Lost Lady (James River Trilogy 2)

Go back! How could she go back to Travis and his mistress?

A woman’s voice came from behind the stage. “I have room. She can stay with me until she makes up her mind what she wants to do.”

Regan turned to see a short, voluptuous young woman with honey-blonde hair and big blue eyes.

“I’m Brandy Dutton, and I have a farmhouse just down the road. Would you like to stay with me?”

“Yes,” Regan said quietly. “I can pay you….”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll work it out.” Grabbing Regan’s bag, she led the way down the street.

“I saw you standing there, and you looked so little and lost that my heart just went out to you. You know, I must have looked the same about three months ago. Both my parents died and left me alone with nothing but an old farmhouse and not much else. Here we are.”

She led Regan inside an unpainted, rundown, two-story house. “Sit down, and I’ll make you some coffee. What’s your name anyway?”

“Regan Stanford,” she said before thinking, then shrugged because what did it matter if she didn’t hide? Travis obviously wasn’t interested in having her back.

Regan sipped the coffee, not really liking the taste of it. But it helped revive her, although she could feel tears growing behind her eyes.

“You look like you’ve had your share of tragedy, too,” Brandy said as she cut a piece of cake and handed it to Regan.

A man who wanted to marry her in spite of the fact that he despised her, an uncle who detested her, a man who married her because of the child she carried—she could only nod to Brandy’s question.

When she only picked at the cake, Brandy looked at her sympathetically and asked if she’d like to lie down. Once alone in the little bedroom, Regan began to cry in earnest, as she’d never cried before.

She didn’t hear Brandy enter the room, only felt the woman’s arms around her. “You can tell me about it,” she whispered.

“Men!” Regan cried. “Twice I’ve loved them, and both times—.”

“You don’t have to say any more,” Brandy said. “I am an expert on men. Two years ago I fell for a man, decided he was worth more than anyone else on earth, so one night I slipped out the window of my bedroom, didn’t even leave my parents a note, and ran off with him. He said he was going to marry me, but there never seemed to be the right time, and six months ago I found him in bed with another woman.”

This statement started Regan’s tears harder.

“I didn’t know where to go,” Brandy continued. “So I came home, and my wonderful parents accepted me back and never said a word about what I’d done. Two weeks later they were dead of scarlet fever.”

“I…I’m sorry,” Regan sniffed. “Then you’re alone, too.”

“Exactly,” Brandy said. “I own one farmhouse that’s about to fall down around my ears, and I have every man coming through here swearing he can make me the happiest woman in the world.”

“I hope you don’t believe them!” Regan snapped.

Brandy laughed. “You’re beginning to sound like me, but it’s either marry one of them or starve to death here.”

“I have some money,” Regan said, emptying her pockets onto the bed. To her chagrin, there were only four silver coins left. “Wait a minute!” she said, going to her bag and pulling out the sapphire bracelet and diamond earrings.

Brandy held them up to the light. “One of your two men must have been good to you.”

“When he was with me,” Regan said stiffly. Suddenly, her face changed, and she grabbed her stomach.

“Are you sick?”

“I think the baby just kicked me,” she said in wonder.

Brandy’s eyes opened wide just before she began laughing. “Aren’t we a pair! Two rejected females who at this moment hate the whole male race”—her tone left no doubt that that opinion would change—“with a couple of pieces of jewelry, four silver coins, a falling-down house, and a baby on the way. How are we going to put food on the table this coming winter?”

It was the way she said “we” and the hint of their being together this winter that made a spark of interest shoot through Regan. Travis didn’t want her, yet she had to survive. At another kick from the baby, she smiled. She hadn’t thought much about her baby in the last few months. Travis was so overpowering that she could see nothing but him.

“How about more cake and let’s talk?” Brandy said.