What's Cooking? (25 page)

She caught his gaze and smiled and his entire world steadied. "I love you," she mouthed.

"I love you," he said, loud enough to be heard by everyone. He wanted this roomful of people to know right here, right now before the vows that he had no lingering doubts. This marriage was what he wanted.

Behind him, Ashley laughed. "I think we all heard that. We could dispense with the vows."

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Rick turned and grinned. "No shortcuts. I want this binding."

She winked at him. "Believe me, it will be."

He took Maggie's icy hands in his. "Then let's do it," he said softly, his gaze locked with hers. The light in her eyes burned brightly enough to fill his heart with joy. He knew in that instant why people did this, why they took a chance on love. It was for this moment when everything seemed perfect, when two hearts were precisely in tune, when faith was strong that the feelings would last forever. Maybe the rest of the years would take patience and love and hard work, but right this instant everything seemed possible.

He glanced over to the chair where Sally sat, almost fully recuperated now, her gaze on Matthew, her eyes damp with tears, a smile on her lips. There was his proof that love could last, there and in Maggie's eyes. It was enough to make a cynic into a believer.

Rick said his vows without hesitation, his heart filled to overflowing. Maggie's voice was just as strong.

But neither of them held a candle to Ashley's firm declaration that they were now husband and wife. She grinned at her sister, then frowned at Rick. "This is my very first wedding. It had better last," she warned.

He laughed, even though he wasn't certain she was joking. "Believe me, you have nothing to worry about. We're in this for the long haul."

"Eternity," Maggie confirmed, eyes shining. "And then some."

Rick couldn't have said it better himself.

241 And now, turn the page for a sneak preview Ashley D 'Angela's story,

THE LAWS OF ATTRACTION,

the third book in Sherryl Woods's exciting new series, ROSE COTTAGE SISTERS

On sale in May 2005 from Silhouette Special Edition.

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243 J osh felt like a rebellious twelve-year-old running away from home and unwanted responsibilities. As he neared the Chesapeake Bay, he could smell the tang of salt water in the cool September air. As he got closer to his family's longtime second home by the water, there was also a faintly fishy scent that he'd come to acquaint with summer. His mother had balanced that with a garden filled with fragrant blossoms, which were just beginning to fade as summer moved into autumn.

When he turned at last onto the final leg of the journey, a long, winding country road that led from White Stone toward Windmill Point, he spotted a dozen or so brand-new homes interspersed with the old cottages and other recently completed vacation homes. The new additions were huge, dwarfing their quaint and occasionally run-down neighbors, but large or small, they all

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shared the same incredible view of the Chesapeake Bay and its inlets.

He was almost to the cutoff to Idylwild, the small clapboard cottage with its neat green shutters and sweeping porch, when a fancy car being driven toward him way too fast took the turn ahead of him wide. The driver spotted him too late and tried to overcorrect. Josh cut the wheel in the opposite direction, but the crunch of metal against metal was inevitable, the contact jarring but not enough to cause injury.

He leaped out of the car in full lawyer mode, then backed up a step at the sight of the tawny-haired driver of the other car suddenly bursting into tears. At once all he could think about were broken bones and soft, bleeding skin.

"Are you okay?" he asked, leaning in the driver's window close enough to catch a faint whiff of something exotic, sexy and expensive. The combination dealt a knockout punch to his belly and put the rest of his all-too-male senses on full alert.

Brown eyes, shimmering with tears, glanced up at him, then away. Her cheeks blazed with unmistakable embarrassment. Josh studied her, trying to figure out why he felt an almost immediate connection to her, as if they'd known each other before. But that couldn't be, of course. He would have remembered any woman who looked like this. Except for the tear-streaked face, she was as sleek and polished as any of the society women he'd come to know in Richmond. The clothes were expensive, if wrinkled. Gold and diamond studs winked at her ears.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered. "It was my fault." She

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was already fumbling in her Gucci bag, apparently digging for driver's license, car registration and insurance card. "Dammit, dammit, dammit! Why can't I ever find anything in here?"

"It's okay," Josh soothed, sensing that she was about to burst into another noisy round of sobs that would claw at his gut, "There's no rush. We're in the country. Folks around here don't get all worked up over a little fender bender. We can take care of the formalities in a minute. How about some bottled water? I just picked up a case of the stuff. It's warm, but it might help. T have a first-aid kit, too. We can take care of that scrape on your cheek."

She self-consciously touched her hand to her face, then stared at the blood with shock. She immediately turned pale.

"Hold on," Josh said. "Don't you dare faint on me. It's nothing. Just a tiny little cut." He glanced inside the car, trying to figure out if anything was broken. He couldn't see any glass that would explain the injury.

Without waiting for a reply, he ran back to his ridiculously oversize but trendy SUV, retrieved a bottle of water, some peroxide and antibiotic cream, then went back. By then, the other driver had emerged from behind the wheel, all five-ten or so of her, with narrow hips and endless legs and just enough curves to make a man's blood stir with interest.

"I'm Josh," he said when he could get his tongue untangled. He handed her the water. He poured the peroxide on a cotton ball and reached over to touch the wound, but she immediately tried to take the cotton from him.

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"I'll do it," she said.

"You can't see what you're doing," he said, holding firm and cupping her chin in his other hand, then daubing the peroxide on the scrape. He bit back a grin when she winced even before he'd made contact.

"There, that wasn't so bad, was it?" he asked, when he'd cleaned the wound.

She frowned at him.

"You never did say what your name is," he reminded her as he smoothed on antibiotic cream, trying not to linger on her soft-as-silk skin.

"Ashley."

He heard the unmistakable Boston accent. "Just visiting the area?"

"For three weeks," she said emphatically, as if that were two and a half weeks too long. "Are you a local?"

"I like to think of myself as one," he said. Richmond might be where he lived, but this was the home of his heart. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed it until he'd made that final turn onto this road leading to the cottage where he'd spent some of the happiest summers of his life. He'd finally felt as if all the problems that had sent him scurrying down here were falling into perspective.

"Either you are or you aren't," she said, studying him with a narrowed gaze.

Amused by her need for precision, Josh said, "I've pretty much grown up around here."

"Then you probably know the sheriff or whoever we need to call to report this," she said.

"Let's take a look and see if it's even worth reporting," he suggested. He examined first her car and then

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his own, concluding that they were both in need of new front bumpers and maybe a paint touch-up, but that both cars had escaped serious damage.

"Look, why don't we call this even?" he suggested.

"Because I caused it," she said, grimly determined to take responsibility. "I should deal with all the damages."

"That's why we carry insurance," he corrected. "You deal with your company. I'll deal with mine. It might not even be worth it, though. A body shop could fix things up for next to nothing."

"But 1 should pay whatever it costs," she insisted.

Josh couldn't seem to stop himself from suggesting, "Then have dinner with me one night while you're here. We'll pick someplace outrageously expensive, and you can buy if it'll make you feel better."

She murmured something under her breath, but finally nodded.

Josh studied her curiously. "What did you say?"

"I said you're obviously not a lawyer, or you'd be all over this, milking it for every dime you could get in damages."

He laughed. "That's just about the nicest compliment anyone's paid me in months," he said, deciding then and there that not being a lawyer for a bit suited him just fine. It wasn't that far from the truth. Wasn't that precisely why he'd come here, to figure out if he wanted to be a lawyer anymore with all that it entailed, including his eventual engagement to his boss's daughter?

"Do you have a phone number, Ashley? I'll call you about dinner?"

She jotted it down, but before she handed it to him, she added something else. "If you change your mind

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THE LAWS OF ATTRACTION

about my paying for the damage to your car, I won't fight you."

Josh glanced at the paper and saw that she'd written, "My fault. I owe you," then signed her name in the kind of illegible scrawl usually used by physicians.

"A confession?" he asked, amused. "Think it would hold up in court?"

"It would if I wanted it to," she said flatly, then lowered herself gracefully into her car, giving him one last intoxicating view of those incredibly long legs. "See you around."

"Oh, you can count on that," Josh said, fingering the piece of paper she'd given him.

He stood watching until she was out of sight, then tucked the piece of paper into his pocket and gave it a pat. Coming home was turning out to be one of the smartest decisions he'd made in a long time.

And ironically the past couple of minutes had already given him insight into one of those important decisions he was here to consider. If he could feel this powerful tug of attraction to a woman who'd just creamed his beloved car, then the very last thing he ought to be considering was marriage to Stephanie Lockport Williams. First thing in the morning, he'd have to call and make it clear to her that despite her father's wishes, they had no future.

And right after.that, he'd call the mysterious Ashley and invite her out for a crab feast. There was no better way to get to know a woman than watching her handle the messy task of picking crabs. Stephanie had flatly refused to touch the things, which should have told Josh all he needed to know months ago.

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Something told him that Ashley would show no such restraint. In fact, he had a hunch she'd go after those crabs with all the passion and enthusiasm of a local. There was something wildly seductive in watching a woman hammer away at the hard shells, then delicately pick out the sweet meat and dip it in melted butter, then savor every bite. He thought of Ashley's lush lips closing around a chunk of backfin crabmeat dripping in butter, and concluded it was definitely a spectacle he could hardly wait to see.

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