Free Mother of the Bride by Lynn Michaels

dropping him, but at least she wouldn't have been around to see it. He could've fractured his skull on the birdbath or broken his neck when he'd tripped over the wicket. Boy, when life turned ugly, it took no prisoners.
    Cydney dressed in black slacks and flats and a green sweater set—a scoop-neck shell and a cardigan with a single button on a loop—added the jade lariat necklace and earrings her father sent her from Hong Kong on his last book tour and declared herself as ready as she'd ever be.
    Her mother was in the kitchen, whisking Bisquick and milk together for dumplings. She crooked her finger at Cydney.
    “Start the coffee,” she whispered, “then finish setting the table.”
    “Okay,” Cydney whispered back. “Why are we whispering?”
    “Angus Munroe is asleep. He took a pain pill.” She jerked her head toward the living room. “Use my mother's china.”
    “Don't you think that's overkill?”
    “After Bebe punching him in the nose, nothing is overkill. How could you let such a thing happen?”
    “How could I let it? How could I have stopped it?”
    “You're an adult, Cydney. Bebe is a child.”
    “If she's a child, then she has no business getting married,”Cydney blurted, and blinked. Eek. She sounded like Angus Munroe.
    Georgette said, “You sound like your father.”
    I should've stayed in the garage, Cydney thought. Why didn't I stay in the garage?
    “All right, Mother.” She sighed. “I'll use Grandmother's china.”
    Cydney filled the Krups machine and turned it on, then crept into the dining room, where she stored the set of eighty-year-old Spode, ivory with gold-banded edges, in the hutch. By rights the service for twelve belonged to Gwen, but Gwen had no interest in china unless Time or Newsweek wanted to send her there to photograph the Great Wall.
    Georgette had already spread a white damask cloth on the table, tucked the napkins artfully into rings and set the daisies Angus Munroe brought Bebe to float in a crystal bowl between tall white tapers.
    Cydney eased open the hutch doors so they wouldn't squeak. She laid places at each end of the table, two on one side for Bebe and Aldo, one across from them for Angus Munroe, and crept to the doorway between the dining room and living room to peek at him.
    Poor man. Her left ankle, the one she'd wrenched when she slipped on the grape in the produce aisle, twinged in sympathy. He'd come to Kansas City to talk to his nephew, and now look at him. Packed in ice—one bag on his ankle, the other on his nose—dead leaves and dry grass stuck to his clothes, sprawled in a heap on her mauve sofa.
    Weary and beat-up, but handsome as a sin heap, even with two black eyes, a shadow of beard on his jaw and a lock of dark hair falling over the ice bag pressed to his nose. Cydney had never seen a picture of him where his hair wasn't falling over his face. He must have a cowlick, she thought, right there in front.
    He'd taken off his size 10 suede hiking boots, the ones she'd brushed mud off last night. Cydney could see bits of crushed leaf stuck to the toes of his socks. White, over the calf tube socks with ribbed tops and gray toes. She'd washedthem last night along with his sweater, size large, his jeans— 34 waist, 36 inseam—and his boxer shorts. Paisley silk that slipped through her fingers like—well, like silk—when she'd taken them out of the dryer.
    If she'd had a night and a day like Angus Munroe, she'd be cranky and out of sorts, too. I've been too hard on him, Cydney thought. I should cut him some slack. For Bebe's sake. Her decision had nothing at all to do with the picture forming in her head, of Angus Munroe wearing those paisley boxers and nothing else. Absolutely nothing.
    Whoa, mama, her little voice said, just as Bebe and Aldo came into the living room and bounced down on either side of him, their weight dipping the couch cushions and knocking the ice bag off his nose. He caught it against his chest and looked up, bleary-eyed, at