Embraced by Faulkner, Carolyn (books for 8th graders .TXT) 📕

more anticipating our vows like that. I want our wedding night to be your first time, and I know I don’t have

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BacksideOfLove.com

Embraced

enough self-control to keep touching you like this and not making you fully mine.” Meg’s eyebrow raised. She’d half expected that he’d want her in his bed well before the wedding.

He gave her a chaste kiss on the forehead, then turned back to her as he stood by the door. “From now on, instead of running away from me, try running toward me. I’ll catch you and hold you, no matter how insane I make you. Eventually you’ll realize my arms are the safest place you can be.”

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BacksideOfLove.com

Carolyn Faulkner

Chapter XI

he wedding would be a small but elegant affair, with Mandy as the maid of honor, of course, and Barrett T

with two best men, Hayden and David. Meg made arrangements to have her condo sold and move her stuff down to Texas, sorry to have to give such short notice to her Superintendent. She was already applying down here, but figured it was probably already too late to get a full time job teaching.

Shopping and organizing the wedding was monopolizing Meagan and Mandy’s time. Barrett’s only specification regarding the plans had been that the word “obey” be kept in the vows, but other than that, he just asked her to tell him what date and time to be ready.

He had already called and put her name on his credit card accounts, and had told her to buy or do anything she wanted. If she wanted him in tails, fine. If she wanted him in a gorilla suit, fine. As long as they ended up married, he didn’t much care beyond that point.

There should have been a hint in it for him when they went out looking for her engagement ring, intending to buy wedding rings at the same time. The jeweler he went to had known him for years, and showed velvet case after velvet case of the finest he had to offer. Meagan’s eyes bugged at the size of the gems – three to five carat of exquisite quality - she was being shown. She had always been a bit of a jewelry bug, and had a good idea how much those rings would cost Barrett. She didn’t want anything ostentatious or gaudy, and kept wandering away from what the

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Embraced

gracious elderly gentleman was showing them to the much smaller rings in the display cases. Meg knew exactly what she was looking for in her engagement ring, and when she found it, she tapped her finger on the glass above it.

“May I see this, please?” Barrett wandered down to her, and was surprised at what she’d chosen. It was a heart shaped diamond solitaire set in 14k gold, just about one and a half karats, and not of the utmost quality. Both Barrett and the jeweler examined her choice.

“Miss, this is not one of the best stones I have,” the gentleman began, but Meg shook her head, handing the ring to Barrett.

He looked down his long patrician nose at her, “You’re sure you don’t want one of the bigger ones, Sweetheart? It’s not like I can’t afford a big honking ring.”

The jeweler cringed at his words, but held his tongue.

Meg nodded eagerly, and presented her left hand to Barrett, who slipped the ring over her finger a little too easily. It would have to be sized. Her taste in wedding rings was much the same and they settled on a set of matching plainish gold bands. As he squired her to lunch, he was amazed at her choices, but then, she rarely failed to surprise him with her behavior. Barrett knew how much she loved jewelry from Mandy, who said her best friend always haunted jewelry and estate sales, looking for a bargain.

Birthday, Christmas, and anniversary gift-giving was going to be extremely easy for him – all he’d have to do is take her shopping and watch what she drooled over at the jewelry stores. Frankly, he had expected to spend quite a bit more, and was sure that if she were almost anyone else, he would have.

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Carolyn Faulkner

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, and he hadn’t been aware that he’d been staring.

He seated her, then himself at the intimate bistro along the River Walk. “Just wondering why you didn’t like the bigger, better quality rings.”

Meg leaned toward him on her forearms. “When I buy jewelry, which is not very often because I can’t afford it, I buy what I like the looks of. Anyone who comes at me with a jeweler’s loop to examine my engagement ring is going to get a punch in the eye.”

He laughed, knowing it was quite possible she’d do just that. “You do realize that you can afford to buy whatever you want now?”

She cleared her throat and deliberately changed the subject.

“Do you have to go to work after lunch?”

Barrett paused and looked at her, letting her know that he realized what she was doing. “Yes, Hon, I’m sorry, but I do. Gotta get everything taken care of before our honeymoon.”

He was as eager as a child to begin their honeymoon, and although Meg knew that some of that was because he wanted to share a bed with her, a lot of it was because she had given him free rein to plan the honeymoon, much as he had done for her with the wedding itself. Barrett decided that, since Meg hadn’t traveled a lot in her life, that he’d start her (and him)