The Best Man

by Natasha Anders

  “So you’re Dahlia.” Lia trembled at the sound of the dark, silky voice murmuring directly into her ear. She immediately knew who the voice belonged to, of course—the man hadn’t taken his eyes off her since the stag party had collectively strutted into the nightclub an hour ago. She’d been expecting some kind of contact from him, and sure enough, here he was, standing so close she could smell his delicious aftershave and feel his breath stir her hair.

  She shut her eyes, drew in a deep, fortitudinous breath, and turned to face him. Crumbs, he was much too close; if either of them inhaled too deeply, her chest would scrape against his. He was just four or so inches taller than her five foot seven, and—with her heels—their eyes were nearly level. He was smiling, and somehow that display of even white teeth did not make him seem approachable or friendly, but predatory.

  It was disconcerting.

  “Yes,” she replied. Not really wanting to talk with him. Thankfully the pulsing music and strobe lights made it almost impossible to have a decent conversation. So she gave him a wholly fake smile before dipping her head to take a sip of her drink. She drank too fast and then grimaced when the frozen margarita gave her brain freeze.

  “Stick your tongue to the roof of my mouth,” Sam Brand shouted in her ear. Completely appalled by the lewd suggestion, she backed away and glared at him, one hand pressed to her chest. His smile transformed into a roguish grin and he, once again, breached the space between them to yell into her ear. “For the brain freeze. Stick your tongue to the roof of your mouth!”

  She watched him in confusion, not sure if she’d imagined the “my” the first time or if he was messing with her. Brain freeze forgotten in her complete confusion, she waved him off.

  “I’m fine,” she said, raising her voice to be heard. Then, remembering her manners, “Thank you.”

  “It’s loud in here! Want to go someplace quiet to . . . talk?” Well, she certainly hadn’t imagined that suggestive pause and gave him her most quelling look. The one Daff often described as the “cock burn.” It wasn’t a term Lia would ever use, but the look was usually pretty effective.

  It had no effect on Sam Brand. He continued to watch her expectantly. She sighed, recognizing that she would have to use her words on this one.

  “No. I would not like to go anywhere with you—” Okay, that seemed a little rude, and being rude was completely out of character for Lia, so she added a polite disclaimer. “Right now.”

  “Yeah, I get it, your sister’s hen party. I’m cool with that. Want to dance?”

  “Uh. No.”

  “No problem, we can stand here and yell at each other.”

  “I see my, uh . . .” Lia scanned the area, but none of her friends were currently nearby. Daff was on the other side of the dance floor talking to Spencer—it didn’t seem to be going well—and Daisy and Mason were barely visible in their dark corner. They seemed to be having a fine time feeling each other up. Everybody else was scattered all over the place.

  “So what do you do?” the gorgeous man next to her bellowed into her ear.

  “Mr. Brand, I don’t think—”

  “Sam.”

  “Right. I have to go to—uh . . .”

  “Dahlia—” Ugh, Lia didn’t much care for her name, but asking him to call her by the shortened version would be sending the wrong message, so she left it. “I think you’re incredibly sexy. I never imagined the whole librarian thing ever appealing to me, but fuck me, babe, on you it’s scorching hot. I just wanted to get to know you a little better.”

  “Why?” she asked bluntly, and he laughed.

  “I like a woman who can get straight to the point,” he said, and she started to fold her arms defensively, forgetting about the margarita and spilling some of the freezing liquid all over the front of her pretty new blouse. The thin material immediately soaked through, beading her nipples and bringing up every lacy little curl on her white B-cup bra in lurid detail beneath the black lights. The corner of his mouth lifted in very sincere appreciation. He plucked the margarita glass from her hand, and she immediately crossed her arms over her soaked and practically naked chest.

  “You need to get out of those wet things,” he informed her, a gleam in his eye, and she frowned.

  “Well, I think that’s my cue to call it a night,” she said, relieved for an excuse to get away from him.

  “You could just ditch the blouse and party in that pretty little thing you’re wearing beneath it. It’s quite modest by some other standards in here.”

  Lia went bright red at the thought of parading around in her bra and tucked her hands beneath her armpits in an attempt to cover herself even more.

  “Good night,” she said sternly and turned away.

  “Whoa, sweetheart, you can’t go out reeking of tequila and unescorted in that see-through shirt. There are a lot of arseholes out there.”

  And yet—despite his amiable grin—Lia felt like she was in the company of the biggest a-hole of them all.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said, keeping her voice frigid, but his smile never faltered.

  “I’ll accompany you back to the hotel. Maybe we can have a nightcap.”

  “Mr. Brand, I really don’t think that’s necessary,” she negated primly.

  “Sam . . . and maybe I don’t really have a nightcap in mind.”

  “I know what you have in mind.”

  “Yeah?” His face brightened. “Then we’re on the same page.”

  “No. We’re not.”

  “Come on, Dahlia, it’s just a bit of fun and fucking.”

  She gasped and her eyes widened. No man had ever spoken to her so bluntly before, and it was . . . different. Not appealing, but not entirely repulsive, either. More like intriguing.

  “You’re interested, I can see you are,” he said, latching on to her hesitation.

  “You’re unbelievably crude, Mr. Brand, and I don’t believe we’ll get along. So why don’t we just part ways here? Before you say something to make me dislike you even more.”

  “Aw, come on, sweetheart, you clearly need to loosen up a bit. I can help you with that.”

  After the debacle of her failed wedding, everybody had been treating her with kid gloves. She had to admit it was really kind of refreshing to meet someone who didn’t walk on eggshells around her. Someone who didn’t treat her like some fragile little porcelain doll that would break at the first sign of rough handling.

  She tilted her head and openly assessed him.

  “My wedding was called off at the eleventh hour last year,” she told him, watching closely for his reaction. He did nothing more than raise a cocky brow.

  “Yeah? Good to know you’re a free agent, sweetheart. Married women are off-limits. I don’t do messy or complicated.”

  “There are plenty of other available women here,” Lia pointed out.

  “None of them are you,” he yelled, raising his voice even more when an annoying electronic beat started thumping and the crowd cheered. People swarmed around them, but nobody touched them. It was as if Sam Brand created his own invisible force field and people automatically knew to go around it. He was standing so close to Lia that she was afforded the same protection that invisible shield offered him, and it felt like—despite the throngs of people around them—they were in their own private little oasis.

  He was staring fixedly at her, his unnerving and unflinching scrutiny making her feel vulnerable and exposed, but she found herself quite unable to look away. Her eyes dropped to his beautiful mouth and then back up to his magnetic blue eyes.

  “How’s that nightcap looking, Dahlia?” he asked, that irrepressibly wicked grin flirting with the corners of his mouth.

  “My name’s Lia.”

  Two days later, just barely recovered from Friday night’s colossal hangover, Daff sat curled up on her sofa, her hands wrapped around her coffee mug as she took in the collection of personal debris she had been sifting through over the course of the last few weeks in her ongoing quest
toward self-improvement.

  The jazz albums, Japanese cookbooks, art history books, sketchbook and oil paints, a drum kit, a guitar, a surfboard, a collection of noir film DVDs, most of them unwatched, binoculars from that time she’d taken up bird-watching, her dad’s old golf clubs—she’d have to return them—and so many other gadgets and doodads that she had collected over the years. Obtained, not out of any genuine interest in learning a new hobby or craft, but to impress her current man of the moment.

  The pile on the floor was embarrassingly large and served as mute testament to what had gone wrong with all those relationships. None of those guys had shown the slightest interest in getting to know her and, worse, Daff hadn’t showed any of them her true self, either. She hadn’t trusted them enough to reveal her weaknesses and insecurities. Her pathological need to impress them by adopting their interests and hobbies had doomed each and every relationship from the start. It had started with Jake, of course, and despite the way that had turned out, she had continued on the same self-destructive path for years.

  She took a sip of her coffee and thought about what she and Spencer had shared. She had gone out of her way to give it no labels. Had done her best to ensure that it meant nothing . . .

  And yet it had been her healthiest relationship with a man ever. They had talked, laughed, made love, and talked some more. He’d been genuinely interested in her likes and she in his. Spencer Carlisle was a man any woman would be lucky to have, and he’d wanted her. Not because of some bullshit, fake mutual interest she had cultivated, but because he had seen the real, cranky bitch Daff, with her many, many insecurities, and yet somehow still loved her. He did not want to change her, or improve her, or educate her, he just wanted them to belong to each other.

  Why was that so hard for her to accept?

  She set aside the mug and got up to pad to her bedroom. She went straight to her closet and retrieved the shoebox she had stowed on the top shelf. She took it back to the living room and sat down on the nearest armchair, holding the box in her lap. She took a deep breath, removed the lid, and smiled fondly at the slips of yellowing notepaper. There were more than she remembered. She lifted the top one and unfolded it. Spencer’s handwriting, bold and masculine even when he was a teenager, was scrawled across the lined paper.

  Daff, your eyes

  Are like stars in the skies

  And for all your smiles

  I would walk a thousand miles

  She raised a hand to her mouth and stifled a half laugh and half sob. His poetry was kind of atrocious, but it must have taken phenomenal courage for the shy, reticent boy Spencer had been to write and then present this to the more popular Daff. She refolded the page along the well-worn crease and picked up another.

  She unfolded and recognized it with a sad pang. The last note he’d ever sent her. She’d never shown it to anyone. Even though she’d cruelly taunted him by sharing his sweet little love rhymes with Shar Bridges and her ilk, this letter had felt too personal, and she’d experienced an instinctive need to protect his privacy along with his dignity.

  Daff,

  I know my letters and poems have embarrassed you, and I’m so sorry I put you through that. I wanted you to know that I like you and I didn’t know how else to show you. I love coming to school every day and seeing your beautiful smile. I wish you would have shared one with me . . . just once. It would have meant the world to me.

  I won’t bother you again.

  Yours,

  Spencer

  Daff wiped a tear from her cheek as she reread the letter. He had been about seventeen at the time, and her fifteen-year-old self—the selfish, vain girl she had been—hadn’t truly understood what she had meant to the quiet boy who rarely spoke with anyone other than his brother. Even after becoming something of a sensation on the rugby team in his senior year, he had still remained quiet and removed from his peers.

  Daff read each slip of paper, bittersweet tears sliding down her cheeks as she thought of the boy he had been, of the man he was. She was a fool for letting him go. She knew it.

  She regretted it.

  But she wasn’t sure she was brave enough to fix it.

  “I don’t know why I can’t have a TV in my room, all the other kids at school do,” Charlie whined, and Spencer hid a grin at the unfamiliar high pitch in her voice. She was starting to behave like a typical young girl, concerned about the way she looked, her hair, what the other kids at her school had. She had started attending the local high school just three weeks ago and seemed to be settling in nicely. She even had a couple of friends.

  She would be moving in with Spencer next week, and her room was nearly complete. She’d surprised him by going pink and girly. Somehow he’d expected something darker, more Goth. But now that she didn’t have to hide her femininity, she was embracing it. It was odd to see her in skirts and dresses. With her short hair and skinny frame, they didn’t quite suit her, but she was starting to gain weight and looking healthier by the day. Spencer loved that she felt safe enough to behave and look like a girl again. And—while frustrating—he enjoyed her displays of temper and adolescent sulks, which meant that she felt secure enough in her position here not to tiptoe around on her absolute best behavior.

  “You don’t need a television when we have a perfectly good one in the living room,” he said, addressing her latest grievance.

  “Yeah, but I probably won’t want to watch the same crap you watch.”

  “Hey, watch the language,” he warned her, and she rolled her eyes.

  “Crap is so not a swear word.”

  “Yeah, well, I say it is.”

  “Oh my God. Your rules are so arbitrary. Why do you have to be such an old man sometimes?” He merely raised a brow to that, and she huffed dramatically.

  They were at Spencer’s place having some lunch after an “epic” shopping trip, for some “absolute, must-have” last-minute finishing touches to Charlie’s room. Spencer didn’t see what was so essential about a pod chair, or a weird pink fur rug, or whoever the hell that sulky teen boy in the ridiculously expensive framed poster was, but he’d had a blast getting the items for her. And the tasks took his mind off Daff—and the huge gaping hole she had left in his life and his heart.

  God, he missed her. He felt so lost and lonely without her. Being with her on her terms didn’t seem so bad compared to the constant, dull ache he now carried with him. With Daff he’d felt a sense of belonging, and not having her in his life made him question whether the traditional bonds he sought were as important as he’d once believed they were.

  “So are you and Daff not, like, together anymore?” Charlie’s subdued question completely threw him, and he blinked at her dumbly.

  “I—uh . . . well, we weren’t really together,” he explained awkwardly, and she took a sip from her soda before daintily picking up a french fry and biting it in half.

  “You seemed like you were.”

  “It wasn’t serious.”

  Charlie dragged the other half of her french fry through some mustard, drawing patterns on the plate, and shrugged.

  “You guys looked at each other the way Daisy and Mason do, and they’re getting married. And you look sad lately.” The last bit was mumbled self-consciously, and her eyes dropped to her plate. She was clearly uncomfortable making such a personal observation about him, while Spencer was more than a little shaken up that his overwhelming grief had been so evident to this young girl who barely knew him.

  “Yeah,” he said gruffly. “I am. I miss her. A lot.”

  He blinked rapidly, horrified when his vision blurred.

  “Uh, so how do you like your dress for the wedding?” He changed the subject and left the table abruptly, ostensibly to get a bottle of water from the refrigerator. He took a moment to compose himself while his back was to her.

  “It’s pretty. Daisy says it’s exactly like the other bridesmaid dresses, only theirs are knee-length and mine is long. I’ve always wanted a long dress. And I�
�ve never been a bridesmaid before.”

  Shortly after Charlie had moved in with the McGregors, Daisy had insisted that her new sister be included in the bridal party. Charlie had initially played it cool, but it was clear to see that she was very excited about it. Spencer didn’t know how complicated these things were, but evidently it had taken some doing getting a dress organized for Charlie on such short notice. But somehow, apparently against all odds, they had managed to pull it off. Spencer turned to face the smiling teen and felt his own mouth quirk in response to her sheer happiness. He really didn’t care about the particulars—what mattered was the end result. And—if Charlie’s bright and excited face was anything to go by—the result was pretty damned great.

  He was so damned grateful for Charlie. So happy to have the opportunity to provide a stable home for her. He had no real idea how to raise a girl, but he knew where she came from and he would make damned sure that nothing in her life from here on out was anything like she had experienced in the past.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Charlie,” he said, that gruffness creeping back into his voice, and this time Charlie was the one blinking rapidly.

  “I guess I am, too,” she finally admitted, then added with that usual air of teenage insouciance, “I mean, you’re not that bad for a boring old fart. And you are letting me have a dog.”

  It was an ambush, plain and simple. Daff knew Shar Bridges would be at the only salon in Riversend for her bimonthly dye job and caught her as she exited the salon.

  “Why the hell did you tell all of my boyfriends that I was into BDSM?” Daff launched at the other woman without preamble. Firing on all cylinders was the only way to get results with Shar, and Daff knew that stating her suspicion as fact would get the most honest reaction from the other woman.

  “Daff. I hear you’ve been spending time with that mouth breather Spencer Carlisle. Slumming, are we?”

  Daff inhaled deeply. Oh man, the bitch was courting a slap, and it would be Daff’s greatest pleasure to lay one on her.

  Don’t lose focus, Daff! Keep it together.