Her Best Friend′s Wedding
Her Best Friend's Wedding
Abby Gaines
When did Sadie Beecham get those curves? She'd always been the geek next door, his baby sister Meg's brainy best friend. Smart, sure. But hot? He never would have imagined it…before. Now, Trey Kincaid's imagining all sorts of things. And none of them has to do with Sadie's gifted mind.A mind, he discovers, she's clearly lost. Because she thinks she's in love with Meg's fiancé. And that's an obsession he's determined to put an end to–one way or the other.
“I’ll give you mouth-to-mouth.”
After he said it, Trey stared at her lips. Energy crackled in the air. Not the kind of energy her exhausted limbs needed.
“I meant,” he clarified, “if it should become medically necessary.”
Was it her imagination, or was he a little red in the face?
“Thanks, but Daniel’s a doctor and better qualified,” she said.
His eyebrows drew together, all joking aside. “Don’t mess with me, Sadie. If you don’t keep away from Daniel, I’ll warn him and Meg you’re in love with him.”
She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Probably because his threat had stopped her heart.
Dear Reader,
Did you ever just know you were right…and then discovered you were wrong?
It happens to me often enough that I’m no longer totally shocked by my own fallibility. But Sadie Beecham, heroine of Her Best Friend’s Wedding, is seldom wrong. So when she falls in love with a guy she’s convinced is The One, she must be right…right?
Even if he’s in love with her best friend? Yep, Sadie is determined she’ll get her man. Too bad Trey Kincaid, brother of the bride, is equally determined she won’t!
I do hope you enjoy Her Best Friend’s Wedding. To let me know what you think, please email abby@abbygaines.com. Or, to read an extra After-the-End scene, visit the For Readers page at www.abbygaines.com.
Sincerely,
Abby Gaines
Her Best Friend’s Wedding
Abby Gaines
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Abby Gaines wrote her first romance novel as a teenager, only to have it promptly rejected. A flirtation with a science fiction novel never really got off the ground, so Abby put aside her writing ambitions as she went to college, then began her working life at IBM. When she and her husband had their first baby, Abby worked from home as a freelance business journalist…and soon after that the urge to write romance resurfaced. It was another five long years before Abby sold her first novel to Harlequin Superromance in 2006.
Abby lives with her husband and children—and a labradoodle and a cat—in a house with enough stairs to keep her semifit and a sun-filled office with a sea view that provides inspiration for the funny, tender romances she loves to write. Visit her at www.abbygaines.com.
In memory of
Gerald van Waardenberg
(1962-2010)
A gifted musician
A talented writer
A good friend
Grace under Fire
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER ONE
“I MIGHT,” SADIE BEECHAM said briskly, “bring someone home with me for Nancy’s birthday party.” Silence.
Sadie shook the cordless phone. “Mom?”
“Oh, honey.” Her mother’s voice was a mere breath down the line. “Have you met The One?”
“Mom! I’ve brought guys home before.” Sadie stepped away from the beef bourguignon simmering on the stove for tonight’s celebratory dinner and patted her damp forehead with a paper towel. Her bungalow’s ancient air-conditioning wasn’t up to the challenge of keeping the kitchen cool during the heat of a Memphis summer.
“Not in the last ten years, dear,” Mary-Beth Beecham said. “The last one was that boy with the piercing in his lip.”
Sadie shuddered. She knew her mother was doing the same. That was a long time ago. A brief attempt during her sophomore year at Princeton to prove she could tread the wild side just like any other coed. A theory she’d rapidly disproved.
“Okay, I haven’t brought anyone home lately. But you’ve met guys I’ve dated. This is no big deal, Mom.”
The last thing she needed was her parents acting as if they were meeting a prospective son-in-law. Even if that’s exactly what he was.
Sadie opened the kitchen window in the hope of creating a breeze. On the back porch, her latest batch of plants—camellias and limonium—had died in their pots, despite the expensive soil nutrients she’d fed them. The neighbor’s cat must have been doing its business in them again.
“I want to know all about your young man,” Mary-Beth demanded.
Sadie turned her back on the limp, browning foliage. “He’s a doctor.”
A squawk down the phone. “A doctor! He sounds wonderful.”
Sadie couldn’t help grinning in response to her mom’s enthusiasm. “He’s very nice,” she admitted. He’s perfect.
The doorbell rang. Phew, saved from descending into girlish chitchat, a skill she’d never mastered. “Mom, I need to go. He’s just arrived. Meg gets back tonight, too, so we’re all having dinner.” Dinner for three—she couldn’t wait.
“Okay, dear, you go. Give Meg a hug for me, and tell her not to worry, we have her mom’s party well in hand. And call me soon. I can’t wait to tell people about this doctor of yours,” Mary-Beth added archly.
Sadie puffed out an exasperated breath. “Mom, no need to tell the whole world.” She was still fending off inquiries from her parents’ friends about when she was going to win the Nobel Prize. Mary-Beth had made the exaggerated claim during her last visit, boasting about Sadie’s brilliance as a seed biologist.
“Just your father, then,” her mom soothed.
“Fine.” Behind Sadie, another long trill of the doorbell suggested impatience. Then a thump on the door, and the handle rattling. Seemed Daniel was as eager to see her as she was to see him. Sadie’s irritation evaporated. “Coming,” she sang.
She set the phone back on its stand and hurried to the door. “Sorry,” she called as she unlocked the deadlock. She flung the door wide. “Come in—Meg!”
She just managed not to feel disappointed it was Meg Kincaid, her childhood next-door neighbor, best friend forever and now roommate, on the doorstep, rather than Daniel. “Welcome home! I wasn’t expecting you just yet… Why didn’t you let yourself in?”
“My key’s buried somewhere in there.” Meg indicated the trundle suitcase next to her. She hugged Sadie. “The flight landed an hour early. It’s so great to be home. Six weeks was way too long…even if it was Paris.” She stood back as Sadie maneuvered the case over the threshold for her.
Meg slipped out of the high-heeled red pumps that were part of her flight-attendant uniform and flexed her toes on the polished wooden floorboards. “Man, that feels better.” She pushed her dark bangs off her face, an endearing, reflexive gesture that never achieved anything—her hair settled right where it had been. She’d flown halfway across the world, yet she looked as fresh and pretty as if she’d stepped out of a Cosmo article titled “How to Look Your Best, 24/7.”
“I need a drink.” She padded down the hallway behind Sadie. “Something smells good.”
“I hope so. I followed the recipe exactly, so as long as Martha Stewart knows what she’s talking about…” Having missed out on the cooking lessons her mom had given her sister, Sadie wasn’t as confident as she’d like to be.
In the kitchen Meg absorbed the sparkling state of Sadie’s glass-fronted cupboards and the clear counter. Her sigh was part satisfaction, part envy. “This place is so tidy when I’m not here.”
“Boarding-school discipline,” Sadie reminded her. “My secret weapon. Besides, it’s not as if you’re here even when you are here,” she joked as she pulled a bottle of pinot grigio from the fridge. She didn’t know how Meg managed to sleep at all between her party lifestyle and her job. She reached over to the counter, where three glasses were neatly lined up.
“Three glasses?” Jet lag or not, Meg didn’t miss a thing.
Sadie busied herself pouring even amounts of wine into two of the glasses. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
“A man?” Meg’s squeal was gratifying. She grabbed the purse she’d slung over the back of a dining chair. “I’d better put my face on and get out of this uniform—we don’t want your boyfriend thinking your best friend’s a slob.”
“You’ve never looked slobbish in your life…and besides, he’s just a friend.” She didn’t want Meg getting overexcited the way her mom had.
Meg tilted her head to one side. “Now you’ve got me interested.”
What was that supposed to mean? Sadie had listened to friends revealing their I’m-in-love stories over many a glass of wine, but she realized now she’d failed to observe the nuances. She hoped she wasn’t blushing. Top research scientists don’t blush, she told herself sternly.
Meg took a slug of her wine and set her glass down. “Two minutes.” She patted Sadie’s arm, then headed to her bedroom. She’d never in her life freshened up in two minutes, so Sadie didn’t expect to see her for a while.
She poured some wine for Daniel—pinot grigio was his favorite—and wiped up a few drops that had spilled on the stainless-steel counter. She rinsed out the dishcloth and tucked it in the wire basket in the cupboard beneath the sink.
The doorbell rang. Once. Briefly. That was Daniel—no impatient banging on the door or rattling the handle. A man confident in himself, who liked to do things right. Just like her.
No wonder she’d fallen in love with him so fast.
Sadie forced herself to slow her walk, but she couldn’t contain her goofy grin as she opened the door. “Hey.”
“Hi, Sadiebug.” Daniel had come up with the nickname the first time they’d had lunch together. She loved it.
He stepped inside, his kiss landing at the corner of her mouth. Reminding her of the embrace they’d shared last night. Their first proper kiss, after a delicious dinner at the nearby Two Trees Grill, where they’d talked about their families, their ambitions, their mutual passions—work, Russian literature, 1980s rock music, running. Admittedly, running was a very new passion for Sadie—she’d better warn Meg not to look too surprised.
Afterward, Daniel had brought her home, and here in this very hallway had taken her in his arms. Then…the kiss. Remembering, Sadie felt a warm glow inside.
Daniel had pulled away after a minute or so, looked into her eyes and said, “Hmm.”
Which she took to be a male version of wow. “Hmm,” she’d said happily back.
“How was your day?” Sadie asked as she led the way to the kitchen.
“Full-on. Our free diabetes testing was a crowd puller. The few spare minutes I had were spent preparing for my meeting with the SeedTech panel tomorrow.” Daniel ran a medical clinic for low-income families in Memphis’s Northside neighborhoods. But his interest in childhood nutrition had brought him to SeedTech, the botanical research firm where Sadie worked. Sick of always being “the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff,” he’d joined the panel that reviewed SeedTech’s research into medicinal plants, projects that in the long term would benefit poor people everywhere. Sadie had met him a few weeks ago when she presented her project to the panel.
“Mmm, dinner smells superb.” Daniel lifted the lid of the casserole dish on the stove and peeked inside. “Not just a pretty face and an impressive brain—she can cook, too.”
His grin made her heart flip. She would have loved him if he’d been ugly as sin, but his warm brown eyes and slightly-too-long hair—he worked so hard, he seldom found time to get a cut—were adorable.
He accepted a wineglass from her and clinked it against hers. “Here’s to you.”
To us. Sadie sipped her wine and smiled.
“Um…hi.” Meg spoke from the doorway.
Sadie beamed. “Meg, meet Daniel Wilson. Daniel, this is my best friend Meg Kincaid.” She couldn’t have said who she was prouder of. Please let them like each other.
Daniel drank in Meg’s silky dark hair, her long lashes, porcelain-perfect complexion, her sweet smile… His jaw dropped.
Uh, maybe not quite that much.
The natural pink of Meg’s cheeks deepened, and her smile turned irresistible.
Too late.
HOW IRONIC THAT THE first fault Sadie should find in Daniel was his rapid amnesia about that great kiss they’d shared. From the second he met Meg, his manner toward Sadie had been no more than platonic. Warmly platonic, sure… In a matter of days, Daniel and Meg were an item. Every time she saw him with Meg—and since they were at great pains not to exclude her, that was often—her heart cracked a little further. What she felt for him, what she thought they’d both felt, radiated in his face whenever he looked at Meg.
She should refuse their invitations, but she found herself drawn to their relationship like a bug to a Venus flytrap.
“Things still going well with Daniel?” she asked Meg one Saturday afternoon as they wandered through a boutique on Beale Street in search of gifts for Meg’s mom’s sixtieth birthday. The party was only a week away.
“Wonderful.” Meg held up a funky leather belt. “How about this?”
“Not sure if that would actually meet around your mom’s middle. So…you’ve been seeing each other, what, three weeks?” Three weeks, three days and eighteen hours, by Sadie’s count.
Overhead, the Muzak played “Hopelessly Devoted to You.”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Meg said.
Sadie’s heart thudded. She’d been so careful to hide her feelings. “What?”
“That I always say things are wonderful at this stage. And I’ll change my tune soon.”
Sadie let out a breath of relief. Meg was infamous for her intense but brief relationships. Sadie couldn’t remember the last time one of her boyfriends had survived more than six weeks. If Meg followed her usual pattern, Sadie just had to hold out another two and a half weeks, max.
Feeling guilty for even thinking that way, she held up a silk floral-patterned scarf. “Your mom would like this. It’s pricey, though.”
“I didn’t send anything for Mother’s Day, so it needs to be good.” Meg took the other end of the scarf and spread the fabric. “Mom loves roses, I’ll take it.”
As they headed for the line at the cashier, Meg asked, “How did you know Daniel and I would be right for each other?”
“I didn’t.” Had Meg ever used the words right for each other before? Sadie shivered in the air-conditioned store.
“Then you’re a natural-born genius.” Meg fluttered her eyelashes at a male clerk, who beckoned them to another cash register without a line. “Of course, we all know that.” She dropped the scarf on the counter. “Daniel says you’re the smartest woman he’s ever met.” No envy, just awe of Daniel’s every word. “We owe you big-time.”
“Don’t mention it,” Sadie said with wasted irony.
The Muzak segued into “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.” A timely reminder to call her mom, who still thought Sadie was bringing a man to the party. She would phone home tonight and say she’d broken up with her doctor friend.
As if they were on the same wavelength, rather than different emotional planets, Meg said, “Guess what? I invited Daniel home this weekend, and he said yes!”
A knife twisted behind Sadie’s ribs as she pinned on her widest smile. “Of course he did.”
CHAPTER TWO
SADIE AND DANIEL finished work early on Friday. Meg wasn’t flying that day, so by four o’clock the three of them were heading out of the city in Daniel’s Toyota Prius—he always tried to minimize his contribution to global warming. Weeks ago, when Sadie had envisaged this journey, she’d pictured her and Daniel up front, Meg in back. Instead, she was the third wheel, trying to be sanguine about the dopey looks being traded in the front seat. Comforting herself with the thought that the natural life of this romance was probably another week and a half at best.
“Are we there yet?” she chirped—in imitation of her nephews and nieces—as they drove down Sanga Road in the heart of Cordova, once a small town but now an outer neighborhood of Memphis. She tried not to think about the disappointment her mom had struggled to hide on the phone at the news Sadie wasn’t bringing a date. She just had to get through this without anyone figuring out that Daniel and her “ex-boyfriend” were the same man.
Her strategy was simple: put on her happy face and refuse to answer questions about her love life. If that didn’t work, launch into a monologue about apomictic hybrid crops.
Meg directed Daniel to make a left onto Maple, and a moment later they pulled up outside the white-and-blue Victorian at number twenty-four, the Kincaids’ house. Sadie’s family lived next door at number twenty-six, an almost identical Victorian painted green with a red trim. Both houses’ front doors opened, then Mary-Beth Beecham and Nancy Kincaid hastened down to the car, halloing greetings.
“Scared?” Meg asked.
Sadie almost said terrified, then realized the question was aimed at Daniel.
“Only because it’s so important,” he said tenderly.
Fighting an uncharitable gag reflex, Sadie snapped open the car door and clambered out.
“Sadie, honey.” No lingering disappointment over the date issue, just the warmest welcome in her mom’s hug. “It’s so good to have you home.”
Pain and loss welled in her throat. “You, too,” Sadie choked nonsensically. It had been so hard these past weeks, pretending to be thrilled for Meg, watching Daniel lavish his attention on her best friend in a way Sadie had to admit he’d never done with her. Suddenly she was exhausted. She wanted nothing more than to collapse on her old bed and pull a pillow over her head. But first… “Mom—” she beamed with all the conviction she could fake “—let me introduce you.”
Before she could utter the words she’d been steeling herself for, words she hadn’t yet quite managed to say in her own head—This is Daniel, Meg’s boyfriend—a truck pulled up at the curb. A shiny black Ford F-150, which in this former farming hamlet had the desirability factor of a Ferrari in the city.
The man who climbed out was broad shouldered, lean hipped, laconic in jeans and black T-shirt.
“Trey,” Meg squealed. As her brother hit the central lock, she ran out onto the road and threw her arms around him.
“Yeah, yeah, Meggie.” Trey Kincaid made a halfhearted effort to disengage. Their sibling relationship was a blend of loyalty and sniping in varying proportions. For the past ten years sniping had been dominant, but absence must have temporarily tipped the scales in the other direction.
Meg dragged Trey to the curb—not that she could have budged him an inch if he didn’t want to move—chattering all the way.
“Hi, Sadie.” Trey’s dark gray eyes met hers, then swept her powder-blue T-shirt and darker blue wrap skirt with a familiar, distracted, slightly puzzled scrutiny. As if he wasn’t quite sure how she fit in around here but wasn’t interested enough to find out. “Won that Nobel Prize yet?”
Reminding herself she was on an I’m-so-happy-being-single kick, she shot him a dazzling smile. “Hello, Trey.”
Trey’s chin jerked back, and he looked harder at her. “Uh, hi,” he said as if he’d forgotten he’d already said that. His gaze flicked over her curves, down her legs, then up again. He looked confused. Then alarmed.
Good grief, he thought her smile was about his supposed gorgeousness. Sadie hadn’t attended Andrew Johnson High, the local school, but she knew from Meg that as quarterback, Trey had always had a bevy of cheerleaders around him—the attention had obviously gone to his head and stayed there.
Still, his arrival had allowed Sadie to recoup her inner calm. She turned back to her mother and felt almost relaxed as she said, “Mom, this is Daniel.” She swallowed. “Meg’s boyfriend.”
Her mother hugged both Daniel and Meg. “Don’t you two make the cutest couple?” Her gaze darted in Sadie’s direction, the nearest she would get to expressing regret that her daughter’s big romance had fallen through.
Meg introduced her brother to her beau. As the two men shook hands, Trey subjected Daniel to a long, hard scrutiny.
“You finally chose one who looks like he can hold down a job.” Typical of Trey not to bother to hide his surprise. But then, he’d never possessed the good manners Sadie admired in Daniel. Then, too, Meg had had some “interesting” boyfriends over the years.
“He’s a doctor,” Meg said proudly. “And a Tigers fan.” Trey was a longtime supporter of the Memphis Tigers baseball team.
“Did you see that whitewash against the Braves last week?” Trey asked. He and Daniel spent a minute rehashing the game. As they talked, Daniel laced his fingers through Meg’s and smiled down at her.
Sadie looked away, though she’d been forced to observe far worse recently.
“Do you fish?” Trey asked when the baseball conversation petered out.
Daniel’s gaze wavered. Sadie couldn’t picture him sitting in a boat for hours on the off chance a fish might come along. “Happy to give it a try,” he said.
“June’s not the best time,” Trey said, “but maybe I can take you out fishing someday soon. I know a good spot.”
The day took on a surreal hue. As far as Sadie knew, Trey had never put himself out for one of Meg’s admirers. Now he was offering to share his fishing spot on the lake, a local legend whose exact location was known only to him.
Meg kissed Trey’s cheek. “I figured you guys would love each other.”
“How could I not love anyone related to you?” Daniel grinned. “Trey, I hope you’ll take that in the spirit it’s intended.”
Trey chuckled.
Ha, ha, ha, Sadie thought sourly.
Polite as always, Daniel turned to include Sadie’s mom in the conversation. “I’ve heard so much about you and your family, too, Mrs. Beecham. I feel as if I know you already.”
Sadie tensed.
“Call me Mary-Beth,” Sadie’s mother said. “Though why Meg should tell you about my family, I can’t think.”
“I meant from Sadie,” Daniel explained. “She’s the one who got me and Meg together.”
He slung an arm across Sadie’s shoulders and kissed her hair somewhere above her right ear. One of those gestures she’d interpreted—misinterpreted—to mean she was special to him. Even now she couldn’t help melting against him just the tiniest bit, and imagining for a nanosecond that this had all worked out differently, that she and Daniel—
She realized Trey’s gaze had narrowed on her. That while everyone else listened to Meg rattling on about Sadie’s incredible intuition, introducing her and Daniel, he had been observing her.
“Feeling the heat, Sadie?” Trey asked. “You’re wilting.”
At barely five o’clock the temperature was nowhere near the mid-nineties that had dominated the afternoon. She straightened away from Daniel. “I’m fine, but thanks for your concern,” she said crisply.
“This is wonderful having you all here together,” Mary-Beth said. “Tomorrow’s barbecue will be just like old times.”
Not quite. In the old days, Meg’s father, Brian, had presided over the grill alongside Sadie’s dad, and her oldest brother, Logan, regularly defended his record for consuming the most burgers in one night. But Brian and Logan Kincaid had died in a fishing accident when Sadie and Meg were high-school seniors.
Trey had given up his college football scholarship to take his father’s place running Kincaid Nurseries, the family garden center. Turned out he was a natural businessman, just as he was a football player—over the years he’d added more garden centers in surrounding neighborhoods.
“Let’s get you all settled in,” Nancy said to Meg and Daniel. “Trey’s staying for dinner tonight, so we’ll have some time to get to know each other ahead of our busy weekend.”
Sadie watched Daniel and Meg walk up the path through Nancy’s spectacular front garden. Her own parents’ garden was equally impressive—Sadie’s mom and dad had taken turns presiding over the Cordova Garden Club, and Kincaid Nurseries was the club’s number-one sponsor. As next-door neighbors, the two families were a match made in heaven.
Sadie turned away before she could watch Meg and Daniel walk into the house. Shutting her out.
One weekend. I can survive one weekend.
THERE WASN’T QUITE a full complement of Beechams around the seventies glass-topped table in Sadie’s parents’ dining room that night. Sadie’s older brother Jesse, his wife, Diane, and eight-year-old twins, Hannah and Holly, came to dinner, along with her sister, Merrilee, three years younger than Sadie, and her husband, Ben, and infant son, Matthew.
But Sadie’s younger brother, Brett, and his wife, Louisa, had stayed away. Two of their three preschoolers were recovering from chicken pox and today was officially the last day of their contagion. They’d be at tomorrow night’s barbecue. Kyle, her oldest and only un-attached sibling, had breezed in, claiming he had to rush off to see his latest girlfriend, but he was still sprawled in his seat opposite Sadie. Her brothers and sister had all remained in Cordova.
“It’s like Grand Central Station around here,” Gerry Beecham, Sadie’s dad, said. “Wives, husbands, kids… and to think you and I worried we might have an empty nest, Mary-Beth.”
Mary-Beth blew him a kiss from the far end of the table.
“It’s a shame we don’t have you here more often, Sadie, love,” Gerry continued.
Sadie’s bungalow in uptown Memphis was just over half an hour away. Her parents acted as if she lived on the other side of the country.
“Sadie was never going to stay a Cordova girl,” her mother said fondly.
You made sure of that. Sadie quashed a flare of resentment. Sending her to a boarding school for gifted children at age ten, after her elementary-school principal had her IQ tested, had not been an act of rejection. Her parents had been proud but overwhelmed by the prospect of “raising a genius to fulfill her potential,” as the principal put it. They’d sent her away for her own good.
She speared three beans with her fork. “I really don’t live that far away,” she muttered, knowing she was wasting her time.
Going to college at Princeton had widened the distance between her and her family, and now it seemed her default setting was “away.” Even when she was right here.
She tried to concentrate on the conversations rippling around her—the dramas of the PTA, a new cupcake recipe, a camping trip to the Smokies planned for later in the summer. But her family always considered her “above” such mundane topics, so no one asked her opinion or shared their cupcake tips. Not that she would have known what to do with them.
Sadie’s mind wandered next door. She wondered how Daniel was getting along with Nancy. Fabulously, of course. He was the kind of guy every mother dreamed her daughter would bring home.
“Sadie?” Her father said.
She jolted back to the present, and realized everyone was looking at her. “Sorry, I was daydreaming.” She thought back. Hadn’t Merrillee been complaining about her cupcakes not rising?
“Did you wait too long before putting them in the oven?” she asked her sister. “If the baking powder released its carbon dioxide gas too soon—” She broke off. “Hey, I wonder what percentage of global warming is caused by bakers forgetting to put their cakes in the oven.” She chuckled…and realized everyone else was staring at her, baffled.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t hilarious. But Daniel would have got it. Would have laughed.
Sadie blinked, hard.
“I was asking when we’ll get to see that garden of yours, love,” her father said.
“Uh…it’s not quite there yet.” Sadie didn’t like to admit to the atrocious state of her garden—the love of everything botanical was one thing she shared with her parents, who between them had four green thumbs and sixteen green fingers. All of her siblings had inherited both the talent and the enthusiasm.
Shame the gene pool hadn’t had one green digit to spare for Sadie. When she’d bought the bungalow two years ago, she’d had visions of creating a lush, peaceful, enticing landscape.
Her failure was a constant frustration, all the more aggravating because it didn’t make sense. As a seed biologist, she knew the theory of plants inside and out. She had the passion, too—a beautiful garden could bring tears to her eyes, and she loved getting her hands dirty. But her attempts to actually grow anything seemed doomed to failure.
“I haven’t had much time for gardening, I’ve been so busy at work.” She switched to a topic she could tackle with a hundred percent confidence, before the questions got too probing. “We’re looking at developing new strains of wheat with a higher protein content.”
She started on a layman’s description of the project. Five minutes later she was pleasantly surprised to realize she still had her family’s attention. Usually eyes were starting to glaze over by now. “Anyway—” she gave a little laugh, unnerved by their rapt expressions “—I’m loving it.”
“It sounds great,” Merrillee said encouragingly.
“Right over my head, sis.” Jesse swished his hand above his spiky haircut to demonstrate. “I wish I had your brains.”
“Your life sounds super fulfilling, Sadie.” Diane, Jesse’s wife, smiled kindly.
“Uh…thanks.” How odd. That sounded like the sort of comment you made when you were— Wait a minute!
The reason everyone was listening with such interest to wheat-protein statistics wasn’t that they’d developed a sudden interest in crop biology. Sadie would bet a million bucks that her mom had told them she had a boyfriend, and then told them they’d broken up.
They felt sorry for her!
Her cheeks grew hot. “I’m really, really happy with the way things are right now,” she said emphatically. It would have been true, too, if she hadn’t made the mistake of falling in love with Daniel.
“Of course you are, dear,” her mom said. A chorus of overearnest agreement ran around the table.
“It’s just, balance is important,” Kyle said. “I’m not saying you need to get married—” his shudder made everyone laugh “—but there’s more to life than work.”
Her oldest brother was a firefighter, as well as a serial dater. Sadie’s other siblings also had careers they loved. Jesse had a graphic-design business, Brett was a town planner, Merrillee had trained as a nurse. All smart, busy people. But somehow more…multidimensional than Sadie. They’d managed to stay connected to one another.
Sadie drew in a deep breath, inhaling the scent of summer shrubs wafting through the open window. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t connected. It didn’t matter that her lack of a boyfriend emphasized the differences between her and her family. If they truly understood how important her work was—not just to her, but to the planet…
One look at their concerned faces said she’d be wasting her breath. That was what she loved about Daniel—he did understand. She sneaked a glance at the gold carriage clock on the sideboard, the one First Cordova Bank had presented to her father after forty years’ service. It was stuck on three-thirty—surely it must be ten o’clock by now. She made a show of yawning and stretching. “I’m beat. I think I’ll go to bed.”
Merrillee looked at her watch. “At ten past eight?”
“Can’t handle the pace, city girl?” Jesse teased.
Rats.
She resisted the urge to point out that, since annexation, Cordova was part of the city. “I’ve been putting in some long hours at the lab.” She excused herself as she pushed her chair back. “By the way, Merrillee, you have baby spit on your shoulder.”
Okay, so that was petty.
“Would you like some cod-liver oil to help you sleep, honey?” her mom asked. Mary-Beth believed cod-liver oil solved every conceivable problem. Sadie had once tried to explain that despite its high levels of omega-3 fatty acids, it wasn’t a cure-all, and in fact its high vitamin A content made it nutritionally risky, but her mom didn’t want to know.
Sadie turned down the offer, along with the predictable next offer—a cup of hot cocoa—and hurried upstairs. As she left the room, Merrillee was dabbing with her napkin at the ever-present stain on her shoulder.
Safe in her old bedroom with the door closed, Sadie donned her pajamas—red tank and plaid cotton pants—in case anyone wanted proof she was tired.
Her bedroom window looked onto Meg’s. As kids, they’d held up signs to each other, illuminated by flashlight when necessary. After Sadie left for boarding school, their nighttime communications were limited to vacation periods, but they’d continued nonetheless. When Sadie and Meg graduated to cell phones, they’d sat in the chair they each had by the window, feet propped on the sill, so they could see each other as they whispered conversations after lights-out.
They’d been closer than sisters.
Now Meg’s curtains were closed. Surely she and Daniel hadn’t gone upstairs already? And surely Nancy wouldn’t put them in the same room? Sadie’s stomach twisted.
She hadn’t asked Meg if she and Daniel were sleeping together yet. Meg’s job often took her away overnight, so Sadie was unsure if her friend’s absences were due to that, or to staying at Daniel’s. Normally they talked about everything—at least, Meg shared all the details of her more exciting life. This time, Sadie hadn’t asked and Meg hadn’t told.
Trey’s truck was still parked out front. Behind it was a faded red Buick LeSabre.
Did Trey have a girlfriend over? The only person Sadie knew who’d driven a LeSabre that color was the minister at Cordova Colonial Presbyterian. His daughter had been in Meg’s class.
She couldn’t imagine Trey dating the minister’s daughter. And it probably wasn’t the same Buick.
But what if it was? And what if the reason Nancy had invited the minister over was that Meg and Daniel—
“Shut up,” Sadie ordered herself. “Meg’s never dated anyone longer than six weeks. This won’t be any different.”
She plunked herself into the chair and opened the novel she’d started reading last night—Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. She’d read it years ago, but she and Daniel had been debating Dostoevsky’s views on the evils of rationalism, and she wanted to refresh her memory.
She couldn’t settle…. After three pages she closed the book and fished her old bird-watching binoculars out of the depths of the closet. But she was at the wrong angle for next door’s dining-room window.
“Blast,” she muttered.
She had to know who was visiting.
Back to the closet, this time for the gray hooded jacket with the broken zipper she’d left behind on her last trip home. She pulled it on over her pajamas. If she got caught leaving the house by the back door she’d say she was stepping out to smell the flowers.
They would buy that.
As it turned out, her family was having a riotous good time discussing the twins’ eccentric social-studies teacher and Brett’s son’s grass allergy—Gerry didn’t believe in it, but he wouldn’t dare say that tomorrow night when Brett was here. No one noticed Sadie sneaking out.
Meg’s dad had built the backyard gate between the two houses so the two girls could visit without having to go near the road. It hadn’t been used in a while, judging by the creak of the hinges.
The Kincaids’ dining room was the downstairs front room on this side. Sadie skulked past the kitchen and bathroom…then started to worry that shortsighted Mr. Fargo across the street might phone the cops. She stopped acting suspiciously and walked boldly up to Nancy’s prize gardenia bush. She would snap off one of the white blossoms and use it as her excuse for loitering.
She chose a bloom and twisted. Nothing happened.
Sadie jiggled the stalk from side to side. Still nothing.
“Come off, you stupid damn flower.”
This plant had stems of steel.
Next time she came spying, she’d bring pruning shears.
At last the blossom broke off, losing a few petals as it came free. Sadie took a deep, relieved sniff of its heavy perfume. Armed with her alibi, she headed for the front corner of the house.
Like her mother’s, Nancy’s dining-room window was covered by a semisheer curtain. Sadie heard Nancy’s voice through the smaller, open window at the top. It sounded like… Had she just said church?
With a swift glance across the road to check that there was no sign of Mr. Fargo, Sadie crouched beneath the window. She dropped the gardenia and gripped the ledge. Slowly she raised her head.
Four pairs of feet rested beneath Nancy’s reproduction Louis XVI dining table. Through the mesh of the curtain Sadie distinguished Meg’s sandals and Daniel’s loafers—hooray, they weren’t in bed together. She risked rising a bit higher. Nancy’s black pumps and a pair of sneakers. Male or female?
“What the hell are you doing?” said a deep voice from behind her.
CHAPTER THREE
INSTINCT MADE SADIE duck down, then, as she came up again, she banged her head on the window ledge.
“Ow!”
“What’s going on?” Trey’s hand closed around her arm. He dragged her aside, mercifully out of view of the window.
Sadie rubbed hard at her head. “That hurt.”
“Why are you spying?”
She tugged herself free so she could chafe her arm where he’d gripped her. “Where did you come from?” she countered.
“I live here.”
“No, you don’t.” Sadie knew he had a house on the other side of Cordova. Five whole minutes away.
He sighed. “You’re still a know-it-all. Okay, my mother lives here and she considers it my home, even if I don’t.” He hooked his thumbs in his jeans and stared her down. “What are you doing?” he asked again.
Devoid of a rational answer, Sadie played for time. “You still didn’t tell me where you came from.”
“I was on the porch. I heard someone cussing out the plants.”
The flower she’d had so much trouble detaching. She bent and snatched it up. “I was in my room and I smelled this amazing scent, so I came down to pick a gardenia.”
He glanced at her parents’ house. “You did well smelling those with your bedroom window closed.”
“How do you know my window’s closed?”
He rolled his eyes. “Then after you got your flower…” he prompted.
“Then, Miss Marple, I heard an unfamiliar voice, so I thought I’d see who your mom had visiting.”
“Uh-huh.” His gaze flicked over her pj top, which unfortunately had shrunk in the wash. It was too tight across the front and the gap between top and pants bared an inch or so of midriff. “Hmm,” he said.
As if she hadn’t heard enough of hmm. Which she now understood didn’t mean wow.
“I’m going home,” she said crossly. “Good night.”
The gleam in his eyes reminded her of the few times he’d paid her enough attention to bait her back in their teens. Mostly they’d ignored each other—the jock and the science geek had nothing in common.
She took a step away, then turned. “So who is visiting your mom?”
“None of your business. Though you’d be very interested,” he taunted.
It really was the minister, here to talk about weddings.
“Sadie? You okay? You’ve gone white.”
“Huh?” She blinked.
Trey cursed. He grabbed her hand and led her around the front of the house, where he pushed her down onto the porch swing. “I always thought it was a good thing your parents sent you to genius school—it stopped you turning out like Meg’s scatterbrained friends,” he said. “But you grew up a hell of a weird woman.”
Just what Sadie needed—another reminder she didn’t fit in. And she didn’t believe that backhanded compliment, since he’d dated several of Meg’s “scatterbrained” friends.
“Just tell me who’s visiting your mom.” Her voice wobbled. I’m losing my grip. She grasped the edge of the swing seat as if it was an extension of her sanity.
“I would have thought you’d recognize that LeSabre.”
She held her breath, waiting for the ax to fall.
His knee nudged the swing, setting it rocking. “The minister’s car, remember?”
“The minister is visiting your mom?” It came out high-pitched.
“Not him, his wife.” He left the railing to sit next to her, disrupting the swing’s motion.
Sadie planted her feet on the porch, stilling the swing. “The minister’s wife is visiting with your mom.”
“That’s what I said.” He rubbed his chin. “For a girl who got the highest SATs I know of and won a full scholarship to Princeton from the Outstanding Tennesseans Foundation, you’re kinda slow.”
“I just took a blow to the head.” She scowled and rubbed the sore spot where she’d collided with the window.
He grinned, and it made him look like the quarterback again.
“So why is the minister’s wife here?” she asked.
“Mom’s paying her to do the flowers for the lunch on Sunday. There’s a list of jobs a mile long for the likes of you and me, so Mom thought she’d need the help.”
Nancy had been an active member of the community her whole life, and her sixtieth birthday was a two-day event—the Saturday-night barbecue for “family,” which included the Beechams, and a lunch for her wide circle of friends, as well as family, on Sunday.
Two events where Sadie would have to watch Meg and Daniel canoodling, and fool everyone into believing she didn’t care. “It’s great we can all celebrate Nancy’s birthday with her,” she said, reminding herself of the one positive in all of this.
Trey sobered. He scuffed the porch with his shoe. “Yeah.”
Five years ago his mother had suffered a stroke. Fairly severe, but she’d recovered faster than the doctors expected, with only a barely discernible limp and a slight slowness of speech to show for it.
Sadie cleared her throat. “What do you think of Daniel?”
“Nice guy, far as I could tell.”
“He’s not Meg’s usual type, though, is he?” She twisted to face Trey. He was sitting closer than she realized, and she ended up looking right at his lips. Which made her think about Daniel and that kiss…
He grimaced. “Sadie, I think I know the real reason you were skulking around tonight.”
She pressed her hand to her mouth, but not fast enough to prevent a mortified cry escaping.
“I have to tell you—” he drew back and the swing creaked “—there’s no point.”
She closed her eyes. Please, make him stop.
“I know you got dumped recently….”
Her eyes flew open. Her mom had told the whole world about her supposed breakup?
“But—” Trey spread his hands in a gesture of regret “—I’m not interested.”
It took a second for his words to pierce her humiliation. “You think I was spying on you? That I like you?”
She couldn’t decide if she was relieved he hadn’t guessed the truth or outraged at his inflated opinion of his own charms.
He shrugged. “I find it hard to believe this trespassing incident is about your curiosity over who visits my mom. I figure you’re looking for a distraction from your broken heart.”
“Did my mother really say I got dumped?” she demanded.
He winced. “Uh, I heard it from Mom. Maybe she just said it was a breakup. The point is, Sadie, even if you weren’t my sister’s best friend, practically family, I’d never date—”
“—a geek like me,” she finished. It wasn’t just her own family who insisted on making her feel like an outsider. She stood up. “You’ve been in Cordova too long, Trey. Out in the big wide world, people don’t get hung up on labels that—”
“Whoa.” His eyes glinted as he looked up at her. “I was going to say I’d never date someone on the rebound.”
“Oh. Right.” Time to put an end to this discussion before she laid out all her insecurities for his scrutiny. Sadie took a step backward, and her ankle bumped the iron swing stand, hard.
“Ouch!” She reached down to rub her ankle, exposing more of her midriff to Trey. Which he would probably interpret as an attempt at seduction. “You don’t have to worry about my interest in you,” she said. “Like the male worker ant, it doesn’t exist.”
“What?” He stood, and as she was barefoot, he had more inches on her than she remembered.
“All worker ants are female,” she explained.
“Is this your convoluted way of saying you weren’t spying on me?”
“Exactly,” she said, relieved.
His brow relaxed and he chuckled. “You might need to simplify things if you want to be understood by the folks around here, Ms. Sadie.” His deep voice lengthened to a country drawl.
She rolled her eyes. “This discussion is unproductive—”
“Like the male worker ant,” he suggested helpfully.
“—so I’m leaving.” She hobbled across the porch on her sore foot. “Good night, Trey.”
He dropped back onto the swing. “I don’t know about good,” he reflected, “but you sure made it more interesting.”
“Glad one of us enjoyed it,” Sadie muttered.
IT HAD BEEN A sweltering day, and now with Gerry Beecham’s famous gin-and-juniper-marinated pork chops sizzling on the grill alongside a mustard-coated beef fillet and a ton of hot dogs for the kids, Saturday night in the Beechams’ backyard was hot as fire.
Trey flipped the hot dogs Gerry had asked him to keep an eye on; only Gerry himself felt qualified to prod the chops or the fillet. Everyone had worked hard today—dividing along strict gender lines into cooks and cleaners, or handymen—to get ready for tomorrow’s lunch. Now they were enjoying a well-earned evening of relaxation.
Trey rubbed the back of his neck. The heat was bringing him out in hives. Or maybe it wasn’t the heat, maybe it was all this togetherness. He was trying to spend less time with his family, not more. He was happy to celebrate his mom’s birthday, but this kind of gathering—full of married couples talking about their kids and their camping vacations and their SUVs—was the worst.
His gaze tracked his mom, talking to her cousin and Mary-Beth, then his flighty sister, standing next to sturdy Dr. Daniel. In Meg’s case, a dose of suburbia would be a good thing. An excellent thing.
Trey didn’t need to look farther to know exactly where Sadie was, which he found slightly disconcerting. She was his kid sister’s sensible best friend, part of the wallpaper of his life—and like wallpaper, he generally didn’t notice her.
But this weekend…something was off about Sadie. She wasn’t herself. Different enough that he couldn’t ignore her. Which was how he knew she’d spent the past fifteen minutes jiggling her baby nephew on one hip while explaining plant reproduction to a bunch of kids, using Mary-Beth’s prize-winning Golden Spangles camellia for demonstration.
“And when the bee carries the pollen from one plant to another,” she concluded triumphantly as Trey listened, “that’s when you get pretty flowers.”
One of her nieces, about five years old—he couldn’t remember her name—put up her hand.
“Do you have a question about vegetative reproduction, Caitlyn?” Sadie asked, pleased. “I admit, I did skip a few steps, honey.”
“What kind of flowers do princesses like best?” Caitlyn asked.
Sadie blinked. “Princesses…uh, princesses aren’t my area of expertise, honey.”
Trey felt his shoulders relax. That was more like the Sadie he knew. She’d never been one of the girlie-girls, which was doubtless why that radiant smile she’d bestowed on him when she arrived yesterday had spooked him. The Sadie he knew was down-to-earth, calm, aloof. Wallpaper.
Meg called to her. As Sadie handed the baby to Merrilee and went to join his sister and Daniel, Trey was too aware of her figure in her white capris and yellow tank.
It felt as if someone had redecorated.
He flipped a hot dog and it burst out of its skin, startling him. Trey took a step back from the spitting fat. So Sadie Beecham had grown some curves that he’d only just got around to noticing. Big deal. Trey was over Cordova women, just as he was over everything else about his life here.
“Trey?” Meg called. “Can you come here?”
“Kyle, how about I leave these hot dogs with you?” Trey asked Sadie’s brother. After a ceremonial fist bump and handover of the tongs—barbecues were a major ritual around here—he took his beer and joined the others.
“Save me from these two, please.” Meg waved at Daniel and Sadie. “They’re trying to baffle me with science and it’s depressingly easy.”
Daniel ran a finger across her shoulder. “Sweetheart, we’re just warming up.” He winked at Sadie.
Meg groaned.
“We’re talking about whether Sadie’s work with new wheat strains for the developing world could help diabetes-prone kids here in the U.S.A.,” Daniel explained to Trey.
“I’ve heard wheat can cause diabetes in some people,” Trey said. He’d read something about it in New Scientist.
Sadie squinted at him, as if she’d had no idea he spoke Science. “That’s type 1 diabetes,” she said dismissively. She turned to Daniel. “In theory, if you raised the protein level, thus lowering the glycemic index, wheat-based foods would pose a lower risk to type 2 diabetes patients.”
“Which would make life much easier for low-income families who can’t afford a low-wheat diet,” Daniel said.
He and Sadie grinned at each other.
Then Sadie reached behind her to lift her hair off her neck, a cooling-down gesture that lifted her breasts. Daniel lowered his gaze to her cleavage. And left it there a second longer than reflex dictated.
What the—? Trey accepted the other man’s dropped gaze was an instinctive response to Sadie’s movement, but the guy shouldn’t linger, not when he was dating Trey’s sister.
Trey stepped in front of Sadie to block Daniel’s view.
“Can’t we talk about books?” Meg asked. “English was my best subject. I wiped science from my brain after I dropped it in tenth grade.” She held up a hand. “When I say books, I don’t mean that Russian stuff you two read.”
“I’m enjoying that book of yours,” Daniel told Meg. “The Politics of Poverty. Brilliant.”
“Hey, that’s mine.” Sadie edged around Trey to get back in the conversation. “I lent it to Meg.”
“Oops.” Meg faked a guilty look, and Daniel laughed.
“You should read it. You’d enjoy it, Meg.” Unconsciously Sadie fingered a lock of her hair. It had been mousy-brown when she was younger, Trey remembered. Today it had gleaming gold highlights.
As if he was mirroring her, Daniel stroked Meg’s dark hair.
Immediately Sadie’s hand dropped to her stomach, as if she felt nauseated. Her eyes on Daniel were wide and unhappy.
Trey’s sister-protection sensors went on high alert. He tried to shut them off—Meg’s expectation that other people would fix her problems irritated him like nothing else—but old habits died hard.
Sadie likes Daniel. That was why she’d been sneaking around his mom’s place last night.
It couldn’t be true…could it?
As Meg leaned into Daniel and they began a murmured conversation of what sounded like mutual, breathless compliments, Sadie blinked suspiciously fast.
Dammit!
Trey leaned into her. “Get a grip,” he muttered.
She started, which at least pulled her attention off the doc. “Excuse me?”
His hand closed around her elbow; he turned her so she couldn’t see Meg. “Quit looking as if you’re about to commit suttee on the grill because my sister’s boyfriend touched her.”
She tugged, but he didn’t release her. “That’s ridiculous,” she hissed.
“Exactly. You’re making a fool of yourself.”
“What are you two whispering about?” Meg asked.
They froze. Sadie turned beet-red to the roots of her hair.
“Sadie’s telling me about her exciting life as a future Nobel laureate,” Trey said. Meg’s gaze traveled to the hold he had on her friend’s elbow, so he let go. “You must have some interesting colleagues at that lab of yours, Sadie.”
“Uh…” she said.
“Intelligent guys on a decent income,” he clarified. “Have you dated anyone there?” As in, go find your own man. Leave Meg’s alone.
“You’re being weird, Trey,” Meg said.
“Are those your criteria, Sadie?” Daniel teased. “I didn’t know you were looking.”
Sadie’s brother Jesse approached, bearing a bowl of chips. “No ordinary guy will do for Sadie,” he said, butting in to the conversation. “He’ll need to be a genius, the noble do-gooder type, willing to treat her with the awe she’s used to.”
Sadie took a couple of chips with one hand and punched Jesse’s shoulder with the other. “Shut up.”
“Those are some high standards, Sadiebug.” Daniel took a handful of chips but his gaze remained on Sadie. His expression held fondness and…was that regret? And what was with the Sadiebug?
“She deserves the best,” Meg said loyally. “Whereas I definitely don’t need a genius—my guy has to be dumb enough to love me despite my flaws.” She grinned. “A platinum AmEx would come in handy, too.”
Daniel laughed. “Sorry, sweetheart, I may be the boss at the clinic, but I’ll never earn millions. The best you can hope for is that I’ll be able to support you in the manner to which you’re accustomed.”
Support Meg? That sounded serious.
Meg and Daniel were too busy gazing into each other’s eyes to notice the strangled sound from Sadie. As Trey watched, her face turned red.
To think he’d grown up next door to her and had never known she was a psycho.
Grasping her arm again, he swung her away from the group. “Breathe,” he ordered in her ear.
Sadie stared at him, mouth open, eyes glazing over.
“If you don’t breathe, I’ll sit you down and shove your head between your knees until everyone knows what a nutcase you are.”
She dragged in a great gulp of air, wheezing like an asthmatic.
“Now out,” Trey ordered.
She let the air out again.
“Am I going to have to instruct you through every breath for the entire weekend?” he demanded.
“I— No.” She coughed.
“Are you okay, Sadie?” Meg asked.
They’d attracted the attention of the entire company. Sadie closed her eyes, as if people wouldn’t be able to see her if she couldn’t see them. It was an oddly defenseless reaction.
“She was choking on a chip,” Trey explained, bailing her out. “All clear now, Sadie?”
“Absolutely.” She smiled shakily.
“Better add ‘able to perform the Heimlich maneuver’ to the checklist for your perfect man,” Jesse said. “Too bad your doctor boyfriend dumped you.”
Trey felt a twinge of sympathy for her.
“What doctor boyfriend?” Meg and Daniel asked simultaneously.
“I have no idea what he means,” Sadie said.
She’d had a major breakup, and she hadn’t told her best friend?
Her mom overheard. “Honey, I’m sorry. When you mentioned you were bringing a boy home—” Mary-Beth made her sound sixteen again, and Sadie was clearly unthrilled “—I told a couple of people.”
Trey figured everyone here had heard that at last Sadie had a boyfriend who might stick. The surrounding faces were studies in loving pity. All except—
“What boyfriend?” Meg asked again. “How come I never heard about him?”
Uh-oh. Suddenly Trey figured it out.
Meg turned to Daniel. “Did you know—” She stopped, then whirled back to Sadie, her eyes wide. “Tell me it wasn’t—” Just in time, she clamped her mouth shut.
Jesse, who’d always been quick-witted, picked up on the unspoken question. Unfortunately, he’d also always been a loudmouth. “No way, Sadie,” he hooted. “Was Daniel your boyfriend?”
CHAPTER FOUR
NOW WOULD BE A GOOD TIME for the world to end, Sadie decided. One minute ago would have been even better.
Her mother made a protective, worried sound, like a lioness about to maul Meg, or Daniel, or both. Jesse let out a low whistle. Brothers. Who needed them?
Sadie did the only thing she could—she laughed.
It came out squeaky.
“Of course Daniel wasn’t my boyfriend,” she said. Shrilly.
Varying degrees of mortification and sympathy showed on everyone’s faces. No one believed her. Behind her, a hot dog spat on the grill; the smell of charring beef made Sadie feel sick. She couldn’t bear it if Daniel realized how she felt about him.
She had to do something.
Her brain, the one that commanded a hefty six-figure salary, sputtered and died.
Her mother wrapped an arm around her, a loving tentacle. Any moment now Mom would drag her into the kitchen for a dose of cod-liver oil and a cup of hot cocoa.
“Mom.” She pulled away, and this time the laugh was better—more incredulous, less hysterical. “I told you, it wasn’t Daniel.”
“Then who was it?” Jesse, the idiot who’d dropped her in this mess.
“It was Wesley,” Trey announced.
Every head in the place swiveled to him.
“Wesley?” Meg darted a confused look at Sadie.
“She met him before she even knew Daniel,” Trey explained.
“Why didn’t I know about him?” Meg said skeptically.
Sadie found her voice. “I met, uh, Wesley—” and didn’t he sound like a hottie, with a name like that? “—when you were in Paris, covering for the European staff on strike. We weren’t together long, just a few weeks. We broke up right before I met Daniel. Which—” she widened her mouth into a smile “—was why it was so great to meet a guy who was just a friend.”
She prayed her mom wouldn’t add up the timing of her phone call and correct her.
“Wouldn’t that have been a coincidence, both of you dating doctors?” Mary-Beth said.
Bad timing, Mom. The suspicion that had been lifting settled back onto the faces around Sadie.
“He’s a vet,” Trey said firmly. “Dr. Wesley Burns, veterinarian.”
What the heck?
“How do you know all this, Trey?” Meg asked.
“Sadie told me about him last night,” Trey said. “She came over and we sat on the porch awhile.”
The interest in everyone’s eyes was better than pity. And at least Trey hadn’t mentioned she was in her pajamas or stealing flowers or peering in the window. Ugh, I really was a mess.
“She thought I might know Wes,” he elaborated. “That we might have been in the same dorm at Duke.”
“But they weren’t,” Sadie said quickly.
“No,” Trey agreed. “But Wes and I worked in the same bar on Friday nights.”
A headache drilled into Sadie’s temples. She would kill Trey. Just as soon as this barbecue was over and their families had accepted the fabrication about Dr. Wesley Burns, she would kill Trey and take great pleasure in doing so.
Trey grinned at her. He’d always been too damn cocky. How was it that he was one step ahead of everyone, including her?
But his stupid story was her only hope.
“So…what’s Wes like?” Sadie’s mom asked wistfully, entranced by the thought of the veterinarian son-in-law she’d almost had.
Meg was still looking suspicious.
“Great guy,” Trey said. “You’d love him.”
Sadie choked on her wine, and Trey patted her back solicitously. Time to steer this fantasy in a direction more flattering to herself.
“Unfortunately,” Sadie said, “Wes is a traditionalist—he envisaged me staying at home having babies. But of course, my work is too important to me. I couldn’t contemplate giving it up, so I had to break up with him.”
Uh-oh, Trey had a dangerous gleam in his eyes. She should have remembered that the few times he’d engaged enough to tease her when they were kids, he’d effortlessly come out on top.
“Wes would make a great dad, judging by his talent with animals,” he said. “Dogs, cats, rabbits…and does he have a way with hamsters.”
Sadie almost growled. Not only had he given her a boyfriend with the uninspiring name of Wes, a vet when she would have preferred a cardiologist, but now he was consigning Wes to the bottom rung of the pet ladder.
“But his main client is the Memphis Zoo,” she said.
“You mean he works on lions and stuff?” The breathless inquiry came from one of the twins. Sadie was too flustered to identify which one.
“Lions, tigers, elephants,” she confirmed.
“Which is his favorite?” the other twin asked.
“The, uh, leopard.” She realized the girls wanted more. “Because it’s so noble and intelligent and sensitive. Just like Wes himself.”
A snort from Trey.
“Oh, honey, he sounds incredible.” Yikes, Sadie’s mom was just about in tears at the thought of the man her daughter had loved and lost.
“Mom, I’m over it, really,” she assured her. “Wes was a great guy—he fit the dream, you know. But it wouldn’t have worked.”
“I heard he was never the same after that camel bit him,” Trey said.
Sadie began to mentally run through ways of killing him. She discarded them all on the grounds they wouldn’t inflict sufficient pain.
“I wish you’d told me,” Meg said, hurt. “I would have been there for you.”
“I know, sweetie, but by the time you arrived back stateside, I’d been having fun hanging out with Daniel, and my number-one focus was introducing you two to each other.” Not quite true, but at least she was talking about real people.
“You’re something else, Sadie,” Daniel said admiringly.
“She sure is,” Trey agreed.
That something else was likely a poached egg—Sadie felt as if she didn’t have a bone left in her body. “Dad, I’m starving. Is dinner ready?”
“Coming right up.” Her father brandished his tongs. “Don’t worry, honey, my pork chops will take your mind off that leopard-loving loser.”
Trey let out a burst of laughter that lit up his face and reminded Sadie he really was a great-looking guy. Shame about the personality.
“What I don’t understand…” Jesse began.
“If you all don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about Wes,” she announced bravely.
Jesse’s wife, Diane, smacked him upside the head for his insensitivity, which gave Sadie some satisfaction, while the rest of her family agreed immediately to a ban on talking about Wes. At least in front of her. Sadie had no doubt that after she returned to Memphis their sympathetic discussions of her failed love life would be a bonding experience.
Meg hugged her, and Daniel planted one of those kisses on Sadie’s hair. Much to Trey’s irritation, Sadie noted with satisfaction.
Still, his nutty story had taken the heat off her. As people headed toward the food, she murmured a grudging “Thanks. Sort of.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said with unaccustomed grace. Then, “Now, how about you do me a favor?”
She gritted her teeth. “I already did. I let you live.”
Humor flashed in his eyes, then disappeared. “Stay away from my sister’s boyfriend.”
Typical. For as long as Sadie could remember, Trey had moaned about Meg’s inability to “stand on her own two feet.” But he could never resist butting in when he thought his sister needed help.
As if Meg needed protection from her best friend!
Before she could tell Trey to mind his own business, her father handed her a plate piled with food. Then Daniel arrived back with his meal. “This looks great.” He sounded his normal self, not as if he believed she was secretly in love with him.
“Dad’s the best barbecue chef, so long as you don’t count the calories.” Sadie struck a casual, friendly tone, aware of Trey’s close scrutiny. Did he expect her to obey him?
“Want to go for a run in the morning?” she asked Daniel. “That way I get two helpings of dessert. You should come too, Meg.” Smart strategy, she congratulated herself. By acting natural and casual with Daniel, she would deflect any lingering suspicion of past feelings for him. Trey’s sharp, disapproving intake of breath was icing on the cake.
“You guys go for it,” Meg said. She hated running, and when she wasn’t flying liked to sleep in until nine. “I’ll catch up on some z’s.”
“So, 7:00 a.m.?” Sadie asked Daniel. “That’ll give us time for a decent run before the day gets busy.”
Daniel picked up a piece of garlic bread. “You’re on.”
Sadie smiled at him. And ignored Trey’s thunderous expression.
SADIE STEPPED OUT ONTO her parents’ porch at six fifty-five on Sunday morning and took a deep breath of fresh air scented with grass, her mom’s lemon trees and Nancy’s gardenias. In the jacaranda tree that grew on the Kincaid side of the fence but spread most of its shade over the Beechams’ yard, a mockingbird had burst out with its early-morning song. As she laced up her running shoes, it moved from a series of whistles to smoochy, kissing sounds.
Sadie stood on one leg to begin her quad stretches. Or what she hoped were quad stretches. When she’d fallen in love with Daniel practically at first sight and he’d asked if she ran, she’d said yes. Which was the right thing to do because he’d asked her to go running with him, and hadn’t minded that she was a beginner. And that was the start of their…friendship.
“This’ll be good for you,” she reminded her reluctant left quad. Her stomach growled, but she’d learned the hard way that if she ate now she wouldn’t be able to run more than a hundred yards without developing a stitch.
As the Kincaids’ front door opened she hopped a little, pulling her left foot closer to her butt to lengthen the stretch.
Trey stepped onto the next-door porch.
Wearing shorts and a T-shirt. And running shoes.
He waved. “Morning.”
Sadie’s foot thudded to the floorboards. “What are you doing here?”
“I stayed the night—didn’t want to drive after all that drinking.”
As she recalled, he’d had maybe two beers over four hours. Nowhere near the limit. Not that she’d been watching.
He strolled down the steps to the sidewalk. “Thought I’d join you on your run.” He patted his flat stomach. “Anything to counter the effects of age.”
She didn’t give him the satisfaction of admiring his physique. “I guess it’s a free country—I can’t stop you running with us.” She jogged to the sidewalk, trying to look fit.
“Us?” His forehead creased. “Did I forget to say Daniel’s not coming?”
“Excuse me?”
“I told him I’d turn a blind eye if he wanted to sneak coffee into Meg’s room,” he said smugly.
Sadie banished the image from her mind.
“But Daniel was worried about you having no one to run with,” Trey continued, “so I offered to stand in.”
She clenched her fists at her sides. “I don’t want to run with you.” She might as well go back to bed with a bowl of granola.
“Like you said, you need to work off last night’s calories,” he said. She sucked in her stomach out of reflex, and glared when he chuckled. “Don’t you think it’ll look suspicious if you cancel out because Daniel’s not coming?” he continued.
“I’ll be canceling because I don’t want to run with you.” But he had a point, dammit.
And he knew it. “Where are we going?” he asked.
Sadie looked past him. “I’m heading down Arlington and around the reserve.”
“Works for me,” he said. “Maybe we should come back along the Parkway.”
That would add another twenty minutes; she’d be unlikely to survive. “I don’t have time. Mom has me down to peel about a thousand potatoes for the potato salad.” She clasped her hands behind her head and twisted from side to side.
“Okay, Arlington is fine by me. It overlooks the lagoon and I like a nice view when I run.” His gaze took in her curves, accentuated by the exercise.
“Don’t you have stretches to do?” she snapped.
“I’m stretching my imagination.” He lingered on her legs.
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll take your suggestive remarks too seriously? I seem to recall you warning me off you.”
“I’m not worried after last night,” he said. “It’s obvious I’m not the one you’re interested in.”
Her face on fire, she bent to adjust her shoelace. Then without another word, she started running. A purely symbolic gesture, since Trey caught her up in a few easy strides.
Her burst of speed lasted all of a hundred yards.
“Something wrong?” he asked when she slowed.
“You go on ahead. I’m taking it easy today.”
He matched her pace. “I can do easy.” As they passed a wrought-iron fence, he pointed at the lawn beyond. “One of my teams laid that a few weeks ago.”
“Very nice,” she panted insincerely.
“Not the best time for sowing grass, but the Colberts were adamant they want the best lawn on the street for the Fourth. Of course, so were the McIntoshes down the way. Who am I to deny anyone the lawn of their dreams?”
“You’re…a prince,” she managed to say.
He turned around and jogged backward while he surveyed her. “Pooped already?”
She shook her head.
He shrugged and turned the right way around. “I’d better call Mrs. Colbert this morning, tell her to get some water on that grass,” he mused, his tone as even and unhurried as if he was standing still.
“Why are you being so chatty?” Sadie snatched a breath before she continued. “You haven’t said this much to me ever.”
“I’m lulling you into a false sense of security before I start grilling you about Daniel.”
She grunted and put on a spurt of speed.
Trey waited until Sadie slowed down again—about half a minute—before he launched into the conversation he really wanted to have.
“So, you were dating the doctor.”
She stared straight ahead, mouth grim, cheeks flushed pink with exertion. They’d been running—if you could call it that—for about three minutes.
She shook her head, then nodded, then shook it again. “I thought we were dating,” she said. “Turns out we were just seeing each other.”
He scratched his head. “I’ve never understood how women can get that so wrong.”
She glared at him.
“Did you sleep with him?” Trey asked.
Sadie stopped running. “As if I would sleep with some one I wasn’t even dating.”
“You wouldn’t be the first to make that mistake.”
Her chest heaved. He couldn’t tell if it was emotion or exhaustion. Either way, it drew his attention to her figure, which, he admitted to himself for the tenth time since she’d arrived on Friday, was sensational from top to toe.
“You still like him,” Trey said, “even though he’s dating Meg.” He almost wished Daniel was here now, to see Sadie bright red, dripping perspiration.
“Of course I like him,” she said. “He’s intelligent, funny, charming, sensitive—”
He stuck a hand over her mouth, and whatever accolade she intended next came out a muffled “umph.”
“You like him too much,” he said calmly.
He felt a puff of breath against his palm. He dropped his hand.
“Meg’s with Daniel right now. I accept that,” she said.
“So you don’t plan to come between them?”
“Of course not.”
But he’d seen a flash of guilt in her eyes. “What are you planning?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me,” he demanded.
“Stop ordering me around. I’m not your sister.”
“Tell me, please,” he said. “Put my mind at rest, so I don’t have to warn Meg to be on her guard.”
She paled, which at least reduced the redness of her face. Then she said, “If anyone’s going to get hurt, it’s Daniel. And you know it.”
“Meg seems as serious as he does.”
She blew out a breath that would have lifted her bangs if they hadn’t been plastered to her forehead. “History suggests that in a couple of weeks, Meg will have moved on.”
“Ah, I get it.” He adopted a high voice, in imitation of her. “I know you’re upset, Daniel, but I’m here for you.” Caught up in his role-playing, he grabbed her hand and looked deeply, soulfully, into her eyes. She had nice fingers, even when they were sweaty. Nice eyes, too. The light hue reminded him of blue delphiniums.
She wrested her hand away. “Don’t be such a jerk.”
“Daniel dumps you for Meg, and you’ll take him back when she’s done with him. Don’t you think that’s kind of pathetic?” he asked.
She stiffened. “Scarlett O’Hara spent her whole life pursuing a man who’d chosen someone else, and she’s one of the strongest women in literature.”
He snorted. “As in, she’s not real. And if you’re suggesting your crush on Daniel compares with some Southern belle fighting to save her ancestral home from marauders…”
“Now you’re being pathetic.” Sadie poked his chest, which was just about the most annoying thing she could have done. “Look, Trey, you might think it’s pathetic to want Daniel after Meg breaks up with him, but I’m not used to being handed whatever I want. I don’t get to go through life flirting and smiling and having people favor me for my good looks.”
“Meg is your friend,” he reminded her, even though she’d neatly summed up some of the most irritating things about his sister.
“And I adore her. As does everyone else. With the possible exception of you.”
Damn, how had Sadie picked up on that, when he’d barely seen her in years? “Don’t try and deflect attention from your scheming,” he said.
“Meg gets an easy ride in lots of ways, but she’s had tough times, too, so I’d never begrudge her.” She was talking about his dad and Logan, Trey realized. “But if I have a goal, I expect to struggle to achieve it. I’m willing to put the work in. To go after what I want single-mindedly.” She paused. “Aggressively.”
“You’re too late. Daniel chose Meg.”
Sadie toed a crack in the sidewalk with her sneaker. “Of course Daniel is attracted to Meg. I’ve never met a man who wasn’t. But I deal in facts and logic, and the fact is, he and Meg have nothing in common.”
“Opposites attract,” he retorted. “Which makes them the ideal couple.” He didn’t exactly believe that, but even when Sadie had been a teenager, there’d been no room for pussyfooting. You had to come down hard with your opinion and stick to it through whatever obscure logic that brain of hers devised.
“I think he’s confused,” she said thoughtfully, as if Daniel was a seed under a microscope. “He’s at an age where it’s natural to think about a long-term relationship. But a part of him is rebelling against commitment. Subconsciously he’s choosing someone unsuitable, guaranteed not to work out.”
This wasn’t logic—this was denial on a global scale.
“Sadie, I don’t think Daniel is rebelling against commitment.”
Something flashed across her face. Fear? “I believe most men do at some stage,” she said with a hint of uncertainty. “Look at you, a classic example. Over thirty, by most women’s standards a hot guy—” the crinkle in her forehead made it plain she found most women’s taste questionable “—and still playing the field like super jock, according to your sister.”
“I’m not afraid of commitment. I have way too much commitment in my life. And Daniel’s not afraid, either.” Aware of his muscles cooling off and starting to stiffen, Trey began jogging.
Sadie trotted at his side. “Trey, it doesn’t matter which of them realizes first how unsuited they are, I’m certain this thing will end soon.” Conviction grew in her voice. “It would be pointless for me to hold it against Daniel forever that he’d once liked Meg.”
The sentiment went against Trey’s deepest belief: being second choice was no choice at all.
“I believe he and Meg are serious,” he said.
They ran in silence for a minute or two. As they turned the corner onto Arlington, they passed the Jones place. Where once there had been two tons of dirt and a tangle of scrub, there was now a flowing garden that invited people to linger among its colors and scents. It was one of Kincaid Nurseries’ biggest success stories, but it had almost been a disaster. After demanding several redesigns, Mrs. Jones had fired Kincaid’s because the company’s landscape designer “didn’t get it.” When Trey visited her to discuss the problem, it turned out he and Mrs. Jones were on the same horticultural wavelength. Although he wasn’t a landscape designer—most of his time was spent on the management side of the business rather than on the plants—they’d reworked the design together. The client had been delighted with the result.
Sadie stopped running. She steadied herself with a hand to the trunk of a maple tree; Trey could see a tremor in her calf muscles.
“Meg loves parties and travel. Daniel is sensible and responsible and settled,” she said when she’d caught her breath.
For someone who was convinced she was right, she was working awfully hard to prove her point.
“They have less in common than—than you and I do,” she continued.
“If you really want a boyfriend, wouldn’t it be simpler if you found someone else?” he asked. “Come on, Sadie, there must be other—”
“I don’t just like Daniel,” she blurted. “I love him.”
CHAPTER FIVE
SADIE CRINGED. Trey was staring at her as if she’d lost her mind.
Then one side of his mouth rose and he said, “I love Daniel, too.”
She stumbled on her shoelace and would have sprawled headlong if Trey hadn’t caught her.
“What did you say?” she demanded.
“Seems you and I have more in common than you thought.”
“What did you mean?” Because clearly he’d intended to put her off balance.
“Daniel is exactly what my sister needs,” he said. “What’s not to love?”
She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “I’ve had enough of your inane views. You can run a different way home.” She stepped off the curb.
Trey caught her hand. “I’m not done talking to you yet.”
“Too bad, because I’m done with you.” Her whole arm tingled. The overexertion was probably giving her a heart attack.
He tugged her backward, forcing her to step up onto the curb or trip over. “Come in here.” He indicated a white wooden gate set into a high fence.
Sadie shivered as perspiration cooled on her skin. “Quit ordering me around and quit dragging me.”
“Fine.” He folded his arms as if he might otherwise give in to his caveman instincts. “Please come into this garden with me, Sadie,” he said with excessive politeness.
“Why should I?”
“I don’t like arguing in the street. Mrs. Jones said I can show her garden to prospective clients anytime.”
“I’m not a client.”
“It’s a great garden,” Trey coaxed. “You’ll love it.”
He’d hit her soft spot. She might not be any good at growing plants, but she adored a beautiful garden.
And just maybe she was curious about why he thought Daniel and Meg would last.
Sadie stuck her chin in the air and preceded him through the gate. Then stopped.
“Oh, wow.” She gazed around the garden, scarcely hearing the clang of the gate closing behind her. A canopy of Japanese dappled willows. Crape myrtles. A redbud tree arcing over a pond filled with water lilies. It looked like a Monet painting, only better—impressionist art was too vague for her taste. “Trey, it’s gorgeous. Kincaid Nurseries designed this?”
“The concept was mine,” he said. “Our landscape architects refined it.”
“I didn’t know you were a designer.”
“I’m not,” he said. “How come you’re in love with Daniel? I thought your work overrode the urge to settle down like the rest of your siblings.”
Now that she’d stopped moving, every muscle in her body screamed. She sank onto the grass, ignoring the vestiges of dew. “You’re right that I’m not hanging out for the PTA meetings and the cupcake recipes,” she said. “But love isn’t something you plan. When you find someone special, you have to go for it.” She trailed her fingers through the pond water to find the waxy leaves of a water lily. “What if Daniel is the only man for me? My whole future could be at stake.”
“Sounds like your biological clock ticking,” he said, unimpressed. “You’re what, thirty?”
“Twenty-nine,” she said. “Same as Meg. And that stupid term was probably invented by some man afraid of commitment. Women are born with a fixed number of oocytes—egg cells to you—that decrease over forty years or so of fertility, starting around the age of twelve. Every woman’s biological clock is ticking, regardless of age.”
Trey wasn’t so easily distracted.
“Leave Meg and Daniel alone,” he said abruptly, sitting beside her.
She fingered the water lily. “I’m not doing anything wrong.”
“And stop mauling that lily.”
She bristled at the command, but stilled her fingers out of respect for the flower.
“It wouldn’t hurt to take a good look around before you decide Daniel is your fate, would it?” he asked. “There must be thousands of eligible males in Cordova alone, and you probably know half of them. Who did you date in high school?”
Sadie would have liked to reel off a list of teenage suitors, but the guys at her “genius school” were late starters, and back here in Cordova her flat chest and general shyness had meant most of Meg’s attempts to introduce her to local boys hadn’t worked out. “I dated Kevin McDonald at the end of senior year. The guy my parents bribed to take me to the Millennial Centennial dance after you turned me down.”
The turn of the millennium had also marked one hundred years of Cordova being called Cordova, after a succession of other names hadn’t stuck. The dance had crowned a week of Fourth of July celebrations and had been the biggest event in a generation.
Trey winced. “You’re not still steamed over that, are you? You only asked me to the dance because you were desperate.”
“You knew that?” she said, disconcerted.
He rolled his eyes. “You thought I’d believe my sister’s best friend, who clearly thought all football players were morons, had suddenly developed a crush on me?”
“I did think you were moron enough for that,” she admitted.
He laughed, his ego undented. “It wasn’t my fault your parents reacted by phoning all over town to find you a date. But back to the current desperate state of your love life—” He paused. “Hey, do you sense a recurring theme here?”
“Two repetitions are insufficient to form a pattern,” she said stiffly.
He grinned. “Here’s a thought. Kevin McDonald will be at Mom’s lunch today, and he’s divorced. A definite contender.”
“I can tell from that gleam in your eyes there’s something wrong with him.”
“Let’s just say that if you liked Kevin back then, there’s a whole lot more of him to like now.”
Trey could afford to scoff at someone else’s spreading bulk—he was still in great shape. Muscle corded his forearms, and his legs were lean and strong. Unlike her, he hadn’t broken a sweat on their run. Sadie peeled her tank away from her damp skin to admit some air. When she caught Trey watching, she dropped the fabric.
“Maybe Lexie Peterson has spread, too,” she suggested. Lexie had been one of Meg’s friends, a cheerleader, the perfect girlfriend for the quarterback. These days, she had her own party-planning business in Memphis.
“Lexie’s still hot, she emailed me photos recently.”
“Ew.”
“Swimsuit shots,” he said.
“I expect it’s her uniform for those pool parties she organizes,” Sadie said kindly. “Poor girl probably catches endless chills.”
He laughed. “I used to think you were boring, Sadie Beecham. Being thwarted in love suits you.”
Tears leaped to her eyes before she could banish them.
“Way to ruin a moment,” he said, disgusted. “Forget the doctor, cupcake.”
The cupcake jolted both of them. She stared.
“Figure of speech,” he explained.
“I knew that,” she said.
Trey stood. “Are we agreed you’ll stay away from Daniel?” He stuck out a hand; when she took it, he pulled her to her feet.
“Meg and Daniel are my friends, so I will continue to spend time with them,” Sadie said. “And I’ll be there for both of them when this thing ends.”
Trey growled.
Sadie brushed her hands against her shorts as she started back toward the road.
“I’ll be watching you at lunch today,” he said. “If you do anything to hurt Meg…”
“I wouldn’t!”
“Then why are you wearing sexy clothes?”
She glanced down at her tank, darkened by a damp patch between her breasts.
“At the barbecue last night,” he clarified. “You didn’t used to wear stuff like that.”
“You didn’t used to look. Those clothes weren’t new.”
“And when you arrived yesterday you gave me that flirty smile.”
“That fake smile,” she corrected. “I was putting on a cheerful face for my family.”
“You can trot out all the excuses you want,” he said. “I don’t believe you.” With his hand he applied pressure to the small of her back. “Come on, you’ve had a rest—time to run some more.”
She started to move. Her lungs protested immediately, her breath rasping.
Trey looked down at her in disgust. “I’d better get you home before you collapse.”
“If I do, Daniel can give me mouth-to-mouth,” she said, unable to stop herself from goading him.
“I’ll give you mouth-to-mouth,” he retorted.
His gaze alighted on her lips. Energy crackled in the air. Not the kind of energy her exhausted limbs needed.
“I meant if it should become medically necessary,” Trey said lightly.
Was it her imagination, or was he a little red in the face?
“Thanks, but Daniel’s better qualified,” she said.
His eyebrows drew together, all lightness gone. “Don’t mess with me, Sadie. If you don’t keep away from Daniel, I’ll warn him and Meg you’re in love with him.”
She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Probably because his threat had stopped her heart.
Before she could recover, he was gone, running effortlessly away from her.
TREY HAD JUST GOT off the phone from an orchid breeder in Florida on Monday morning—he was negotiating an exclusive agreement to sell the guy’s award-winning new orchid in Tennessee—when Daniel arrived in his office doorway.
“Dan, come in.” Trey went to shake his hand.
“Thanks.” The doctor took one of the vinyl seats that dated back to Trey’s dad. “Actually, I prefer to be called Daniel.”
“Sure.” Trey perched on the edge of his dad’s desk, a rough-hewn pine top mounted on two trestles. “Hope you don’t mind me asking you here, but I wanted to talk.”
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Abby Gaines
When did Sadie Beecham get those curves? She'd always been the geek next door, his baby sister Meg's brainy best friend. Smart, sure. But hot? He never would have imagined it…before. Now, Trey Kincaid's imagining all sorts of things. And none of them has to do with Sadie's gifted mind.A mind, he discovers, she's clearly lost. Because she thinks she's in love with Meg's fiancé. And that's an obsession he's determined to put an end to–one way or the other.
“I’ll give you mouth-to-mouth.”
After he said it, Trey stared at her lips. Energy crackled in the air. Not the kind of energy her exhausted limbs needed.
“I meant,” he clarified, “if it should become medically necessary.”
Was it her imagination, or was he a little red in the face?
“Thanks, but Daniel’s a doctor and better qualified,” she said.
His eyebrows drew together, all joking aside. “Don’t mess with me, Sadie. If you don’t keep away from Daniel, I’ll warn him and Meg you’re in love with him.”
She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Probably because his threat had stopped her heart.
Dear Reader,
Did you ever just know you were right…and then discovered you were wrong?
It happens to me often enough that I’m no longer totally shocked by my own fallibility. But Sadie Beecham, heroine of Her Best Friend’s Wedding, is seldom wrong. So when she falls in love with a guy she’s convinced is The One, she must be right…right?
Even if he’s in love with her best friend? Yep, Sadie is determined she’ll get her man. Too bad Trey Kincaid, brother of the bride, is equally determined she won’t!
I do hope you enjoy Her Best Friend’s Wedding. To let me know what you think, please email abby@abbygaines.com. Or, to read an extra After-the-End scene, visit the For Readers page at www.abbygaines.com.
Sincerely,
Abby Gaines
Her Best Friend’s Wedding
Abby Gaines
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Abby Gaines wrote her first romance novel as a teenager, only to have it promptly rejected. A flirtation with a science fiction novel never really got off the ground, so Abby put aside her writing ambitions as she went to college, then began her working life at IBM. When she and her husband had their first baby, Abby worked from home as a freelance business journalist…and soon after that the urge to write romance resurfaced. It was another five long years before Abby sold her first novel to Harlequin Superromance in 2006.
Abby lives with her husband and children—and a labradoodle and a cat—in a house with enough stairs to keep her semifit and a sun-filled office with a sea view that provides inspiration for the funny, tender romances she loves to write. Visit her at www.abbygaines.com.
In memory of
Gerald van Waardenberg
(1962-2010)
A gifted musician
A talented writer
A good friend
Grace under Fire
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER ONE
“I MIGHT,” SADIE BEECHAM said briskly, “bring someone home with me for Nancy’s birthday party.” Silence.
Sadie shook the cordless phone. “Mom?”
“Oh, honey.” Her mother’s voice was a mere breath down the line. “Have you met The One?”
“Mom! I’ve brought guys home before.” Sadie stepped away from the beef bourguignon simmering on the stove for tonight’s celebratory dinner and patted her damp forehead with a paper towel. Her bungalow’s ancient air-conditioning wasn’t up to the challenge of keeping the kitchen cool during the heat of a Memphis summer.
“Not in the last ten years, dear,” Mary-Beth Beecham said. “The last one was that boy with the piercing in his lip.”
Sadie shuddered. She knew her mother was doing the same. That was a long time ago. A brief attempt during her sophomore year at Princeton to prove she could tread the wild side just like any other coed. A theory she’d rapidly disproved.
“Okay, I haven’t brought anyone home lately. But you’ve met guys I’ve dated. This is no big deal, Mom.”
The last thing she needed was her parents acting as if they were meeting a prospective son-in-law. Even if that’s exactly what he was.
Sadie opened the kitchen window in the hope of creating a breeze. On the back porch, her latest batch of plants—camellias and limonium—had died in their pots, despite the expensive soil nutrients she’d fed them. The neighbor’s cat must have been doing its business in them again.
“I want to know all about your young man,” Mary-Beth demanded.
Sadie turned her back on the limp, browning foliage. “He’s a doctor.”
A squawk down the phone. “A doctor! He sounds wonderful.”
Sadie couldn’t help grinning in response to her mom’s enthusiasm. “He’s very nice,” she admitted. He’s perfect.
The doorbell rang. Phew, saved from descending into girlish chitchat, a skill she’d never mastered. “Mom, I need to go. He’s just arrived. Meg gets back tonight, too, so we’re all having dinner.” Dinner for three—she couldn’t wait.
“Okay, dear, you go. Give Meg a hug for me, and tell her not to worry, we have her mom’s party well in hand. And call me soon. I can’t wait to tell people about this doctor of yours,” Mary-Beth added archly.
Sadie puffed out an exasperated breath. “Mom, no need to tell the whole world.” She was still fending off inquiries from her parents’ friends about when she was going to win the Nobel Prize. Mary-Beth had made the exaggerated claim during her last visit, boasting about Sadie’s brilliance as a seed biologist.
“Just your father, then,” her mom soothed.
“Fine.” Behind Sadie, another long trill of the doorbell suggested impatience. Then a thump on the door, and the handle rattling. Seemed Daniel was as eager to see her as she was to see him. Sadie’s irritation evaporated. “Coming,” she sang.
She set the phone back on its stand and hurried to the door. “Sorry,” she called as she unlocked the deadlock. She flung the door wide. “Come in—Meg!”
She just managed not to feel disappointed it was Meg Kincaid, her childhood next-door neighbor, best friend forever and now roommate, on the doorstep, rather than Daniel. “Welcome home! I wasn’t expecting you just yet… Why didn’t you let yourself in?”
“My key’s buried somewhere in there.” Meg indicated the trundle suitcase next to her. She hugged Sadie. “The flight landed an hour early. It’s so great to be home. Six weeks was way too long…even if it was Paris.” She stood back as Sadie maneuvered the case over the threshold for her.
Meg slipped out of the high-heeled red pumps that were part of her flight-attendant uniform and flexed her toes on the polished wooden floorboards. “Man, that feels better.” She pushed her dark bangs off her face, an endearing, reflexive gesture that never achieved anything—her hair settled right where it had been. She’d flown halfway across the world, yet she looked as fresh and pretty as if she’d stepped out of a Cosmo article titled “How to Look Your Best, 24/7.”
“I need a drink.” She padded down the hallway behind Sadie. “Something smells good.”
“I hope so. I followed the recipe exactly, so as long as Martha Stewart knows what she’s talking about…” Having missed out on the cooking lessons her mom had given her sister, Sadie wasn’t as confident as she’d like to be.
In the kitchen Meg absorbed the sparkling state of Sadie’s glass-fronted cupboards and the clear counter. Her sigh was part satisfaction, part envy. “This place is so tidy when I’m not here.”
“Boarding-school discipline,” Sadie reminded her. “My secret weapon. Besides, it’s not as if you’re here even when you are here,” she joked as she pulled a bottle of pinot grigio from the fridge. She didn’t know how Meg managed to sleep at all between her party lifestyle and her job. She reached over to the counter, where three glasses were neatly lined up.
“Three glasses?” Jet lag or not, Meg didn’t miss a thing.
Sadie busied herself pouring even amounts of wine into two of the glasses. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
“A man?” Meg’s squeal was gratifying. She grabbed the purse she’d slung over the back of a dining chair. “I’d better put my face on and get out of this uniform—we don’t want your boyfriend thinking your best friend’s a slob.”
“You’ve never looked slobbish in your life…and besides, he’s just a friend.” She didn’t want Meg getting overexcited the way her mom had.
Meg tilted her head to one side. “Now you’ve got me interested.”
What was that supposed to mean? Sadie had listened to friends revealing their I’m-in-love stories over many a glass of wine, but she realized now she’d failed to observe the nuances. She hoped she wasn’t blushing. Top research scientists don’t blush, she told herself sternly.
Meg took a slug of her wine and set her glass down. “Two minutes.” She patted Sadie’s arm, then headed to her bedroom. She’d never in her life freshened up in two minutes, so Sadie didn’t expect to see her for a while.
She poured some wine for Daniel—pinot grigio was his favorite—and wiped up a few drops that had spilled on the stainless-steel counter. She rinsed out the dishcloth and tucked it in the wire basket in the cupboard beneath the sink.
The doorbell rang. Once. Briefly. That was Daniel—no impatient banging on the door or rattling the handle. A man confident in himself, who liked to do things right. Just like her.
No wonder she’d fallen in love with him so fast.
Sadie forced herself to slow her walk, but she couldn’t contain her goofy grin as she opened the door. “Hey.”
“Hi, Sadiebug.” Daniel had come up with the nickname the first time they’d had lunch together. She loved it.
He stepped inside, his kiss landing at the corner of her mouth. Reminding her of the embrace they’d shared last night. Their first proper kiss, after a delicious dinner at the nearby Two Trees Grill, where they’d talked about their families, their ambitions, their mutual passions—work, Russian literature, 1980s rock music, running. Admittedly, running was a very new passion for Sadie—she’d better warn Meg not to look too surprised.
Afterward, Daniel had brought her home, and here in this very hallway had taken her in his arms. Then…the kiss. Remembering, Sadie felt a warm glow inside.
Daniel had pulled away after a minute or so, looked into her eyes and said, “Hmm.”
Which she took to be a male version of wow. “Hmm,” she’d said happily back.
“How was your day?” Sadie asked as she led the way to the kitchen.
“Full-on. Our free diabetes testing was a crowd puller. The few spare minutes I had were spent preparing for my meeting with the SeedTech panel tomorrow.” Daniel ran a medical clinic for low-income families in Memphis’s Northside neighborhoods. But his interest in childhood nutrition had brought him to SeedTech, the botanical research firm where Sadie worked. Sick of always being “the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff,” he’d joined the panel that reviewed SeedTech’s research into medicinal plants, projects that in the long term would benefit poor people everywhere. Sadie had met him a few weeks ago when she presented her project to the panel.
“Mmm, dinner smells superb.” Daniel lifted the lid of the casserole dish on the stove and peeked inside. “Not just a pretty face and an impressive brain—she can cook, too.”
His grin made her heart flip. She would have loved him if he’d been ugly as sin, but his warm brown eyes and slightly-too-long hair—he worked so hard, he seldom found time to get a cut—were adorable.
He accepted a wineglass from her and clinked it against hers. “Here’s to you.”
To us. Sadie sipped her wine and smiled.
“Um…hi.” Meg spoke from the doorway.
Sadie beamed. “Meg, meet Daniel Wilson. Daniel, this is my best friend Meg Kincaid.” She couldn’t have said who she was prouder of. Please let them like each other.
Daniel drank in Meg’s silky dark hair, her long lashes, porcelain-perfect complexion, her sweet smile… His jaw dropped.
Uh, maybe not quite that much.
The natural pink of Meg’s cheeks deepened, and her smile turned irresistible.
Too late.
HOW IRONIC THAT THE first fault Sadie should find in Daniel was his rapid amnesia about that great kiss they’d shared. From the second he met Meg, his manner toward Sadie had been no more than platonic. Warmly platonic, sure… In a matter of days, Daniel and Meg were an item. Every time she saw him with Meg—and since they were at great pains not to exclude her, that was often—her heart cracked a little further. What she felt for him, what she thought they’d both felt, radiated in his face whenever he looked at Meg.
She should refuse their invitations, but she found herself drawn to their relationship like a bug to a Venus flytrap.
“Things still going well with Daniel?” she asked Meg one Saturday afternoon as they wandered through a boutique on Beale Street in search of gifts for Meg’s mom’s sixtieth birthday. The party was only a week away.
“Wonderful.” Meg held up a funky leather belt. “How about this?”
“Not sure if that would actually meet around your mom’s middle. So…you’ve been seeing each other, what, three weeks?” Three weeks, three days and eighteen hours, by Sadie’s count.
Overhead, the Muzak played “Hopelessly Devoted to You.”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Meg said.
Sadie’s heart thudded. She’d been so careful to hide her feelings. “What?”
“That I always say things are wonderful at this stage. And I’ll change my tune soon.”
Sadie let out a breath of relief. Meg was infamous for her intense but brief relationships. Sadie couldn’t remember the last time one of her boyfriends had survived more than six weeks. If Meg followed her usual pattern, Sadie just had to hold out another two and a half weeks, max.
Feeling guilty for even thinking that way, she held up a silk floral-patterned scarf. “Your mom would like this. It’s pricey, though.”
“I didn’t send anything for Mother’s Day, so it needs to be good.” Meg took the other end of the scarf and spread the fabric. “Mom loves roses, I’ll take it.”
As they headed for the line at the cashier, Meg asked, “How did you know Daniel and I would be right for each other?”
“I didn’t.” Had Meg ever used the words right for each other before? Sadie shivered in the air-conditioned store.
“Then you’re a natural-born genius.” Meg fluttered her eyelashes at a male clerk, who beckoned them to another cash register without a line. “Of course, we all know that.” She dropped the scarf on the counter. “Daniel says you’re the smartest woman he’s ever met.” No envy, just awe of Daniel’s every word. “We owe you big-time.”
“Don’t mention it,” Sadie said with wasted irony.
The Muzak segued into “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.” A timely reminder to call her mom, who still thought Sadie was bringing a man to the party. She would phone home tonight and say she’d broken up with her doctor friend.
As if they were on the same wavelength, rather than different emotional planets, Meg said, “Guess what? I invited Daniel home this weekend, and he said yes!”
A knife twisted behind Sadie’s ribs as she pinned on her widest smile. “Of course he did.”
CHAPTER TWO
SADIE AND DANIEL finished work early on Friday. Meg wasn’t flying that day, so by four o’clock the three of them were heading out of the city in Daniel’s Toyota Prius—he always tried to minimize his contribution to global warming. Weeks ago, when Sadie had envisaged this journey, she’d pictured her and Daniel up front, Meg in back. Instead, she was the third wheel, trying to be sanguine about the dopey looks being traded in the front seat. Comforting herself with the thought that the natural life of this romance was probably another week and a half at best.
“Are we there yet?” she chirped—in imitation of her nephews and nieces—as they drove down Sanga Road in the heart of Cordova, once a small town but now an outer neighborhood of Memphis. She tried not to think about the disappointment her mom had struggled to hide on the phone at the news Sadie wasn’t bringing a date. She just had to get through this without anyone figuring out that Daniel and her “ex-boyfriend” were the same man.
Her strategy was simple: put on her happy face and refuse to answer questions about her love life. If that didn’t work, launch into a monologue about apomictic hybrid crops.
Meg directed Daniel to make a left onto Maple, and a moment later they pulled up outside the white-and-blue Victorian at number twenty-four, the Kincaids’ house. Sadie’s family lived next door at number twenty-six, an almost identical Victorian painted green with a red trim. Both houses’ front doors opened, then Mary-Beth Beecham and Nancy Kincaid hastened down to the car, halloing greetings.
“Scared?” Meg asked.
Sadie almost said terrified, then realized the question was aimed at Daniel.
“Only because it’s so important,” he said tenderly.
Fighting an uncharitable gag reflex, Sadie snapped open the car door and clambered out.
“Sadie, honey.” No lingering disappointment over the date issue, just the warmest welcome in her mom’s hug. “It’s so good to have you home.”
Pain and loss welled in her throat. “You, too,” Sadie choked nonsensically. It had been so hard these past weeks, pretending to be thrilled for Meg, watching Daniel lavish his attention on her best friend in a way Sadie had to admit he’d never done with her. Suddenly she was exhausted. She wanted nothing more than to collapse on her old bed and pull a pillow over her head. But first… “Mom—” she beamed with all the conviction she could fake “—let me introduce you.”
Before she could utter the words she’d been steeling herself for, words she hadn’t yet quite managed to say in her own head—This is Daniel, Meg’s boyfriend—a truck pulled up at the curb. A shiny black Ford F-150, which in this former farming hamlet had the desirability factor of a Ferrari in the city.
The man who climbed out was broad shouldered, lean hipped, laconic in jeans and black T-shirt.
“Trey,” Meg squealed. As her brother hit the central lock, she ran out onto the road and threw her arms around him.
“Yeah, yeah, Meggie.” Trey Kincaid made a halfhearted effort to disengage. Their sibling relationship was a blend of loyalty and sniping in varying proportions. For the past ten years sniping had been dominant, but absence must have temporarily tipped the scales in the other direction.
Meg dragged Trey to the curb—not that she could have budged him an inch if he didn’t want to move—chattering all the way.
“Hi, Sadie.” Trey’s dark gray eyes met hers, then swept her powder-blue T-shirt and darker blue wrap skirt with a familiar, distracted, slightly puzzled scrutiny. As if he wasn’t quite sure how she fit in around here but wasn’t interested enough to find out. “Won that Nobel Prize yet?”
Reminding herself she was on an I’m-so-happy-being-single kick, she shot him a dazzling smile. “Hello, Trey.”
Trey’s chin jerked back, and he looked harder at her. “Uh, hi,” he said as if he’d forgotten he’d already said that. His gaze flicked over her curves, down her legs, then up again. He looked confused. Then alarmed.
Good grief, he thought her smile was about his supposed gorgeousness. Sadie hadn’t attended Andrew Johnson High, the local school, but she knew from Meg that as quarterback, Trey had always had a bevy of cheerleaders around him—the attention had obviously gone to his head and stayed there.
Still, his arrival had allowed Sadie to recoup her inner calm. She turned back to her mother and felt almost relaxed as she said, “Mom, this is Daniel.” She swallowed. “Meg’s boyfriend.”
Her mother hugged both Daniel and Meg. “Don’t you two make the cutest couple?” Her gaze darted in Sadie’s direction, the nearest she would get to expressing regret that her daughter’s big romance had fallen through.
Meg introduced her brother to her beau. As the two men shook hands, Trey subjected Daniel to a long, hard scrutiny.
“You finally chose one who looks like he can hold down a job.” Typical of Trey not to bother to hide his surprise. But then, he’d never possessed the good manners Sadie admired in Daniel. Then, too, Meg had had some “interesting” boyfriends over the years.
“He’s a doctor,” Meg said proudly. “And a Tigers fan.” Trey was a longtime supporter of the Memphis Tigers baseball team.
“Did you see that whitewash against the Braves last week?” Trey asked. He and Daniel spent a minute rehashing the game. As they talked, Daniel laced his fingers through Meg’s and smiled down at her.
Sadie looked away, though she’d been forced to observe far worse recently.
“Do you fish?” Trey asked when the baseball conversation petered out.
Daniel’s gaze wavered. Sadie couldn’t picture him sitting in a boat for hours on the off chance a fish might come along. “Happy to give it a try,” he said.
“June’s not the best time,” Trey said, “but maybe I can take you out fishing someday soon. I know a good spot.”
The day took on a surreal hue. As far as Sadie knew, Trey had never put himself out for one of Meg’s admirers. Now he was offering to share his fishing spot on the lake, a local legend whose exact location was known only to him.
Meg kissed Trey’s cheek. “I figured you guys would love each other.”
“How could I not love anyone related to you?” Daniel grinned. “Trey, I hope you’ll take that in the spirit it’s intended.”
Trey chuckled.
Ha, ha, ha, Sadie thought sourly.
Polite as always, Daniel turned to include Sadie’s mom in the conversation. “I’ve heard so much about you and your family, too, Mrs. Beecham. I feel as if I know you already.”
Sadie tensed.
“Call me Mary-Beth,” Sadie’s mother said. “Though why Meg should tell you about my family, I can’t think.”
“I meant from Sadie,” Daniel explained. “She’s the one who got me and Meg together.”
He slung an arm across Sadie’s shoulders and kissed her hair somewhere above her right ear. One of those gestures she’d interpreted—misinterpreted—to mean she was special to him. Even now she couldn’t help melting against him just the tiniest bit, and imagining for a nanosecond that this had all worked out differently, that she and Daniel—
She realized Trey’s gaze had narrowed on her. That while everyone else listened to Meg rattling on about Sadie’s incredible intuition, introducing her and Daniel, he had been observing her.
“Feeling the heat, Sadie?” Trey asked. “You’re wilting.”
At barely five o’clock the temperature was nowhere near the mid-nineties that had dominated the afternoon. She straightened away from Daniel. “I’m fine, but thanks for your concern,” she said crisply.
“This is wonderful having you all here together,” Mary-Beth said. “Tomorrow’s barbecue will be just like old times.”
Not quite. In the old days, Meg’s father, Brian, had presided over the grill alongside Sadie’s dad, and her oldest brother, Logan, regularly defended his record for consuming the most burgers in one night. But Brian and Logan Kincaid had died in a fishing accident when Sadie and Meg were high-school seniors.
Trey had given up his college football scholarship to take his father’s place running Kincaid Nurseries, the family garden center. Turned out he was a natural businessman, just as he was a football player—over the years he’d added more garden centers in surrounding neighborhoods.
“Let’s get you all settled in,” Nancy said to Meg and Daniel. “Trey’s staying for dinner tonight, so we’ll have some time to get to know each other ahead of our busy weekend.”
Sadie watched Daniel and Meg walk up the path through Nancy’s spectacular front garden. Her own parents’ garden was equally impressive—Sadie’s mom and dad had taken turns presiding over the Cordova Garden Club, and Kincaid Nurseries was the club’s number-one sponsor. As next-door neighbors, the two families were a match made in heaven.
Sadie turned away before she could watch Meg and Daniel walk into the house. Shutting her out.
One weekend. I can survive one weekend.
THERE WASN’T QUITE a full complement of Beechams around the seventies glass-topped table in Sadie’s parents’ dining room that night. Sadie’s older brother Jesse, his wife, Diane, and eight-year-old twins, Hannah and Holly, came to dinner, along with her sister, Merrilee, three years younger than Sadie, and her husband, Ben, and infant son, Matthew.
But Sadie’s younger brother, Brett, and his wife, Louisa, had stayed away. Two of their three preschoolers were recovering from chicken pox and today was officially the last day of their contagion. They’d be at tomorrow night’s barbecue. Kyle, her oldest and only un-attached sibling, had breezed in, claiming he had to rush off to see his latest girlfriend, but he was still sprawled in his seat opposite Sadie. Her brothers and sister had all remained in Cordova.
“It’s like Grand Central Station around here,” Gerry Beecham, Sadie’s dad, said. “Wives, husbands, kids… and to think you and I worried we might have an empty nest, Mary-Beth.”
Mary-Beth blew him a kiss from the far end of the table.
“It’s a shame we don’t have you here more often, Sadie, love,” Gerry continued.
Sadie’s bungalow in uptown Memphis was just over half an hour away. Her parents acted as if she lived on the other side of the country.
“Sadie was never going to stay a Cordova girl,” her mother said fondly.
You made sure of that. Sadie quashed a flare of resentment. Sending her to a boarding school for gifted children at age ten, after her elementary-school principal had her IQ tested, had not been an act of rejection. Her parents had been proud but overwhelmed by the prospect of “raising a genius to fulfill her potential,” as the principal put it. They’d sent her away for her own good.
She speared three beans with her fork. “I really don’t live that far away,” she muttered, knowing she was wasting her time.
Going to college at Princeton had widened the distance between her and her family, and now it seemed her default setting was “away.” Even when she was right here.
She tried to concentrate on the conversations rippling around her—the dramas of the PTA, a new cupcake recipe, a camping trip to the Smokies planned for later in the summer. But her family always considered her “above” such mundane topics, so no one asked her opinion or shared their cupcake tips. Not that she would have known what to do with them.
Sadie’s mind wandered next door. She wondered how Daniel was getting along with Nancy. Fabulously, of course. He was the kind of guy every mother dreamed her daughter would bring home.
“Sadie?” Her father said.
She jolted back to the present, and realized everyone was looking at her. “Sorry, I was daydreaming.” She thought back. Hadn’t Merrillee been complaining about her cupcakes not rising?
“Did you wait too long before putting them in the oven?” she asked her sister. “If the baking powder released its carbon dioxide gas too soon—” She broke off. “Hey, I wonder what percentage of global warming is caused by bakers forgetting to put their cakes in the oven.” She chuckled…and realized everyone else was staring at her, baffled.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t hilarious. But Daniel would have got it. Would have laughed.
Sadie blinked, hard.
“I was asking when we’ll get to see that garden of yours, love,” her father said.
“Uh…it’s not quite there yet.” Sadie didn’t like to admit to the atrocious state of her garden—the love of everything botanical was one thing she shared with her parents, who between them had four green thumbs and sixteen green fingers. All of her siblings had inherited both the talent and the enthusiasm.
Shame the gene pool hadn’t had one green digit to spare for Sadie. When she’d bought the bungalow two years ago, she’d had visions of creating a lush, peaceful, enticing landscape.
Her failure was a constant frustration, all the more aggravating because it didn’t make sense. As a seed biologist, she knew the theory of plants inside and out. She had the passion, too—a beautiful garden could bring tears to her eyes, and she loved getting her hands dirty. But her attempts to actually grow anything seemed doomed to failure.
“I haven’t had much time for gardening, I’ve been so busy at work.” She switched to a topic she could tackle with a hundred percent confidence, before the questions got too probing. “We’re looking at developing new strains of wheat with a higher protein content.”
She started on a layman’s description of the project. Five minutes later she was pleasantly surprised to realize she still had her family’s attention. Usually eyes were starting to glaze over by now. “Anyway—” she gave a little laugh, unnerved by their rapt expressions “—I’m loving it.”
“It sounds great,” Merrillee said encouragingly.
“Right over my head, sis.” Jesse swished his hand above his spiky haircut to demonstrate. “I wish I had your brains.”
“Your life sounds super fulfilling, Sadie.” Diane, Jesse’s wife, smiled kindly.
“Uh…thanks.” How odd. That sounded like the sort of comment you made when you were— Wait a minute!
The reason everyone was listening with such interest to wheat-protein statistics wasn’t that they’d developed a sudden interest in crop biology. Sadie would bet a million bucks that her mom had told them she had a boyfriend, and then told them they’d broken up.
They felt sorry for her!
Her cheeks grew hot. “I’m really, really happy with the way things are right now,” she said emphatically. It would have been true, too, if she hadn’t made the mistake of falling in love with Daniel.
“Of course you are, dear,” her mom said. A chorus of overearnest agreement ran around the table.
“It’s just, balance is important,” Kyle said. “I’m not saying you need to get married—” his shudder made everyone laugh “—but there’s more to life than work.”
Her oldest brother was a firefighter, as well as a serial dater. Sadie’s other siblings also had careers they loved. Jesse had a graphic-design business, Brett was a town planner, Merrillee had trained as a nurse. All smart, busy people. But somehow more…multidimensional than Sadie. They’d managed to stay connected to one another.
Sadie drew in a deep breath, inhaling the scent of summer shrubs wafting through the open window. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t connected. It didn’t matter that her lack of a boyfriend emphasized the differences between her and her family. If they truly understood how important her work was—not just to her, but to the planet…
One look at their concerned faces said she’d be wasting her breath. That was what she loved about Daniel—he did understand. She sneaked a glance at the gold carriage clock on the sideboard, the one First Cordova Bank had presented to her father after forty years’ service. It was stuck on three-thirty—surely it must be ten o’clock by now. She made a show of yawning and stretching. “I’m beat. I think I’ll go to bed.”
Merrillee looked at her watch. “At ten past eight?”
“Can’t handle the pace, city girl?” Jesse teased.
Rats.
She resisted the urge to point out that, since annexation, Cordova was part of the city. “I’ve been putting in some long hours at the lab.” She excused herself as she pushed her chair back. “By the way, Merrillee, you have baby spit on your shoulder.”
Okay, so that was petty.
“Would you like some cod-liver oil to help you sleep, honey?” her mom asked. Mary-Beth believed cod-liver oil solved every conceivable problem. Sadie had once tried to explain that despite its high levels of omega-3 fatty acids, it wasn’t a cure-all, and in fact its high vitamin A content made it nutritionally risky, but her mom didn’t want to know.
Sadie turned down the offer, along with the predictable next offer—a cup of hot cocoa—and hurried upstairs. As she left the room, Merrillee was dabbing with her napkin at the ever-present stain on her shoulder.
Safe in her old bedroom with the door closed, Sadie donned her pajamas—red tank and plaid cotton pants—in case anyone wanted proof she was tired.
Her bedroom window looked onto Meg’s. As kids, they’d held up signs to each other, illuminated by flashlight when necessary. After Sadie left for boarding school, their nighttime communications were limited to vacation periods, but they’d continued nonetheless. When Sadie and Meg graduated to cell phones, they’d sat in the chair they each had by the window, feet propped on the sill, so they could see each other as they whispered conversations after lights-out.
They’d been closer than sisters.
Now Meg’s curtains were closed. Surely she and Daniel hadn’t gone upstairs already? And surely Nancy wouldn’t put them in the same room? Sadie’s stomach twisted.
She hadn’t asked Meg if she and Daniel were sleeping together yet. Meg’s job often took her away overnight, so Sadie was unsure if her friend’s absences were due to that, or to staying at Daniel’s. Normally they talked about everything—at least, Meg shared all the details of her more exciting life. This time, Sadie hadn’t asked and Meg hadn’t told.
Trey’s truck was still parked out front. Behind it was a faded red Buick LeSabre.
Did Trey have a girlfriend over? The only person Sadie knew who’d driven a LeSabre that color was the minister at Cordova Colonial Presbyterian. His daughter had been in Meg’s class.
She couldn’t imagine Trey dating the minister’s daughter. And it probably wasn’t the same Buick.
But what if it was? And what if the reason Nancy had invited the minister over was that Meg and Daniel—
“Shut up,” Sadie ordered herself. “Meg’s never dated anyone longer than six weeks. This won’t be any different.”
She plunked herself into the chair and opened the novel she’d started reading last night—Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. She’d read it years ago, but she and Daniel had been debating Dostoevsky’s views on the evils of rationalism, and she wanted to refresh her memory.
She couldn’t settle…. After three pages she closed the book and fished her old bird-watching binoculars out of the depths of the closet. But she was at the wrong angle for next door’s dining-room window.
“Blast,” she muttered.
She had to know who was visiting.
Back to the closet, this time for the gray hooded jacket with the broken zipper she’d left behind on her last trip home. She pulled it on over her pajamas. If she got caught leaving the house by the back door she’d say she was stepping out to smell the flowers.
They would buy that.
As it turned out, her family was having a riotous good time discussing the twins’ eccentric social-studies teacher and Brett’s son’s grass allergy—Gerry didn’t believe in it, but he wouldn’t dare say that tomorrow night when Brett was here. No one noticed Sadie sneaking out.
Meg’s dad had built the backyard gate between the two houses so the two girls could visit without having to go near the road. It hadn’t been used in a while, judging by the creak of the hinges.
The Kincaids’ dining room was the downstairs front room on this side. Sadie skulked past the kitchen and bathroom…then started to worry that shortsighted Mr. Fargo across the street might phone the cops. She stopped acting suspiciously and walked boldly up to Nancy’s prize gardenia bush. She would snap off one of the white blossoms and use it as her excuse for loitering.
She chose a bloom and twisted. Nothing happened.
Sadie jiggled the stalk from side to side. Still nothing.
“Come off, you stupid damn flower.”
This plant had stems of steel.
Next time she came spying, she’d bring pruning shears.
At last the blossom broke off, losing a few petals as it came free. Sadie took a deep, relieved sniff of its heavy perfume. Armed with her alibi, she headed for the front corner of the house.
Like her mother’s, Nancy’s dining-room window was covered by a semisheer curtain. Sadie heard Nancy’s voice through the smaller, open window at the top. It sounded like… Had she just said church?
With a swift glance across the road to check that there was no sign of Mr. Fargo, Sadie crouched beneath the window. She dropped the gardenia and gripped the ledge. Slowly she raised her head.
Four pairs of feet rested beneath Nancy’s reproduction Louis XVI dining table. Through the mesh of the curtain Sadie distinguished Meg’s sandals and Daniel’s loafers—hooray, they weren’t in bed together. She risked rising a bit higher. Nancy’s black pumps and a pair of sneakers. Male or female?
“What the hell are you doing?” said a deep voice from behind her.
CHAPTER THREE
INSTINCT MADE SADIE duck down, then, as she came up again, she banged her head on the window ledge.
“Ow!”
“What’s going on?” Trey’s hand closed around her arm. He dragged her aside, mercifully out of view of the window.
Sadie rubbed hard at her head. “That hurt.”
“Why are you spying?”
She tugged herself free so she could chafe her arm where he’d gripped her. “Where did you come from?” she countered.
“I live here.”
“No, you don’t.” Sadie knew he had a house on the other side of Cordova. Five whole minutes away.
He sighed. “You’re still a know-it-all. Okay, my mother lives here and she considers it my home, even if I don’t.” He hooked his thumbs in his jeans and stared her down. “What are you doing?” he asked again.
Devoid of a rational answer, Sadie played for time. “You still didn’t tell me where you came from.”
“I was on the porch. I heard someone cussing out the plants.”
The flower she’d had so much trouble detaching. She bent and snatched it up. “I was in my room and I smelled this amazing scent, so I came down to pick a gardenia.”
He glanced at her parents’ house. “You did well smelling those with your bedroom window closed.”
“How do you know my window’s closed?”
He rolled his eyes. “Then after you got your flower…” he prompted.
“Then, Miss Marple, I heard an unfamiliar voice, so I thought I’d see who your mom had visiting.”
“Uh-huh.” His gaze flicked over her pj top, which unfortunately had shrunk in the wash. It was too tight across the front and the gap between top and pants bared an inch or so of midriff. “Hmm,” he said.
As if she hadn’t heard enough of hmm. Which she now understood didn’t mean wow.
“I’m going home,” she said crossly. “Good night.”
The gleam in his eyes reminded her of the few times he’d paid her enough attention to bait her back in their teens. Mostly they’d ignored each other—the jock and the science geek had nothing in common.
She took a step away, then turned. “So who is visiting your mom?”
“None of your business. Though you’d be very interested,” he taunted.
It really was the minister, here to talk about weddings.
“Sadie? You okay? You’ve gone white.”
“Huh?” She blinked.
Trey cursed. He grabbed her hand and led her around the front of the house, where he pushed her down onto the porch swing. “I always thought it was a good thing your parents sent you to genius school—it stopped you turning out like Meg’s scatterbrained friends,” he said. “But you grew up a hell of a weird woman.”
Just what Sadie needed—another reminder she didn’t fit in. And she didn’t believe that backhanded compliment, since he’d dated several of Meg’s “scatterbrained” friends.
“Just tell me who’s visiting your mom.” Her voice wobbled. I’m losing my grip. She grasped the edge of the swing seat as if it was an extension of her sanity.
“I would have thought you’d recognize that LeSabre.”
She held her breath, waiting for the ax to fall.
His knee nudged the swing, setting it rocking. “The minister’s car, remember?”
“The minister is visiting your mom?” It came out high-pitched.
“Not him, his wife.” He left the railing to sit next to her, disrupting the swing’s motion.
Sadie planted her feet on the porch, stilling the swing. “The minister’s wife is visiting with your mom.”
“That’s what I said.” He rubbed his chin. “For a girl who got the highest SATs I know of and won a full scholarship to Princeton from the Outstanding Tennesseans Foundation, you’re kinda slow.”
“I just took a blow to the head.” She scowled and rubbed the sore spot where she’d collided with the window.
He grinned, and it made him look like the quarterback again.
“So why is the minister’s wife here?” she asked.
“Mom’s paying her to do the flowers for the lunch on Sunday. There’s a list of jobs a mile long for the likes of you and me, so Mom thought she’d need the help.”
Nancy had been an active member of the community her whole life, and her sixtieth birthday was a two-day event—the Saturday-night barbecue for “family,” which included the Beechams, and a lunch for her wide circle of friends, as well as family, on Sunday.
Two events where Sadie would have to watch Meg and Daniel canoodling, and fool everyone into believing she didn’t care. “It’s great we can all celebrate Nancy’s birthday with her,” she said, reminding herself of the one positive in all of this.
Trey sobered. He scuffed the porch with his shoe. “Yeah.”
Five years ago his mother had suffered a stroke. Fairly severe, but she’d recovered faster than the doctors expected, with only a barely discernible limp and a slight slowness of speech to show for it.
Sadie cleared her throat. “What do you think of Daniel?”
“Nice guy, far as I could tell.”
“He’s not Meg’s usual type, though, is he?” She twisted to face Trey. He was sitting closer than she realized, and she ended up looking right at his lips. Which made her think about Daniel and that kiss…
He grimaced. “Sadie, I think I know the real reason you were skulking around tonight.”
She pressed her hand to her mouth, but not fast enough to prevent a mortified cry escaping.
“I have to tell you—” he drew back and the swing creaked “—there’s no point.”
She closed her eyes. Please, make him stop.
“I know you got dumped recently….”
Her eyes flew open. Her mom had told the whole world about her supposed breakup?
“But—” Trey spread his hands in a gesture of regret “—I’m not interested.”
It took a second for his words to pierce her humiliation. “You think I was spying on you? That I like you?”
She couldn’t decide if she was relieved he hadn’t guessed the truth or outraged at his inflated opinion of his own charms.
He shrugged. “I find it hard to believe this trespassing incident is about your curiosity over who visits my mom. I figure you’re looking for a distraction from your broken heart.”
“Did my mother really say I got dumped?” she demanded.
He winced. “Uh, I heard it from Mom. Maybe she just said it was a breakup. The point is, Sadie, even if you weren’t my sister’s best friend, practically family, I’d never date—”
“—a geek like me,” she finished. It wasn’t just her own family who insisted on making her feel like an outsider. She stood up. “You’ve been in Cordova too long, Trey. Out in the big wide world, people don’t get hung up on labels that—”
“Whoa.” His eyes glinted as he looked up at her. “I was going to say I’d never date someone on the rebound.”
“Oh. Right.” Time to put an end to this discussion before she laid out all her insecurities for his scrutiny. Sadie took a step backward, and her ankle bumped the iron swing stand, hard.
“Ouch!” She reached down to rub her ankle, exposing more of her midriff to Trey. Which he would probably interpret as an attempt at seduction. “You don’t have to worry about my interest in you,” she said. “Like the male worker ant, it doesn’t exist.”
“What?” He stood, and as she was barefoot, he had more inches on her than she remembered.
“All worker ants are female,” she explained.
“Is this your convoluted way of saying you weren’t spying on me?”
“Exactly,” she said, relieved.
His brow relaxed and he chuckled. “You might need to simplify things if you want to be understood by the folks around here, Ms. Sadie.” His deep voice lengthened to a country drawl.
She rolled her eyes. “This discussion is unproductive—”
“Like the male worker ant,” he suggested helpfully.
“—so I’m leaving.” She hobbled across the porch on her sore foot. “Good night, Trey.”
He dropped back onto the swing. “I don’t know about good,” he reflected, “but you sure made it more interesting.”
“Glad one of us enjoyed it,” Sadie muttered.
IT HAD BEEN A sweltering day, and now with Gerry Beecham’s famous gin-and-juniper-marinated pork chops sizzling on the grill alongside a mustard-coated beef fillet and a ton of hot dogs for the kids, Saturday night in the Beechams’ backyard was hot as fire.
Trey flipped the hot dogs Gerry had asked him to keep an eye on; only Gerry himself felt qualified to prod the chops or the fillet. Everyone had worked hard today—dividing along strict gender lines into cooks and cleaners, or handymen—to get ready for tomorrow’s lunch. Now they were enjoying a well-earned evening of relaxation.
Trey rubbed the back of his neck. The heat was bringing him out in hives. Or maybe it wasn’t the heat, maybe it was all this togetherness. He was trying to spend less time with his family, not more. He was happy to celebrate his mom’s birthday, but this kind of gathering—full of married couples talking about their kids and their camping vacations and their SUVs—was the worst.
His gaze tracked his mom, talking to her cousin and Mary-Beth, then his flighty sister, standing next to sturdy Dr. Daniel. In Meg’s case, a dose of suburbia would be a good thing. An excellent thing.
Trey didn’t need to look farther to know exactly where Sadie was, which he found slightly disconcerting. She was his kid sister’s sensible best friend, part of the wallpaper of his life—and like wallpaper, he generally didn’t notice her.
But this weekend…something was off about Sadie. She wasn’t herself. Different enough that he couldn’t ignore her. Which was how he knew she’d spent the past fifteen minutes jiggling her baby nephew on one hip while explaining plant reproduction to a bunch of kids, using Mary-Beth’s prize-winning Golden Spangles camellia for demonstration.
“And when the bee carries the pollen from one plant to another,” she concluded triumphantly as Trey listened, “that’s when you get pretty flowers.”
One of her nieces, about five years old—he couldn’t remember her name—put up her hand.
“Do you have a question about vegetative reproduction, Caitlyn?” Sadie asked, pleased. “I admit, I did skip a few steps, honey.”
“What kind of flowers do princesses like best?” Caitlyn asked.
Sadie blinked. “Princesses…uh, princesses aren’t my area of expertise, honey.”
Trey felt his shoulders relax. That was more like the Sadie he knew. She’d never been one of the girlie-girls, which was doubtless why that radiant smile she’d bestowed on him when she arrived yesterday had spooked him. The Sadie he knew was down-to-earth, calm, aloof. Wallpaper.
Meg called to her. As Sadie handed the baby to Merrilee and went to join his sister and Daniel, Trey was too aware of her figure in her white capris and yellow tank.
It felt as if someone had redecorated.
He flipped a hot dog and it burst out of its skin, startling him. Trey took a step back from the spitting fat. So Sadie Beecham had grown some curves that he’d only just got around to noticing. Big deal. Trey was over Cordova women, just as he was over everything else about his life here.
“Trey?” Meg called. “Can you come here?”
“Kyle, how about I leave these hot dogs with you?” Trey asked Sadie’s brother. After a ceremonial fist bump and handover of the tongs—barbecues were a major ritual around here—he took his beer and joined the others.
“Save me from these two, please.” Meg waved at Daniel and Sadie. “They’re trying to baffle me with science and it’s depressingly easy.”
Daniel ran a finger across her shoulder. “Sweetheart, we’re just warming up.” He winked at Sadie.
Meg groaned.
“We’re talking about whether Sadie’s work with new wheat strains for the developing world could help diabetes-prone kids here in the U.S.A.,” Daniel explained to Trey.
“I’ve heard wheat can cause diabetes in some people,” Trey said. He’d read something about it in New Scientist.
Sadie squinted at him, as if she’d had no idea he spoke Science. “That’s type 1 diabetes,” she said dismissively. She turned to Daniel. “In theory, if you raised the protein level, thus lowering the glycemic index, wheat-based foods would pose a lower risk to type 2 diabetes patients.”
“Which would make life much easier for low-income families who can’t afford a low-wheat diet,” Daniel said.
He and Sadie grinned at each other.
Then Sadie reached behind her to lift her hair off her neck, a cooling-down gesture that lifted her breasts. Daniel lowered his gaze to her cleavage. And left it there a second longer than reflex dictated.
What the—? Trey accepted the other man’s dropped gaze was an instinctive response to Sadie’s movement, but the guy shouldn’t linger, not when he was dating Trey’s sister.
Trey stepped in front of Sadie to block Daniel’s view.
“Can’t we talk about books?” Meg asked. “English was my best subject. I wiped science from my brain after I dropped it in tenth grade.” She held up a hand. “When I say books, I don’t mean that Russian stuff you two read.”
“I’m enjoying that book of yours,” Daniel told Meg. “The Politics of Poverty. Brilliant.”
“Hey, that’s mine.” Sadie edged around Trey to get back in the conversation. “I lent it to Meg.”
“Oops.” Meg faked a guilty look, and Daniel laughed.
“You should read it. You’d enjoy it, Meg.” Unconsciously Sadie fingered a lock of her hair. It had been mousy-brown when she was younger, Trey remembered. Today it had gleaming gold highlights.
As if he was mirroring her, Daniel stroked Meg’s dark hair.
Immediately Sadie’s hand dropped to her stomach, as if she felt nauseated. Her eyes on Daniel were wide and unhappy.
Trey’s sister-protection sensors went on high alert. He tried to shut them off—Meg’s expectation that other people would fix her problems irritated him like nothing else—but old habits died hard.
Sadie likes Daniel. That was why she’d been sneaking around his mom’s place last night.
It couldn’t be true…could it?
As Meg leaned into Daniel and they began a murmured conversation of what sounded like mutual, breathless compliments, Sadie blinked suspiciously fast.
Dammit!
Trey leaned into her. “Get a grip,” he muttered.
She started, which at least pulled her attention off the doc. “Excuse me?”
His hand closed around her elbow; he turned her so she couldn’t see Meg. “Quit looking as if you’re about to commit suttee on the grill because my sister’s boyfriend touched her.”
She tugged, but he didn’t release her. “That’s ridiculous,” she hissed.
“Exactly. You’re making a fool of yourself.”
“What are you two whispering about?” Meg asked.
They froze. Sadie turned beet-red to the roots of her hair.
“Sadie’s telling me about her exciting life as a future Nobel laureate,” Trey said. Meg’s gaze traveled to the hold he had on her friend’s elbow, so he let go. “You must have some interesting colleagues at that lab of yours, Sadie.”
“Uh…” she said.
“Intelligent guys on a decent income,” he clarified. “Have you dated anyone there?” As in, go find your own man. Leave Meg’s alone.
“You’re being weird, Trey,” Meg said.
“Are those your criteria, Sadie?” Daniel teased. “I didn’t know you were looking.”
Sadie’s brother Jesse approached, bearing a bowl of chips. “No ordinary guy will do for Sadie,” he said, butting in to the conversation. “He’ll need to be a genius, the noble do-gooder type, willing to treat her with the awe she’s used to.”
Sadie took a couple of chips with one hand and punched Jesse’s shoulder with the other. “Shut up.”
“Those are some high standards, Sadiebug.” Daniel took a handful of chips but his gaze remained on Sadie. His expression held fondness and…was that regret? And what was with the Sadiebug?
“She deserves the best,” Meg said loyally. “Whereas I definitely don’t need a genius—my guy has to be dumb enough to love me despite my flaws.” She grinned. “A platinum AmEx would come in handy, too.”
Daniel laughed. “Sorry, sweetheart, I may be the boss at the clinic, but I’ll never earn millions. The best you can hope for is that I’ll be able to support you in the manner to which you’re accustomed.”
Support Meg? That sounded serious.
Meg and Daniel were too busy gazing into each other’s eyes to notice the strangled sound from Sadie. As Trey watched, her face turned red.
To think he’d grown up next door to her and had never known she was a psycho.
Grasping her arm again, he swung her away from the group. “Breathe,” he ordered in her ear.
Sadie stared at him, mouth open, eyes glazing over.
“If you don’t breathe, I’ll sit you down and shove your head between your knees until everyone knows what a nutcase you are.”
She dragged in a great gulp of air, wheezing like an asthmatic.
“Now out,” Trey ordered.
She let the air out again.
“Am I going to have to instruct you through every breath for the entire weekend?” he demanded.
“I— No.” She coughed.
“Are you okay, Sadie?” Meg asked.
They’d attracted the attention of the entire company. Sadie closed her eyes, as if people wouldn’t be able to see her if she couldn’t see them. It was an oddly defenseless reaction.
“She was choking on a chip,” Trey explained, bailing her out. “All clear now, Sadie?”
“Absolutely.” She smiled shakily.
“Better add ‘able to perform the Heimlich maneuver’ to the checklist for your perfect man,” Jesse said. “Too bad your doctor boyfriend dumped you.”
Trey felt a twinge of sympathy for her.
“What doctor boyfriend?” Meg and Daniel asked simultaneously.
“I have no idea what he means,” Sadie said.
She’d had a major breakup, and she hadn’t told her best friend?
Her mom overheard. “Honey, I’m sorry. When you mentioned you were bringing a boy home—” Mary-Beth made her sound sixteen again, and Sadie was clearly unthrilled “—I told a couple of people.”
Trey figured everyone here had heard that at last Sadie had a boyfriend who might stick. The surrounding faces were studies in loving pity. All except—
“What boyfriend?” Meg asked again. “How come I never heard about him?”
Uh-oh. Suddenly Trey figured it out.
Meg turned to Daniel. “Did you know—” She stopped, then whirled back to Sadie, her eyes wide. “Tell me it wasn’t—” Just in time, she clamped her mouth shut.
Jesse, who’d always been quick-witted, picked up on the unspoken question. Unfortunately, he’d also always been a loudmouth. “No way, Sadie,” he hooted. “Was Daniel your boyfriend?”
CHAPTER FOUR
NOW WOULD BE A GOOD TIME for the world to end, Sadie decided. One minute ago would have been even better.
Her mother made a protective, worried sound, like a lioness about to maul Meg, or Daniel, or both. Jesse let out a low whistle. Brothers. Who needed them?
Sadie did the only thing she could—she laughed.
It came out squeaky.
“Of course Daniel wasn’t my boyfriend,” she said. Shrilly.
Varying degrees of mortification and sympathy showed on everyone’s faces. No one believed her. Behind her, a hot dog spat on the grill; the smell of charring beef made Sadie feel sick. She couldn’t bear it if Daniel realized how she felt about him.
She had to do something.
Her brain, the one that commanded a hefty six-figure salary, sputtered and died.
Her mother wrapped an arm around her, a loving tentacle. Any moment now Mom would drag her into the kitchen for a dose of cod-liver oil and a cup of hot cocoa.
“Mom.” She pulled away, and this time the laugh was better—more incredulous, less hysterical. “I told you, it wasn’t Daniel.”
“Then who was it?” Jesse, the idiot who’d dropped her in this mess.
“It was Wesley,” Trey announced.
Every head in the place swiveled to him.
“Wesley?” Meg darted a confused look at Sadie.
“She met him before she even knew Daniel,” Trey explained.
“Why didn’t I know about him?” Meg said skeptically.
Sadie found her voice. “I met, uh, Wesley—” and didn’t he sound like a hottie, with a name like that? “—when you were in Paris, covering for the European staff on strike. We weren’t together long, just a few weeks. We broke up right before I met Daniel. Which—” she widened her mouth into a smile “—was why it was so great to meet a guy who was just a friend.”
She prayed her mom wouldn’t add up the timing of her phone call and correct her.
“Wouldn’t that have been a coincidence, both of you dating doctors?” Mary-Beth said.
Bad timing, Mom. The suspicion that had been lifting settled back onto the faces around Sadie.
“He’s a vet,” Trey said firmly. “Dr. Wesley Burns, veterinarian.”
What the heck?
“How do you know all this, Trey?” Meg asked.
“Sadie told me about him last night,” Trey said. “She came over and we sat on the porch awhile.”
The interest in everyone’s eyes was better than pity. And at least Trey hadn’t mentioned she was in her pajamas or stealing flowers or peering in the window. Ugh, I really was a mess.
“She thought I might know Wes,” he elaborated. “That we might have been in the same dorm at Duke.”
“But they weren’t,” Sadie said quickly.
“No,” Trey agreed. “But Wes and I worked in the same bar on Friday nights.”
A headache drilled into Sadie’s temples. She would kill Trey. Just as soon as this barbecue was over and their families had accepted the fabrication about Dr. Wesley Burns, she would kill Trey and take great pleasure in doing so.
Trey grinned at her. He’d always been too damn cocky. How was it that he was one step ahead of everyone, including her?
But his stupid story was her only hope.
“So…what’s Wes like?” Sadie’s mom asked wistfully, entranced by the thought of the veterinarian son-in-law she’d almost had.
Meg was still looking suspicious.
“Great guy,” Trey said. “You’d love him.”
Sadie choked on her wine, and Trey patted her back solicitously. Time to steer this fantasy in a direction more flattering to herself.
“Unfortunately,” Sadie said, “Wes is a traditionalist—he envisaged me staying at home having babies. But of course, my work is too important to me. I couldn’t contemplate giving it up, so I had to break up with him.”
Uh-oh, Trey had a dangerous gleam in his eyes. She should have remembered that the few times he’d engaged enough to tease her when they were kids, he’d effortlessly come out on top.
“Wes would make a great dad, judging by his talent with animals,” he said. “Dogs, cats, rabbits…and does he have a way with hamsters.”
Sadie almost growled. Not only had he given her a boyfriend with the uninspiring name of Wes, a vet when she would have preferred a cardiologist, but now he was consigning Wes to the bottom rung of the pet ladder.
“But his main client is the Memphis Zoo,” she said.
“You mean he works on lions and stuff?” The breathless inquiry came from one of the twins. Sadie was too flustered to identify which one.
“Lions, tigers, elephants,” she confirmed.
“Which is his favorite?” the other twin asked.
“The, uh, leopard.” She realized the girls wanted more. “Because it’s so noble and intelligent and sensitive. Just like Wes himself.”
A snort from Trey.
“Oh, honey, he sounds incredible.” Yikes, Sadie’s mom was just about in tears at the thought of the man her daughter had loved and lost.
“Mom, I’m over it, really,” she assured her. “Wes was a great guy—he fit the dream, you know. But it wouldn’t have worked.”
“I heard he was never the same after that camel bit him,” Trey said.
Sadie began to mentally run through ways of killing him. She discarded them all on the grounds they wouldn’t inflict sufficient pain.
“I wish you’d told me,” Meg said, hurt. “I would have been there for you.”
“I know, sweetie, but by the time you arrived back stateside, I’d been having fun hanging out with Daniel, and my number-one focus was introducing you two to each other.” Not quite true, but at least she was talking about real people.
“You’re something else, Sadie,” Daniel said admiringly.
“She sure is,” Trey agreed.
That something else was likely a poached egg—Sadie felt as if she didn’t have a bone left in her body. “Dad, I’m starving. Is dinner ready?”
“Coming right up.” Her father brandished his tongs. “Don’t worry, honey, my pork chops will take your mind off that leopard-loving loser.”
Trey let out a burst of laughter that lit up his face and reminded Sadie he really was a great-looking guy. Shame about the personality.
“What I don’t understand…” Jesse began.
“If you all don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about Wes,” she announced bravely.
Jesse’s wife, Diane, smacked him upside the head for his insensitivity, which gave Sadie some satisfaction, while the rest of her family agreed immediately to a ban on talking about Wes. At least in front of her. Sadie had no doubt that after she returned to Memphis their sympathetic discussions of her failed love life would be a bonding experience.
Meg hugged her, and Daniel planted one of those kisses on Sadie’s hair. Much to Trey’s irritation, Sadie noted with satisfaction.
Still, his nutty story had taken the heat off her. As people headed toward the food, she murmured a grudging “Thanks. Sort of.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said with unaccustomed grace. Then, “Now, how about you do me a favor?”
She gritted her teeth. “I already did. I let you live.”
Humor flashed in his eyes, then disappeared. “Stay away from my sister’s boyfriend.”
Typical. For as long as Sadie could remember, Trey had moaned about Meg’s inability to “stand on her own two feet.” But he could never resist butting in when he thought his sister needed help.
As if Meg needed protection from her best friend!
Before she could tell Trey to mind his own business, her father handed her a plate piled with food. Then Daniel arrived back with his meal. “This looks great.” He sounded his normal self, not as if he believed she was secretly in love with him.
“Dad’s the best barbecue chef, so long as you don’t count the calories.” Sadie struck a casual, friendly tone, aware of Trey’s close scrutiny. Did he expect her to obey him?
“Want to go for a run in the morning?” she asked Daniel. “That way I get two helpings of dessert. You should come too, Meg.” Smart strategy, she congratulated herself. By acting natural and casual with Daniel, she would deflect any lingering suspicion of past feelings for him. Trey’s sharp, disapproving intake of breath was icing on the cake.
“You guys go for it,” Meg said. She hated running, and when she wasn’t flying liked to sleep in until nine. “I’ll catch up on some z’s.”
“So, 7:00 a.m.?” Sadie asked Daniel. “That’ll give us time for a decent run before the day gets busy.”
Daniel picked up a piece of garlic bread. “You’re on.”
Sadie smiled at him. And ignored Trey’s thunderous expression.
SADIE STEPPED OUT ONTO her parents’ porch at six fifty-five on Sunday morning and took a deep breath of fresh air scented with grass, her mom’s lemon trees and Nancy’s gardenias. In the jacaranda tree that grew on the Kincaid side of the fence but spread most of its shade over the Beechams’ yard, a mockingbird had burst out with its early-morning song. As she laced up her running shoes, it moved from a series of whistles to smoochy, kissing sounds.
Sadie stood on one leg to begin her quad stretches. Or what she hoped were quad stretches. When she’d fallen in love with Daniel practically at first sight and he’d asked if she ran, she’d said yes. Which was the right thing to do because he’d asked her to go running with him, and hadn’t minded that she was a beginner. And that was the start of their…friendship.
“This’ll be good for you,” she reminded her reluctant left quad. Her stomach growled, but she’d learned the hard way that if she ate now she wouldn’t be able to run more than a hundred yards without developing a stitch.
As the Kincaids’ front door opened she hopped a little, pulling her left foot closer to her butt to lengthen the stretch.
Trey stepped onto the next-door porch.
Wearing shorts and a T-shirt. And running shoes.
He waved. “Morning.”
Sadie’s foot thudded to the floorboards. “What are you doing here?”
“I stayed the night—didn’t want to drive after all that drinking.”
As she recalled, he’d had maybe two beers over four hours. Nowhere near the limit. Not that she’d been watching.
He strolled down the steps to the sidewalk. “Thought I’d join you on your run.” He patted his flat stomach. “Anything to counter the effects of age.”
She didn’t give him the satisfaction of admiring his physique. “I guess it’s a free country—I can’t stop you running with us.” She jogged to the sidewalk, trying to look fit.
“Us?” His forehead creased. “Did I forget to say Daniel’s not coming?”
“Excuse me?”
“I told him I’d turn a blind eye if he wanted to sneak coffee into Meg’s room,” he said smugly.
Sadie banished the image from her mind.
“But Daniel was worried about you having no one to run with,” Trey continued, “so I offered to stand in.”
She clenched her fists at her sides. “I don’t want to run with you.” She might as well go back to bed with a bowl of granola.
“Like you said, you need to work off last night’s calories,” he said. She sucked in her stomach out of reflex, and glared when he chuckled. “Don’t you think it’ll look suspicious if you cancel out because Daniel’s not coming?” he continued.
“I’ll be canceling because I don’t want to run with you.” But he had a point, dammit.
And he knew it. “Where are we going?” he asked.
Sadie looked past him. “I’m heading down Arlington and around the reserve.”
“Works for me,” he said. “Maybe we should come back along the Parkway.”
That would add another twenty minutes; she’d be unlikely to survive. “I don’t have time. Mom has me down to peel about a thousand potatoes for the potato salad.” She clasped her hands behind her head and twisted from side to side.
“Okay, Arlington is fine by me. It overlooks the lagoon and I like a nice view when I run.” His gaze took in her curves, accentuated by the exercise.
“Don’t you have stretches to do?” she snapped.
“I’m stretching my imagination.” He lingered on her legs.
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll take your suggestive remarks too seriously? I seem to recall you warning me off you.”
“I’m not worried after last night,” he said. “It’s obvious I’m not the one you’re interested in.”
Her face on fire, she bent to adjust her shoelace. Then without another word, she started running. A purely symbolic gesture, since Trey caught her up in a few easy strides.
Her burst of speed lasted all of a hundred yards.
“Something wrong?” he asked when she slowed.
“You go on ahead. I’m taking it easy today.”
He matched her pace. “I can do easy.” As they passed a wrought-iron fence, he pointed at the lawn beyond. “One of my teams laid that a few weeks ago.”
“Very nice,” she panted insincerely.
“Not the best time for sowing grass, but the Colberts were adamant they want the best lawn on the street for the Fourth. Of course, so were the McIntoshes down the way. Who am I to deny anyone the lawn of their dreams?”
“You’re…a prince,” she managed to say.
He turned around and jogged backward while he surveyed her. “Pooped already?”
She shook her head.
He shrugged and turned the right way around. “I’d better call Mrs. Colbert this morning, tell her to get some water on that grass,” he mused, his tone as even and unhurried as if he was standing still.
“Why are you being so chatty?” Sadie snatched a breath before she continued. “You haven’t said this much to me ever.”
“I’m lulling you into a false sense of security before I start grilling you about Daniel.”
She grunted and put on a spurt of speed.
Trey waited until Sadie slowed down again—about half a minute—before he launched into the conversation he really wanted to have.
“So, you were dating the doctor.”
She stared straight ahead, mouth grim, cheeks flushed pink with exertion. They’d been running—if you could call it that—for about three minutes.
She shook her head, then nodded, then shook it again. “I thought we were dating,” she said. “Turns out we were just seeing each other.”
He scratched his head. “I’ve never understood how women can get that so wrong.”
She glared at him.
“Did you sleep with him?” Trey asked.
Sadie stopped running. “As if I would sleep with some one I wasn’t even dating.”
“You wouldn’t be the first to make that mistake.”
Her chest heaved. He couldn’t tell if it was emotion or exhaustion. Either way, it drew his attention to her figure, which, he admitted to himself for the tenth time since she’d arrived on Friday, was sensational from top to toe.
“You still like him,” Trey said, “even though he’s dating Meg.” He almost wished Daniel was here now, to see Sadie bright red, dripping perspiration.
“Of course I like him,” she said. “He’s intelligent, funny, charming, sensitive—”
He stuck a hand over her mouth, and whatever accolade she intended next came out a muffled “umph.”
“You like him too much,” he said calmly.
He felt a puff of breath against his palm. He dropped his hand.
“Meg’s with Daniel right now. I accept that,” she said.
“So you don’t plan to come between them?”
“Of course not.”
But he’d seen a flash of guilt in her eyes. “What are you planning?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me,” he demanded.
“Stop ordering me around. I’m not your sister.”
“Tell me, please,” he said. “Put my mind at rest, so I don’t have to warn Meg to be on her guard.”
She paled, which at least reduced the redness of her face. Then she said, “If anyone’s going to get hurt, it’s Daniel. And you know it.”
“Meg seems as serious as he does.”
She blew out a breath that would have lifted her bangs if they hadn’t been plastered to her forehead. “History suggests that in a couple of weeks, Meg will have moved on.”
“Ah, I get it.” He adopted a high voice, in imitation of her. “I know you’re upset, Daniel, but I’m here for you.” Caught up in his role-playing, he grabbed her hand and looked deeply, soulfully, into her eyes. She had nice fingers, even when they were sweaty. Nice eyes, too. The light hue reminded him of blue delphiniums.
She wrested her hand away. “Don’t be such a jerk.”
“Daniel dumps you for Meg, and you’ll take him back when she’s done with him. Don’t you think that’s kind of pathetic?” he asked.
She stiffened. “Scarlett O’Hara spent her whole life pursuing a man who’d chosen someone else, and she’s one of the strongest women in literature.”
He snorted. “As in, she’s not real. And if you’re suggesting your crush on Daniel compares with some Southern belle fighting to save her ancestral home from marauders…”
“Now you’re being pathetic.” Sadie poked his chest, which was just about the most annoying thing she could have done. “Look, Trey, you might think it’s pathetic to want Daniel after Meg breaks up with him, but I’m not used to being handed whatever I want. I don’t get to go through life flirting and smiling and having people favor me for my good looks.”
“Meg is your friend,” he reminded her, even though she’d neatly summed up some of the most irritating things about his sister.
“And I adore her. As does everyone else. With the possible exception of you.”
Damn, how had Sadie picked up on that, when he’d barely seen her in years? “Don’t try and deflect attention from your scheming,” he said.
“Meg gets an easy ride in lots of ways, but she’s had tough times, too, so I’d never begrudge her.” She was talking about his dad and Logan, Trey realized. “But if I have a goal, I expect to struggle to achieve it. I’m willing to put the work in. To go after what I want single-mindedly.” She paused. “Aggressively.”
“You’re too late. Daniel chose Meg.”
Sadie toed a crack in the sidewalk with her sneaker. “Of course Daniel is attracted to Meg. I’ve never met a man who wasn’t. But I deal in facts and logic, and the fact is, he and Meg have nothing in common.”
“Opposites attract,” he retorted. “Which makes them the ideal couple.” He didn’t exactly believe that, but even when Sadie had been a teenager, there’d been no room for pussyfooting. You had to come down hard with your opinion and stick to it through whatever obscure logic that brain of hers devised.
“I think he’s confused,” she said thoughtfully, as if Daniel was a seed under a microscope. “He’s at an age where it’s natural to think about a long-term relationship. But a part of him is rebelling against commitment. Subconsciously he’s choosing someone unsuitable, guaranteed not to work out.”
This wasn’t logic—this was denial on a global scale.
“Sadie, I don’t think Daniel is rebelling against commitment.”
Something flashed across her face. Fear? “I believe most men do at some stage,” she said with a hint of uncertainty. “Look at you, a classic example. Over thirty, by most women’s standards a hot guy—” the crinkle in her forehead made it plain she found most women’s taste questionable “—and still playing the field like super jock, according to your sister.”
“I’m not afraid of commitment. I have way too much commitment in my life. And Daniel’s not afraid, either.” Aware of his muscles cooling off and starting to stiffen, Trey began jogging.
Sadie trotted at his side. “Trey, it doesn’t matter which of them realizes first how unsuited they are, I’m certain this thing will end soon.” Conviction grew in her voice. “It would be pointless for me to hold it against Daniel forever that he’d once liked Meg.”
The sentiment went against Trey’s deepest belief: being second choice was no choice at all.
“I believe he and Meg are serious,” he said.
They ran in silence for a minute or two. As they turned the corner onto Arlington, they passed the Jones place. Where once there had been two tons of dirt and a tangle of scrub, there was now a flowing garden that invited people to linger among its colors and scents. It was one of Kincaid Nurseries’ biggest success stories, but it had almost been a disaster. After demanding several redesigns, Mrs. Jones had fired Kincaid’s because the company’s landscape designer “didn’t get it.” When Trey visited her to discuss the problem, it turned out he and Mrs. Jones were on the same horticultural wavelength. Although he wasn’t a landscape designer—most of his time was spent on the management side of the business rather than on the plants—they’d reworked the design together. The client had been delighted with the result.
Sadie stopped running. She steadied herself with a hand to the trunk of a maple tree; Trey could see a tremor in her calf muscles.
“Meg loves parties and travel. Daniel is sensible and responsible and settled,” she said when she’d caught her breath.
For someone who was convinced she was right, she was working awfully hard to prove her point.
“They have less in common than—than you and I do,” she continued.
“If you really want a boyfriend, wouldn’t it be simpler if you found someone else?” he asked. “Come on, Sadie, there must be other—”
“I don’t just like Daniel,” she blurted. “I love him.”
CHAPTER FIVE
SADIE CRINGED. Trey was staring at her as if she’d lost her mind.
Then one side of his mouth rose and he said, “I love Daniel, too.”
She stumbled on her shoelace and would have sprawled headlong if Trey hadn’t caught her.
“What did you say?” she demanded.
“Seems you and I have more in common than you thought.”
“What did you mean?” Because clearly he’d intended to put her off balance.
“Daniel is exactly what my sister needs,” he said. “What’s not to love?”
She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “I’ve had enough of your inane views. You can run a different way home.” She stepped off the curb.
Trey caught her hand. “I’m not done talking to you yet.”
“Too bad, because I’m done with you.” Her whole arm tingled. The overexertion was probably giving her a heart attack.
He tugged her backward, forcing her to step up onto the curb or trip over. “Come in here.” He indicated a white wooden gate set into a high fence.
Sadie shivered as perspiration cooled on her skin. “Quit ordering me around and quit dragging me.”
“Fine.” He folded his arms as if he might otherwise give in to his caveman instincts. “Please come into this garden with me, Sadie,” he said with excessive politeness.
“Why should I?”
“I don’t like arguing in the street. Mrs. Jones said I can show her garden to prospective clients anytime.”
“I’m not a client.”
“It’s a great garden,” Trey coaxed. “You’ll love it.”
He’d hit her soft spot. She might not be any good at growing plants, but she adored a beautiful garden.
And just maybe she was curious about why he thought Daniel and Meg would last.
Sadie stuck her chin in the air and preceded him through the gate. Then stopped.
“Oh, wow.” She gazed around the garden, scarcely hearing the clang of the gate closing behind her. A canopy of Japanese dappled willows. Crape myrtles. A redbud tree arcing over a pond filled with water lilies. It looked like a Monet painting, only better—impressionist art was too vague for her taste. “Trey, it’s gorgeous. Kincaid Nurseries designed this?”
“The concept was mine,” he said. “Our landscape architects refined it.”
“I didn’t know you were a designer.”
“I’m not,” he said. “How come you’re in love with Daniel? I thought your work overrode the urge to settle down like the rest of your siblings.”
Now that she’d stopped moving, every muscle in her body screamed. She sank onto the grass, ignoring the vestiges of dew. “You’re right that I’m not hanging out for the PTA meetings and the cupcake recipes,” she said. “But love isn’t something you plan. When you find someone special, you have to go for it.” She trailed her fingers through the pond water to find the waxy leaves of a water lily. “What if Daniel is the only man for me? My whole future could be at stake.”
“Sounds like your biological clock ticking,” he said, unimpressed. “You’re what, thirty?”
“Twenty-nine,” she said. “Same as Meg. And that stupid term was probably invented by some man afraid of commitment. Women are born with a fixed number of oocytes—egg cells to you—that decrease over forty years or so of fertility, starting around the age of twelve. Every woman’s biological clock is ticking, regardless of age.”
Trey wasn’t so easily distracted.
“Leave Meg and Daniel alone,” he said abruptly, sitting beside her.
She fingered the water lily. “I’m not doing anything wrong.”
“And stop mauling that lily.”
She bristled at the command, but stilled her fingers out of respect for the flower.
“It wouldn’t hurt to take a good look around before you decide Daniel is your fate, would it?” he asked. “There must be thousands of eligible males in Cordova alone, and you probably know half of them. Who did you date in high school?”
Sadie would have liked to reel off a list of teenage suitors, but the guys at her “genius school” were late starters, and back here in Cordova her flat chest and general shyness had meant most of Meg’s attempts to introduce her to local boys hadn’t worked out. “I dated Kevin McDonald at the end of senior year. The guy my parents bribed to take me to the Millennial Centennial dance after you turned me down.”
The turn of the millennium had also marked one hundred years of Cordova being called Cordova, after a succession of other names hadn’t stuck. The dance had crowned a week of Fourth of July celebrations and had been the biggest event in a generation.
Trey winced. “You’re not still steamed over that, are you? You only asked me to the dance because you were desperate.”
“You knew that?” she said, disconcerted.
He rolled his eyes. “You thought I’d believe my sister’s best friend, who clearly thought all football players were morons, had suddenly developed a crush on me?”
“I did think you were moron enough for that,” she admitted.
He laughed, his ego undented. “It wasn’t my fault your parents reacted by phoning all over town to find you a date. But back to the current desperate state of your love life—” He paused. “Hey, do you sense a recurring theme here?”
“Two repetitions are insufficient to form a pattern,” she said stiffly.
He grinned. “Here’s a thought. Kevin McDonald will be at Mom’s lunch today, and he’s divorced. A definite contender.”
“I can tell from that gleam in your eyes there’s something wrong with him.”
“Let’s just say that if you liked Kevin back then, there’s a whole lot more of him to like now.”
Trey could afford to scoff at someone else’s spreading bulk—he was still in great shape. Muscle corded his forearms, and his legs were lean and strong. Unlike her, he hadn’t broken a sweat on their run. Sadie peeled her tank away from her damp skin to admit some air. When she caught Trey watching, she dropped the fabric.
“Maybe Lexie Peterson has spread, too,” she suggested. Lexie had been one of Meg’s friends, a cheerleader, the perfect girlfriend for the quarterback. These days, she had her own party-planning business in Memphis.
“Lexie’s still hot, she emailed me photos recently.”
“Ew.”
“Swimsuit shots,” he said.
“I expect it’s her uniform for those pool parties she organizes,” Sadie said kindly. “Poor girl probably catches endless chills.”
He laughed. “I used to think you were boring, Sadie Beecham. Being thwarted in love suits you.”
Tears leaped to her eyes before she could banish them.
“Way to ruin a moment,” he said, disgusted. “Forget the doctor, cupcake.”
The cupcake jolted both of them. She stared.
“Figure of speech,” he explained.
“I knew that,” she said.
Trey stood. “Are we agreed you’ll stay away from Daniel?” He stuck out a hand; when she took it, he pulled her to her feet.
“Meg and Daniel are my friends, so I will continue to spend time with them,” Sadie said. “And I’ll be there for both of them when this thing ends.”
Trey growled.
Sadie brushed her hands against her shorts as she started back toward the road.
“I’ll be watching you at lunch today,” he said. “If you do anything to hurt Meg…”
“I wouldn’t!”
“Then why are you wearing sexy clothes?”
She glanced down at her tank, darkened by a damp patch between her breasts.
“At the barbecue last night,” he clarified. “You didn’t used to wear stuff like that.”
“You didn’t used to look. Those clothes weren’t new.”
“And when you arrived yesterday you gave me that flirty smile.”
“That fake smile,” she corrected. “I was putting on a cheerful face for my family.”
“You can trot out all the excuses you want,” he said. “I don’t believe you.” With his hand he applied pressure to the small of her back. “Come on, you’ve had a rest—time to run some more.”
She started to move. Her lungs protested immediately, her breath rasping.
Trey looked down at her in disgust. “I’d better get you home before you collapse.”
“If I do, Daniel can give me mouth-to-mouth,” she said, unable to stop herself from goading him.
“I’ll give you mouth-to-mouth,” he retorted.
His gaze alighted on her lips. Energy crackled in the air. Not the kind of energy her exhausted limbs needed.
“I meant if it should become medically necessary,” Trey said lightly.
Was it her imagination, or was he a little red in the face?
“Thanks, but Daniel’s better qualified,” she said.
His eyebrows drew together, all lightness gone. “Don’t mess with me, Sadie. If you don’t keep away from Daniel, I’ll warn him and Meg you’re in love with him.”
She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Probably because his threat had stopped her heart.
Before she could recover, he was gone, running effortlessly away from her.
TREY HAD JUST GOT off the phone from an orchid breeder in Florida on Monday morning—he was negotiating an exclusive agreement to sell the guy’s award-winning new orchid in Tennessee—when Daniel arrived in his office doorway.
“Dan, come in.” Trey went to shake his hand.
“Thanks.” The doctor took one of the vinyl seats that dated back to Trey’s dad. “Actually, I prefer to be called Daniel.”
“Sure.” Trey perched on the edge of his dad’s desk, a rough-hewn pine top mounted on two trestles. “Hope you don’t mind me asking you here, but I wanted to talk.”
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Abby Gaines
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: When did Sadie Beecham get those curves? She′d always been the geek next door, his baby sister Meg′s brainy best friend. Smart, sure. But hot? He never would have imagined it…before. Now, Trey Kincaid′s imagining all sorts of things. And none of them has to do with Sadie′s gifted mind.A mind, he discovers, she′s clearly lost. Because she thinks she′s in love with Meg′s fiancé. And that′s an obsession he′s determined to put an end to–one way or the other.