Free The Bride (The Boss) by Abigail Barnette Page A

similarities between them that I would never, ever point out to him, because I was sure it would earn me a very withering look.
    “Yes. Well. Same to you,” Neil said, then turned to Runólf and spoke something in Icelandic before they both headed off to the bar.
    From somewhere in the room, a baby monitor crackled with the sound of a distressed infant.
    “Oh good, she’s up. Finally!” Helen jumped to her feet with the glee of a mother about to hold a child she could give back to its owners, and she excused herself to go with Kristine.
    Emma sighed. “Less than ten minutes. I owe Michael twenty dollars.”
    I cocked my head in query.
    “Less than ten minutes before my father got bilingual to complain about Michael, in front of Michael.” She shook her head with a resigned sigh. “He said, ‘I’m going to need a drink to handle this.’ Come on.”
    Emma led me up the stairs, through the foyer and to the surprisingly industrial looking kitchen.
    “Maybe he meant he needed a drink to handle bringing me.” I normally wouldn’t have so blatantly hinted for reassurance, but I was starting to get a little paranoid. “He’s been acting really strange, ever since Christmas.”
    “There’s a time when my father doesn’t act strange?” She grabbed a glass-bottled soda from the ice bucket on the table. “Want one?”
    “Sure.” I took something that looked grape. “You don’t think he’s weird about me being here?”
    “Sophie, you know him.” Emma was as pragmatic as ever, and it was very welcome. “If he didn’t want you to be here, you wouldn’t be here. But the man misses you when you go off to the toilet, I don’t think he would want to spend a whole holiday without you.”
    She had a point that I mentally conceded as I popped the top off my soda.
    Then, with a halt, Emma had a visible realization. “You don’t suppose… Sophie, do you think he’s nervous because he’s planning to propose to you?”
    I frowned as I let that roll around in my head for a second. Neil didn’t buy new socks without serious consideration; I couldn’t imagine him proposing to me without first having in depth conversations about our future. “I don’t think so.”
    “Why not? You’ve been together for a year.”
    “Yeah. A year. Singular. One year,” I said wryly. “I’m not angling for a proposal just yet.”
    “A hell of a year, though.” Emma pursed her lips as she thought. “Have the two of you even discussed it?”
    “No. Well. Once, I think. Only in the most abstract way.” Neil had confided that he’d planned to propose to me on his last birthday, but he’d changed his mind because he hadn’t wanted it to seem like one of those deathbed/wedding bed scenarios. “We haven’t had any serious discussion, and that’s okay. We’re happy where we are.”
    “I suppose.” Emma didn’t sound too happy about having to accept that fact, and I was surprisingly touched. Her father’s last marriage hadn’t ended well, with hurtful accusations that I hoped were all a huge miscommunication between two truly well-meaning people. If they hadn’t been, then Neil’s ex-wife had been a gold digger out to trap him with the child support clauses in their prenup. Neil and Emma felt the latter was the case, so the fact that she could trust me enough to be disappointed that her father wasn’t marrying me was a big deal.
    We rejoined the rest of the group in the living room, where Helen was just handing a slightly fussy baby off to Runólf.
    “I’ll get her a bottle,” Kristine said, less relaxed than when we’d first come in.
    “Do you need help?” I offered, though I wasn’t sure what needed to be done, and I prayed “hold the baby” wasn’t going to be her suggestion.
    “I’ll help her. Neil, could you take Annie just for a moment?” Runólf asked, passing the baby off to his brother without waiting for an answer.
    “I would love to.” Neil set his glass aside and reached up for the infant,