The Color of Love (The Color of Heaven Series) by Julianne MacLean Page A

after all.
    “Ready to go?” Josh said as he pressed the button on the key remote to unlock the vehicle. He opened the car door for me and I smiled at him as I got in.
    “It was a beautiful ceremony,” I said.
    “I sure hope so,” he replied, “because they’re both beautiful people. If anyone deserves to be happy, it’s those two.”
    He shut my door and I sat in the passenger seat, feeling rather spellbound as I watched him outside, chatting and shaking hands with an older gentleman before getting into the driver’s seat beside me.
    “The reception’s only a few blocks away,” he said, “and we don’t have to wait for the bride and groom to get through a two-hour photo shoot. Mom just wants candids taken at the inn. Are you hungry?”
    “Not too bad,” I replied as he backed out of the parking spot. “And thanks for inviting me to this.”
    He slid me a look. “Don’t thank me just yet. You haven’t met my Great-aunt Beatrice. She likes to pinch cheeks— hard —and she’s got thumbs like a gorilla. I’m just sayin’.”
    “Thanks for the warning,” I replied with a laugh.
    But geez, he wasn’t kidding. I discovered how serious he was the moment I met her.
    o0o
    The reception was held in an upscale Victorian inn not far from the church, and following cocktails, a hot meal was served in the dining room. Toasts were delivered and Josh gave a touching speech about his mom that made my eyes well up.
    After dinner, a DJ played music in the large parlor and front hall where they rolled back the carpets for dancing on the hardwood floors.
    I barely had a chance to sit down. I danced with Josh’s uncles, his cousins, and with the children, too. His five-year-old niece, Susie, took a particular shine to me, and I spent some time upstairs in her room at the inn with Marie, where they showed me her dollhouse, which they’d brought from home.
    By midnight the children were falling asleep on the lounge chairs in the parlor, and at one o’clock, the DJ announced the last dance.
    Josh turned to me and held out his hand. “ Great song.”
    A shiver of excitement rippled up my spine, because it had been a perfect night and this would be the perfect ending—to slow dance with Josh to Van Morrison’s Into the Mystic , one of my all-time favorite songs.
    Earlier, he had removed his suit jacket and loosened his tie, so I could feel the smooth muscular contours of his broad shoulders under the white shirt as I slid my hand up his arm.
    “I hope you had a good time,” he said, holding me close.
    “It was great,” I replied. “Your family’s amazing.”
    Just then, Marie and Kevin tangoed over to us and said, “You guys hungry? ’Cuz we’re going to order some pizzas after this.”
    “That sounds great,” Josh said, “but I’m sure Carla wants to get home.”
    “No way!” Marie protested. “You can’t drive her anyway. I saw how much champagne you had, little brother. Why don’t you stay, Carla?” she said to me.
    My eyebrows lifted. “Stay?”
    “Yes, we have the whole inn booked just for our family. Half the rooms are empty. You can choose any one you want and have breakfast with us in the morning and stay to watch Mom and Eric open their gifts.”
    “I wouldn’t want to impose,” I said.
    “You wouldn’t be. Unless you have to get home to your daughter…?”
    “She’s spending the night with her cousin,” I explained.
    “Well, there you have it,” Marie said. “It’s decided. You have to stay.”
    I turned my eyes to Josh to try and get a reading on how he might feel about that.
    “Stay,” he said with encouragement. “I’d like to spend some more time with you.”
    Maybe it was too much too soon, and maybe I should have known better because that’s how I’d gotten myself in trouble in the past—by not looking before I leaped. It’s how I ended up married to a man who didn’t really want to be married.
    But the fact remained that lately I’d swung too far in the