Free The Sometime Bride by Ginny Baird Page B

mid sentence and questioned with his eyes. Beautiful, earth-moving, sea green eyes.
    Carrie settled her other hand at the side of his face. “Shut up and kiss me.”
    “Thought you’d never ask,” he hummed, closing in.

     
    After they’d necked like teenagers for nearly twenty minutes, Carrie felt something moist and clammy seeping onto her outer thigh.
    “Oh my God!” Mike said looking down in horror at the leaking paper bag pressed up against Carrie’s leg. “Your beautiful dress!”
    Carrie puzzled at the mysterious green stain on her leg. She wiped a hand against the sticky mess, then brought a palm to her nose. “Mint?”
    “Mint Chocolate Chip,” Mike said, sheepishly unrolling the bag. “Ice cream sandwiches.”
    Carrie threw back her head with a belly laugh. “Ice cream sandwiches! And there I thought you’d gotten us another elegant vintage of wine.”
    “Carrie,” he said, pulling a clean handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing the side of her clothing. “I’m so sorry about your dress. I forgot all about --”
    “That’s alright,” she said, giving his chin an affectionate nuzzle. “I did, too. And, no worries. The dress will wash."   And, if it didn’t, she could always get another. But Carrie was as certain it wouldn’t be so easy to replace Mike Davis. “Think they’re still any good?”
    “Of course! A little soggy, maybe,” he said, pulling the soppy package from its dripping bag. “But edible, nonetheless. How about it?”
    “I’d love one."   Carrie smiled. “Mint chocolate is my absolute favorite. How on earth did you know?”
    “Wild guess,” Mike said, grinning naughtily. “And, your Grandma Russell told me.”
    “Cheater!” Carrie said, swatting him playfully across the chest. “You just wait till I corner some of those old high school chums of yours and get the dirt on you!”
    “So, you’re not disappointed then?”
    Carrie warned herself to proceed with caution. “In...?”
    “The ice cream. I mean, it may not be the rare vintage you were --”
    “I love the ice cream. I don’t think any man has surprised me with ice cream before."   Much less, spread it on my thigh, she heard herself thinking, but thank God didn’t say. All of a sudden Carrie was developing lots of innovative ideas about what she and Mike could do with ice cream. But not here, not now, not in the middle of somebody else’s vineyard.
    “What is this place?” Carrie asked, taking a bite out of her dripping sandwich and delighting in its fresh minty taste. Nightfall was almost upon them, shadows stretching long over the vineyard. The top third of the mountains had already faded to black. If they didn’t head back soon, they might have difficulty finding the car in the darkness.
    “Just a place I stumbled on long ago.”
    “It’s yours?!” Carrie asked, surprise and delight firing her eyes. “I should have known you were a vintner! Now, it all makes perfect --”
    “Carrie,” Mike answered, crestfallen. “It’s not mine."   He couldn’t bring himself to tell her that he’d only worked here as a hired hand during his high school summers. That his background was much more modest that hers ever was. He and his Dad never had a nice home -- of any size -- to call their own. They had rented and lived out of trailers. His graduation from Ashton had been thanks to a full athletic scholarship.
    “Maybe you should buy it, then?” she continued, seeming happily excited by the notion. “It would make a wonderful investment!”
    “Investment?"   Mike had never been able to invest in anything beyond his next month’s rent.
    Carrie appeared to pick up on his mood and halted. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, wadding up her ice cream sandwich wrapper and balling it in her fist. “It wasn’t my place at all to suggest that.”
    And why, indeed, would she suggest it? Just as breezily as if wishing could make it so. Did Carrie St. John actually have that sort of money herself?