Dream Lover. Stacey Keith

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      “Why can’t I—”

      “Because your mother thinks you can’t dress yourself properly and she made me promise to help,” Jacey said.

      April snatched the pink gingham sundress and marched into the bathroom to put it on. Now that her mother had married off two of her daughters, she clearly had her sights set on getting her youngest one settled, too. April put on the dress, a hand-me-down from Cassidy that showed an uncomfortable amount of cleavage, and then blow dried her hair. Just as she was about to pin it up, Jacey yelled from the bedroom, “Keep your hair down. And put on a little bit of makeup, will you?”

      On the way over to Tessa’s bachelorette party, April wondered if everybody knew as many bossy people as she did. Jacey prattled on about some hot guy from the shipping warehouse where she worked. Her voice had a little of the nasal monotone that “hearies” called deaf accent, but her words were clear and it had never kept her from attracting men. Not with her outrageous beauty. And bossy or not, Jacey was the closest thing to a sister April had to hang out with.

      “Why are you so quiet today?” Jacey asked when they came to the first of Cuervo’s two stoplights. “Usually I can’t get you to shut up about work.”

      April shrugged. “There’s not a lot to tell.”

      “I doubt that.”

      Jacey pulled up in front of the Double Aces and parked the car. “Did you see the new patio?” Jacey asked. “No, of course not, because you never get out.”

      In a town the size of Cuervo, everybody’s business was your business, so of course April had heard every excruciating detail about the new patio. She grabbed an armful of presents out of Jacey’s trunk and then waited while Jacey slammed the lid and locked it.

      “You think I don’t know things, but I do,” April told her. “I’m not completely hopeless, you know.”

      Jacey gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Okay, then talk to a boy tonight and make me and your mother happy.”

      Talk to a boy. Annoyed, April followed Jacey to the patio, where Tessa sat at a long table with half a dozen girls they’d all grown up with. There was Erica Mercer, who’d been homecoming queen, head cheerleader, yearbook editor and president of the French club. Susan and Patricia were both solid, respectable girls who didn’t glare at April when she sat down, but Roxanne did. Roxanne had long dark hair, perfect skin, and the kind of figure April saw in swimsuit catalogs. She’d never been all that friendly.

      “Beer?” Roxanne asked with an imitation smile.

      As the designated driver, April ordered a root beer instead and wondered if that was why Roxanne hated her. Maybe Roxanne figured she had a giant stick up her butt.

      “I saw your mother in line at the post office,” Roxanne said. “All she could talk about were your sisters. You know—how Cassidy married America’s favorite quarterback and Maggie snagged a billionaire.” She gave April a pitying smile. “At least she has you now. You’ll always be here, won’t you? Working at county welfare.”

      April accepted a mug of root beer from Jessica Coleman, the waitress—another girl she’d grown up with—and reminded herself that not only had Roxanne recently broken off with her cheating boyfriend, she was here to celebrate somebody else’s wedding, even though Tessa and Jacob weren’t actually having a church wedding. They were going to the justice of the peace in two days and then “eloping” to Mexico for their honeymoon.

      “Yep,” April said mildly. “I’ll always be here.”

      An hour dragged by. It felt like three. There were more beers, more stories and more laughter as Tessa opened gift boxes full of sex toys, lacy lingerie, and edible undies. As darkness fell, strands of lights blinked on above the patio, which was now crowded with people. April tried paying attention to what Tessa was saying, but the sound of other conversations pressed down on her.

      The tipsier her friends got, the more alone she felt. Her old restlessness crawled around inside her. Odd things came into focus. The aftershave of the man standing behind her. The sweat at the nape of her neck. The vibrator on the table by her elbow.

      She mumbled something about needing the ladies’ room and then made her way through the crowd. All the noise and music and perfume and heat made her almost desperate to go home. Everyone was here tonight, even people she hadn’t seen in a while. For the second time today, she smiled and waved like everything was okay.

      She turned a corner and stopped short. Her heart pounded in her chest, a hard, relentless rhythm like the music. Sitting on a bench directly in front of her was Brandon McBride. There was a woman on his lap.

      When he locked eyes with April, every part of her burst into flames.

      Chapter 3

      Brandon McBride felt a familiar tug, one that had a keener edge to it than usual, one that should have warned him if he’d been paying attention.

      But why do that?

      Life was a here-and-now kind of deal. You had your wits, your muscle, your buddies, your wheels and the open road. If you were lucky, there might be a woman waiting for you at the end of it. Hopefully, a woman who wasn’t too drunk and didn’t want to kill you.

      What could he say? Temptation was everywhere and he wasn’t the man to say no. Not when there were hot little numbers like this social worker running around.

      He liked how she looked in that dress. What was that word his friend Long Jon used for women like her?

      Prim.

      Brandon was so busy watching the social worker flush pink, then white, and then pink again, he almost forgot about the woman on his lap. Funny, he remembered the social worker’s name—it was April, right?—but not the name of the woman sitting right on top of him. She had one boob pressed against his chest and a lot of dyed blond hair. What was it—Sheryl? Shaylene? She’d pounced on him the minute he, Mattis, and Long Jon climbed off their bikes.

      April continued to stare at him, her hand covering her mouth as though she’d said something inappropriate. But girls like April never said things that were inappropriate. They went to church on Sunday and wrote thank you notes on little pieces of colored paper and baked casseroles for sick relatives. They had nice boyfriends, and on Saturday nights they had sex with those nice boyfriends and faked their orgasms.

      Brandon let his gaze wander appreciatively over the rest of her and figured any woman who actually had orgasms was probably thinking about him.

      But April was going to cause trouble for his brother. A feisty thing like her would probably drag the courts into it, too, and Brandon had damn good reasons to want to avoid them. Better to stop this bullshit before it got rolling.

      “Let me up,” he told the woman on his lap.

      “Why?” The woman bristled. “So you can hit on that girl in the pink dress? Do you know her?”

      The woman wouldn’t budge, so he set her aside negligently, like a child, and grabbed his bottle of beer. “Don’t worry, darlin’. There’s plenty to go around.”

      She glared up at him, her lush, pretty mouth even poutier than it had been ten minutes ago СКАЧАТЬ