Lacey and Jeff had dated three months when they decided to tie the knot. Sofie kept quiet as long as she could, but at the cake tasting when she caught him flirting with the young, cute baker’s assistant, Sofie said something to Lacey. She cared too much about her older sister to let her be the butt of that butthead’s joke. But when she thought Lacey might appreciate the information, Lacey surprised Sofie by firing her on the spot.
Sofie wished she hadn’t lost her sister in the debacle. Especially since it was all for naught. Jeff did cheat on Lacey a week before the wedding and Lacey called the wedding off.
What Lacey didn’t realize—or wouldn’t admit—was that Sofie had acted out of love. She didn’t want to see Lacey hurt. After the split and the wedding was called off, Sofie took zero delight in being right about Jeff. She loved Lacey. She wished her sister could see that.
They’d since managed to make their way to the family dinner table, but the “damage,” as Lacey liked to call it, was done.
Across the table, Lacey tucked a perfectly straight piece of dark brown hair behind her ear and took a dainty bite of her food. She wore a snow-white shirt adorned with large silver, gold, and bronze circles sewn into a V at the neck, and designer jeans that skimmed her figure. Her earrings matched her bracelets. Her nails were professionally manicured. Perfection, as per her usual.
Not that Sofie was a slouch. She’d worn a lightweight striped shirt and a black skirt with her new black heels. Kinsley wore an enormous pair of fuchsia-glitter “stripper” heels, a scrap of a skirt that was way too short for Sylvia’s comfort, and a bright fuchsia T-shirt with a middle finger on it.
Twenty-two-year-old Kins liked to push their mother’s buttons. Sylvia, as of yet, had not taken the bait.
“Lacey, dear. You could save so much money if you let Sofie help you. And I can help. I used to make flower arrangements, you know. Artificial would be much more cost effective. We—”
Lacey cut her off. “Did you ever consider I don’t want either of you planning my wedding?” Every pair of eyes around the table went to her. “I mean… you’re both guests. I don’t want you to work.”
Minor correction: Sylvia was the mother of the bride. Sofie was a guest. Kinsley was a bridesmaid, along with Lacey’s four closest friends from college, for a total of five bridesmaids.
Five.
“Sofie’s not in the wedding, darling?” Sofie had overheard her mother ask Lacey over one family dinner past.
“You know how she feels about weddings,” Lacey had responded. “And anyway, all of Kenneth’s friends are dating the bridesmaids. Including Kinsley’s boyfriend, Mark. I can’t pair Sofe up there with someone else’s significant other. It wouldn’t be right.”
Now, chatter continued around the table while her father ate his dinner, head down, letting the women in the house filter through their own stuff. Sofie loved her father, loved that he worked hard, was dedicated to his wife and girls in every way, loved that he’d taught her how to ride a bike, and sneaked her out of bed one Christmas Eve to help eat the cookies left for Santa. But sometimes, she wished he saw how she was feeling. Wished he would interject on her behalf.
Sofie glanced over at Kins, who was slumped in her chair, texting.
“Darling?” Her mother addressed Sofie and changed the subject yet again. Conversations in the Martin household were like the fast-paced card game, War. Sentences were slapped down, then trumped by the highest rank. “Did you ever get a chance to go out with Scott Torsett? I ran into his mother at the bank yesterday. He’s still single, you know.”
Oh, here we go. Sofie gave her mother a patient smile. Like she hadn’t gotten around to it? Like that was the issue?
She felt Lacey’s smirk and Kinsley’s gaze on her.
“You know he’s a lawyer,” Sylvia continued.
With a sigh, Sofie put down her fork.
“Yes, I do know he’s a lawyer. His office is a few doors down from mine. We’ve… talked.” About Donovan, mostly.
“Delightful!” Yes, Sylvia Martin actually used the word delightful. “What have you been talking about?”
“Work stuff. I planned his Christmas party last year, and this year we have a client in common.”
A tall, dark, handsome client with a chip on his shoulder. And, so help her, a client her mother and sisters would never meet. She imagined Lacey would love to learn about Sofie’s biggest relationship pratfall.
“Well, I think that’s lovely. I don’t know why the two of you won’t go on a date. He’s single, you’re single…”
Sofie’s mind strayed to Donny. The feel of his lips on hers still made her shudder years later. She wondered if he was single. Doubtful. Back when they worked together, he hadn’t been taken, but she’d never seen him single, either…
“Yeah, Sofie,” Kinsley teased, egging their mother on. “You and Scott should go out. He’s a lawyer, you are a professional. You would have professional, event planner/lawyer babies.”
“I know what you’re doing, young lady,” Sylvia snapped at her youngest daughter.
Not missing a chance to put Kinsley in her place, Lacey spoke up next. “Yeah, Kins. Be supportive of your sister.” She sent a snarky smile over to Sofie. “I hear he’s a good kisser. He used to date my friend Trish.”
Great. If she did go out with Scott, it’d be like dating Lacey’s friend’s hand-me-down. Perfect.
“He’s cute, Sofie,” Lacey said.
Cute. True. But was that what she wanted? Is that what Lacey wanted for herself? What Kins wanted for herself? Would they settle for “cute”? Didn’t any of them long to feel primal attraction to someone? The undeniable physical pull to the opposite sex like a magnet to metal?
That’s what Sofie wanted. Maybe she was being too picky. Would explain why she was still single.
“If he’s so hot, why didn’t Trish stay with him?” she grumbled, picking at her monochrome food.
“Because Trish is a spaz,” Kinsley said.
Fact. Trish was a spaz.
Lacey’s mouth dropped open. “Trish is my best friend, Kins. She is not a spaz.”
The two started bickering. And they’re off.
While they argued, Sofie’s mind went to Donovan in the kitchen, towering over her, trying to intimidate her. Then she reached up to touch his face, and he fled the room like she was emitting some sort of noxious gas.
He suggested they stay out of each other’s way. She’d be doing better at that challenge if she stopped letting him into her brain fifteen times a day. She stabbed a brown-orange carrot, making a decision. The best way to keep thoughts of Donny Pate at bay—the best way to physically remind herself he was not a viable dating option—was to go out with someone else.
Her experience with men since Donovan had been less than noteworthy. Mostly, there’d been bad dates interspersed with shortish relationships leading to only a few horizontal mambos. None of them mind-blowing or remotely close to how intense it’d been with—
Nope. Don’t freaking go there.
Maybe dating Scott would be different. She pictured breezing into the mansion, taking a phone call from him and laughing loud and appreciatively at some witty thing he said. She imagined Donny’s pale eyes narrowing, his lashes closing in as he came to terms with the fact she’d moved on.
And she had moved on… hadn’t she?
Hmm. That question was worrisome. Mainly because she didn’t know the answer.
She tuned into her sisters, and her mother, who had joined the bickering.
“Scott is a great kisser. She could at least get a decent kiss,” Lacey was saying.
“How do you know?” Kins asked. “Did you kiss him?”
“I’d never!” Lacey pressed her nails to her neck, aghast. “I’m engaged.”
Kinsley shrugged. “Yeah, but for comparison’s sake. You know, before you lock in with one sex partner until the end of days.”
“Kinsley Abigail!” Sylvia scolded.
Patrick shift
ed uncomfortably, stood with his plate, and ambled into the kitchen. While he rinsed his dish in the sink, he sent Sofie a quick lift of his eyebrows. Sofie covered her mouth to stifle a small laugh.
“I’m merely looking out for Sofia,” Sylvia began her argument.
Enough was e-freaking-nough, already.
“I’ll go out with him,” Sofie blurted.
Her sisters and her mother slowly turned their heads in her direction.
She shrugged. What’d she have to lose?
“I’ll call him today. And see if he’s available for a drink.”
Maybe her insistence on waiting for the right spark was futile. She’d had that spark with Donovan—hell, had experienced an entire forest fire with the man. But while they’d burned hot and steady, the spark was snuffed the moment he drew out of her. Now, there was nothing left but embers.
Embers she’d no longer allow Donovan Pate to stoke.
CHAPTER SIX
Donovan propped his hands on his hips, unable to stop the scowl on his face from appearing. “How long were they there?”
Connor looked up from burying another plant of some sort in the ground. His eyes weren’t visible behind a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses, but his smile and the pair of dimples on each side of his face were. His abject glee made Donovan want to hit him. And he’d stopped fighting for fun a long time ago.
“Jealous?” Connor asked.
“Of what? An ex-pothead in a cheap suit?”
Connor returned his focus on the dirt. “Yeah, you’re jealous.”
Shit. He kind of was. What the hell was Scampi doing in public with Scott Torsett?
“Look, maybe they were talking business. It was just coffee.”
Just coffee could lead to something else.
A truck rumbled up the driveway and Connor stood. He motioned the truck to where he was working and the driver answered with a wave. “My mulch is here. You helping, or you gonna stand there and sulk a while longer?”
“I’ll get a shovel,” Donovan said, not bothering to argue. He was sulking. Sulking because Scampi was sweet and kind and not only bighearted but all-hearted. She had no business having coffee with a dipshit like Scott Torsett.
With anyone.
Deciding to shake it off, he stalked behind the house and across the backyard to the shed. As he opened the padlock keeping the doors shut, he heard a whine come from the other side. He dropped his hand from the door and peeked around the shed to see the same dog he’d seen skulking around the house the night he’d arrived. He hadn’t spotted it since and had assumed the mutt had gone back to wherever it called home. Guess not.
“Go on,” he said, raising his voice. “Get out of here.”
The dog wasn’t as big as he’d first thought, skinnier than he remembered. It whined again. Throwing his arms wide, he brought his hands together in a loud clap.
“Get!”
The dog’s back legs trembled, which made him feel like a jerk for yelling, then it turned and started to limp away. Its fur was matted, the white filthy, the brown patches filthier. Pale blue eyes turned back to Donovan before it took what appeared to be another painful step.
Great.
Just what he needed.
Lowering to his haunches, he looked left, right, then behind him. Connor was chatting with the driver and gesturing hither and yon, paying them no attention.
“Guess you’re my problem, then?” he asked the dog.
From this vantage point, he could tell by the lack of equipment she was a she.
“Come on.” He snapped his fingers and she turned, one paw hovering in the air, and studied him warily. He was getting the idea females didn’t like him much. Seven years without experience in that endeavor, he supposed.
Softening his voice, he tried again.
“Come on, dog. Let me look at your leg.”
He lowered his head, coming eye-to-eye with her, then remembered how that was a threatening posture and lowered his face. He watched her feet as she crept over, one limping step at a time. She stopped about a foot away, stretched her nose forward, and cautiously sniffed.
He lifted his hand and let her sniff there, too. She did, the look in her eyes so forlorn, it cut him a little.
“See? Harmless,” he said of himself.
He scratched her under the chin, petted the front of her chest. He’d read somewhere dogs didn’t like to be patted on the head any more than humans, so he tried to respect her boundaries.
She responded by taking two steps closer. Running a hand down her flank, he felt ribs, a lot of them. A wad of white hair came out in his palm and he wondered if the amount of shedding was due to malnutrition, or because summer was coming. Either way, she needed brushing and was likely undernourished.
No collar, either. “Whose are you?”
She crept closer, nudging his other hand with a wet, black nose. After he stroked her coat a few more times, he risked inspecting the paw she’d been favoring. Sure enough, a jagged cut slashed across one pad. He couldn’t tell until he cleaned the wound if there was anything in it, or if it was a clean cut. She wasn’t actively bleeding, which meant the gash could be surface. To keep infection away, he’d have to pour some peroxide or alcohol on it.
Which would hurt like a bitch.
He knew all too well. The phantom sting of the burn echoed in his memory. How many times had he patched himself up after his father laid into him? Too many times. Made him somewhat of an expert at cleaning and dressing wounds, though knowledge of scar prevention had come later. A little too late, he thought as he looked at the star tattoo on his index finger. Most of his scars showed through the ink if anyone bothered to look closely. Most people didn’t.
“My loss, your gain,” he told the dog, giving her another scratch. She would have done better wandering into a veterinarian’s backyard, but he guessed he was the second best choice.
“You found the right guy.” Go figure.
Now to get her into the house. The back door was a good thirty yards from the shed. If he waited to coax her inside a few inches at a time, it’d take all day. He’d have to carry her. For several minutes, he sat on the ground and stroked her, talking to her gently and earning more palms full of fur for his efforts. She began to trust his touch more and more.
Shockingly, when he stood to his full height she didn’t bolt, and even more shockingly, when he bent to lift her, an arm under her rump and one under her chest, she let him.
The bones protruding from her wasting body pressed against his chest. Poor thing. Hungry. Dirty. Bleeding. And at first, he had tried to scare her away.
His heart lurched.
She whined against him as he approached the back patio door.
“I know, girl,” he soothed as he carried her into the utility room and closed the door behind him.
Minutes later, he hunched over the shower with a sliding door in the utility room, dunked a cup into a bucket he’d filled with warm water and poured it over the shaking, skinny dog.
She was thin, hungry, and now that her foot was wet, bleeding heavily. A trail of red swirled off her paw and down the drain. He’d be quick about the bath, then bandage her.
Then what, he had no idea.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Maybe I should have called him first,” Sofie mumbled as she checked her rearview mirror. “Not that I have his phone number.”
She could have gotten Donny’s number from Scott, she supposed. But she didn’t want to call Scott and ask for it since they’d sort of gone on a date.
That would be awkward.
Behind her, Ruby Voss followed in a candy-apple red Audi convertible.
“Hey, Donny is the one who gave you a key to his house,” Faith said from the passenger seat. “If he didn’t want you to show up, he shouldn’t have given it to you.”
“I know, but I don’t think he expected me to bring the director of Open Arms over to see the house before it was done.”
Ruby Voss called this morni
ng asking a million questions about the ballroom, the overall setup, and the grounds, which, thanks to Donovan’s muttered “fine,” they were now able to use for the kids’ campout. When Ruby asked to make a site visit, Sofie, flustered, said, “No problem!”
There was a problem, however—Pate Mansion had a lot of acreage. Connor was one man. She hoped he had enough time to get the backyard ready.
When she’d expressed her concern, Ruby had replied, “Sofie, dear, you’re talking to a woman who realizes things are not perfect. Often, things are downright abysmal.”
Point taken.
Sofie parked in the driveway, watching Ruby do the same.
“Hey, how was your day date with Scott?” Faith unbuckled her belt. “You never mentioned it.”
Sofie twisted her lips. What she wanted to say was “nothing special” but that wasn’t exactly fair considering they spent all of twenty minutes over coffee at Cup of Jo’s. So, she answered, “Fine.”
She could feel her friend’s dubious expression without looking.
“Wow, don’t overwhelm me with your enthusiasm.”
“What am I supposed to say?”
“Did he ask you out again?”
Immediately. They had a halfway decent conversation in the short time they spent together, one he concluded with, “Have dinner with me.” She said yes, and told Faith as much.
Faith gave her a playful slap on the arm. “You and your secrets! I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you have a date tonight! Moving on is good.”
She didn’t know if Faith was talking about herself and moving on from Michael, or if she was talking about Sofie moving forward with a second date. With a lawyer.
A successful lawyer. It was fairly exciting, she supposed.
“Just be careful,” Faith said, her voice going hard. “They don’t always seem like the cheating kind at first. That comes later.”
Said experience.
She thought of her sister’s first fiancé. Sometimes, though, they showed their true colors right away.
“Sorry, sweetheart.” Sofie sent her friend a small smile.
Rescuing the Bad Boy Page 8