The Wrong Man (Alpha Men 3)

She was sure of it.

“Another date?” Millicent McGregor exclaimed five weeks later when she saw her middle daughter come downstairs dressed to the nines for the third time in less than a week. Lia self-consciously straightened her lightweight pink cardigan. It was a pretty, lacy thing that she had knitted herself. “You look lovely, my dear. Doesn’t she look lovely, Andrew?”

Her father looked up from his book, and his salt-and-pepper brows furrowed.

“If you put as much effort into finding a job, you needn’t be so concerned about finding a husband,” he said bluntly, and Lia winced.

“Andrew!” her mother gasped, and he had the grace to look slightly shamefaced.

“I want what’s best for my girls, you know that, Dahlia. And I’d rather you focus on finding a job and becoming self-sufficient than a man hunt. You don’t need a man to take care of you. You’re quite capable of being the captain of your own fate.”

Wounded, Lia swallowed heavily and lowered her gaze to the floor. Did her father really see her as some kind of man hunter, looking for a mate to take care of her? When he looked at Lia, did he only see a deadbeat daughter without a job or prospects, searching for a man to mooch off?

“She still needs a social life,” her mother defended. “You can’t expect her to sit at home with us every night.”

“She’s thirty-two and she hasn’t had a job in more than a year. Lia, I love you, you’re beautiful and intelligent. But you have to take command of your life, my girl. Stop waiting around for things to happen for you and go out and make them happen.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“You’re husband hunting.”

“It’s just a date, Daddy,” Lia said quietly, not even able to admit the truth of his words to herself.

All her life, Lia had been programmed to believe that marriage and kids were the keys to emotional fulfillment. Not by her parents but by teachers, her great-aunts, and other “well-meaning” adults. They had all lauded her prettiness but not much else. She’d grown up thinking that all she needed to complete her life was a husband and a family. It had been her sole goal after high school, finding the right man to grow old with. Teaching had been something she’d fallen into, a time filler while she waited for Mr. Right to come along and sweep her off her feet.

Her father was right—she was looking for a husband, but not because she needed a man to take care of her. She was lonely; she wanted a husband and children. She was a nurturer and needed to take care of people, not the other way around. It was one of the reasons she found such joy in doing her charity work. She felt needed, important when she was helping others . . . like more than just a pretty face.

“You’re husband hunting,” her father reiterated, interrupting her grim train of thought. “I don’t want you to have to depend on anybody for anything. Not your mother and me, not your sisters, and definitely not a man. Take a leaf out of Daff’s book—further your studies, aim higher.”

He was using Daff as an example of model behavior? Lia’s world really had flipped upside down in the last year and a half. She had always been the example for Daff. And now it seemed her position as the good daughter had been usurped by her foulmouthed older sister. How bizarre. She was tempted to tell her father about her studies, but she didn’t think now was the right time.

“That’s enough, Andrew.” Lia was only vaguely aware of her mother’s quiet voice and blinked rapidly to clear the blurriness from her eyes. Her father sighed heavily.

“Have a good time, sweetheart,” he said, getting up to give her one of those wonderful bear hugs that had always comforted her so much as a child. She clung to him for a moment, and he dropped a kiss on her head before stepping back to chuck her chin gently. “You’ve been so unhappy lately and I just want you to be happy, Dahlia.”

“I know, Daddy,” she said with a small, sad smile. She went up onto her toes to kiss his craggy cheek. “Thank you.”

Gregory Marsh was a quiet, studious-looking man. He was very tall and almost skeletally thin. He had thinning, sandy hair, an overbite, and an Adam’s apple so pronounced he reminded her of Ichabod Crane. He was the bank manager at one of the small branches in Riversend and always wore ill-fitting gray suits and bow ties. She imagined he thought the ties were dashing, and that was true for some men. But because his huge Adam’s apple poked out above the knot, Gregory’s ties looked like they were strangling him.