been in good shape, even if he and Lance and his father had had to constantly shift piles of books and magazines and assorted crafts supplies from chair to table to floor, even if the house always smelled of hot glue and varnish and dried flowers. His father had kept it in excellent repair and both inside and out got fresh coats of paint religiously every three years.
    However, Dean’s father had died when Dean was fourteen, his mother falling ill almost immediately afterward. It had been impossible for Dean to take care of her, his brother, and the house all at the same time. And houses are like spoiled women: they need constant cosseting in order to look their best. By the time Marion Parrish died, the house was already showing signs of neglect; now, years later, it made a perfect setting for a Stephen King movie.
    As if protesting being