The Bride Next Door

by Hope Ramsay

  She let go of a long sigh as she studied the Google list.

  The Fairfax Cryobank had forty-nine Google reviews with an average of four and a half stars. She clicked on the link to the sperm bank’s webpage, where she learned she could select a sperm donor by race, hair color, and eye color. She could also upload a photo of herself and use a facial matching program to select the donor that looked most like herself.

  She sat there trying to process this information. Why would she want a child who looked like herself? In her fantasies, there was always a husband—a handsome one—who loved her more than life. Their baby always looked like a miniature of him in every way.

  She didn’t want a child who resembled her. She’d been the ugliest baby in the history of man, with a big dome head and a lazy eye. All her school pictures showed this poor child with an overbite, Coke-bottle glasses, an eye patch, and a page-boy haircut. It only got worse when her adult teeth and hormones arrived. She’d spent her teen years wearing out the road between her father’s house and the orthodontist, ophthalmologist, and dermatologist. Surgery and contacts had finally fixed the lazy eye. Years of braces and losing four adult molars had fixed her teeth. And time had finally dealt a blow to the acne.

  She didn’t want a kid who looked like her. Never in a million years. If she were going to find a sperm donor, she’d upload a picture of Johnny Depp or Ashton Kutcher—someone with deep, soulful brown eyes.

  Sort of like Matt Lyndon’s.

  No. Matt didn’t have soulful anything, although his eyes were as dark as espresso. Her body tingled with the thought, and gooseflesh prickled her skin.

  “Hey. What are you looking at?”

  Courtney minimized her web browser and turned around. Laurie Wilson stood in the office’s doorway, her blond hair pulled back in an easy ponytail that exposed the pearls at her ears and throat. They looked classic and beautiful with her navy and white polka-dot sundress. The expression on her face was a bit wide-eyed.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  Courtney closed her laptop completely. “Oh, nothing. I didn’t expect you to come all the way up here.” Usually brides checked in with the front desk and Courtney met them down in the lobby, where she treated them to tea or samples of Antonin’s baking.

  Laurie settled in the side chair. “I’ve already seen Eagle Hill Manor from top to bottom. I’ve sampled all of Antonin’s fabulous canapés and hors d’oeuvres. I don’t even know why we’re having this meeting. I just want to get it over with. Honestly, I wanted to go to Vegas for a quickie wedding, but Andrew is old-school.” Laurie smiled the sappiest smile when she said her fiancé’s name.

  And why not smile? Andrew was that rare man who knew how to treat a woman with respect. He’d stepped right up when Brandon had crushed Laurie’s heart. He’d protected her, wooed her, and treated her like she hung the moon. He was the exception to Arwen’s theory that romance was dead in America.

  Courtney was happy for Laurie. And for Willow, Amy, and Melissa, her good friends, all of whom had found wonderful men in the last few years. But she hated that sappy look her friends got when they talked about their husbands and lovers. Envy pressed down on her heart like a giant invisible millstone.

  She broke eye contact and pulled forward the manila folder containing the details for the Wilson-Lyndon reception. She needed to focus on her work, but before she could open the file, Laurie said, “Forget it, Court. I have no desire to go over the details. I’m sure it will be fine, whatever you do.”

  Just then Amy strode into the office carrying a vase containing two dozen long-stemmed red roses. “These just arrived for you,” she said, placing them on the corner of Courtney’s desk. “Everyone downstairs is dying to know who they’re from.” Amy turned toward Laurie with a grin. “Hey, how are you feeling?”

  “Okay. How about you?”

  Amy held her hand out flat and wiggled it. “I throw up every morning.”

  “It’s every evening for me.”

  “Wait, what?” Courtney shifted her gaze from Amy to Laurie and back again.

  Laurie grinned. “It looks like Andrew and I got the cart before the horse. Amy and I have almost the same due date, which is wonderful since our babies will be first cousins.”

  Courtney clamped her mouth shut on the explosion of profanity that threatened to come out of it. She gave them her best imitation of a smile and then ripped the little square envelope off the roses. The writing on the card was bold and masculine and looked as if it had been executed using a blue Sharpie. Since Courtney had never seen Matt’s handwriting, she had no way of knowing whether he’d written the card himself or simply dictated it to the florist. Either way, the message was cryptic. It began with a four-line poem:

  Oh how much more doth beauty beauteous seem

  By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!

  The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem

  For that sweet odor which doth in it live.

  And it ended with a one-line signature: Tomorrow. 6:30 p.m. at the Red Fern. M.

  “Who’s M?” Amy asked, shamelessly looking over Courtney’s shoulder. “And what’s with the flowery poetry?”

  “Oh no. Not Matt. Please tell me those flowers did not come from Andrew’s cousin.” Laurie looked horrified.

  “Oh my God, of course they did. He quotes poetry all the time. His grandmother was much the same way,” Amy said as she pulled her iPhone out of her pocket. “I bet it’s Shakespeare,” she said as her thumbs got busy. “Aha! It is Shakespeare. It’s from one of his sonnets.” She frowned as she read. “It says here that the meaning of the first line is that beauty is more beautiful when it comes with honesty and integrity.”

  “Really?” Laurie said, her face paling. “Matt has balls to send Courtney something like that. Oh my God. I’m going to kill him.”

  “No, don’t, Courtney said. “And don’t worry. I’ve got the situation under control.” Although that was debatable. The flowers were amazing. Hook-up Artists often used flowers and poetry as tools of seduction, but they usually quoted dumb lyrics from pop music. Not Shakespeare.

  “How could you get involved with him?” Laurie asked.

  “I’m not involved. I’m not even dating him. I’m teaching him a lesson.”

  Laurie collapsed back in the chair. “I’m worried about you, Court. I come in here and you’re looking at sperm banks on your laptop, and then you get two dozen roses from the biggest player on the face of the planet. Do we need to stage an intervention? What the hell is this about?”

  Courtney settled back in her chair. This was going to take a while to explain. “This has nothing to do with you or the way Matt behaved when you and Brandon broke up. This is about me and a truly nasty bet that Brandon and Matt made a couple of weeks ago.”

  Chapter Five

  Matt had refrained from texting or calling Courtney for an entire week, a move she probably recognized as strategic. The flowers, on the other hand, were a new tactic. He had never sent flowers to a woman before, even though he understood how much women enjoyed receiving them. Flowers were part of a courtship ritual, and Matt didn’t court women.

  He pursued them with unabashed joy and honesty but shied away from long-term relationships. Flowers, especially red roses, suggested something permanent, and he would never have sent them to anyone other than Courtney, because she would recognize them as a ploy. She’d probably get the Shakespeare quote too.

  He couldn’t wait to see how she reacted.

  He strolled down Liberty Avenue carrying his suit jacket over his shoulder. The warm June sun still rode high on the western horizon, casting a golden light on the broad leaves of the sycamores lining Shenandoah Falls’s main street. Their shade provided welcome relief from the day’s heat as Matt sucked in a deep breath filled with a dozen familiar scents: handmade waffle cones from What’s the Scoop, honeysuckle growing wild and untamed on the chain-link fence surrounding the Laundromat’s parking lot, and frying bacon
wafting through the doors of Gracie’s Diner.

  Matt missed life in the big city, but Liberty Avenue had its own home-town appeal. He’d consumed hundreds of ice cream cones at What’s the Scoop, pulled dozens of honeysuckle blooms from that vine, and eaten a truckload of burgers at Gracie’s Diner.

  He’d also dined at the Red Fern Inn more times than he cared to remember, usually with his parents or his aunts and uncles. He’d always been required to sit up straight, keep his elbows off the table, and use the right fork for each course.

  The colonial-era stone building had been a tavern for almost three hundred years, serving alcohol more or less continuously since the French and Indian War. It was the very first building in Shenandoah Falls to be listed on the historic register, probably because George Washington had imbibed there, in addition to sleeping in several of the upstairs guest rooms.

  The place was small, with whitewashed stone walls, dark-beamed ceilings, and a wide-planked pine floor that listed to one side. Matt put on his jacket just before he entered the taproom’s cool interior. Somewhere along the line, electricity, modern plumbing, and air-conditioning had been added to the three-hundred-year-old building, and today, someone had cranked the AC down to arctic.

  He checked his watch. He’d arrived exactly on time—another break from his usual MO. He gave his name to the maître d’ only to discover that Courtney had arrived before him, thereby making him late. Sort of.

  No, wait. He wasn’t late. And maybe Courtney had only just arrived too. Maybe they’d both decided to stop playing games.

  He crossed the dining room and knew a moment of disappointment when he saw the Manhattan sitting in front of her. She’d been there long enough to order a drink.

  Did that mean she was anxious? Or what?

  She looked up at him with an amused twinkle in her baby blues. She’d painted her lusciously sinful mouth a bright red to match the color of her dress, which clung to every curve. The subfreezing temperature in the restaurant had affected her nipples.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said as he sat down at the table with its pristine white linens that he’d never failed to soil as a kid.

  Her wicked mouth quirked at one corner. “You’re not late. And furthermore, you know you’re not late. I got here early. It’s been a rough week, and I needed a drink. What’s your excuse?” She nervously fiddled with the stem of her martini glass.

  “My excuse for what?”

  “For being on time.” She took a sip of her drink and gave him a hard stare over the rim of the glass.

  He smiled because he couldn’t help it. Everything about Courtney Wallace turned him on. Her shiny black hair, those big, beautiful, slightly offset eyes, the mouth he wanted to kiss more than anything. But most of all, he enjoyed her attitude. She was a total pain in the ass, and for some reason, that made him want to laugh out loud.

  A waiter came over with menus, and Matt ordered a Sam Adams. When the waiter left, Matt leaned forward and caught Courtney’s hand where it restlessly stroked the martini glass. Her fingers felt cold under his palm. “There’s something I need to tell you,” he said.

  She pulled her hand away, leaving his skin tingling in reaction. She cocked her head a tiny fraction, the angle just enough to align her eyes. She scrutinized him, her expression neutral and unreadable. “I’ll go first with the confessions. I know all about your bet with Brandon.”

  Boy, she was a piece of work. He’d spent all week working himself up to a big confession, and she stole it from him before the waitstaff had delivered his first beer of the evening. “You stole my thunder. I intended to confess.”

  “BS. Your big, beautiful dark eyes gave away your surprise.”

  “You think my eyes are beautiful?” He gave her his most seductive smile. Head tilted down, no teeth showing, mouth curled a little, and eyebrow lifted just so.

  She leaned back from him and nervously laughed. What was going on in that beautiful head of hers? She seemed restless and tense across the shoulders.

  The waiter returned with his beer, and Courtney announced that they were ready to order. Clearly she wanted to get this date over with in a hurry. He decided right then that he would linger over dinner if for no other reason than to allow Courtney to relax. He told the waiter that he needed a few more minutes and then sent him off with an appetizer order.

  “You didn’t even ask if I wanted the baked brie,” she said.

  “If you didn’t want it, you could’ve said something. I love the baked brie here.”

  “So you dine here often?”

  “If you’re asking me if I bring my dates here, the answer is no.” He cast his gaze around the dining room, taking in the early-American furniture and the walls covered with oil paintings featuring horses, fox hunts, and a reproduction of Peale’s portrait of George Washington as a young man. “This place is popular with the horsey set, but I find it just a little stuffy.”

  The corners of her mouth turned down. “If you think it’s stuffy, why did you invite me here?”

  “To surprise you.”

  This earned him a tiny, Mona Lisa smile. “I’m not surprised. Taking a woman to a place with white tablecloths, sending her flowers, and quoting poetry is precisely the sort of thing a player does. Although the Shakespeare was kind of classy. Of course, you might have done all that just to win a bet.”

  This time he gave her a real smile because she was adorable and amusing. “I never take my dates to restaurants with white tablecloths, and you are the first woman I have ever sent flowers to.”

  “And the poetry?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve been known to quote Shakespeare from time to time.”

  She took a long sip of her Manhattan and put the glass down before she spoke again. “Why did you send me flowers?”

  “To see how you’d react?”

  “Not because you thought it would help you win your bet?”

  He leaned forward. “The cost of the flowers and the meal will far exceed the one hundred dollars I’d win if my seduction succeeds. So how does that make any sense?”

  “Because your bet with Brandon has nothing to do with money. And I only agreed to go out with you because of the bet. I guess I’m still ticked off at you for encouraging Brandon to date other women right after he dumped Laurie. But Laurie made me promise that I would end my vendetta against Brandon and come clean with you. That being the case, I think I should go. I’ve already paid for my drink, and I’m not really a brie fan. If you’d ordered the crab cakes, I might have been induced to stay.”

  She stood up, the picture of a woman in charge of herself. She took one step toward the door before he got out of his seat and stopped her, snagging her by the arm, leaning into her, and whispering in her ear. “I’ve been looking forward to this dinner all week. And not because of some stupid bet. Stay. We’ll order crab cakes for dinner.”

  Should she stay? His hand on her arm felt deliciously warm and promised so much more. The fingers of his other hand captured her hair and tucked it behind her ear right before he whispered, “Please stay.” His hot breath curled around her ear and sent a pulse of lust shooting to her core. She took a deep breath and might have broken away from him were it not for the fact that he smelled so good.

  Not of cologne or aftershave, or even laundry detergent or soap. Matt Lyndon smelled like himself, and it was an unbelievable aphrodisiac. She turned her head a fraction and met his gaze. Why did his brown eyes always look soulful?

  He didn’t have one soulful bone in his body. That look on his face was a trap, and she was just desperate enough to believe what she saw in his eyes. Leaving was probably the right thing to do, but she’d never been one to run from a fight. So she returned to her chair, determined to win this battle, even though she wasn’t entirely sure what they were fighting over.

  She needed something to set him back, to surprise him, the way he’d surprised her with the flowers. And then it came to her, and even though it hadn’t been her idea, it was still
brilliant. It would send him spinning in an unexpected direction.

  She leaned forward. “I have a proposition for you,” she said, a frisson of anticipation tingling her spine.

  His eyebrow arched. “Proposition?”

  She stared down his smoldering look even though her insides quivered with need. He employed that look as a weapon, and he knew damn well it was effective. She wasn’t about to give in to it. “Not that kind of proposition…exactly.”

  “Exactly? What does that mean? Are you saying you want to sleep with me?”

  “Well, we could do it that way.”

  “What?”

  She hauled in a big breath and squared her shoulders. “I’m thirty-five years old, I’m not particularly a beautiful person, and I know that I’m never, ever going to get married. So I’ve decided to stop waiting for Mr. Right. Instead I’m going after what I want. And the truth is, I don’t want you. I want your sperm. Are you willing to be a donor? I can arrange for you to go down to Fairfax Cryobank and provide a sample, or alternatively we could…”

  “What? Do it the old-fashioned way? Are you out of your mind?” Everyone in the dining room turned to stare at them.

  She leaned forward and placed her finger across her lips. “Shhhhh. Not so loud. And I’m not out of my mind. I’m looking for a sperm donor with deep brown eyes, you know sort of like Aston Kutcher? Your eyes fit that bill nicely. Of course, there’s also your family pedigree to consider. But don’t worry. I’m not looking for any kind of commitment or monetary handout, just—”

  “I can’t father your child.” His soulful eyes looked pretty damn angry right at the moment. That look made her feel absurdly powerful for some complicated reason.

  She shrugged and rolled her eyes. “I figured as much. But you can’t blame me for trying. That’s what I get for being honest, I guess.” She stood up again. “Sorry you lost the bet. I hate when Brandon Kopp wins anything.”