His Brother's Bride

Sometime in the middle of the night, he forced himself to go to bed. But when he finally drifted off, he got even less rest than when he’d been awake.

Scott wasn’t a dreaming man, but that night his sleep was filled with big black dogs. He’d fight them off, performing amazing martial arts kicks and blocking vicious jaws with his arm; he’d see them lying flat in an alley. He’d move on to something else, be somewhere else, and black dogs would be there, too. Always coming at him. He could slay them again and again, but he could never be free of them.

He awoke early the next morning to a ringing telephone. It was his friend calling to give him the name of the woman who’d bought the Wallace place. Cecilia Hamilton. His buddy didn’t know too much more about her yet, except that she was the sole buyer and had no police record. And she had a personalized license plate that read “remember.”

With the phone still to his ear, Scott pulled a pair of slacks and a shirt from his closet. It might be earlier than he normally started his day when he was on vacation, but he was grateful to get up and escape the dreams haunting him.

Knowing that Clint was up early to start breakfast for the guests, he rang Twin Oaks as soon as he’d shaved and showered. If Laurel was still in bed, he’d catch up with her later in the morning.

Scott needed to get to work.

* * *

MS. CECILIA HAMILTON WAS not at home that morning. Or at least she wasn’t answering her phone.

Hoping she’d gone out to breakfast and would be home soon, Scott stopped for Laurel—who’d been up early, too—and the two of them headed to New Ashford.

“Remember the ice-cream store in New Ashford?” Laurel asked. It was the first thing she’d said since climbing into the car.

“Seeing that I was just there last week, yeah, I remember it.”

She turned in the seat. “It’s still there?” Scott could feel those amazing gray eyes on him.

He didn’t want to feel them.

Didn’t want to notice how her skintight black pants hugged her thighs, or how sexy that white T-shirt looked, pulled taut across her breasts.

But apparently they’d both reached the same conclusion about the night before—pretend she’d never said what she did.

“It’s not only still there,” he told her, forcing himself to think cold thoughts. “It’s exactly the same as it was when we were in high school.”

“With the red vinyl stools and Formica counter?”

“And the spot on the wall where you carved your and Paul’s initials.”

“He was really mad.”

Scott had forgotten that.

“And you apologized,” Scott remembered the rest. That apology had made him really angry at Laurel—and at Paul.

“Of course I did.”

“There’s no ‘of course’ about it. You did nothing wrong. The shop put the wooden panel in just for

that purpose. Those carvings are part of its charm.”

“But you know how Paul was,” Laurel said softly. Scott hated the jealousy that shot through him at the tenderness in her voice.

After all, hadn’t she been telling him just last night that the “things” she was feeling were really for Paul?

“Too uptight for his own good sometimes.” Scott couldn’t believe he was speaking ill of his dead brother. Couldn’t believe he was even thinking ill of him. Was this woman doing this to him? Making him so crazy for her that he’d betray Paul again?

“He just walked a straight-and-narrow path,” Laurel said. There was no defensiveness in her voice, only compassion.

Scott was pretty sure he’d have preferred defensiveness. Then maybe he could get angry. He drove silently, concentrating on not saying anything else he’d regret.

“He might have seemed overly conservative to some people,” Laurel continued after a time. “But he was just what I needed.”