by Linda Seed
She looked at him, at the way he was sprawled comfortably in her living room, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his arms spread along the back of the sofa, and she felt a genuine, warm bloom of affection. She loved him, she really did.
She just didn’t love him the way he needed her to. If she could have, she would have. God, it would have made things so much easier if she could just marry him, have his babies, live on the Delaney Ranch for the rest of her days in comfort, with a clear view of her place in the world.
She just couldn’t do it—and if she tried, it wouldn’t be fair to either one of them.
“Hey, Liam? I’m pretty tired. I think I’m just going to call it a night.” They’d gone to dinner at Robin’s and then had come back here, and from the looks of him, he intended to stay awhile. But right now, she just wanted to be alone, wanted to watch TV in her sweatpants and not think about the state of her love life.
“Yeah, I’m pretty tired, too,” he said agreeably. He got up and headed toward the bedroom.
“Um … Liam?”
“Yeah?” He turned back toward her.
“I think I’m going to just … you know. Sleep alone tonight. If it’s okay. I’ve got an early morning.”
And, oh, the look on his face. He looked like a kid who’d just opened the Christmas present he’d always wanted, and then had learned that it was intended for someone else.
He rallied admirably, though.
“Oh. Sure. Call me tomorrow?”
“I will.”
He went to kiss her, and she offered her cheek. And if he couldn’t read that one—couldn’t see that it meant trouble—then he wasn’t really trying.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. Yeah. I’m just ...”
“Tired,” he supplied.
“I am.”
“Well … call me.” He went out the front door and closed it behind him. When he was gone, she exhaled in relief.
If she weren’t such a wimp, she could fix this. Could let him go, so he could find someone who really did want all of the things he wanted.
After the wedding. I’ll wait until after the wedding, but no longer.
She scrubbed at her face with her hands, then felt Mr. Wiggles rubbing against her pant leg.
“He’s gone, you can get back on the sofa,” she told him.
The fluffy white cat leaped up onto the cushions, turned around a few times, and curled up into a ball of fur, purring contentedly.
Megan wished there were something or someone in her life that could make her purr like that.
Chapter Two
The trip was miserable. Drew was crammed into a tiny seat through three flights, with stops in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Eddie yowling in his carrier under the seat most of the way, earning Drew the scornful looks of his fellow passengers.
He could have paid for first class since receiving his inheritance—he could have paid for a private jet. But he’d been raised middle-class, raised to look for the best deal, to go for the bargain.
Old habits.
Drew had a trim build, so he avoided the dreaded spill-over into his seatmates’ space, but he was also tall, so his knees pressed uncomfortably against the seatback in front of him all the way from Canada to California.
By the time he got to the airport in San Luis Obispo, he was tired, grumpy, and not in the best frame of mind to consider the rigors of Wedding Week.
He got his rental car, piled his luggage into it, maneuvered out onto the road, and took the first opportunity to pull over briefly near a patch of grass where Eddie could stretch his legs and pee.
Wedding Week had been his mother’s idea, he’d be willing to bet his sizable net worth on it.
Julia was a down-to-earth woman, and her fiancé, Colin Delaney, had never struck Drew as the kind of guy who would care about putting on a showy wedding. But Isabelle? Well, that was a different story.
Drew and Julia’s mother wasn’t materialistic—not exactly. Hell, she probably could have maneuvered her way into marrying a billionaire back when she’d conceived Drew with a very rich man who was not her husband. But she hadn’t done it, opting instead to preserve her marriage to the man she’d vowed to love until death.
So, it wasn’t that.
If she was behind Wedding Week—and he was certain that she was—it was more likely to be about how the Delaneys would perceive her. She wanted to be a driving force behind this event, and not someone who, for the second time, had been marginalized by a powerful family.
And, God, how much nerve had that taken? Who was she to the Delaneys? She was the woman Redmond Delaney had enjoyed a secret affair with back in the day—an affair that had resulted in Drew’s birth. How hard must it have been for her to push her way forward now, all these years later, to assert her place in the family order?
He almost had to admire it. Or, he would have, if it didn’t mean he’d have to spend an entire week with his biological family—who were also about to become Julia’s in-laws.
Drew’s relationship with the Delaneys was problematic at best. The Delaney family’s attitudes toward him ranged from acceptance (Sandra) to neutrality (Breanna) to benign condescension (Colin) to outright hostility (Liam).
Of course, Drew himself hadn’t helped matters. When he’d learned that Redmond had left him a fortune, he’d traveled to Cambria to meet the family he’d never known. He’d gone into the thing with the attitude that the Delaneys had rejected him, had denied his existence and had shut him out from the time of his birth.
The truth was more complicated. Drew’s biological father had never claimed him, that much was true. But the rest of the family had been as surprised about Drew’s existence as he’d been about theirs.
Still, anger had a way of spilling over onto anyone within range, and Drew’s anger had oozed thickly onto every Delaney he met.
To put it simply, he’d been kind of an asshole to them.
Now he had to go out there and make nice for his sister’s sake. He’d do it for her, but that didn’t mean he was going to like it.
He drove the rental car up Highway 1 toward Cambria, the vast, blue ocean to his left, the rolling hills to his right, their waist-high grass baked golden by the summer sun.
The temperature reading on the car’s dashboard said seventy-two degrees. Seagulls soared overhead, cawing in the breeze.
This stretch of the Central Coast was beautiful, he could admit that.
And now he owned a sizable part of it, a fact that, two years later, he was still struggling to comprehend.
When Redmond Delaney had died, Drew had been dead-ass broke, dodging creditors and avoiding debt collectors, barely able to pay his rent or buy food.
So it had been surreal to learn that Redmond had left him a large percentage of his estate—a fortune so vast and varied, including cash, land, investments, and shares in the family corporation, that Drew could barely conceive of the scope of it.
This turn of events had been a lot to cope with—so Drew had coped mostly by trying not to think about it.
He’d paid off his debts and had bought a new truck for cash, but otherwise, the money and assets had mostly just sat there, appreciating at a dizzying rate. Colin—Drew’s future brother-in-law—had urged him to get a financial adviser, to educate himself about money management, to talk to a lawyer. Hell, to do anything other than what he was doing, which was nothing.
But every time Drew tried to think about what his first step should be, he felt paralyzed. So, he continued to live in the same rental cottage on Salt Spring Island where he’d lived when the news had come. He continued to fly economy class. He continued to buy two-for-one cans of beans at the grocery store.
The only thing that had changed, really, was the way other people treated him.
Since news of his wealth had broken a couple of years before, he’d gotten a constant stream of phone calls, e-mails, and even in-person visits from people who wanted things. The kinds of p
eople they were and the kinds of things they wanted varied, but it all came down to the same thing.
Money.
His ex-wife wanted to get back together. Financial advisers wanted him to invest with them. Luxury car and boat salesmen wanted to sell him things. Distant relatives wanted loans. Charities wanted donations. People he hadn’t seen or heard from since he was a kid wanted to rekindle friendships.
And Drew had sealed himself inside a protective bubble, no longer knowing what to think or who to trust.
It had occurred to him more than once that maybe the Delaneys could help him, if he’d let them. They’d been dealing with the responsibilities of unimaginable wealth for generations. By now, they probably had some idea how to do it.
As he drove over the boundary into Cambria, the highway lined with towering, green pines, he wondered if maybe he shouldn’t put his awkwardness and resentment aside and reach out to the Delaneys, since he was here anyway.
There might be something to that idea, if he could set aside his defensiveness, his anger, his hurt at having been lied to his entire life.
It was probably time.
He took the exit for Moonstone Beach, found the pet-friendly hotel where he’d made his reservations, and pulled into the parking lot. The place was across a two-lane road from the beach, and he was greeted by the sound of the pounding waves and the smell of salt air.
The sky was a flawless blue, and tourists walked in pairs along the wooden boardwalk across the road, atop the craggy bluffs that hugged the beach.
It wasn’t exactly a hellhole, and it seemed to Drew that it might be hard to keep his pissy attitude going in a place like this.
He lifted the cat carrier out of the car and went to get checked in.
When Megan finally did break up with Liam, she knew that part of her would miss him. But an even bigger part of her was going to miss his family.
Like his sister, Breanna, for instance.
“Whose genius idea was Wedding Week, anyway?” Breanna demanded as she and Megan were checking the final plans for the bachelorette party. “Why would anybody want a wedding to last a whole damned week? It should be one day—two, tops. Vows, food, cake, and you’re out of there.”
Breanna, who’d been enlisted to help with a whole slew of wedding and pre-wedding tasks, looked frazzled, and she shoved her thick, dark hair away from where it had fallen into her eyes.
“But the bachelorette party’s going to be fun, don’t you think?” Megan said.
Breanna wrinkled her nose in thought. “Yeah, it will be. Even if we’re not having strippers.”
The question of strippers vs. no strippers had been debated, batted around, and analyzed by pretty much all of the women involved, before Julia, the bride, had come down on the side of discretion and good taste. Megan, herself, could have gone either way, but Breanna had lobbied hard for men in G-strings, and the loss had been a difficult blow.
But that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be plenty of alcohol and humiliation. They’d booked Ted’s, a dive bar a block off of Main Street, for a private party that would include catered food, an open bar, a dart tournament, and, once everyone was drunk enough to release their inhibitions, karaoke.
“I swear to God, if I can’t have strippers, then I’m at least going to get my mom to sing,” Breanna declared, and the thought made Megan smile.
Sandra Delaney, matriarch of the family, was known more for her ill-tempered grousing than for singing. The idea of her standing in front of the crowd, microphone in hand, belting out the theme song from Titanic was almost enough to lift Megan out of her sour mood.
The mood hadn’t escaped Breanna’s notice, and she gave her friend a pointed look as the two of them sat at the kitchen table at Megan’s house, lists of guests and plans for the party spread out in front of them amid two tall, sweating glasses of iced tea.
“I know what’s up with me,” Breanna said. “I’m dreading Wedding Week. But what’s up with you?”
What could Megan say? How could she tell Breanna that she’d be breaking up with Liam as soon as the festivities were over? Breanna liked Megan, but she loved her brother. It wasn’t hard to imagine which one of them would get Breanna in the wake of the split.
“I just … It’s nothing,” Megan said. She didn’t sound convincing, even to herself.
“Bull,” Breanna said. “It’s something, and I can guess what. My brother’s been acting like an ass again. What did he do this time?”
Megan wanted to hold back, wanted to avoid getting into this. But the fact was, Breanna was pretty much her best friend here in Cambria. Before she could stop herself, Megan was spilling everything about her feelings, her fears—and her plans to end the relationship.
“It’s not that he’s done anything. He hasn’t. Things have been fine. They’re … fine.” She doodled on the corner of the guest list with a pen to avoid making eye contact with her friend.
“But?” Breanna prompted her.
“But … I’m tired of ‘fine.’ ”
Breanna raised her eyebrows and focused on Megan silently for a moment. Then she said, “This is a wine discussion, not an iced tea discussion.” She got up, went to Megan’s refrigerator, and hunted around inside. She emerged with an unopened bottle of Chardonnay. “Thank God you’re prepared,” she remarked. She found a corkscrew, opened the bottle, poured two glasses, and brought them back to the table.
“Okay, now tell me what you meant by being tired of ‘fine.’ ”
Megan knew she should filter herself, because this was Liam’s sister, his family. But little by little it all came out: the way the relationship had progressed too fast when Liam had moved to Cambria from Montana to be with her when they’d only been dating for a few months; the way Sandra just seemed to assume that Megan and Liam would eventually get married; the way Liam seemed pissed off all the time, but wouldn’t talk about it with Megan; and most of all, the way she couldn’t feel the magic.
When Megan and Liam had first met, through her work treating some of the animals on the Delaney Ranch, she’d thought she felt something—some spark of lightning in her blood that said they were right for each other. But more and more, she wondered if maybe she’d imagined it. Maybe she’d just wanted it to be right so much that she’d manufactured an electric charge that wasn’t there.
She loved Liam, in her way, but he was just a good man. He wasn’t magic—at least, not for her. And she was afraid that if she didn’t do something soon, she was going to end up married to him, stuck in a relationship that wasn’t working for her, just going along with the expectations and the momentum. And she couldn’t let that happen.
When she finished, she felt the hot sting of tears behind her eyes, and she took a slug of Chardonnay to chase the feeling away.
“Well, damn it,” Breanna said.
“Yeah,” Megan agreed.
Breanna didn’t say anything else for a while, and Megan wondered which way it would go. Would Breanna turn cold and accuse her of setting out to break Liam’s heart? Would she accuse Megan of being selfish or unfaithful, of being shallow or somehow not good enough for her brother?
If that happened, well, Megan supposed it was just something she’d have to deal with. It would hurt to lose her friend, but if it was going to happen, it might as well happen now rather than later.
“How long have you felt this way?” Breanna said.
“A while.”
“So, you’re going to break up with him.” Breanna fixed her gaze on Megan’s face.
“I … yeah. I have to.”
Breanna sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Well, you’re going to have to wait until after the wedding. Otherwise …”
“I know. Otherwise, Liam will be hurt and pissed off, and we’ll still be forced to go through Wedding Week together, and Colin and Julia’s big event will be all about me and Liam.”
“That pretty much sums it up,” Breanna agreed. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and he’ll hit on one of the weddi
ng guests.”
“He won’t,” Megan said. Liam was a lot of things—temperamental, volatile, impulsive and emotional—but he wasn’t a cheater. Liam Delaney was loyal, and he was honorable. Breaking up with him would have been so much easier if he hadn’t been.
“No, he won’t,” Breanna agreed.
They both thought about that, the gloom of impending heartache in the air between them.
“If you can’t be my friend anymore after this, I’ll understand, but … but I hope …”
Megan couldn’t say the rest. Emotion was cutting off her words.
“Well, this sucks, because I really wanted you to be my sister-in-law,” Breanna said, wiping one fat tear from her own cheek. “But you’re always going to be my friend. Just … This sucks, that’s all.”
“It does.”
Bobby, sensing that Megan was upset, got up on his hind legs and put his front paws on her leg, letting out a little whine. She scratched between his ears.
“Now, let’s get back to what’s important,” Breanna said. “How are we going to get my mom drunk so she’ll sing Copacabana?”
Chapter Three
Drew had hoped to have a quiet evening to himself before he had to deal with the Delaneys. But he hadn’t been at the hotel more than an hour before Julia called with the first of many Wedding Week obligations.
She swore that wasn’t what it was, but if it quacked like a duck and walked like a duck, Drew knew better than to think it was a giraffe.
“It’s not a big deal. It’s just dinner with the family,” she insisted. She said the family as though it were a simple matter that they were not only her own future in-laws, but Drew’s relatives as well.
His part in it hadn’t caught up yet with what was in his head and his heart. He knew he’d have to get there eventually, for his own good as well as everyone else’s, so he let out a long breath and resigned himself to having a meal with them.
“Just dinner with the family?” he said.