Suddenly a Bride by Kasey Michaels Page A

she could, “Hello! Will? Who are those two strangers you’ve got with you? I bought Danny and Mikey the new cars they wanted—but I don’t see them anywhere.”
    “Mo-om,” Danny complained, rolling his eyes. “It’s us. Stop kidding.”
    “It is? Oh, my goodness, it is! Well, don’t you two look handsome!”
    “The curls are still there,” Will told her as the boys scrambled into seats, and Mikey all but ripped off the top of the pizza box. She loved vegetable pizza—the boys never even realized they were getting all that broccoli into their tummies. “Sid just put some kind of taming gel on them for now. I bought the boys some and left it in the car. So, what do you think? You’re not going to burst into tears or anything, right? I promised Dan and Mike you wouldn’t.”
    Dan and Mike? He kept calling them Dan and Mike. What happened to Danny and Mikey? Elizabeth felt a sense of panic rising in her. Please, somebody, stop the world. I want to get off! Something inside her screamed. “No, I’m not going to cry,” she said, not looking at either twin, or at Will, either, for that matter. “I saved some of their curls from the first time I cut their hair. If I get too maudlin, I’ll just pull out those bags and hide in my room as I sob like a girl. ”
    She dared to take another look at her sons. “They…they really look like their father now.”
    “Do they? I imagine you’d know. But even though they’re supposed to be identical, I think Dan looks a lotlike you when he smiles. And there’s something about the way Mike uses his eyes that reminds me of you.”
    Elizabeth reached for a slice of pizza even as she looked toward Will, just to give herself something to do, because her appetite had completely deserted her. “How he uses his eyes?”
    “Yes, exactly like that.”
    “Like what?”
    “The way you just looked at me. Your head tipped forward just a little, so that you’re looking at me sort of through your lashes. It’s very effective. Sugared or unsugared?”
    Elizabeth lifted her chin, blinked. “Pardon me?”
    “The iced tea. Sugared or unsugared?”
    “Oh, sugar or no sugar? They’re both no sugar. Unsugared isn’t a word, I don’t think, or at least not what is considered to be a good one. Not that I should have corrected you. I’m sorry. Richard is always making up new words, and I have to look them all up and then change them.”
    Will added two packets of sugar to his cup and then put the lid back on it. “You’d go crazy if you worked for me. Lawyers make up new words all the time. So what’s in the bags?”
    “I bought a new outfit for tonight,” Elizabeth said before she could think up a suitable lie. “I also was talking to the lady in the shoe department, and she suggested a movie for us to see.” She rested her elbow on the table and her chin in her palm. “Do you know something? I haven’t been out shopping without theboys in, well, I can’t remember when. It was heaven. They’re too old now to come into the dressing room with me and too young to be left floating around on their own.” She leaned back in her chair once more. “So thank you.”
    Will picked up his napkin and leaned in closer to her as he touched it to her chin. “Just a little pizza sauce. It looks good on you, though.”
    Elizabeth’s breath caught in her throat. “Thank you, again.”
    He didn’t move away. What moved away was the world. The food court, the noise, even her two sons, who had made remarkable inroads on the veggie pizza and were now competing with each other to see who could make the most noise with their straws as they sucked down the last of their lemonade.
    What was left of Elizabeth’s world was Will, so handsome in his silly baseball shirt, so young and vital and overwhelmingly male.
    “This is nice,” he said quietly. “Crazy but nice. But if I don’t let you go home I won’t be able to pick you up there later so that we can really be