Excerpt

Brad Sumners—successful entrepreneur, former high school football quarterback, and all around Greek God. Of all the things Mattie Wilcox could imagine him needing advice about, women was dead last on the list.

“Let me see if I’ve got this right.” Mattie eyed her best friend and roommate speculatively. “Your brother needs advice and since you’re leaving town, I’m elected?”

Jessica Sumners tossed two suitcases on her bed. “Come on,” she cajoled. “You and I have been best friends since the sixth grade. We practically grew up together. He thinks of you as a sister.” She scooped the entire contents of one dresser drawer into her arms and then dumped it into one of the open bags.

Mattie raised her eyebrows at Jessica’s uncharacteristic packing. Seeing Jessica—who was normally so calm and sophisticated—this rattled was a bit amusing, really. But who wouldn’t be rattled under the circumstances? Packing for a nine week trip in less than an hour would make anyone panicked. But Jessica? Jessica, who organized her wardrobe by color and planned her schedule up to six months in advance? Of course this had sent her into a tailspin.

Mattie gently nudged her friend into the chair by the bed. “Just sit down.” Jessica started to stand back up. “Calm down. You’re getting all ... flitty on me.”

“Flitty?” Jessica’s voice rose several octaves. “Of course I’m flitty. They’re sending me to Sweden for nine weeks and I’ve only got—“ She snatched up her alarm clock and stared at it. “—twenty minutes to pack. It’s noon?” She shook the clock, tapping it against her palm as if to test that it was working properly. “Is this right?”

Mattie glanced at her own watch. “’Fraid so.” Noticing the harried expression on Jessica’s face, she continued, “It’s okay. I’ll help you pack. Just remember, it’s Sweden. You’ve been begging your boss to send you abroad on business since you started working there.”

Jessica sucked in a deep breath and visibly relaxed as she exhaled. “You’re right. I just wish I had more time to prepare. And to help Brad. This just kills me. The first time my big brother asks for help and I can’t be here to give it. Promise me you’ll help him.”

The distress in Jessica’s sapphire eyes tugged at Mattie’s heart. She answered without thinking. “Of course I will.”

She would do whatever it took to help out, even though the thought of seeing Brad Sumners again after all these years made her feel all flitty. “I’ll talk to Brad. I promise.”

Something in her voice must have given her away, because Jessica frowned, then said, “Oh, Mattie, I didn’t think. This is going to be awkward for you, isn’t it? Because you were in love with him for all those years.”

“Nonsense.” She brushed aside her own needs with a wave of her hand. “That wasn’t love. That was teenage hormones. Lusting after a hunky guy isn’t the same thing as love. Doesn’t matter how hot he is. I’ll be fine.”

Jessica studied her with a worried gaze. “You’re sure?”

“ Yes. Definitely. Go pack your hanging bag while I handle this suitcase.”

While Jessica hurried off to her walk-in closet, Mattie sifted through the sleepwear and lingerie Jessica had dumped on the bed. She picked out only what Jessica would need for her trip, then carefully folded it and packed it into the open suitcase.

A few minutes later Jessica returned, holding a hanging bag in one hand and clutching an armful of casual clothes to her chest.

“Do you have room for these?”

As Mattie folded and packed the T-shirts, she asked, as casually as she could, “What kind of advice about women does he need? How to jump out of their way as they throw themselves at him? How to step over their prone bodies on the way out of his house every morning?”

“Mattie, be serious.” Jessica slapped one suitcase closed and tugged on the zipper.

“I thought I was.” When Jessica paused to glare at her, she held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, okay. I’m serious.”

“Besides, I don’t think he needs advice about women so much as advice from a woman. You know, a woman’s perception of things.”

“But if he needs advice,” Mattie asked, “why doesn’t he just call you and get advice over the phone like a normal person?”

“Because this is Brad, remember? He’s not a normal person. You know how he gets when he sets a goal for himself. He’s totally focused. He’s relentless. It’s like he’s got blinders on. Just like my team leader who was so focused on this project he worked himself into a case of pneumonia and had to be hospitalized this morning.”

“And now you have to go to Sweden in his place.” Mattie sighed, resting a hand dramatically over her heart. “Sweden in the summer. Rugged mountains, majestic fjords, and hunky Nordic men. If I wasn’t so damn broke, I’d go with you.”

Jessica paused and looked up. Then she dropped a handful of shoes into the open suitcase and rounded the corner of the bed, coming over to give Mattie a brief hug.

“I’ll miss you.”

Mattie returned the hug, squeezing her eyes shut against the prickling of tears. They’d been through Girl Scout cookie sales, high school calculus, and college term papers together.

A year ago, when Mattie had finally divorced her worthless husband, Jessica had been by her side lending support through it all. Jessica had given her a place to live, a shoulder to cry on, and at least a half dozen boxes of Thin Mints. Aromatherapy for the brokenhearted, Jess had called them.

“I know the timing is horrible, but if we lose this account it could be my job.” Jessica pulled back and smiled brightly. “And it’s only nine weeks. Besides, they’re paying me oodles of money for going on such short notice. And I happen to know a little quilt store that could use an investor.”

“I’ve told you before. I’m not letting you give me money. It’s bad enough that you don’t let me pay more rent. I won’t let you—“

Jessica waved aside the protest and crammed a few more items into the suitcase. “I wouldn’t be giving it to you. I’d be making an investment. But we’ll discuss that later. Besides, if you can handle this Brad crisis for me, I’ll really owe you.”

“You know, he may not want advice from me. We haven’t seen each other for years. He probably doesn’t even remember me.”

“Trust me, he remembers you.” Jessica zipped the last suitcase closed; then she picked up a suitcase in each hand and nodded toward the hanging bag. “Get that one, will you?”

Mattie groaned under the weight, following Jessica through the living room to the front door.

Jessica set the suitcase on the marble tile of the foyer then opened the door to watch for her taxi. “Brad’s rearranged his schedule so he can work from here for a couple of weeks, so whatever advice he needs must be important. He never takes time off work, but I got the feeling he didn’t want to be alone on his birthday. He just hasn’t been the same since the divorce. Ginger broke his heart—the witch.”

“The witch?” Mattie asked. “That’s generous of you.”

“Meee-ooow.”

“Oh, was I being catty?” Mattie feigned surprised. “You know, I think that’s the worst thing I’ve heard you say about your ex-sister-in-law.”

“When Brad gets here, could you at least try to be sympathetic? He probably just wants a shoulder to cry on.”

Mattie snorted in exaggerated disbelief. The Brad she knew cried on no one’s shoulder. The Brad she knew didn’t cry at all. “His junior year, a three-hundred-pound linebacker shattered his femur.

Jessica shot her a wry look. “I was speaking metaphorically.”

To lighten the mood she added. “Okay, okay. I’ll be here. I’ll be sympathetic. I’ll be like the sister he’s never had.”

The corner of Jessica’s mouth twitched up in a smile. “He has a sister. Remember?”

“So I’ll be like the sister he has, but who’s in Sweden.”

“Just be sympathetic.” Outside, a car honked. “That’s my ride.”

Less than a minute later, Mattie stood alone in the doorway watching Jessica’s taxi disappear down the road. She gave herself exactly one minute of feeling lonely and abandoned, before shutting the front door and heading back to Jessica’s room. The evidence of Jessica’s hurried packing lay strewn across the cream cotton duvet. Mattie quickly re-hung the clothes and returned the shoes to their cubbyholes in the closet. She paused while folding one of Jessica’s camisoles. The scent of Jessica’s lavender lingerie detergent wafted through the air.

Mattie sighed, squelching her jealousy.

Everybody had a different destiny. You had to settle for the cards fate handed you, even if you didn’t necessarily like them. That’s just the way the world worked. It was all part of the great cosmic poker game.

Jessica’s cards held trips to Sweden, a well-paying job, and lavender-scented soap. Her own cards?

Her cards held a quilt shop inherited from her grandma, scraps of money left at the end of the month, and whatever detergent happened to be on sale.

Fortunately they also held great friends, fun employees, and the rare bottle of Woolite. All in all, not so bad.

However that didn’t mean she wanted Brad Sumners showing up in her poker hand any time soon. After dropping the camisole into the drawer, she slid it shut. She had more important things to be thinking about. To start with, finding a way for A Stitch in Time to make more money. She had employees who depended on her for their living. She had promises she’d made to her grandmother.

Her own desires, needs and adolescent fantasies were nothing compared to that. Dealing with Brad would be a snap.

She hoped.

“Everyone has stupid high school crushes,” she told herself. “It’s part of life.”

She ignored the voice in her head that reminded her that her stupid crush had started in the sixth grade and lasted all the way through college and a good part of her marriage. Her stupid crush on Brad had sabotaged every romantic relationship she’d ever had.

***

“Brad means nothing to you now.” Hours later, and she was still trying to convince herself.

She pulled her clothes off, wadding them into a ball and ‘shooting’ them across her bedroom into the laundry basket.

She crossed the hall to the bathroom, continuing her monologue while she waited for the water to run hot.

“I mean it, too. You’re not fifteen anymore. You’re past that.” She braced one hand on the tile wall and thrust the other under the stream of the steamy water. Perfect.

“He’ll visit. You’ll be sympathetic. That’s it.”

As she stepped into the shower, she noticed the bottle of Fresh Freesia Shower Gel. Jess was always leaving fancy gels and shampoos in here for her.

Mattie started to reach for her own bar of Ivory, like she always did, but paused. What would it hurt? Surely one fresh freesia shower wouldn’t spoil her forever. As she flipped open the cap and inhaled the light floral scent, she found herself humming “Love is a Battlefield.”

By the time she stepped out of the shower a few minutes later, she’d graduated from humming to belting it out at the top of her lungs. She paused only long enough to wrap her hair in a towel. Grabbing another towel off the rack, she headed for her bedroom.

It wasn’t until she opened the bathroom door that she heard the phone ringing. For a brief second, she contemplated letting the machine get it, but Jessica might have forgotten something.

After trotting down the hallway to the kitchen, she snatched up the phone and was about to punch the ‘talk’ button when she noticed the dog prints.

A trail of large muddy paw prints led across Jessica’s plush cream carpet, over the snowy tile floor, and toward the sliding glass door to the backyard.

Which was really odd, considering she didn’t have a dog.

Still holding the phone, she followed the trail to the backdoor and looked out. Sure enough, there sat a large, honey-colored retriever and ... a man, crouching just in front of the dog, wrestling for control of a paw.

Her heart leapt. Brad.

There. In her backyard—well, Jessica’s backyard. With a dog.

The phone in her hand gave one last shrill ring before being cut off. She blinked at the handset for a second, then realized the machine had picked up the call. Quickly, she punched the talk button.

“Hello?”

“Oh ... hi.” It was Jessica. “I was about to leave a message. I thought I’d missed you.”

Mattie didn’t take her eyes off Brad as she answered. “I was just getting out of the shower.” She couldn’t help noticing a thousand little details about him: the way his blond hair—now darker than it had been the last time she’d seen him in person—still gleamed in the sun. The way the white cotton of his oxford shirt stretched taut across his unbelievably wide shoulders. The way his crisp khakis molded his lean hips and firm buttocks.

“I’m glad I caught you. I forgot to tell you Brad has a key.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Just then the dog looked up and noticed her. The glass door separating them barely muffled the noise as the dog barked at her. “That makes sense.”

Brad stiffened. Then glanced over his shoulder. A second passed. Then he stood and turned to face her.

The instant his gaze met hers, every cell in her body seemed to shake itself awake. In the years since she’d last seen him, she’d convinced herself his eyes weren’t as spectacularly blue as she remembered. She convinced herself no one had eyes the color of the ocean’s depths. She’d been wrong.

She felt a familiar jolt of adrenaline. Entranced by his gaze, a second passed before Jessica’s voice intruded over her own thundering heartbeat. “... you okay? You sound really strange.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled. Try as she might, she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off Brad. “I’m just... um...” Finally she tore her gaze away from him and shook her head to clear it. “It’s just that I’m dripping on the floor.”

And that’s when she remembered she was wearing only a towel.