Laura Prentiss. Well, she was certainly the kind of woman with whom Lia would have pictured Sam Brand: very beautiful, perfect body, perfect hair, perfect everything. She wore daring little outfits and was notorious for her controversial performances and her wild-child persona. Lia knew that Sam Brand hadn’t exactly been spoiled for choice when he visited Riversend for the wedding. Lia had been one of the few young, single women around, but if he’d met her anywhere else, he would never have looked twice at her. She wasn’t sexy, didn’t dress anywhere near as provocatively as the Laura Prentisses of the world, and she didn’t have the same sexual reputation as the other woman, either. Balance had been restored to the universe. Sam Brand had found his perfect match and Lia, who had only recently started dating again, would soon find hers.
She was sure of it.
“Another date?” Millicent McGregor exclaimed five weeks later when she saw her middle daughter come downstairs dressed to the nines for the third time in less than a week. Lia self-consciously straightened her lightweight pink cardigan. It was a pretty, lacy thing that she had knitted herself. “You look lovely, my dear. Doesn’t she look lovely, Andrew?”
Her father looked up from his book, and his salt-and-pepper brows furrowed.
“If you put as much effort into finding a job, you needn’t be so concerned about finding a husband,” he said bluntly, and Lia winced.
“Andrew!” her mother gasped, and he had the grace to look slightly shamefaced.
“I want what’s best for my girls, you know that, Dahlia. And I’d rather you focus on finding a job and becoming self-sufficient than a man hunt. You don’t need a man to take care of you. You’re quite capable of being the captain of your own fate.”
Wounded, Lia swallowed heavily and lowered her gaze to the floor. Did her father really see her as some kind of man hunter, looking for a mate to take care of her? When he looked at Lia, did he only see a deadbeat daughter without a job or prospects, searching for a man to mooch off?
“She still needs a social life,” her mother defended. “You can’t expect her to sit at home with us every night.”
“She’s thirty-two and she hasn’t had a job in more than a year. Lia, I love you, you’re beautiful and intelligent. But you have to take command of your life, my girl. Stop waiting around for things to happen for you and go out and make them happen.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do.”
“You’re husband hunting.”
“It’s just a date, Daddy,” Lia said quietly, not even able to admit the truth of his words to herself.
All her life, Lia had been programmed to believe that marriage and kids were the keys to emotional fulfillment. Not by her parents but by teachers, her great-aunts, and other “well-meaning” adults. They had all lauded her prettiness but not much else. She’d grown up thinking that all she needed to complete her life was a husband and a family. It had been her sole goal after high school, finding the right man to grow old with. Teaching had been something she’d fallen into, a time filler while she waited for Mr. Right to come along and sweep her off her feet.
Her father was right—she was looking for a husband, but not because she needed a man to take care of her. She was lonely; she wanted a husband and children. She was a nurturer and needed to take care of people, not the other way around. It was one of the reasons she found such joy in doing her charity work. She felt needed, important when she was helping others . . . like more than just a pretty face.
“You’re husband hunting,” her father reiterated, interrupting her grim train of thought. “I don’t want you to have to depend on anybody for anything. Not your mother and me, not your sisters, and definitely not a man. Take a leaf out of Daff’s book—further your studies, aim higher.”
He was using Daff as an example of model behavior? Lia’s world really had flipped upside down in the last year and a half. She had always been the example for Daff. And now it seemed her position as the good daughter had been usurped by her foulmouthed older sister. How bizarre. She was tempted to tell her father about her studies, but she didn’t think now was the right time.
“That’s enough, Andrew.” Lia was only vaguely aware of her mother’s quiet voice and blinked rapidly to clear the blurriness from her eyes. Her father sighed heavily.
“Have a good time, sweetheart,” he said, getting up to give her one of those wonderful bear hugs that had always comforted her so much as a child. She clung to him for a moment, and he dropped a kiss on her head before stepping back to chuck her chin gently. “You’ve been so unhappy lately and I just want you to be happy, Dahlia.”
“I know, Daddy,” she said with a small, sad smile. She went up onto her toes to kiss his craggy cheek. “Thank you.”
Gregory Marsh was a quiet, studious-looking man. He was very tall and almost skeletally thin. He had thinning, sandy hair, an overbite, and an Adam’s apple so pronounced he reminded her of Ichabod Crane. He was the bank manager at one of the small branches in Riversend and always wore ill-fitting gray suits and bow ties. She imagined he thought the ties were dashing, and that was true for some men. But because his huge Adam’s apple poked out above the knot, Gregory’s ties looked like they were strangling him.
After a series of disastrous dates with horribly abrasive and overly familiar men, she found Gregory’s retiring personality relaxing and was willing to see where this could lead. Single men in her age group were few and far between, and Lia couldn’t afford to be picky anymore. She had chosen to stay away from dating for more than a year after her non-wedding, and before that she’d been with Clayton. It was tough getting back into the swing of things.
This was her third date with Gregory, and he wasn’t exactly a scintillating conversationalist—he had a monotonous voice and enthused about his stamp collection a lot. As usual, Lia found herself surreptitiously checking her watch after about an hour. One hour with Gregory tended to feel like three. But he was nice. Very nice. And polite. And nice. So pleasant.
Okay, in all honesty, he was boring. Really, really boring. And if he once again spoke of his rare 1876 one-penny Cape stamp—the pride of his collection—and the “exciting” online bidding war he’d won to obtain it, Lia was going to scream. Or pull her hair out. Or maybe (probably) she’d just grin and bear it and listen to the tedious story for the fourth time in three nights, because he was nice.
And he was single.
MJ’s was crowded. He always brought her to MJ’s. He saw no need to leave Riversend for dinner when they had a perfectly good dining establishment right there in town. Never mind that MJ’s was a family restaurant with little variety to their menu. And that most nights the place was brimming with people they knew. She suspected the latter was the reason he enjoyed bringing her here. He always chose a table in the center of the huge room, where everybody could see them. She was Dahlia McGregor—not too long ago she’d been engaged to the heir to a multimillion-dollar family-run diamond company. She had been popular in high school, and had never exchanged more than a polite greeting with Gregory. Not until her friend Tilda had set them up on a date last week.
Lia didn’t believe in false modesty; she knew that people often referred to her as the pretty McGregor sister. They had believed that she would be the one to settle down and marry first. She had believed that. She’d been on course to do that, before discovering that her fiancé was a low-life snake who had harassed Daisy. That news, added to his arrogance and selfishness and controlling behavior, had forced Lia into making the bravest and scariest decision of her life and canceling her wedding the day before the actual event.
People had been treating her like a broken doll since then and, until Sam Brand showed up and displayed not one iota of sympathy or concern for her “fragile” state, she had allowed it. Had felt like it was her due. Until she recognized that it was doing her more harm than good.
Brand had been the catalyst to release her from the depths of self-pity. His response to the news that her engagement had b
een broken had been so refreshing: “Good to know you’re a free agent, sweetheart. Married women are off-limits.”
That pragmatic and unsympathetic sentiment was all it had taken to lure her into bed with him. It would have been easy to blame the alcohol for her lowered inhibitions, but in all honesty, she had never made a more clearheaded or cynical decision in her life. And the rewards had been unforgettable and phenomenal. But at the same time, she had felt embarrassed by the tawdry encounter. And to repeat the mistake at the wedding? She shuddered at the recollection. Allowing him to take her in a filthy barn had been so sordid.
And yet the very memory of it had the power to bead her nipples and . . .
“Are you ready to go?” Gregory asked while Lia was still caught up in her confusingly raunchy and scandalous memories of Sam Brand.
“Yes,” Lia said with a quick smile. He scrupulously added up the bill before telling her what her half would be and generously informing her that he would cover the tip. Lia tried not to cringe when he circled a possessive arm around her waist and steered her through the restaurant. She couldn’t help feeling like a prized possession that he was showing off, an all-too-familiar feeling after Clayton’s posturing.
Clayton had outright referred to her as his soon-to-be trophy wife, and Lia had initially thought it was a term of endearment. Until she’d recognized it for what it was—a claim of ownership. He’d seen her as nothing more than a thing, a shiny object to shelve in his trophy cabinet and neglect until he wanted to show her off when he played his games of one-upmanship with his friends.
Gregory led her to her car door and then caged her in by draping one arm over the roof of the small, silver hatchback Fiat and positioning his body in front of her, while her back was to the driver’s door. He maneuvered her so quickly and expertly that she barely had time to react.
“Do you want to follow me home?” he asked softly. His free hand came up to cup her cheek, and she barely stopped herself from shuddering at the cold, clammy feel of his palm against her skin. His thumb ran over her lips, and she swallowed back a surge of actual nausea.
“It’s getting late,” she prevaricated. “I should get home.”
“It’s our third date, Lia,” he said with a small smile, pressing closer. She could feel every sharp angle of his bony frame against her front, and when he actually had the nerve to grind his pelvis up against her . . . yep, that was his penis.
If her instinctive reaction to feeling his hard penis rubbing up against her was eww, then he was probably not the man for her. She tried to move her own hips away from his, but the car door limited her movements, and what had been an attempt to get away from him instead felt like a reciprocal thrust. He groaned.
“Oh yes, babe,” he husked and mashed his lips up against hers. And then shoved his tongue down her throat. It took everything she had not to gag. Her eyes were wide open in horror and fixed on his passionate face so very, very close to hers. He had a fine smattering of blackheads on his forehead and a long, curly hair growing out of the mole just to the right of his left eye.
His hand moved down to her shoulder and then to her breast, squeezing too hard as he continued to thrust against her. When that cold, moist hand deftly slipped down her bodice and under her bra to cup her breast and thumb her unresponsive nipple, she finally snapped out of her horrified haze.
“Gregory, stop,” she said firmly, flattening her hands against his bony chest and pushing. He was surprisingly strong and resisted at first. “Stop.”
He finally released his hold on her, and his hand thankfully oozed its way out of her bodice. He was breathing heavily, his garlicky breath washing over her face in rapid pants. If he’d planned on sticking his tongue down her throat by the end of the evening, he could at least have refrained from the extra garlic on his pasta.
“God, that was good. Let’s go to my place, babe.” If anybody had placed wagers on his endearment of choice, babe would have been the last thing Lia chose. It sounded odd coming from him. Then again, the entire evening had taken a turn for the surreal, and Lia just wanted to escape.
“I can’t. I have to go home.”
“What, you have a curfew? Will your daddy ground you if you’re home late?” he asked mockingly, and her eyes widened at the sarcasm. Well, Gregory had certainly devolved into an a-hole in no time at all.
“I—” Her phone tinkled discreetly, and she thankfully latched onto that excuse to look away from his flushed face. She kept her eyes carefully averted from the modest tent that was still pitched at the front of his trousers and opened her bag to retrieve her phone from its usual pocket. She peered at the screen and heaved a relieved sigh.
“It’s my sister. I have to get this.” She swiped at the screen. “Daff?”
“Lia?” Daff sounded completely harassed. “I have a huge favor to ask you. I bought some groceries to stock Mason’s cabin with and I meant to drop them off and freshen up the place a bit. You know, put on bedding and open windows and stuff? But I forgot about Charlie’s PTA meeting—why have a meeting during the school holiday anyway? If I was a teacher, I’d want the time off. Anyway, I promised Spencer I’d go with him. And it’s running late. I won’t be able to get it done tonight, and Sam Brand could arrive tomorrow or the day after. I don’t want any of the food to spoil, and I wanted everything to be ready for him. Please could you—?”
“Of course,” Lia said hurriedly. She caught Gregory’s eyes and shook her head in fake apology. “I’ll do it right now.”
“Oh my God, thank you! You’re a lifesaver.” Lia tried not to wonder why Daisy had asked Daff to do it for her. Lia was usually the reliable one, the one everybody recruited when they wanted to get things done, and she couldn’t prevent the small surge of resentment at Daff suddenly becoming everybody’s go-to girl.
“The groceries are at Spencer’s place. They’re still bagged and in the kitchen. The key to the house is under the porch swing canopy. The cabin is unlocked—I stopped by earlier to make sure the electricity and plumbing are working.”
“I’ll take care of everything,” Lia promised, just grateful for an excuse to get away from Gregory.
“Fabulous. Thanks, sis. You’re awesome. I’ve got to go, we’re about to speak with her math teacher.” She hung up before Lia could respond. Lia looked at Gregory with feigned regret.
“I’m so sorry to cut this short, Gregory, but I have to go. Daff has asked me to help her out with an urgent matter.”
“Anything I can do?” he asked, looking concerned, but Lia could see the impatience and anger in his gaze. Guy obviously thought he was going to get lucky tonight, and suddenly his date was bailing on him. Bummer. For him. Lia, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to get out of here and away from him. She didn’t think she wanted to see him again. They definitely were not compatible. But a tiny part of herself couldn’t help but wonder if she would have been this picky before her experience with Brand. She hoped he hadn’t spoiled her for all men. He had certainly raised her expectations much, much higher than before.
“No. It’s something I have to do by myself,” she said quickly.
“You can come around to my place afterward,” he suggested.
“I’m pretty tired,” she said with a fake yawn. “I think I’ll head to bed afterward.”
He looked miffed by that information.
“Thank you for a lovely evening,” she said with a polite, strained smile. She turned to unlock her car door and thankfully he stepped away, allowing her to climb into the car.
Charlie’s eight-month-old brown-and-white miniature pinscher/Chihuahua mix, Toffee, ran up to greet Lia enthusiastically when she let herself into the house. The dog ran for her tiny tennis ball, dropped it at Lia’s feet, and stood watching her with an expectant tilt of the head.
“Sorry, girl, I can’t play right now. Your family has left me a shedload of work to do,” Lia groaned, planting her hands on her hips as she took in the bags of groceries in Spencer’s kitchen. Daff had bo
ught up an entire store. Somewhere in Riversend a store manager had finally paid off his business loans and was probably planning his retirement trip to a small island in the Bahamas, thanks solely to Daff’s extravagant spending today. Now Lia wondered if Daff actually had a PTA meeting or if she, Spencer, and Charlie were laughing their behinds off at getting Lia to do all this fetching and carrying in their stead.
She shook her head and, with Toffee—tennis ball in her mouth—dancing around her feet, started to lug the bags out to her car. It took four trips and ten minutes for her to get everything loaded up. After making certain that the forlorn-looking Toffee was safely inside the house, the drive was just a matter of taking a left turn and bringing the car to a stop a minute later. The places were only meters apart, but walking up and down the small incline with the bags would have taken a lot longer in the dark, on uneven terrain.
She let herself in through the kitchen door. The place had the musty smell of a home that had been unlived in for a few months. Mason and Daisy had moved to Grahamstown at the beginning of the year, just a couple of months after their November wedding. They were nicely settled into a pretty house outside the university town, where Daisy did locum work at a small veterinary practice and Mason had started his studies in March. Lia switched on the lights and opened a few windows to air the place out a bit. The mild late-April evening air had a slight autumnal nip to it, but nothing too extreme.
Lia got to work carrying the shopping into the kitchen, feeling like a scurrying ant with all the back-and-forth. She started unpacking everything, placing the groceries neatly in kitchen cabinets and the refrigerator. She was humming quietly to herself when the sound of a heavy tread behind her had her grabbing a knife from the block and whirling to face her would-be assailant.
“Great reflexes, princess,” Sam Brand observed in amusement. He was in the living room, his hand curled over the top of an easy chair, obviously for balance, because he looked seriously wobbly. “But I’m pretty sure even I could disarm you in seconds, and I’m definitely not in peak condition at the moment. The key is to look like you mean to use the weapon. You look like just a cough would have you scampering off in the opposite direction.”