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Jeanette came back out of her office with her purse and a stack of magazines. “Here are the latest bridal magazines. And something else I thought you’d like to see.”
She held up a tabloid newspaper and Sam stared at the picture on the cover of a man splaying his hand outward in an effort to block his face from the camera.
Is This Man Too Good to Be True? screamed the headline.
In spite of his outstretched hand, Sam recognized him immediately. “Brad?” She reached for the tabloid. “Does this have something to do with why he called me?”
“Maybe.” Jeanette held the magazine out of Sam’s reach and flipped through the pages. “It says that he’s selling RiversWare for $100 million and giving half the profits to his employees. Can you believe that?”
“He always was generous.” Absently, Sam sewed another rose on the dress. “But what does that have to do with me?”
“It says in here somewhere…oh, here it is, listen to this—‘although Rivers declined to be interviewed for this article, a reliable source tells us that he plans to use the money to convince his sweetheart to marry him!”’ Jeanette lowered the newspaper and stared at Samantha. “He must mean you, Sammy.”
Sam pricked her finger with the needle. Swearing under her breath, she sucked at the spot of blood before it could stain the white satin. “You’re crazy. Brad and I were never interested in each other. We were just friends.”
Jeanette snorted. “What guy is friends with a girl? Brad was in love with you.”
“No, he wasn’t. He was in love with Blanche Milken, remember?”
“Ha. He never cared about Blanche the way he did about you. He wasn’t the same after you and Maria Vasquez left on that wild road trip cross-country—and you should have seen his face when Mom told him that you’d decided to go backpacking across Europe!”
“You should have seen his face when he saw me last Christmas!” Sam retorted. “The rocks at Stonehenge had more expression. He was not welcoming home his long-lost love, believe me.”
“You always were blind about Brad. But I don’t have time to argue with you. I’ve got to run.” Jeanette set the magazines and tabloid on the floor. “It’s past six o’clock. Come lock the door after I leave.”
Sam automatically complied—Jeanette worried about Sam being alone in the shop after hours—then returned to where she’d been sitting, her brow furrowed. Blind about Brad? That wasn’t true. Sam had known him better than anyone.
Her gaze drifted to the stack of magazines. The tabloid rested on top. Slowly, she picked up the newspaper and opened it. Inside was another picture, although the caption identified this one as being five years old. Brad stood with his hands shoved in the pants pockets of his ill-fitting brown polyester suit, his shoulders slightly hunched. His gray-blue eyes, the color obscured by the glasses he wore, gazed off into the distance as if contemplating some thorny dilemma.
Samantha smiled a little. She remembered that suit—he’d bought it at a thrift shop to wear to graduation. She recognized his pose, too—it was so typically Brad. The first time she’d seen him, when he moved in with his grandmother down the street from her parents’ house, he’d been standing exactly the same way. He’d been seventeen, a senior in high school, quiet and serious. Only fourteen herself, she hadn’t seen much of him until one day at school when she came upon some of the jocks—including her boyfriend, Pete—picking on him. Indignantly, she’d told them to knock it off.
Pete had been annoyed—he’d broken up with her a week later—but she hadn’t really cared. She hadn’t liked having a boyfriend, it was too restricting. But after that, she’d run into Brad a lot more often, and one day she impulsively invited him and his grandmother to Thanksgiving dinner. Her mother, whose rather abrasive personality was offset by her deep-seated maternal instincts, had taken him under her wing once she heard the story of how his parents and sister had been killed in a car crash. Brad—and his grandmother, before her death—had become part of the family.
Samantha put down the tabloid and sewed two more silk roses into place on the Blogden wedding dress. Even after Brad graduated and went to college, their friendship had continued and deepened. He’d helped her with some of her classes, and she’d made him laugh with her tales of trying to correct the fashion faux pas of her friends. He’d been one of the few people she could really talk to. She’d poured out her troubles and he’d always listened, ever sympathetic, ever patient. He wasn’t like the boys in high school, the ones who got possessive after she dated them a few times. She’d always been able to count on Brad. She’d thought that they would be friends forever.
His behavior this last Christmas had come as a rude shock. Although she’d tried to pretend nothing was amiss, she’d been uneasy all evening. She’d drunk a little too much wine and chattered too much, acutely aware of his quietness, his stiffness, his stillness. She’d gotten the impression he wanted nothing to do with her, an impression reinforced by his reaction to her phone calls.
Frowning, Sam knotted and snipped the thread. So why did he want to talk to her now?
Brad was in love with you.
Jeanette’s words echoed in Sam’s brain. Automatically, she shook her head. Brad in love with her? The idea was laughable. They’d never even gone out on a date, let alone discussed marriage.
Well, okay, that wasn’t strictly true. They had discussed it, the summer she’d graduated from high school. But only in the general sense. He’d asked her if she ever wanted to get married.
“Not until I’m really old,” she’d said. “Thirty, at least.” They’d ridden their bikes along Santa Monica Boulevard to the beach—her mother didn’t like her to go alone—and she’d been sitting in the warm sand, under a strategically placed umbrella. Wearing a new polka-dot bikini, she’d been anxiously surveying her pale skin for signs of any new freckles.
Giving up on the inspection, she’d glanced up to find him staring at her. He’d looked away quickly, picking up a bottle of sunscreen.
“How about you?” She watched furtively as he rubbed the lotion onto his chest, the liquid mixing with the sprinkling of hair that had sprouted there in the last year or so. She wondered why he bothered. His skin browned easily, in spite of his light brown hair and gray-blue eyes.
“Yes. Someday.” His elbows stuck up in the air as he applied lotion to his back. The muscles in his chest and arms—more defined than she remembered from the previous summer—rippled as he did so. “I want children. And a wife to come home to every night.”
Sam wrinkled her nose. “Sounds boring. I want to travel. I want excitement. I want…” She looked up at the bright, cloudless blue sky, groping for words.
A seagull glided in the air, circling the beach, searching, waiting for an opportunity to swoop down and snatch some delicious morsel.
“You want what?” Brad asked.
The seagull dived. Descending with speed and grace, it focused completely on its target. Sam could imagine the wind rushing through its feathers, almost feel the bird’s excitement as it swooped down, the rush of anticipation as it approached its goal.
The bird landed by a trash can. It pecked at the sandy remnants of a greasy, half-eaten hamburger. The prize secure in its beak, the seagull took off again.
Sam lay down on her towel and closed her eyes. “I don’t know what I want yet,” she told Brad. “But I will.”
But now six years had passed, she was twenty-four, and she still didn’t have a clue.
Shaking her head, Sam put her needle and thread back in the sewing box and closed the lid. Maybe it was time she got a real job. She’d taken a couple of accounting classes before she quit college and had plenty of accounts receivable-payable experience both in the U.S. and in Europe. She should be able to find work fairly easily.
Or she could go back to college. She’d been considering that for the last year or so. She could finish her business degree while living off her share of the small trust fund her father had left. It would support her comfortably, if not luxuriously, while she studied.
Or she could continue to work for her sister. At least for a while. She’d taken the job with Jeanette partly to help out her sister, partly because she enjoyed working in the shop. But she knew Jeanette couldn’t really afford to keep her on long-term. Sam needed to make some decision soon. Hopefully before Jeanette became completely fed up with her lack of punctuality and fired her.
A knock sounded at the door. Sam glanced at her watch. Seven o’clock—Mrs. Blogden had said she and her daughter would be at the shop by six-thirty. Jeanette should have stayed and lectured them, Sam thought. Although, of course, Jeanette would never criticize a client. Only sisters enjoyed that privilege.
The knock came again.
Reluctantly she stood up, fluffing up her curls and brushing the stray bits of thread and cloth from her shirt and jeans. She picked up the stack of magazines and put them in the armoire before walking toward the door.
Another knock sounded, more impatient this time.
“Hold on to your horses,” Samantha muttered, but she arranged her features in a smile as she opened the door. “Your dress is ready.…”
The man standing on the threshold arched an eyebrow, his gray-blue eyes smiling down at her.
“You always did have a peculiar idea of me, Sammy.”
Chapter Two
Samantha stared up at the man in shock. Brad? She’d seen him just eight months ago, but he looked…different. Incredibly different. His glasses were gone, he wore a dark gray pin-striped suit that looked tailormade and silver cuff links. His sun-streaked hair was expertly cut, his nails manicured. On his wrist, he wore a gold Rolex watch, and on his feet, polished to a brilliant shine, shoes that screamed custom-made Italian leather.
But the difference went beyond clothes. He smelled of expensive gabardine, fine linen and spicy cologne. He was still tall and lean, but his shoulders looked broader. More powerful.
“A peculiar idea?” she replied stupidly, distracted by her efforts to decide whether his shoulders actually were wider or if the expensive jacket just made them appear so.
“I may have done some wild things in my life, but I draw the line at wearing ladies’ dresses.”
Her gaze flew to his. His gray-blue eyes held a glint. A familiar glint.
She started to smile. “What wild thing have you ever done, Brad? Ditched class to work on some computer program?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” he said, the glint still in his eyes.
She laughed. Her first impression that he’d changed faded away. This was the Brad she remembered from high school. Someone she could laugh with. Her friend.
Or so she’d thought. He certainly hadn’t acted very friendly in the past eight months. And even though he was smiling, he hadn’t hugged her or kissed her cheek. In fact, he was looking at her with a strange, watchful gaze. Her own smile dimmed. “What are you doing here, Brad?”
His gaze didn’t waver. “I need to talk to you. I was going to call again, but I realized that this is too important to tell you over the phone, so I decided it would be better to come and see you in person.”
Too important to tell her over the phone? Sam stared at him uneasily, Jeanette’s words popping into her brain.
Brad was in love with you.
Sam tried to banish the foolish thought. He’d barely spoken to her in the past eight months. That was hardly a sign of love.
But the thought refused to go away. Could Jeanette have been right, after all? Had Brad come to propose? “You’re wearing a suit,” she said, trying to hide her uneasiness. “Very nice. Are you trying to impress someone?”
“You, I hope.”
Her hand tightened on the doorknob. “I’m duly impressed,” she said, as lightly as possible.
“Are you?” The watchful expression in his eyes turned into something even more obscure and unreadable. “May I come in?”
“Oh, of course.” The pitch of her laughter a bit high, she stepped back and allowed him to enter the shop.
He looked around with interest, his gaze taking in the forest-green sofa and the pine table littered with catalogs and pattern books, the peach-colored wallpaper with its tiny white flowers and the rainbow of dresses hanging on one wall. His eyes lingered on the mannequin with Miss Blogden’s dress.
“Did you make this, Sammy?”
She nodded, unable to prevent a small welling of pride at the admiration in his voice. She’d done most of the sewing herself, endured thousands of pinpricks. But the result was worth it.
“You always did have a talent with clothes,” he said. “Remember that outfit you gave me one Christmas? A pair of baggy shorts, a black T-shirt and silver-rimmed sunglasses—along with a little note suggesting that I grow a goatee.”
She couldn’t help smiling. “Okay, so maybe I wasn’t very subtle. I still think you would’ve looked great. You could have at least tried the outfit. You never wore it even once.”
“Not my style.” He glanced at the row of gowns against the wall. “Do you make all the dresses for the shop?”
“Good heavens, no. Most of them are off the rack,” she said. “I only make a dress once in a while when a customer requests something unique. Usually, I just help Jeanette with whatever needs to be done. She’s doing very well. She only started a year ago, but she’s already close to making a profit. She had six weddings in June, and has at least two scheduled every month for the next year. I just assisted her with a wedding at the Arboretum in Arcadia with ten bridesmaids and ten groomsmen, a harpist, programs, the works. It was beautiful, we released 10,000 Monarch butterflies after the ceremony—”
She stopped, suddenly aware that she was babbling. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ramble on.”
“I enjoy listening to you. I remember Jeanette talking about starting a bridal shop ten years ago.”
“I didn’t think she’d ever actually own one. She hit a few roadblocks.”
“That’s normal. The important thing is she didn’t give up.”
“Mmm.” She glanced at him. “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about? Jeanette’s shop?”
His mouth quirked. “You always were direct, Sam. To tell you the truth, I came here for another reason. There’s something I want to ask you.…”
She stiffened, unable to prevent herself. “Oh?”
His gaze traveled over her face. “Yes,” he said gently. “I want to apologize for my behavior over the last several months. I was…disturbed about a certain situation and I allowed that to affect my friendships.”
“Oh, Brad!” The tension flowed out of her. She touched his arm lightly. “Have you been able to fix the situation?”
“No, but I’m working on it.” He smiled down at her. “In the meantime, I wanted to ask if we could be friends again.”
“That would be wonderful.” She smiled back at him, absently noticing that the angle of his chin seemed more pronounced than she remembered, the texture of skin at his jaw a little rougher. A few lines in his forehead were now permanent. “I’ve missed you.”
“Have you?” He reached out and brushed a curl off her forehead, his fingers lingering on her skin. “I thought you’d forgotten about me completely.”
“I could never do that.” His touch was friendly, the warmth from his fingers penetrating her skin and deep inside her. “You’re the nicest guy I’ve ever known. I’ve always thought of you as my best friend.”
Abruptly, his hand dropped to his side. For an instant, she saw something in his eyes, a spark of emotion she couldn’t identify. He grinned. “I’m glad to hear it—it will make my next question a lot easier.”
Her tension returned. Had she relaxed too soon?
He laughed, but his eyes still had that spark. “Don’t look like that, Sammy. It’s nothing terrible. At least, I hope you won’t think it’s terrible.”
Oh, dear heaven. “Brad, I don’t think—”
“Please, Sammy. Just listen. I’ve wanted to get married for a long time—”
Her fingernails bit into the palms of her hands. She couldn’t believe it. He really was going to propose. Her stomach churned. “Oh, Brad.…”
“And I’ve finally found someone who will have me.”
“I’m afraid—” She stopped, blinking in confusion. “What did you say?”
He smiled broadly. “Congratulate me, Sammy. I met the girl of my dreams and she has agreed to marry me. Her name is Heather Lovelace. And she’s the sweetest, kindest, most beautiful woman in the world.”
Samantha couldn’t speak. She felt dizzy for a second. Brad was getting married? She had never thought…that is, she couldn’t quite imagine…
“And we want you to design the dress. And Jeanette to arrange the wedding. Will you do it? Sammy? Sammy? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She shook her head, trying to clear away the unaccountable vertigo that had made everything in the shop tilt sideways. She forced herself to smile and say, “Of course I’ll do it. And I’m sure Jeanette can handle the wedding. If she can’t, I’ll do it myself,” she promised recklessly.
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Thank you, Sammy. Heather’s waiting out in the car right now. She wants to meet you. Will you come to dinner with us?”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t.” Her refusal was automatic and instinctive. She didn’t feel very well. Maybe she had a summer cold coming on.
“Why not?”
“I…I couldn’t go to dinner dressed like this.”
“Come on, Sammy. You look great.”
