figuratively with...
Oh, God, she had no idea what else was in store for her tonight.
Margot got out her smartphone, dialing it as she glanced at Leigh. “You need an extra push out of this car, sweetie.” Then she smiled brightly. “Dani? I’m putting you on speakerphone with me and Leigh.”
Dani, who rounded out their best-friend group, was laughing when she came on the line. Leigh could almost imagine her, with her curly bobbed red hair, her doe-gray eyes and her milk-pale skin. She tried not to think about the look on Dani’s face that she caught sometimes.... Was it disappointment that she wouldn’t have the grand nuptials she’d always dreamed of, ever since college when they’d nicknamed her “Hearts”? Or was it the cold feet Leigh and Margot suspected Dani might be suffering after an engagement that had lasted for years now?
“You haven’t gone into his place yet?” Dani asked Leigh.
Leigh rolled her eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be catering for someone?”
“I’m on a break at work, just like I was when I gave you a pep talk before you left the hotel. I wish I could’ve driven down there with Margot to meet you.”
Leigh shot the phone a disgruntled glance as Margot laughed and said, “You’ve got work, and I’ve got this covered, Dan. Except I wish you were here to help me kick Leigh’s butt up this long driveway. You should see what’s at the end of it. The mansion is straight out of Jane Eyre or—”
Leigh cut her off. “Margot is having a grand old time, Dani. She’s playing on my last nerve because it’s hilarious to her.”
Margot shrugged innocently. “You’re so easy to mess with, though.”
“Just don’t listen to Margot,” Dani said. “It’s not like you’re going into an unsafe place, Leigh. Beth Dahrling said she’d meet you there, right?”
Beth Dahrling, the woman who’d bid on Leigh’s basket in place of the Mystery Man.
“Right,” Leigh said. “But I doubt she’ll be chaperoning the whole night. She’s just a friend of this guy, and she set everything up.”
“She’s a fellow sister. Plus, she told you that Mystery Man was a brother in our very favorite fraternity, and a brother would never put you in a bad situation.”
True. Riley, Dani’s fiancé and a Phi Rho Mu brother to boot, had all but promised Leigh that one of his own would never harm her. Besides, Beth would be here. Still, Riley had no idea of Mystery Man’s identity, although he’d done enough online research to try and uncover it. Margot put a hand on Leigh’s arm, and it was a comforting touch. “It’ll be a good time, you’ll see. My bet is that he’s just one of the fraternity brothers—a San Joaquin cowboy whose ranch is making the big bucks—and he’s having some fun with you. He’ll ask the TV chef to cook him dinner, and while you’re eating, you’ll have a major laugh over this whole secrecy thing.”
Leigh locked gazes with Margot, her frenemy, the woman who’d always had everything come so easily to her. The person Leigh had wanted to emulate in college and beyond, even as they went toe-to-toe with each other.
It was as if Margot saw all of that in Leigh’s eyes, and for some reason she glanced away.
This wasn’t the first time Margot had acted like this recently, and Leigh had been wondering why. Her friend had started a new book about a city girl living the country life on Clint’s cutting-horse ranch, and she had a new blog that was drawing all kinds of interest. So why did she occasionally look as if she was hiding something?
Leigh wanted to ask what was going on, but Dani was already speaking on the phone.
“Well?” she asked. “Are you going to stay in that car all night or are you going to have an adventure?”
Leigh sent one last look to the mansion, her stomach in knots...
And that growl combing over every inch of her.
* * *
ADAM MORGAN LEANED against the wall near a barred window in the top story of the rented house. He was watching the Prius that was parked at the end of the long driveway, near the open iron gates that separated him from the eucalyptus-shrouded lane that led up here.
“She’s not coming in, is she?” he asked.
Next to him, his good friend Beth Dahrling was also peering out the window. “Well, Leigh’s here, at least. I don’t think she would come this far to turn around.”
She had to be right, because he had hired a small plane, in cash, to fly Leigh down here to the Pismo Beach area from her home up in Lodi. He’d decided to have this dinner away from Avila Grande, where they’d both attended Cal-U.
For a short time, in Adam’s case.
He glanced over his shoulder at Beth, whose long dark hair was swept back into a tortoiseshell barrette. In her chic printed silk wrap dress and with her rosy-brown skin, she seemed colorful and exotic, but the melancholy expression she wore gave him pause.
“You still think this is a bad idea,” he said, a trace of amusement in his voice.
“I think it’s an odd one.” She turned her liquid-brown gaze on him. “I think all you had to do was bid on Leigh’s basket and reveal who you were.”
“She wouldn’t remember me.” He hadn’t stuck around the university long enough for there to even be a picture of him on the walls of the fraternity house, where he’d pledged for only a short time before he’d had to drop out and return home.
But several months ago, when he’d seen Leigh on TV for the first time, he’d certainly remembered her. And when Beth had mentioned the basket auction that was being held at the reunion for their connected organizations, he’d thought of Leigh as she had been fourteen years ago, laughing all the time, taking a moment to smile at the shy freshman pledge who didn’t say much to girls—the kid who’d disappeared without ever becoming an official Phi Rho Mu brother.
Beth sighed and walked away from the window. Adam turned around, folding his arms over his chest while she spoke.
“Do you blame her for being cautious about this?” she asked. “For all she knows, you could be the Phantom of the Opera in this old house.”
He dodged her comment. “I didn’t want to use any of my own homes.” Not for a one-night basket date that had sparked his imagination.
“You know damned well that it’s not your homes I’m talking about,” Beth said. “Really, Adam, this is the strangest thing you’ve ever done. In fact...”
She didn’t have to say anything else. Ever since his wife, Carla, had withered away from breast cancer two years ago, he had become a recluse, uninterested in most things that happened outside the walls of his homes, except for the many property and business investments that he’d inherited from Carla, money that kept his bank accounts flush, thanks to the way he’d multiplied the investments.
“Hey,” he said, walking over to Beth and reaching out, chucking her under the chin with his finger. “This is going to turn out all right. No worries.”
Beth
