brow, turning her light green-blue gaze to Leigh. Her high cheekbones and tousled, layered dark hair gave her a look that fell somewhere between a pixie and a wild child, but her designer knit dress was all high-class. “Don’t you get a certain vibe from this place, just like the narrator in that book did after she found out her new husband’s first wife, Rebecca, pretty much haunted Manderley?”
Leigh wished she hadn’t brought Miss Cal-U English Major with her. Better yet, she just wished that Margot would lay off teasing her about tonight. Some moral support would be nice right about now.
“It’s only a date,” Leigh said, echoing the words that had been going through her head all day. She wasn’t sure if she was just trying to shut Margot up or calm herself down.
“A date,” Margot said, a sparkle in her gaze. “In a huge Gothic house. And with a man who won’t tell you who he is.”
“Why don’t you make this sound even more intimidating, Marg? Because I’m not nervous enough.”
“Maybe you should be very nervous.” Margot gave an “ooo, how scary” look to the mansion that loomed above them at the end of the gated driveway under the dusk-burnished November sky. “When Mystery Man bought your basket at the charity auction, I didn’t think you’d actually go through with this. But you’ve surprised me, Leigh. Maybe you’ve got a little adventure in you, after all.”
Adventure.
Good God—that was what she’d come here for, wasn’t it?
She followed Margot’s gaze toward that gray stone mansion again, with its imposing balconies and arches. The man who was waiting for Leigh in there had spent $5,000 to win her basket about a month ago during a reunion for her college sorority, Tau Epsilon Gamma, and its counterpart, the agricultural business–centered fraternity Phi Rho Mu.
Leigh took in a deep breath. Even back in college, smack in the middle of the rural San Joaquin Valley, she’d never done something this crazy—not during pledging, not during all their parties...never. True, she, Margot and their friend Dani had been good-time girls, best friends enjoying their youth, but that was when the silliness was supposed to end—after they graduated and became adults.
But no. She and Margot just had to go and put on that auction at the ten-year reunion. They’d just had to hold out for the highest bids on all those baskets that contained materials for a date with the women who’d created them. Margot had called her basket Around the Girl in Eighty Ways, and after her spicy encounters with the man who’d purchased the basket—her archenemy from college, of all people—she’d ended up getting engaged to him.
Leigh had taken a sweeter route. She’d stayed true to the wholesome country-girl Tau image and named her basket “A Taste of Honey”; she’d intended to give whoever won it a down-home dinner laced with the main ingredient—and maybe more, depending who bought the basket.
But she hadn’t expected what happened next—a fellow sorority sister, Beth Dahrling, had been the highest bidder, and she’d revealed that she was acting as a liaison for a man who refused to disclose his identity.
Leigh would’ve never guessed that she was eventually going to end up in front of a mansion that belonged in some kind of “It was a dark and stormy night” book.
She slid down in her seat. “I can’t believe you got me into this, Marg.”
“Me? How?”
As Margot waited for an answer, Leigh realized that she’d been plucking at the seam of her jeans, and she stopped. Her date had requested that she “dress casual,” just as she did on the country-cooking show she hosted on the Food Network—denim, boots, yee-haw blouses and all.
And what the hell? She’d gone along with it. But now her lacy flowered blouse seemed to show too much cleavage, and her jeans clung too tightly, reminding her of what she’d felt like over a year ago when she’d still been packing extra pounds.
Margot chuffed. “You’re not squirming out of an answer to this one, Leigh. How is it my fault that you ended up in this situation? You’re the one who said yes to the conditions after Beth bought the basket.”
Right or wrong, she was so on edge that she said the first thing that came to mind. “You’re the one who made up the baskets in the first place. When we heard that Dani was going to give up on her big wedding plans, you thought of the date auction to help her raise money for her extravaganza.”
“Not that it did much good since Dani refused the money and decided to go small.” Margot lasered a knowing look at her. “You’re only ticked off because I made my basket as sexy as hell, and you didn’t want to be outdone. Say it—I’m totally right, aren’t I?”
Leigh shot her an irritated glance, but it wasn’t exactly all about Margot. She was merely stalling by sitting here saying dumb stuff and creating an argument.
But she wasn’t sure just why she was so reluctant to get out of the car. There’d been a restless growl rolling through her ever since she had heard about Margot’s hot basket and what Leigh could put in hers, too. Hell, if she were telling the whole truth, she would even have to admit that the growl had started about a year ago, when she’d dropped the weight she’d carried since she was a kid.
The growl made her stay up most nights, running her hand over her belly, circling, then going lower, trying to give herself what she’d never gotten from all the ho-hum sex she’d had before with the lights off so that her few, steady partners wouldn’t see all her bulges and cellulite.
And so that they wouldn’t call her “Cushions,” just as they had in college when she’d been pledging with Margot and Dani.
“Sorry,” Leigh finally said, absently toying with the seam on her jeans again. “I’m pretty nervous, and I’m saying things I don’t mean.”
Margot softened. “Are you sure it’s not excitement you’re feeling?”
That could’ve been it, too. “There’re just a bunch of second thoughts attacking me right now. I keep thinking that if you hadn’t been so adventurous with your basket, I probably wouldn’t have been so daring with mine. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Why didn’t I just offer an innocent little picnic at the reunion and leave it at that?”
Margot bit her lip, and Leigh could tell she was stifling a laugh. They’d always been competitive—when they were dorm roommates, when they’d lived together at the sorority house, even after college when Margot, the Girl Most Likely to Succeed, had shot to infamy with all the “single woman on the go” travel books she’d written. Margot had always made Leigh want to be better, to keep up with her, and the baskets had been no exception.
“I suppose you’re right,” Margot said. “This is all my fault. I’m an awful person for making you want to have some fun.”
A moment passed; then they both laughed and for a moment Leigh’s nerves actually mellowed.
But the sight of the mansion on the hill remained in her peripheral vision, and she didn’t laugh for long.
Seriously—what was she getting herself into?
That familiar growl gnawed through her belly, making her ache a little between her legs. Admit it, she thought. You want this.
She wanted to let
