Runaway Bridesmaid by Karen Templeton Page B

disturbed after all this time, the tilted floors screaked mournfully as Dean walked through the virtually empty house. Most of the furniture had either been sold or given away after his mother’s death, Ethel insisting there was no reason to keep it. But, here and there, a few pieces remained, having had no takers for whatever reason. Not because of their worthlessness, however, since his father’s skill had long been admired.
    The ample living room with its oak-manteled fireplace was bare except for a corner hutch his father had made, a simple pine piece, not too big. His mother had displayed some of herhandmade dolls on the top shelf, kept sewing supplies behind the doors on the bottom.
    Then there was that buffet in the dining room that had belonged, he believed, to his mother’s grandmother. Ash, he discovered as he wiped away a thick layer of dust from a small section of the massive piece. The stain had darkened over the years to an oppressive umber color which pretty much matched his mood. He made a mental note to strip and restain it. Maybe Jennifer and Lance might like it. Or he could take it back to Atlanta, sell it there.
    He pushed open the obligatory swinging door to the kitchen, which was retro before retro was “in,” with its black-and-white linoleum tile and glass-paned cabinets. Great gaping holes coated with stringy, fuzzy webs indicated where the stove and refrigerator had been; the walls had aged to a putrid mustard color. Sarah had always hated that color, even when it was new—
    He sucked in his breath. Why on earth should he care what Sarah thought? He was selling the house, he was going back to Atlanta, that part of his life was over.
    Period.
    Wiping thoughts of Sarah out of his mind as easily as he wiped dust off his hands, he left the kitchen and went upstairs, made an expeditious tour of the equally barren rooms on the top story, then came back down, just in time to hear the muffled clatter of a bicycle being hastily abandoned out by the front porch. He peered out the front window, saw the child’s bike. Frowning, he opened the front door, started, then felt his lips curve into a smile of genuine pleasure.
    â€œKatey? What are you doing here, honey?”
    She offered him a shrug and a gap-toothed grin in that order, then climbed up the front steps onto the porch, long braids bouncing against the front of her canary-yellow T-shirt as she ascended. “Thought I saw your truck go by a little while ago and wondered if this was where you were going.” She craned her neck, looking past him into the house. “I’ve never seen inside.”
    Taking his cue, Dean stepped aside and let Katey in, reminding himself not to hold the little girl’s resemblance to her oldest sister against her. “You’ve been here before?”
    Katey meandered over to the hutch and tugged at a bottom door until it popped open with a loud scraping sound, the force bouncing her into the wall. “Lots,” she said, absently rubbing the seat of her matching yellow shorts with one hand as she straightened up. She yanked open the other door and looked inside, but since it was empty she withdrew her head, then shut both doors at once.
    Dean stood with his hands on his hips as he watched the child explore the house with the ingenuousness of a kitten. “How come?”
    Another shrug, then: “I don’t know. I was out riding my bike one day and just sort of found it, I guess. It’s pretty and quiet and cool under those pine trees out back. You know there’re ducks in the pond?”
    â€œStill?” He hadn’t been out to the pine grove yet. Couldn’t bear it, he didn’t think.
    â€œOh, yeah. Like a zillion of ’em. Anyway—” Katey crossed the hall into the dining room, immediately investigating the buffet with the same detached thoroughness as she had the hutch “—I was telling everyone about it at dinner one night and