“Looks like you’ve got a steamy one there.”
“…breasts. Vivian was shocked to her core as Julius’s piercing gaze continued to ravish her with penetrating intent. Her insides turned to molten liquid and her knees buckled as he leaned down so that his mouth was only inches from her own. His large and insistent hands slid down her back and cupped her rounded bottom as he pulled her close. Then his lips were on hers devouring her whole. As Julius drew her closer yet, she could feel the hard…”
“Pretty engrossing, huh?”
“…length of him.”
Lila started to feel flushed. Truly, she was astounded at the degree of detail she could conjure up. She certainly never experienced that kind passion with George. The truth was that she and George had both been virgins and while he was always rearing and ready to go, he had no idea how to make the experience memorable for her. Once she was actually starting to enjoy herself, he was done and snoozing beside her. It was during the George years that Lila became hooked on historical romances. Everything always worked out so well for the heroines in her books. She just couldn’t help but wish that she was one of them.
There were three tried and true formulas (in the historic bodice ripping department) that Lila always favored. One: young virginal lady about to enter her first season catches the eye of His Hot Lordship. Against her will, or his, they fall madly in love and immediately get to work on an heir.
Two: the daughter of the cobbler (butcher, farmer etc.) catches the eye of the Duke (Viscount, Earl, Marquis, etc.) and against her better judgment she falls madly in love with him. They consummate their love in a barn (field, carriage, etc.) Then he offers her carte blanche as his mistress. In a fit of rage, she declines his vulgar proposal. Days of drunken agony later, he realizes that he can’t live without her and races back to her side, begging her to become his Duchess (etc.); conveniently, as she is already pregnant with the heir.
Three: this was Lila’s new favorite. Daughter of the manor, long thought to be “on the shelf” (over 25), is swept off her feet by the most dangerous, handsome and supercilious member of the peerage. Lord Devil Dangerous wants nothing to do with marriage, due to his cynical past (betrayal by the woman he loved and/or abandonment by his faithless mother) until he lays eyes on the witty, intelligent daughter of the Duke of Earl. While Lilly Ward might not be the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, she is by far the most alluring. He’s not sure if it’s her outrageous laugh, the clever gleam in her large violet eyes, or her deliciously lush bosom. Then of course, he seduces her, marries her and she’s in the family way by the end of the book.
“Yes, I’m traveling to Chicago. Thanks for asking.”
Lila started to get a little worried that she might never find a real romance like the ones she read and wrote about. She was nearly thirty-three years old and she knew that every year that passed was one year farther away from her prime man catching age, which she estimated to have been twenty-six. Not only that, but the chances of getting pregnant with “the heir” were getting slimmer as the years waned. And while thirty-three may be the new sixteen, her reproductive system didn’t know that.
“My mom died several months ago and I’m finally going to go through her things and put her house on the market. It’s been very difficult. You are so thoughtful to be so concerned.”
When the flight attendant announced pre-boarding for first class, Lila shifted in her seat and began to gather all of her traveling paraphernalia. That’s when she noticed that someone was sitting next to her and he smelled divine. She laughed to herself as she realized that thoughts of romance were definitely on her mind. She didn’t normally think in phrases like “he smells divine.” Then she looked up and BAM! As Emeril Lagasse would say, he looked divine too! In fact, he looked just like Julius Hunkster in She Sins at Midnight. Lila felt a little dizzy as she stared up into his forest green eyes. She felt her knees weaken when he opened his sensuous mouth and sarcastically drawled, “It’s been lovely talking to you. You’re quite a conversationalist.”
Lila stood rooted to her spot as he stalked away. What was that all about? This was the reason she began reading romance novels. No real man could ever live up to the dashing heroes in her books. When they looked as good as he did there was always some bizarre personality disorder to contend with.
As Lila buckled herself into her first class recliner, she realized she hadn’t seen her parents in ten months. She diligently tried to get home twice a year and they came to visit her every spring but they had to cancel their trip this year. Her brother Jim and his wife were buying a new house in Atlanta and had begged Bitsy and Will to help them make their final decision. Then Lila missed her June visit because Josh couldn’t spare her. Hence, she was really, really, looking forward to going home where everything was nice and normal and never changing. She desperately needed a break from the crazy world of Hollywood and all the kooks in it.
Lila watched as the rest of the passengers boarded and noticed that the Julius look-a-like was sitting just a couple rows in front of her. Once again she lamented that gorgeous specimens like him were always flawed. Yet, even if he was perfect, she realized he was probably dating three perfectly silicone enhanced playboy playmates ala Hugh Heffner. She just didn’t know why men like that were never interested in nice normal girls like her.
As she was contemplating that very thought, she saw a woman who she assumed was Miss August, sit down next to the hunk and throw herself into his arms. Lila fought the urge to scream at the injustice of it all and cracked the binding on her book. Who needed real men anyway when she had Julius?
Vivian Ashwood adored her parents and her siblings. She was fully aware that she had a privileged and wonderful life. There was just one significant problem. She had just celebrated her twenty-sixth birthday and she was still unwed. It’s not that she hadn’t had any offers; it’s just that she wanted to marry for love, not fortune. And she didn’t have feelings for any of the prospective grooms who presented themselves. Happily her parents supported her dream as they were a love match themselves.
Ladies and gentlemen of the ton seldom married for affection. Rather, they treated matrimony as the advantageous joining of titles and fortunes. Husbands routinely kept mistresses and once the heir was born, wives were allowed extra curricular entertainment of their own. This was simply not the life that Vivian wanted. She yearned for the tender gazes and sweet endearments that her parents shared. She wanted to be cherished and adored. She wanted happily-ever-after. But three days into her twenty-sixth year of life, she started to wonder if she would ever have her heart’s desire.
Four hours later, Lila exited the plane giving no further thought to the Julius look-a-like. She picked up her suitcases at baggage claim and went off to rent an SUV with more of Josh’s air miles. Normally, she would have opted for a mid-sized car but that wouldn’t have used nearly enough of her boss’s precious frequent flier points. Once Lila was buckled into her premium vehicle and driving down I-94 toward Bentley, she smiled and realized how truly happy she was to be going home.
As she pulled into the driveway of her childhood address, Lila felt an amazing sense of rightness. She knew “they” said you can never go home again, but there she was, home again, back in the arms of her family and haven of her youth, back to the wonderful land where nothing ever changed. She turned off the ignition and inhaled the sweet scent of contentment just as her mother, or someone who rather looked like her mother, ran out the front door waving a broom and screaming, “Get out of here you filthy fuck!”
Chapter 4
Lila cautiously stepped out of the SUV and stared at the woman in front of her. She bore a strong resemblance to her Mother, but couldn’t be for two very distinct reasons. Lila’s mother didn’t have red hair and she certainly didn’t use the “F” word. As soon the crazy lady saw her, she launched at her into a dead sprint, “LILA!!! My baby, you’re home!”
Lila was thrown back a good three feet on impact and tentati
vely ventured, “Mom? Is that you?”
“Of course it’s me, darling! How was your flight?”
Still in shock, she stammered, “Good, good… I like your hair.” Although she hadn’t made up her mind whether she really did or not.
The mother impersonator asked, “Isn’t it fucking fabulous?”
There was that word again. The one her real mother didn’t know. “Mom, why are you swearing?”
Bitsy Montgomery filled her daughter in on the details of a little depression that she had been experiencing. She confided, “I just haven’t been myself lately. So I went to see Dr. Schiller and he suggested that I make some changes. You know, do something completely unexpected.”
Confused, Lila asked, “I’m going out on a limb here, Mom, but do you think he might have meant something like macramé or cross training?”
“Oh no, darling. He wanted me to do something that I would have never considered doing in a million years.”
Still trying to get used to her mother’s new look and vocabulary, she ventured, “Skydiving? Belly dancing?”
Bitsy laughed, “No honey, really, he wanted to me swear. He said that it would help free up my thoughts if I expressed myself in a more dynamic way.”
“Well, I’d say you’re doing a remarkable job. What’s the deal with your hair? Was that another one of Dr. Schiller’s ideas?”
Bitsy laughed, “Nope.” Then she leaned in and whispered, “Your father always wanted to go bed with a redhead so I thought I’d make his fantasies come true.”
Lila reeled back as though her mom slapped her. Her father’s fantasies were the last thing that her real mother would ever talk about! What was going on here? Tennis playing, country club going, Bitsy Montgomery, appeared to be on a strange hiatus. She had transformed herself into a red-haired, potty-mouthed, slightly sexier version of herself. Lila mused that the difference was akin to June Cleaver morphing into Sophia Loren.
Lila’s mom continued, “Enough about me, darling. What in the hell have you been up to?”
Lila took another step back with thoughts of jumping back into the SUV and returning to the airport. This was not the safe, secure, never changing environment that she planned to retreat to in hopes of nurturing her waning sanity. This was Ginger from Gilligan’s island meets Captain Blood and she hadn’t even walked through the front door yet. But before Lila could make a break for it, Bitsy grabbed two of her suitcases and bounded toward the front door like an overeager golden retriever puppy.
Lila hesitantly followed. As soon as she put one foot over the threshold, she heard her father holler out, “Hurry up, Baby. I just popped a little blue pill!”
Under her breath, Lila mumbled, “What in all that’s holy is going on here?”
Her mom had the good grace to blush (but only slightly) and yelled back, “I’m on my way up, Tiger!”
Before he could answer, “Me too!” Lila told Bitsy that she was going to go over to Jilly’s house so that they could have some privacy. In the weird alternate universe she found herself in, her mother thanked her, then ran up the stairs like a sex-starved nineteen year old sailor on shore leave.
Lila was back in her rented wheels in less than five minutes after arriving home. She sat still for a moment desperately trying to collect her thoughts when she realized that she was famished. At 3:45 Chicago time, she calculated, it was way past lunch time in L.A. Maybe Jilly would make her a sandwich. On her way down the driveway she started to long for peanut butter and jelly. By the time she was down the road, she had amended that to grilled cheese and potato chips; with homemade chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Thinking about food always seemed to help her planet resume its normal rotation. Regrettably, she was so engrossed in the thought of her impending comfort that she wasn’t paying close attention to the road.
The houses in her parent’s neighborhood were situated on two acre lots. Because the land hadn’t been developed within an inch of its life, deer still roamed freely and even occasionally darted across the road as one had just decided to do. Lila barely had time to slam on her breaks before she collided with the small doe. Fortunately, she missed it. But in swerving she hit a muddy patch. She wound up sliding right into the swampy marsh that abutted the golf course of The North Hills Country Club.
Luckily for Lila, she was behind the wheel of an SUV, or so she thought. Yet the more she gunned the gas to get out of the spot she was in, the deeper she sank into the mire. Finally, giving up her losing battle at freedom, she decided to walk across the street to see if someone in a nearby house could give her a hand. The thought of calling her dad briefly occurred, until she remembered the reason she was on her way to Jilly’s to begin with. Her parental units were otherwise occupied, in the middle of the day.
Lila opened the driver’s side door and realized that the SUV had slid even farther into the marsh than she originally thought. She was at least five feet from terra firma, and it looked like the only way to dry land was going to involve jumping. Before remembering that she was never much of a long jumper, Lila took off her sandals, grabbed the hem of her skirt and proceeded to bodily launch herself across the marsh into the most spectacular belly flop ever. Stunned into immobility, she lay still for a moment as the scunge completely saturated through to her skin. It crept up her legs and soaked right through her dress all the way into her bra and panties. Lila couldn’t believe how she wound up in such a ridiculous position. But then she remembered that she hadn’t really come home. She had arrived in an alternate universe where nothing was the way it was supposed to be. She fantasized that somewhere in a dimension not too far away, another Lila Montgomery was being welcomed by her real parents. They were kissing her and hugging her and feeding her grilled cheese sandwiches. The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to cry.
Lila tried and failed to stand up several times before crawling back to the car on her hands and knees. She made the decision to retrieve her cell phone and interrupt the aliens that were posing as her parents. They would come get her, help pull her rental free, take her home where she could shower, eat and start this crazy visit over. As she reached to grab hold of the car door, Lila felt something wiggling around her feet. As a little girl she had always been told that snakes nested in the swamp but she never paid close attention as she never had any intention of jumping in. In a boa constrictor induced panic, she slipped again and fell back, hitting her head on the running board of the Ford Explorer; moments before she burst into hysterical tears. That’s when she heard a car pull up.
Chapter 5
On the way to his mother’s house from the airport, Creighton Ashwood was struck by how long it had actually been since he’d been home. It had been seven months since his mother’s funeral. By not going back to Bentley sooner, he hoped he could somehow keep her alive longer. Creigh knew the moment he stepped through the front door without her presence, he would be hit with a fresh tidal wave of grief. So he tried to keep the deluge of emotion at bay for as long as possible by simply staying away.
Creigh was just starting to deal with the fact that he was a forty-year-old orphan when he received a call from Stan Harper. Stan was a good friend from childhood as well as the premier realtor in Bentley. Creigh asked him to keep an eye on his mom’s house and be the go-to man with the gardeners, repairmen and all others who might need access to the property. All had been going smoothly until the week before when Stan called to say that he had been receiving inquiries from potential buyers hoping to purchase the estate. His friend said that he hadn’t bothered Creigh with offers earlier, but he felt it was time for him to get serious about selling if that was his ultimate intent. It was a seller’s market after all.
Creigh knew that his friend was right and he also knew that sorting through his family’s memories wasn’t going to get any easier. So he made the decision to take a few weeks off work and go home to face the chore that awaited him.
Closing his eyes he remembered his beautiful mother smiling and laughing and
chasing him around the yard when he was a little boy. She used to say, “If you can get to the willow tree before I catch you, you can stay up an extra hour tonight.” Creigh felt a tug at his heart when he realized that she never caught him in time and always pretended that he got one over on her.
His mind continued to wander when he remembered the gorgeous woman at the airport in Los Angeles. She looked soft and curvy like she just stepped out of a movie from the 1950’s. Beauties like that were one of the reasons he missed the Midwest. As a rule, Creigh loved women of all shapes and sizes. As a successful entertainment lawyer he dated frequently and never lacked for female companionship. But lately he seemed to be dating gals who worked out more than he did. And while there was certainly nothing wrong with being toned and in shape, he was a little thrown off balance when the last one offered to lift him over her head, all two-hundred-and-ten pounds of him.
Creigh didn’t know what kind of partner he would ultimately wind up with but for a moment he imagined that she was the god-given curvy goddess from the airport. Of course she was most likely already married with 2.5 kids, a dog named Skippy and a Volvo SUV. Prizes like her got snatched up pretty quickly. Plus, he amended, the woman that he would marry, would be willing to put down her trashy novel long enough to have a conversation with him. “She Sins at Midnight?” What kind of name was that for a book anyway?
Then Creigh remembered Quandi Quartermain. It was just his luck that she was on her way to Chicago for Playboy business and wound up sitting right next to him. Creigh had met Quandi (with a “Qu” instead of a “C” and an “I” instead of a “Y”) at a party thrown by Robert Felton, one of the founding partners of his law firm.
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