She smiled. A satisfied, seductive smile. “It’s a start.”
It most certainly was.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from CATCHING HER RIVAL by Lisa Dyson.
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CHAPTER ONE
ALLIE MILLER’S MOTHER was of the mindset that lives were meant to be lived in pairs.
“What about that nice boy you’ve been seeing?” her mother whispered between bites of spinach salad. “I’m sure he’d love to be your date for your brother’s wedding.”
How had she ended up seated next to her mother at this ridiculous bridal luncheon for Allie’s soon-to-be sister-in-law? She answered through clenched teeth. “I told you, Mom, we broke up.”
“This is a special occasion.” Her mother brushed a crumb from the mint-green sleeve of her suit jacket. “Surely you can put your feelings aside and get along for one day?”
Tough to invite the guy to a wedding or anywhere else when he’s currently in federal prison.
Her mother didn’t need to know that, though. Moreover, she didn’t need to know that Allie had nearly ended up in an adjoining cell.
“I don’t need a date for Scott’s wedding.” She softened her tone. “I mean, if I don’t have to worry about entertaining a date, then I can be of more help behind the scenes, right?”
Her mother’s scowl was all the answer Allie needed. She turned to the sister of the bride sitting on her other side. “So what do you do?” She didn’t recall her name other than it was something like Hope or Charity or Faith.
The young woman, who looked to be close to Allie’s age of twenty-nine, said, “Well, I’m married to a wonderful man, and we have three little girls.” Her mouth twisted as if she had to pull the information from deep within her brain. “I’m the room mother for my kindergartener, I teach an adult Sunday school class and I’m learning to coupon.”
“Coupon?” Isn’t that the discount code you apply when you order shoes online? What is there to learn?
“Yes, I’m studying several websites to learn how to save money using coupons.” Her excitement grew as she spoke. “Last week our grocery bill was only twenty-two dollars and ninety-one cents.”
“Please, share your secret!” The woman seated directly across the table joined the conversation, asking the bride’s sister multiple questions. Allie gave a silent thanks to her for providing the opportunity to exit the conversation.
She didn’t care how the woman saved so much money by couponing. Allie was too busy keeping her newly formed advertising agency afloat. Buying laundry detergent at a discount wouldn’t help her pay the rents on her small office in downtown Providence, Rhode Island, and her apartment.
She ate her salad quietly. They were in the smallest of the private dining rooms at a Newport restaurant. She hadn’t been to Newport in years, even though it was only about forty-five minutes from where she lived and worked.
The walls were a golden oak, and a stained-glass window on the wall at the end of the table muted the room’s lighting. The white linen tablecloth touched the floor. The table was set with fine ivory china and etched crystal, accented by pink napkins and matching roses in small vases. Of course the roses were pink. What other color would a traditional June bride choose?
Despite her soon-to-be sister-in-law’s penchant for everything girlie, including marriage and raising a family, Allie really did like her. Emily was personable and smart, and she made Scott very happy.
He was the youngest of her four siblings and the last to marry. Scott and her sister, Rachael, had been adopted from China, her older brothers from Russia, and Allie herself from the United States.
Allie looked around the table. She was surrounded by women like Emily. Women who were married or engaged to be married. Women who probably thought they needed their other half to complete them.
That would never be Allie. She’d thought like them at one time, but not anymore. Yes, she knew men had their uses, but even great sex wasn’t worth the trade-off. In Jimmy’s case, that trade-off had been the threat of prison.
Jimmy had promised everything would be fine. He’d told her there was no need for her to worry about getting the account. Said he had the client wrapped around his little finger. Now he was behind bars and Allie had almost ended up there, too.
“Allison, dear.” Her mother never shortened her name. Allie had been named after her mother’s Aunt Allison, who would never have answered to a shortened version of her name. “Would you please pass the water pitcher?”
She refilled her mother’s glass.
“It really is a shame you’ll be coming to the wedding alone.” Her mother’s disappointed tone was one Allie had heard regularly over the years, but she couldn’t give in.
She was definitely off men. No other half, no soul mate, no partner for life.
No ball and chain.
* * *
JACK FLETCHER READ the details on the wedding invitation again. He’d replied six weeks ago to say he’d be there with his girlfriend.
Brenda had been his ex-girlfriend for several weeks now, but he hadn’t yet let his cousin Emily know that he’d be coming alone to her wedding. It wasn’t as if he thought he’d get back together with Brenda. He’d merely forgotten. Work had been his priority.
The break-up had been a mutual decision. And in truth, theirs wasn’t what most people would call a real relationship. More like just having fun. But it turned out Brenda was anxious to have a domestic life in the suburbs with kids and a minivan—he wasn’t. End of story, as well as of their short-lived time together.
He focused on the invitation. The wedding was tomorrow. Too late to tell his cousin there would be one fewer guest at the reception. She’d probably already given the caterer a head count. And he knew better than to upset a bride right before her big day. As kids, he and Emily had been close, but they had grown apart somewhat as adults. It would be nice to see her again.
He could ask someone else to go with him, but most women would take an invitation to his family wedding as a precursor to a relationship. Or at least a second date.
He refilled his coffee cup and stepped out onto the front porch of his home, located in The Point neighborhood of Newport. He enjoyed the warm June breeze and the sight of fresh potted flowers on several porches and window boxes up and down his street. Forsythia had turned almost completely from yellow blooms to green leaves, and the hydrangeas were about to bloom.
He never thought he’d be happy in anything but a high-rise apartment in downtown Providence, close to where he worked at his grandfather’s advertising agency, but here he was. He’d bought the property a little over a year ago as an investment, expecting to fix it up and rent it out. Somewhere along the way, he’d begun spending nights at the house, away from work pressures. Before he could change his mind, he’d given up his Providence condo and moved to Newport.
“Hi, Jack.”
He hadn’t seen Charlotte Harrington sitting on her porch on the other side of the narrow street.
“Hey, Charlotte, what’s up?”
“Not much.” She gave him a sad smile, wiping what he assumed was a tea
r from her cheek. She’d lost her mother less than a year ago, not long before she moved in. She’d been raised an only child and had recently experienced her first Mother’s Day since her mom’s death. It had hit Charlotte hard.
Jack had met her when she bought her house. Charlotte was an artist, he’d discovered, and a somewhat successful one according to what he’d read on the internet.
“What are you working on?” Jack called out as he descended the side steps from his porch, crossed the street and ascended hers.
“A new project,” she said softly, closing her laptop and setting it on the floor next to her rocking chair. “I told you I’m adopted, right?”
At his nod, she continued. “I never had the urge to track down my biological parents, but lately I’ve been thinking that I should at least find out my medical history.”
Her adoptive mother had died of pancreatic cancer. He figured that must be an unrelenting motivator.
Jack nodded. “Any luck?”
She shrugged. “I just started this morning. ‘The first day of the rest of my life’ and all that.” Her mouth twitched ever so slightly, and she tucked her chin-length dark hair behind one ear.
“Sounds like a step in the right direction.”
“I guess so. Want to sit?” She pointed to the rocker that matched hers.
He pulled out his cell phone to check the time. “Sure, I have a few minutes before my conference call.”
“You’re working from home today?”
“Kind of. After the call, I’m going to visit my grandfather in Providence. He’s in the hospital.”
“Oh, no. Is it serious?”
“I’m not sure.” He sipped his coffee, placed it on the table between their rockers and sat down. “He was admitted with heart problems. That’s all I really know. I’m hoping to get more detailed information when I’m there in person.”
“This is the grandfather you work for?” She drank from her plastic tumbler. Even her careful movements screamed grief stricken.
He nodded. His granddad had started the advertising firm forty-five years ago, and Jack was expected to take over the reins one day.
“Tell me about this search,” he said. “How do people find their biological parents?”
Jack felt comfortable asking Charlotte these rather personal questions. The two of them had become friends the day she moved in. He’d come home from work exhausted and there she had been, sitting in the same rocking chair as now on an unusually warm fall day, enjoying a beer from the bottle. From across the street she’d offered him one, before asking if he knew anything about plumbing. So he’d taught her how to replace the insides of a toilet and get it to stop running constantly. She, in turn, always had a cold beer ready for him.
“I don’t really know yet. I’ve been reading websites that explain how to start the search. They say things like, ‘Ask your adoptive parents about the adoption agency or lawyer they went through.’ I wish I could. Mom went so quickly that I never had a chance to bring up the subject. And until recently, I never even thought about finding my biological parents. But after losing my mom to cancer, I really need to know what might be in store for me, medically speaking. Not only for me, but for any children I might have.”
“Sounds like a good idea. Did your mom have a file or anything where she might have kept that information?”
Charlotte’s eyebrows rose. “Good point. I haven’t been through everything yet. She saved every piece of paper that came her way. There are boxes and boxes to go through. I’ll look for an adoption file next.”
He’d never had a woman friend before, but he enjoyed Charlotte’s company. He felt strangely brotherly toward her—a novelty since, like her, he’d been raised as an only child.
Charlotte wasn’t anywhere close to the type of woman he dated. And even if there had been a slight hint of sexual attraction between them, he certainly wouldn’t get involved with a neighbor. How awkward would it be when they stopped seeing each other?
Luckily Charlotte wasn’t the type to make assumptions... Suddenly he had a brilliant idea. Charlotte needed cheering up and he needed a plus one. “What are you doing Saturday?”
Her eyes narrowed. “This Saturday? Like tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “Are you free?”
“That depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“It depends on why you’re asking me if I’m free on Saturday.” She folded her hands on her lap, waiting for him to explain.
“I need a date for my cousin’s wedding.” He held up a hand. “Not really a date. A plus one.”
“You’re asking me with one day’s notice?” She cocked her head and waited for him to continue.
He let out a breath. “A few weeks ago, when I sent back the RSVP, I told Emily—my cousin—that I’d be bringing a date. You remember I was dating Brenda, right?”
Charlotte coughed to cover her laugh. “Oh, yeah, I remember Brenda.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. Tell me.”
She hesitated. “Well, she was just a little too much for me.”
“Too much?”
“She wasn’t real, personality-wise. She was one person with you and quite another when you weren’t around.”
He thought about it for a second. “Go on.”
“Did she ever tell you to stay away from me?”
“Stay away from you?” He scratched his head. “No. Why would she do that?”
“That’s what she said to me. She made it very clear that I was not supposed to have anything to do with you. Although I’m not surprised that she never brought it up with you.”
This time he was the one cocking his head. “She told you to stay away from me?”
Charlotte nodded. “I don’t think she understood that our relationship is friendly, neighborly. She saw me as a threat.”
He chuckled. “Do me a favor. Next time you meet someone I’m dating, please let me know stuff like that. I would have dropped her sooner if I’d known she had such a jealous streak. That trait, along with the dominant domestic gene, are a deadly combination.”
They laughed together, trading stories of past dating disasters. He was glad to see Charlotte smile.
“So will you go to my cousin’s wedding with me?” he asked. “Anyone else I bring will expect a second date.”
She winked at him. “I guess this means I’m off the hook for any other time you need a plus one.”
“No, no! I didn’t mean—” He glimpsed the twinkle in her eye that was rarely seen. “You’re teasing.”
“Of course I am.” She sipped her drink. “I’d love to go. I barely leave the house since I work at home. This will be good for me.”
He was glad she saw it that way. “Great! We’ll have fun. I’ll make sure of it.” He checked the time on his cell phone and got up from the rocker. “I better go make that conference call. I’ll email you the wedding details.” He picked up his coffee cup.
“Sounds good.” She rose, as well. “I’m going to go dig out Mom’s old files that I haven’t been through yet and then figure out what to wear on our nondate.”
He smiled. As he turned and went down the steps, he saw her sketch pad propped against the porch railing. The ocean was churning and the sky was dark, as if a storm was brewing. He turned back and asked Charlotte, “Is this yours?” At her nod, he said, “It’s so different—darker—from what you’ve done in the past.”
She nodded, her expression thoughtful. “No matter how much I try, I just can’t seem to make myself use color in any of my art these days. I’m drawn to charcoal, as if my world is black and white.”
He considered her statement a moment and said in a terrible British acce
nt, “I take that as a challenge, my lady.” He swept off a pretend hat and bowed in the middle of the street, as if he were a prince and she his princess-to-be. “Until tomorrow...”
She smiled, giving him hope that someday soon she would be the happy person he knew she could be.
He gave her a little wave and a wink. “See you later,” he called, and he took his porch steps two at a time.
* * *
SATURDAY MORNING DAWNED bright with sunshine, but Allie’s mood didn’t match the weather. Morning had come too quickly after her late night, and she craved a few more hours of sleep. But no, her mother was adamant Allie have her hair done with the other girls. She wasn’t in the wedding party, thanks to some fast-talking when her sister-in-law-to-be brought it up. Allie was merely a reader at the ceremony. Regardless, her mother had insisted on her presence at several wedding-party functions.
Allie had attended the rehearsal last night like a good little girl, followed by a catered dinner at the Chinese Tea House on the Bellevue House grounds. Thanks to the bride’s parents, who were members of the preservation society, Emily and Scott would have their wedding reception at Bellevue House, one of Newport’s glamorous, historic mansions, recently donated and restored for members’ functions. And getting married at St. Mary’s Church, the same church as John and Jackie Kennedy, wasn’t too shabby, Allie supposed.
If you were into weddings, that is.
After the rehearsal dinner, Allie spent hours working on her presentation for the client who could rescue her advertising agency. She had a meeting scheduled for Monday, and there was too much preparation necessary to do it all on Sunday. Now she wasn’t quite done, but she’d gotten far enough along to be able to enjoy her brother’s big day.
After a group breakfast with the females in the wedding party, Allie was getting her hair washed and “done” at Crystal’s Salon and Spa. Allie wasn’t sure what the “spa” part of the title meant. There didn’t seem to be anything to the shop but a large room for washing and styling hair, a back room to mix coloring chemicals and a dryer that was presumably tumbling towels.
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