Marrying Maddy by Kasey Michaels Page B

made the most tremendous gamble, a gamble he hadn’t planned to tell her about until after the ceremony, the sneak.
    Not that they’d even have gotten as far as the pavement outside the wedding chapel if he’d told her earlier.
    He’d certainly had the opportunity. Several opportunities. They’d been together in the hotel for the entire weekend, laughing, and loving…and answering the phone whenever Loony Larry called, which he did at least three times a day.
    Ample time. All the time in the world to talk to her, to ask her, one more time, if it would be all right with her if he junked his very good job, his fairly assured future and bet it all on a pipedream…while demanding that she live on his earnings and not touch her trust fund.
    The rat. The low-down, dirty, cowardly rat! Hadn’t he believed she’d loved him enough to stick with him through the “better or worse” if she’d known up-front?
    No, of course he hadn’t.
    That was what really, really hurt. Had hurt her every day and night for eighteen long months.
    She took another spoonful of brownie batter.
    That, and knowing that she had been not in the least equipped to handle anything even remotely close to poverty. For crying out loud, she hadn’t even been equipped to handle Middle Class!
    She’d looked at the contents of the bowl, winced and then grabbed a clean spatula in order to spread what remained of the batter in a nine-by-eleven pan. The brownies were going to be awful. Just awful. She wasn’t going to fit into her wedding gown, if she kept eating batter.
    And it was all Joe O’Malley’s fault. All of it. The brownies, her weight, her hives.
    The rat.
    The oven timer dinged now and Maddy pulled oven mitts on her hands and removed the tray of brownies as she allowed her thoughts to come to some sort of conclusion. “So now I make brownies, and can sew curtains, and even know to dust before I vacuum, not that I vacuum. Mrs. Ballantine would strangle me with the cord if I ever got within ten feet of the vacuum cleaner. And for what? So he could go and get rich and not need me anymore? The rat. The low-down, dirty—”
    â€œTalking to herself, Jessie,” Almira stage-whispered as the two women walked into the kitchen. “I think that’s a good sign, don’t you?”
    â€œWhy, because she’s talking to herself, and not screaming at you?” Jessie asked, walking across the large kitchen to bend over the tray of brownies. “Sort of short, aren’t they? I mean, they sure do smell good, but they don’t look as big and fluffy as usual.”
    Maddy positioned the pan more carefully on the cooling rack and turned her back on the brownies. “I ate some of the batter,” she mumbled, avoiding her sister’s eyes.
    â€œSome, Maddy? And I don’t think that’s very healthy. Aren’t there raw eggs in brownie batter? You ought to do what I do, grab a spoon and the vanilla fudge ice cream, and go sit in the gazebo and guzzle.”
    Maddy looked at her sister’s taller, leaner frame. Jessie had all the elegance in the family; Jessie and Ryan both. Maddy was shorter, rounder. Definitely rounder. And if she kept eating brownie batter, soon she’d be a house.
    A house. Like the house next door. The house next door that had Joe O’Malley in it. Suddenly she was hungry all over again.
    â€œI eat when I’m upset,” she said, glaring at her grandmother. “So sue me.”
    Almira spoke up. “Yours is a petite, hourglass figure, Maddy, darling. Tiny hands and feet, slim ankles, a waist that would have done any Gibson girl proud. But it’s those generous breasts and rounded hips that really attract the men. Why, you even have darling little dimples on your elbows and knees. Men like to think they’re all grown up andself-sufficient, but what they really want is a nice, soft cushion to rest their head. Ask