The Bride Next Door

by Hope Ramsay

  Once Brandon’s father had retrieved his drunken son, Matt pulled Courtney into the gazebo. The situation was hopelessly romantic. A stand of honeysuckle growing along a nearby fence perfumed the air, and fireflies sparked above the lawn. A thin sliver of moon hung in the midnight sky.

  Courtney wanted to escape. But Matt insisted that she sit down and talk to him.

  “I’m sorry about what Brandon said. It’s not true. And it’s not what I think.” Matt settled his back more comfortably against the gazebo’s bench and took a gulp of his long-necked beer. The darkness hid his face.

  “Okay. But be honest, what do you think?” she asked bravely. A small part of her wanted to know, while the rest of her was certain the truth would hurt.

  “I think you’re careful.” He took another long sip of beer, and Courtney wished she had a drink of her own.

  “I have good reason to be careful,” she said, trying to find a more comfortable spot on the bench without getting too close to him.

  “Don’t we all?”

  “Ha!” She leaned back, increasing the distance between them. “What do you have to be careful about?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not exactly the guy you think I am, Courtney.”

  “Oh? Then who are you?”

  “The quintessential middle child.”

  “I feel so sorry for you, really.” She heaved a dramatic sigh. “You know, I can see through what you’re doing. You’re telling me what I want to hear. You probably already know that I was the dorky, insecure girl at Jefferson High, the one with zits and braces and an eye patch. But I have—”

  “Eye patch?”

  “I had a lazy eye. And even though I had surgery to correct the problem, I was required to patch my good eye in order to force my brain to use the lazy one.”

  “That explains it.”

  “Explains what?”

  “The thing I like so much about your eyes. They’re not quite symmetrical. It’s sexy as hell, you know.”

  The man was exasperating. “You know, Matt, I’ve been around. I know how this works. You compliment me on all the things I’m insecure about, and it makes me go mushy inside, and I drop my barriers.”

  He stabbed his hands through his hair in a gesture that conveyed a certain amount of frustration. “You’re right. I do that. All the time. And it really sucks now that I’m trying to tell the truth. And the truth is, I love your slightly asymmetrical eyes.”

  The wounded romantic who lived deep in her heart started seeing rainbows. Courtney tried her best to yank that foolish girl back, but she failed. A tiny chink formed in her wall of protection. Something warm and sweet and utterly intoxicating flowed through her blood, making her suddenly aware of the moon and the man and the scent of summer on the wind.

  She should go. Now. Matt would hurt her, and she hadn’t been hurt in decades. She stood up. “I want my cat back,” she said, retreating a step.

  He stood too. “Okay. I stopped by your apartment several times last week to give him back, but you haven’t been home. What are you up to? Where have you been? Not interviewing sperm donors, I hope.”

  Her face flamed hot, and she sincerely regretted the things she’d said that night at the Red Fern Inn. “I was visiting a friend in the hospital.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know—”

  “A friend of my parents. He’s going to be okay.”

  He took a step forward. Was he going to kiss her? Oh, please.

  When his right palm cupped her cheek, she leaned into the touch, closing her eyes and savoring his warm skin. Her heart exploded in her chest right before his lips brushed hers.

  His kiss was so incredibly soft and gentle that she opened for him without even thinking about it, and when his tongue met hers, the pleasure was so intense that she groaned out loud.

  She expected him to come in for the kill, but instead he backed up. “Nice,” he said, and then turned and walked away.

  Chapter Nine

  Weekends were always hard on Courtney, working late on Saturday and then sometimes having to show up on Sunday for yet more weddings. But this Sunday she’d have to do it on almost no sleep. Matt’s brief, erotic kiss had left Courtney tossing and turning all night. Why had he walked away?

  Easy answer. He was luring her. And she was stupidly falling for it. In fact, she’d spent most of the night thinking about crossing the landing and knocking on his door. After all, she had a good excuse. She wanted her cat back. But he might have seen through that at three thirty in the morning.

  So she was grumpy when she arrived at the Winchester Medical Center at 9:30 a.m., and discovered that the café in the hospital’s lobby didn’t open until 10:00 a.m. Was this some kind of joke? People needed caffeine. And in her case, the caffeine she’d ingested with her first cup this morning had worn off.

  She strolled into Sid’s room and found him sitting in the chair by the bed wearing a bright green and orange Hawaiian shirt with birds of paradise plastered all over it. His skin tone looked brighter today, but whether it was the shirt or his improving health Courtney couldn’t say.

  “Good morning. Since when do you wear Hawaiian shirts?” she said in her best happy voice. Barbara, Sid’s late wife, had disapproved of loud shirts, so the birds of paradise were a big surprise. But maybe not an unwelcome one.

  “Since I talked him into one. With my employee discount, I was able to buy a whole bunch of them at ten percent off.”

  Courtney turned to find a sixtysomething woman with beautiful white hair and big hazel eyes standing in the doorway. Her lips glistened with poppy-pink lip gloss, and she wore a pair of slim white slacks and a chambray shirt open at the neck to expose a turquoise necklace. Matching earrings dangled from her ears.

  The woman stepped forward, her hand out, the nails painted a shade of pink that matched her lips. “Hi. I’m Leslie Heath.”

  “I’m happy to meet you. I’m Courtney. Sid is like—”

  Leslie waved her hand, silver bangles clinking. “Oh, honey, I know all about y’all. And I think it’s so sweet the way you’ve been visiting Sid, especially with you so busy over at Eagle Hill Manor. Don’t you worry. I’ve got my car, and I’ll take Sid home. I’ll keep an eye on him and make sure he takes his meds. He lives right across the hallway from me. And I don’t want you worrying about his groceries, now. I can pick up anything he needs at Walmart. I’m there three days a week as a greeter.”

  “Uh, thanks,” Courtney managed. Who was this woman? And why hadn’t Sid mentioned her?

  Courtney turned toward Sid, who refused to make eye contact. “Are you okay with this? Because my guest bedroom is ready for you if you want it.”

  Sid looked down, studying his big hands, and nodded. “Leslie is a busybody. She chairs the tenants association, you know. She knows everyone at Dogwood Estates and looks after all of us. I told you I’d be all right.”

  “He’s right about me. I am a busybody. Nosy as the day is long.” Leslie strolled into the hospital room on a pair of flip-flops that showed her poppy-pink toenails. She leaned over Sid, resting her hand on his shoulder. “Don’t you worry about him, honey. I’ll take good care of him.”

  Sid finally raised his head and met Leslie’s gaze. He gave her the tiniest of smiles.

  Damn. Where was the depressed, gray man from a week ago? And after all these months of grief…What the hell?

  Courtney felt a moment of selfish envy, which she immediately quashed. Had love found him a second time? Damn. He seemed utterly besotted with the beautiful, age-appropriate, apparently single Leslie. Courtney was happy for him and utterly demoralized about her own single life.

  She spent twenty minutes with Leslie and Sid before concluding that her father’s best friend was in capable and loving hands. She left them, grabbed a second cup of coffee from the shop in the lobby, which had finally opened, and headed back to work.

  Where she once again spent her day making fairy tales come true for everyone except herself.


  Charlotte’s Grove, the Lyndon family’s centuries-old home, perched on a rise of land northeast of town with spectacular views of the Shenandoah River. Built in the early 1700s, the Georgian mansion and the land surrounding it had always belonged to a member of the Lyndon family. On Sunday, Senator Mark Lyndon and his wife, Pam, the current occupants, held a family brunch to celebrate Andrew’s wedding.

  The bride and groom were not in attendance, since they’d departed for a week-long honeymoon in Mallorca, but everyone except Amy, who was managing a big wedding at Eagle Hill Manor, was there. Matt had overslept because his night had been disturbed with erotic dreams featuring Courtney Wallace, so he was the last to arrive.

  Although it was an overcast day, he found his kin on the back terrace enjoying a buffet of eggs, bacon, bagels, and smoked salmon. His younger brother, Jason, handed him a mimosa, and he dived into what was left of the food. The Lyndons were a hungry crowd when they gathered, and the smoked salmon had been demolished. He’d started filling his plate with eggs when Dad sneaked up behind him.

  “You have a minute, son?” he asked in that stern-father voice that always sent a shiver of dread through Matt. Plus, he hated it every time Dad called him “son” like that because it almost always preceded one of Dad’s fatherly lectures, which were peppered with plenty of criticism and disapproval. So not on Matt’s list of things he wanted to do on his Sunday off.

  But saying no wasn’t an option either, because in addition to being his dad, Charles Lyndon was now also his boss and the managing partner of the Virginia office of LL&K. Family members who worked at LL&K huddled during family get-togethers—a behavior that Matthew had always thought rather rude.

  Apparently Dad expected him to behave exactly like his older cousins, David and Andrew, which was hardly new. Dad had been expecting him to behave like his older cousins for most of his life, and Matt had been falling short for just as long.

  “Come on,” Dad said, ushering him across the patio to the table where David sat with August Kopp. Uh-oh, it was worse than Matt thought. Dad was going to lecture him in front of the firm’s senior partner.

  Matt snagged a seat and greeted David before he turned toward August. “Is Brandon okay?”

  “He was still asleep when I left him this morning. I’d have more sympathy for his feelings were it not for the fact that he behaved like such an idiot last fall.”

  Matt was hardly surprised by August’s comments. Brandon and his father had an uneasy relationship. In fact, Matt and Brandon had spent a lot of time talking about their respective fathers during their trip to Bermuda last year—the trip that was supposed to have been Brandon’s honeymoon.

  “Well, don’t be too hard on him,” Matt said. “I don’t think he expected Laurie to find someone else.”

  Dad scowled. “He should have expected it. And he should have stayed far away from Laurie yesterday.”

  “Laurie’s better off with Andrew,” August said. “But we’re not here to talk about Brandon.”

  Holy crap. August Kopp’s tone suggested that the partners of LL&K had been sitting at that table waiting for him to arrive. What had he done? He could think of so many possible missteps over the last week, but he swallowed down his discomfort and asked, “What exactly are we here to discuss?”

  “The Dogwood Estates Tenants Association,” David said.

  “What about it?” He cast his gaze from David to Dad and then finally to Mr. Kopp.

  David leaned forward with an intense gaze. “Arwen gave me a copy of her memo, the one she wrote at your suggestion.”

  Was there an accusation in his tone or his words? Matt couldn’t tell.

  “Look, all I asked her to do was to find out if the county had forgiven the fines once GB Ventures bought the apartment complex. I didn’t expect her to come back with a memo suggesting something deeper and more nefarious.”

  “But why did you ask her to do the research in the first place?” Dad asked.

  He clamped his back teeth together for a moment before he forced himself to relax. It was always this way, being called to account for decisions he’d made. “I was curious,” he finally said.

  “Curious?” Dad said in an incredulous tone.

  “Okay, I had this crazy-assed idea that we could go after the county for violating property rights.”

  “What?” Dad’s eyebrows reached up toward his hairline. “Since when are you a constitutional lawyer?”

  Of course he wasn’t a constitutional lawyer. And the idea of suing the county was totally crazy. He’d been grasping at straws when he’d suggested it. Why did Dad always go out of his way to make Matt look like an idiot? He was tired of it, so he looked Dad right in the eye and said, “I was just looking at every option. The people living at Dogwood Estates are going to lose their homes. They are our clients, and I wanted to find a way to stop that from happening. But clearly suing the county would be stupid.”

  Mr. Kopp chuckled. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not that stupid.”

  Everyone turned in the managing partner’s direction.

  Red crept up Dad’s cheeks. “Explain.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t want to argue the case, but if the county was using punitive fines to force landowners off their land in order to upgrade the buildings and the tax rolls, it might violate the Constitution. It would depend on the facts in the case, I think.”

  Matt met August Kopp’s gaze. The senior partner had been a Supreme Court clerk and had gone on to argue dozens of cases before the highest court. He was a noted constitutional scholar. Matt was blown away to see a twinkle in August’s eye.

  “Well,” Dad said before Matt could figure out his next move, “I don’t care whether it’s constitutional or not. The truth is that we’re all better off without Dogwood Estates. It’s an eyesore. Getting rid of it is a win in my book.”

  Matt was about to challenge his father by asking him whether he cared about the people who lived at Dogwood Estates, but he was saved from that mistake by Aunt Pam, who came up behind his chair and rested her hand on his shoulder.

  “Matt, honey, your mother just told me that you’ve rented a new apartment and need an interior decorator.”

  It was like being tossed from the frying pan right into the fire. “Um, no, really, Aunt Pam, I don’t need a decorator. I was just going to buy some furniture, you know, nothing fancy, and—”

  “Oh, no, you can’t do that. You need a decorator.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Matt saw his father’s face go a deeper shade of red. Great, just great. He could not win. Dad would think he was blowing through his trust fund the way Danny had.

  Well, at least he could take a stand on this issue. He stood up and faced his aunt. “No, Aunt Pam, I don’t need a decorator. Thanks. I don’t believe in wasting my money on stuff like that.”

  “But—”

  “You heard the boy,” Dad said from behind him. Matt could hardly contain himself. For once in his life, Dad actually had his back.

  “Really, Charles, do you think Matt has any sense when it comes to buying furniture and putting up curtains?” Pam asked, giving Dad one of her determined-at-all-costs looks.

  The silence behind Matt was ominous. Then Dad cleared his throat. “I suppose you’ve got a point there.”

  Arwen always did her chores on Sundays.

  It was a habit, formed in her childhood. In the Jacobs household, Friday and Saturday had always been devoted to the Sabbath. Mom had cleaned house like a fiend on Fridays before sunset. And then she’d always gone to the grocery store on Sunday.

  Arwen no longer kept the Sabbath as her parents did, but she still shopped for groceries every Sunday. This Sunday she also planned to do her laundry and visit The Home Depot for a few pieces of hardware she needed to finish a DIY project she’d started last week—a front-hall storage unit built out of reclaimed barn wood.

  But before she got busy, she needed her weekly fix of waffles from Gracie’s Diner.

 
Gracie’s place had been a fixture on Liberty Avenue for at least two generations of Shenandoah Falls residents. Its mid-century ambience had become fashionable once again, but Gracie’s main claim to fame was the inexpensive, down-to-earth food, always served with a smile.

  Arwen strolled into the diner with a copy of the Sunday Washington Post tucked under her arm and took a deep breath filled with the scent of bacon, waffles, and maple syrup. There wasn’t anything that smelled better than Gracie’s place on a Sunday morning.

  She waved at Gracie, found a spot at one of the two-person tables in the back corner, and settled in to read the newspaper. Gracie appeared a moment later with coffee. “Your waffles will be out in a minute,” she said as she filled Arwen’s cup.

  “Thanks, Gracie.” One of the best things about Gracie’s Diner was that Arwen never had to order. Gracie just knew, or remembered, or had some unexplained gift for determining what people wanted. Of course, Courtney had been having waffles at Gracie’s every Sunday for at least five years, so maybe Gracie wasn’t a mind reader.

  Maybe Arwen had become completely predictable.

  “I don’t know why you read the news anymore,” Gracie said with a shake of her head. “It’s all bad all the time.”

  This was true, but Arwen had always read the paper on Sunday. She’d been doing it since she was a kid in middle school. “I guess I’m a creature of habit,” she said.

  “Aren’t we all? Gotta run.” Gracie turned and made a quick circuit of the dining room, topping off coffee cups as she went.

  Arwen pulled out the sports section and started to read Tom Boswell’s Sunday column about the Washington Nationals. She loved baseball, and she loved Tom Boswell, so she didn’t see trouble coming.

  But it arrived at her table, sat down, leaned forward, and said, “I haven’t seen you at the Jaybird these last few days. You wouldn’t be after avoiding me, would you?”

  Rory’s lilting accent was like an instant aphrodisiac. It rubbed up against her erogenous zones, making her feel crazy and trapped at the same time.