The Bride's Curse by Glenys O'Connell Page A

wasn’t Noelia lonely, or had the love she’d shared with her husband been enough to see her through the lonely years after his death?

Chapter Seven
    Brett nodded a friendly hello to the young woman on the reception desk at the Holywell Home, the nursing home where his aunt was recovering from her bout of pneumonia. She smiled and blushed a little as he told her she looked very pretty today.
    “Pink is definitely your color,” he teased. “How is Aunt Mary doing today?”
    “Oh, pretty much the same as she was yesterday when you visited. Wanting to know when she’s going home.” The receptionist lowered her voice and leaned toward Brett. He caught the lush scent of roses in her perfume. “I have to say that she’s been so much happier since you have been home and visiting. Mrs. Sasha Atwell Montgomery didn’t come often—I think because they tended to have words each time she was here.”
    Brett clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Sasha and my aunt Mary have never got along. Mary thinks my sister is flighty and Sasha thinks Mary is a prude. They are two very different personalities.”
    “Yes, and your aunt is a different generation. Young woman are different now than when your aunt was in her twenties.” Sandy Lewis smiled conspiratorially. “Mind you, sometimes she has this hilarious sense of humor. One of the nurses told me yesterday that Mrs. Atwell was threatening to turn Dr. Frazer into a duck … because she thought he was a quack! Get it?”
    Oh yes, Brett got it. He managed a weak smile, all the while wondering how Sandy would react if she knew his aunt really believed she could cast spells. Surely it was a harmless fantasy, he told himself.
    Brett bade her goodbye and went off through the double doors that led to the elevators and his aunt’s room on the second floor. He never quite knew what to expect these days. Mary had always been a bit mercurial as long as he’d known her. He wondered what she had been like as a young woman in love, before the disaster of her wedding had turned her into a virtual recluse.
    He decided to take the short flight of stairs rather than the elevator. He was happy to be back in Maine but he knew he didn’t get enough exercise and missed the hard, outdoor life of his non-profit organization work in some of the poorest parts of the world.
    He wished he could get Red out of his mind. He wished he could reassure his aunt, who was still firmly convinced she wasn’t long for this world. He wished his sister Sasha would grow up and act like a responsible adult.
    Conversely he wished he never had to leave the peace and beauty of Maine. A wish that was maybe tied in with his recent meeting with a certain red haired beauty. On impulse earlier he had called into a local florist intending to send her a dozen red roses. He was thinking red roses for Red but common sense stopped him at the last moment. Red roses were the symbol of love and it was way too early for such a declaration. He smiled as he considered how Red’s eyes would spark at such over-the-top and way-too-early behavior.
    He wished life could be simpler.
    Most of all he wished he could untangle the problems that had arisen, turn back the clock and have him and Kelly meet at a party, a dance, the theatre, through friends … and begin a calm, uncomplicated relationship that could bloom …
    Then he had a wonderful idea. After the talk they’d had at dinner, he’d learned one thing that Kelly would like far more than flowers …
    • • •
    Kelly thought that perhaps the only good thing that had happened to her that day was that there was no need to pore over back copies of the
Marina Grove Telegraph
in the rather dank, gloomy basement of the newspaper. The managing editor told her proudly that “the whole shebang, back to our genesis” was now available through the library archives.
    So, trudge, trudge, heart down, off she went to the local library branch. The part she needed used to be the town hall way