The Matrimony Plan by Christine Johnson Page A

“Loosen up, sis. You could use a good swim.”
    “I do not swim, especially not with the new minister.”
    Blake was grinning like an idiot, taking far too much pleasure in her discomfort. “Then why’d you run out of the parsonage’s backyard?”
    Oh, no. He had seen her, and if he’d seen her, others might have, too. By supper, it would be all over town. “Don’t tell anyone. Please?”
    His grin grew wider. “You and the reverend have a little romance going? Beattie says—”
    “I don’t care two pins what Beatrice says. She’s wrong. There’s absolutely nothing between us. Understand?
    Nothing.” She could not say that strongly enough. “Never ever in a hundred lifetimes.”
    He chuckled. “That bad, eh?”
    All those years of teasing rushed back: too skinny, too tall, didn’t look like a Kensington, must have been switched at birth. Every stupid taunt Blake had thrown at her during childhood returned. “Stop it. Just stop it.” She wasn’t going to cry. She bit her lip and stiffened her spine.
A lady always maintains her composure
. But a sniffle escaped.
    “I’m sorry, sis. Let me give you a ride home.” He stopped the car, leaned over and opened the passenger door.
    Felicity relented. She really didn’t want to walk past the Neidecker house looking like this. Besides, she could pester Blake about Robert. She slipped into the car and closed the door.
    “So what did happen?” Blake put the car in gear.
    Felicity should have known he wouldn’t give up. “A dog. Slinky, to be precise.”
    “Slinky got you all wet? That had better not be dog urine soaking into my seats.”
    “It’s not dog urine,” she snapped. “It’s wash water, if you must know.”
    Blake snorted, tried to stifle it when she glared at him, and then roared the minute she looked away. “You tried to bathe Slinky?”
    “Gabriel, uh, the pastor, is taking him in.”
    “Gabriel?” Blake’s tone intimated something more than dog washing had gone on.
    Well, she’d put an end to that kind of thinking. “Slinky needs a new home. Yours would do.”
    “That mutt?” Blake cast her a disparaging look. “If I get a dog, it’s going to be a hunting dog, purebred.”
    Figures. He was just like Daddy. She crossed her arms. “Can’t you go any faster?”
    “What’s the hurry? Anxious to have Mother yell at you?”
    “No.” She tossed her head and stared out the passenger window. Blake could be such a brother sometimes. He also couldn’t be trusted to keep a secret. If she told him she wanted to talk to Robert, he’d blab it to Beatrice and Jack Hunter and even Robert. Still, she needed to know where to find the man.
    “What’s going on this afternoon at the airfield?” she asked casually.
    He shrugged. “We called it a day, what with the dinner party tonight.”
    “Robert, too?”
    If Blake thought it odd she used Robert’s given name, he didn’t remark on it. “Of course. We’re all invited to the Hunters’.”
    That meant the talk would center on the airfield and flight school. At least Darcy and Jack Hunter wouldn’t try to match some girl with Robert…she hoped.
    “Did Sally and Eloise stop by?” she ventured, exposing her hand.
    Blake thankfully didn’t put two and two together. “Couldn’t say. We were out in the field.”
    Thank goodness
. Felicity sighed with satisfaction. She’d have another chance tomorrow.
    “We’re here.” Blake pulled into the circular drive, stopping at the front door where Mother was sure to see her.
    “Couldn’t you have dropped me in back?” she huffed as she got out.
    Blake just grinned. “No way to sneak past old eagle eye.”
    She heaved a sigh and slammed the door shut. “I suppose you’re right.”
    With a tip of the finger to his cap, Blake said, “Pick you up tonight at seven.”
    “Tonight? Do you mean I’m invited, too?” she stammered, but he was already driving away.
    Oh, dear. If she was attending dinner at the Hunters’, she had a lot to do.