Free A Family Kind of Wedding by Lisa Jackson Page B

stupidly wondering if he’d ever kiss her again. She grasped the sides of the sink for support and mentally counted to ten before letting out her breath.
    â€œGet a grip, Kinkaid,” she said to the woman staring back at her in the mirror. “You don’t know a thing about this guy.” She leaned under the faucet and rinsed her mouth.
    Steadfastly she told herself that she wasn’t going to be swayed by one intimate gesture. She had too much to think about today, the first being her son.
    Josh was still sleeping—the result of watching television until the wee hours of the morning. She’d checked on him, seen that his leg was still elevated, and changed the bag of ice that had long since melted. Blue whined to go outside, and Katie obliged, filling his water dish and pouring dog food into his bowl on the back porch. Butterflies and bees flitted through the flowers that grew along the edge of the garage, and two wrens flitted to a stop on a sagging bit of her gutter. She smiled to herself and told herself it was only sane that she should move.
    Buying this little house had been difficult, a real stretch for her. She’d borrowed the down payment from her mother and convinced the previous owner, an old man who had been moving to California to be with his eldest daughter, to accept a contract with her. No sane banker would have loaned her a dime at the time.
    But she’d proven herself by paying promptly each month, and this little cottage had been her home ever since. She sighed. Now she and Josh were going to move. She supposed it was long overdue, and the repairs that she’d put off—painting the interior, replacing windowpanes, cleaning the gutters and shoring up the sagging garage—would have to be done for the next tenant.
    Leaning against a post that supported the overhang of the porch, she smiled as her old dog nosed around the backyard, and she thought of Luke Gates—elusive cowboy with the killer kiss. Her whole body tingled at the thought, and she pushed herself upright, slapping the post and telling herself that it was time to forget about one stupid act of intimacy. Inside the house, she phoned Len’s Service Station and was told that her car was in the process of being checked out by the mechanic. Len would call her back as soon as he figured out what the problem was. “Wonderful,” she said with more than a trace of sarcasm as she hung up and imagined she heard the sound of a cash register dinging each time one of the mechanics fiddled with the wires and hoses attached to the engine. For the fiftieth time she promised herself that she would sign up for an auto-mechanic’s class offered by the local community college.
    But not right now. She picked up the receiver again and quickly punched out the number of her office. Winding the cord around her finger, she stared out the window and waited as the phone ran.
    â€œRogue River Review,” Becky, the gum-chewing receptionist, answered in her typically bored voice.
    â€œHi, it’s Katie. I’ll be a little late because Josh had an accident. Nothing serious, but it’s gonna keep me home this morning.” After explaining to Becky what had happened, she was connected with the editor and repeated herself, telling him about her car and Josh’s injury. “I’ll work here until I get the word on the car, then I’ll be in,” she promised.
    She’d had a second phone line installed months ago so that she could, over the summer months, work from the house while Josh was home for vacation and was grateful that the powers-that-be at the newspaper understood.
    She hung up, feeling a little better, grabbed a soda from the refrigerator and settled in at her desk. Hidden in the top drawer was the letter. Was it a fake or the real thing? She reread the typed words she’d memorized since receiving it in yesterday’s post.

    Dear Ms. Kinkaid,
    I’ve read your accounts of