He's the One: Winning a Groom in 10 Dates / Molly Cooper's Dream Date / Mr Right There All Along

But when she took a little nibble of the new croissant, ignoring the jam, and a crumb stuck at the corner of her mouth, he wondered just who was rattling whom.

“I work for the Historical Society,” Sophie said, but reluctantly. “I’m sure you would find what I do exceedingly boring.”

“It’s not,” his father rushed to her defense. “Sophie is our only paid employee at the Society. She’s a whiz at organization. A whiz! She’s going to write a book.”

“Well, not exactly,” she said swiftly, blushing sweetly again. “I’m going to gather material for a book. A collection of remembrances of Sugar Maple Grove during the Second World War. I won’t really be writing it so much as selecting and editing.”

It occurred to Brand that once upon a time he would have found Sophie’s choice of work exceedingly boring. But having just spent four years around women who were ditzy, who thought it was cute to be dumb, he found himself intrigued by Sophie’s career choice.

His father began to talk about the book with great relish—and considerable savvy.

Brand allowed himself to hope his sister was wrong, and to sink deeper into the feeling of being somewhere good. And decent.

Then the mood suddenly changed. A bright-red sports car was slowing in front of the house, then, apparently having spotted the people on the porch, it pulled in.

Sophie had been starting to relax as Dr. Sheridan had waxed lyrical about Sugar Maple Grove’s contribution to the war.

Now Brand was aware of her freezing, like a deer caught in headlights. Unless he was mistaken, she was getting ready to bolt.

“The nerve,” her grandmother said, and then in German, “I’d like to cover him in honey and stake him out over an ant hill. Naked.”

Brand, practiced at deception, never let on with so much as a flicker of a smile that he understood her perfectly. He watched, as did they all, as the man got out of his car.

If there was one thing Brand had gotten very good at spotting—and not being the least impressed by—it was wealth and all its trappings, the car, the designer sweater, the knife-pressed pants, the flash of a solid-gold pinkie ring.

“Mama’s boy,” his father hissed with disdain, and then shot Brand a look and muttered sulkily, “not that that’s always such a bad thing.”

But as he was reading the shift of mood at the table, it was Sophie that Brand was most aware of.

She had gone white as a sheet, and he could see tension in the curve of her neck, in the sudden locking of her fingers. She had hunched over as if she was trying to make herself smaller.

He had a memory from a long time ago. He and some friends shooting baskets at the riverside park where Main Street ended. Sophie had been walking home from school. She’d been thirteen, it had been after her speech in that national competition.

“Hey, metal mouth,” some Main Street big shot had yelled at her. “What makes a small-town hick? You!”

Brand’s eyes had flown to Sophie. He had seen her hunch over those books, trying hard to make herself invisible.

Brand had come out of that group shooting baskets and been across the street in a breath. He’d picked up that loser by his T-shirt collar, shoved him against the wall and held him there.

“Don’t you ever pick on that girl again,” he’d said, his quietness not beginning to hide his rage. “Or I’ll make you into a small-town brick, pound you down to dust, make you into a little square and stick you on this wall forever. Comprende?”

Even then he’d had a certain warped gift for tackling things in a way that had made him a prime find, first for the United States Marine Corps and then for the unit he now served.

Through those organizations, Brand had become much more disciplined in his use of force, at channeling righteous fury to better purpose, at choosing when aggression was the appropriate response.

A frightened nod, and Brand had let the creep go, caught up to Sophie and slipped the books away from her.

“Put your head up,” he’d told her. “Don’t you ever let a dork like that control you, Sweet Pea.”

No gratitude, of course.

She’d given him her snotty look, and said, “Brand Sheridan, don’t even pretend you know what a dork is.”

“It’s a guy like that.”

“It’s a whale penis,” she told him. And then she blushed as if she had said or done something really bad, and surprisingly, he had blushed, too.

Now, sitting here beside her, he tried to think if he had blushed like that since then. Or at all. He doubted it.

But she still blushed.

Suddenly, Brand was aware she had flexed the muscles in her legs, just enough to push back slightly from the table, and he just knew she was going to bolt.

And that for some reason he couldn’t let her. It was a variation of holding her head up high. He laid a hand on her arm, not holding her down, just resting his fingers lightly on her skin, his own hand completely still, willing his own stillness into her.

He felt her eyes on his face, but he didn’t look at her, didn’t take his eyes off the man who had made her shrink as if she was still the town brainiac carrying her books down Main Street, a target for every smart aleck with an opinion.

Brand was aware, even as he made himself go still, even as he let her see and feel only his stillness, that something in him coiled, ready, ready to protect her with his life if need be.

He didn’t know exactly what was going on. But Brand knew whatever it was she couldn’t run from this. Whoever Slick was coming up her front walk, Sophie shouldn’t let him know he had that much power over her.

Why did he?

Slick came up the steps, sockless in designer sandals, and flashed them a smile made astoundingly white by perfect porcelain veneers.

“Dr. Sheridan. The misses Holtzheim.”

He seemed unaware that no one looked happy to see him, that he would have to search long and hard to find a more unwelcoming group in Sugar Maple Grove.

He raised spa-shaped eyebrows at Brand, and put out his hand.

Brand half rose, took it, felt the softness, and squeezed just a little harder than might be considered strictly polite.

He did not return the smile, intensely aware of how stiff Sophie had become, her face rigid with pride, even as her hands gripped the tablecloth just out of view, white-knuckled.

“Brand Sheridan,” he introduced himself.

“Oh, our war vet! What an honor, the hero returning to Sugar Maple Grove.” His tone was aw, shucks, but Brand did not miss something faintly condescending in it. “I’m Gregg Hamilton.”

Ah, the Hamiltons. Strictly white-collar. Old money. That explained the underlying disdain for the public servant.

“I think you might have gone to school with my brother, Clarence.”

I think I might have taken a round out of him behind the school for having exactly the same snotty look on his face that you do.

Somewhere along the line the military had managed to channel all that aggression he’d visited on others. His father might not be willing to admit what a good thing that was, but Brand knew he was a better man for it.

Brand shrugged, letting nothing of his own growing disdain show in his face. This was what he was good at, after all, never letting on what he was really feeling.

“Sophie, Mama told me she dropped by yesterday. I just wanted to echo her invitation to come to Toni’s and my engagement party. It would be so good if you came. I think you’ll adore Antoinette. I’m hoping you’ll be friends.”

Hilde Holtzheim muttered something in German that was the equivalent of go screw yourself, worm face.

Suddenly Brand put together Sophie sitting in front of that fire last night in her wedding dress, burning all manner of wedding paraphernalia with her tension at the unexpected arrival of Slick Hamilton.

Surely, Sophie hadn’t been going to marry this guy? Worm face?

But a quick glance at Sophie, trying so hard to retain her pride, a plastic smile glued across her face, confirmed it.

Not only had she been going to, it looked like she regretted the fact she wasn’t! The little ceremony he’d interrupted at the fire pit last night was all beginning to make an ugly kind of sense now.

Well, that’s what happened when you left a lovely hometown girl, innocent to the ways of the world, to her own devices for too many years. She had all kinds of room to screw up.

“Um,” Sophie stalled, “I haven’t checked the calendar yet. What day was it?”

Brand hated seeing her squirm, and he hated it that she was so transparent. The little worm could see just how badly he’d managed to hurt her—which was exactly the kind of thing that made little worms like him feel gleeful with power.

Gregg actually looked as if he was enjoying himself enough to pull up a chair and have a croissant with them!

Brand slid Sophie a look. Slick Hamilton wasn’t the kind of threat you had to keep a hand free to get at your hidden holster for.

The look on her face reminded him of another time when he’d found her on this porch, alone, on the swing over there, listening to music drifting up from the high school. It had probably been sometime in that year before he left.

He’d been rushing somewhere, though it was funny how that somewhere had seemed so important at the time, but he couldn’t remember it now.

But he could remember the look on her face as clearly as if it had happened yesterday.

“What’s up?” he’d asked her.

“Nothing.”

“Come on. You can’t lie to me, Sweet Pea. How come you aren’t at the school dance?”

“It’s the Sweetheart Prom,” she said and then her face had crumpled even as her chin had tilted proudly. “Nobody asked me to go.”

At nineteen what did a guy know about tears except that he didn’t want to be anywhere around them? A better person than nineteen-year-old him had been might have dropped his other plans, changed clothes, taken her to the prom.

But he hadn’t. He had chucked her on the chin, told her proms rated pretty high on the stupid scale and gotten on with his own life.

Brand thought suddenly of all those cute letters she had sent him when he’d joined up, when he’d been posted overseas. His one-gal fan club. The envelopes always decorated with stickers and different colored inks, the contents unintentionally hilarious enough that he had read every word.

Never answered any, though. Not even once.

Had her younger self waited by the mailbox, hoping?

So, maybe it was because he regretted doing the right thing by her only when it was convenient for him back then that he made a decision now. He owed her something. A smidgen of decency, compassion in a hard world.

Being undercover had taught him to read situations, and this one was obviously going as badly for her as it was going well for Gregg.

It felt like the most natural thing in the world to rescue Sophie.

“I think Sophie’s going to have to say no,” Brand said smoothly. “I’m only here for a little while. We don’t want to waste any of our time together, do we, honey?”

He turned to look at her. She was no actress. If Slick Hamilton saw her mouth hanging open in shock, he’d know the truth.

And Brand didn’t want him to know the truth. That she still loved Gregg Slick Hamilton. Or thought she did.

There was one way they both could find out.

He caught her cute little puffy bottom lip with his. Touched it, ran his tongue along it, made her world only about him.

It was probably a sin how much he liked it, but Brand was pretty sure his place was reserved in hell, anyway.

And the kiss accomplished exactly what he wanted.

Sophie was staring at him with wide-eyed awareness as if Gregg had vaporized into a speck in front of them. She licked her lip and her eyes had gone all smoky with longing.

Nope.

No matter what she might have convinced herself, she didn’t love Gregg Hamilton and never had.

Not that Brand considered himself any kind of an expert on love.

Lips, though, that was quite another thing.

And he liked hers. A whole lot more than he’d expected to. His sense of having sinned deeply grew more acute.

“Well, Sophie,” the swagger was completely gone out of Gregg’s voice, “You know you’re welcome to come. Bring your new friend with you.”

The invitation was issued now with the patent insincerity of a man who saw something he’d been using to puff himself up disappearing before his eyes.

“We might just do that,” Brand said easily.

Gregg got in his car and roared away, spitting stones as if they proved his testosterone levels were substantially higher than those of the next guy.

Brand committed to getting rid of his own sports car sooner rather than later.

“Were they to swine for?” Hilde demanded, mixing German and English.

“What?” Sophie asked, dazed.

“His lips!”

“No. Yes.” She closed her eyes, gathered herself and then looked sternly at her grandmother. “Stop.”

And then she turned to Brand. The dazed expression was completely gone from her face.

“What did you do that for?” she demanded.

He tried not to smile. The girl was transparent! It was written all over her that she was torn between yes and no, stop and go, hitting him or thanking him.

And it was written all over her that that kiss had rocked her tidy world in a way she would never want him to know. But then again, he didn’t really want her to suspect it had rocked his, too.

“Your ex was just gloating over your discomfort at his arrival a little too much,” he said quietly. “It bugged me.”

“How did you know he was my ex?” she asked, aghast.

“I’m good at reading people,” he said. He didn’t add that it was a survival mechanism, that over the past few years his life had depended on that skill. “I’m glad about the ex part, Sophie. I didn’t care for him much.”

Her grandmother snickered with approval and Sophie shot her a quelling look.

“You only saw him for thirty seconds!”

“Like I said,” he lifted a shoulder elaborately, “I have a gift for reading people.”

“He looked like a good kisser,” her grandmother insisted in German.

“Stop it!” Sophie said in English.

“Stop what?” Brand asked innocently.

She looked him straight in the face. “Stop rescuing me, Brand. I’m not fifteen anymore. I don’t need your help with my personal affairs.”

She blushed when she said affairs in just about the way she had when she’d said dork all those years ago, as if she was fifteen and had just used a risqué word. It was very sweet. She was very sweet. The kind of girl he knew nothing about.

She was right. He needed to stop rescuing her.

“It was just an impulse,” he said. “It won’t happen again.”

She struggled to look composed. Instead she looked crushed.

“Unless you want it to,” he couldn’t resist tossing out silkily.

“I want it to,” Hilde said, all in English. She reached across the table, touched Brand’s hand. The mischief was gone from her eyes. “The whole town is whispering about my Sophie and him. I’d much rather they whispered about my Sophie and you.”

Chapter Four

SOPHIE was still stuck on the unless you want it to part. Good God, she thought, she might be super-nerd of national-speech-contest fame, but of course she wanted it to. Happen again.

Sophie’s lips were tingling from being kissed. She felt exactly like a princess who had been sleeping, the touch of those lips bringing her fully to life. She was aware some part of her had waited, longed for, wanted what had just happened since she was a scrawny flat-chested teen in braces and glasses.

His lips had tasted of passion and promises and of worlds she had never been to. Had not even known existed. Places she wanted desperately, suddenly, now that she did know of their existence, to visit.

Who wouldn’t want more of that?

But, unless she was mistaken, Brand was enjoying her discomfort as much as he had just accused Gregg of doing.

Men!

Not that any man could hold a candle to her grandmother, who apparently felt driven to share with Brand Sophie’s closely guarded secret, that she was somehow becoming pathetic.

Sophie struggled through her embarrassment to remember her mission last night. To be free of all her romantic notions and nonsense.

She wasn’t letting Mr. Brand Sheridan think she was still the starry-eyed fifteen-year-old she had once been.

She wasn’t letting him know that one tiny ultra-casual brushing of lips had her ready to pack her bags and travel to unknown territory.

No! Sophie Holtzheim was taking back control and she was doing it right now. If Brand thought she was weak and pathetic and in need of his big, strong, arrogant self to rescue her, he’d better think again!

But Brand was looking at her grandmother, and suddenly he didn’t look as if he was enjoying her discomfort over that kiss.

“It’s a bad thing to lose face in a small town,” he said quietly.

“Yes!” her grandmother crowed, delighted that he had understood her so completely.

“It would be good for Sophie to have a romance so heated it would make the whole town forget she ever knew him,” Brand said thoughtfully

“Yes!” Her grandmother was beaming at his astuteness.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” Brand said, casually, as if he had agreed to his good deed for the day.

“Do what?” Sophie demanded.

“Romance you.”

“You will not!”

“It will convince Gregg and the whole town that you’re over him,” Brand said with aggravating confidence, as if it was already decided.

“It’s deceptive,” Sophie said, and then realized that wasn’t the out-and-out no that such an outlandish suggestion deserved.

“It could be fun,” Brand said.

“I doubt that.”

He raised an eyebrow at her in clear challenge. And then said, softly, “What are you afraid of?”

Now the only way she was going to show him she wasn’t the least bit afraid of what had just happened between them was if she said yes. If she protested this idea too strenuously, he might know the truth: she was terrified of him and his ability to tear her safe little world so far apart she might never succeed in putting it back together.

But she had to admit there was something wonderfully seductive about saving face. It really was horrible to be branded as pathetic in a small town.

“Well, Brand,” she said slowly, thoughtfully, “maybe we could have a little fake fling, under carefully orchestrated circumstances, of course.”

“And let me guess,” he said wryly, “you will be in charge of orchestrating the circumstances?”

If she was going to do this, and she had a sinking feeling that she was, she had to maintain absolute control over the situation.

He watched her, some challenge lighting the sapphire depths of his eyes until they sparkled like falling stars in a night sky. It was a look that could take away a woman’s courage. It could intimidate. It could shake her belief that she could be in control of everything. Or anything.

If she allowed it to, that was, if she hadn’t just vowed in front of her own burning dreams she was going to be a different kind of woman from now on.

The take-charge kind.

“How long are you going to be here, Brand?” she asked, keeping her voice all business.

“Maybe a month. I’ve got a lot of leave built up.”

“A month?” his father sputtered, and then sent Hilde an aggrieved look that Sophie easily interpreted as his son’s presence in his life cramping his romantic ambitions.

Brand’s eyes narrowed on his father for a moment, then he glanced at Hilde.

Hilde, naturally, looked unabashedly delighted at Brand’s announcement of a longterm stay in Sugar Maple Grove. It was written all over her face that she was already planning Brand and Sophie’s wedding.

And an adorable little house filled with babies. She hoped Hilde wouldn’t say it, not even in German. Because her grandmother was known to say anything, commenting on Brand’s kissing abilities being a case in point. What kind of grandmother did that?

Sophie slid Brand a look. The full force of his attention was back on her. Well, there was no denying he was a good kisser and would produce perfect babies. But if she wanted to stay in control of the perilous situation she was moving herself toward, she’d better not go there!

“What are you going to do here for a month?” Dr. Sheridan asked sulkily. “You’ll be bored in three days. Ha. Maybe in three hours.”

Once, Sophie knew, Brand would have risen to the bait, argued whether what his father said was true or not, and it probably was. He had been hotheaded, impulsive, impatient.

Now, there was something new in him, something coolly disciplined that made him both harder to read and more intriguing.

Brand just shrugged and said, “It’ll probably take me a month to fix everything in your house that is broken.”

She looked between the two men, and saw it wasn’t just the house that needed fixing.

Sophie could feel her head starting to ache. Those Sheridan men were probably going to need her help to navigate the minefield between them.

Great. She was going to have to do that while never letting Brand know how that kiss had rattled her world. How him sitting beside her on a sleepy Sunday morning made her feel aware and alive.

But, she reminded herself, this was exactly what she needed. To prove to herself she wasn’t fifteen anymore, the mere whiff of him enough to make her waste her life dreaming of happily-ever-afters. No, she was all grown up now and immune to his charm, considerable as that was.

Once she did that, longing for things that didn’t exist wouldn’t have the power to ruin her life anymore.

She could be a realist, dismiss that longing for something. It wouldn’t be there, like a villain waiting in the wings, ready to rain disaster on her well-planned future and life.

But she knew she was playing with fire. Because that something was exactly what she had tasted on his lips.

Walk into it, girl, she ordered herself. If you want to play with fire, walk straight into the flame. There would be nothing like a dose of reality to kill her fantasies forever.

“Well, Brand,” she said, taking that mental leap off Blue Rock, “since you’re going to be here, you might as well help me out. It’s true, this whole town thinks I’m pining away for my ex-fiancé, Gregg, who is about to become officially engaged to someone else.”

“Are you?” he asked softly.

“Of course not!” But she could feel a blush rising up her neck as she said it, and she could see she had not convinced him.

She took a deep breath, walked straight into the fire. “So, I’ll accept your offer. Yes, you can pretend to be my beau.”

It was like falling straight off a cliff. And no one hated heights more than she did!

“Beau?” he said, and then laughed. “Who uses a word like that in this day and age? I think you’ve been spending just a little too much time at the Historical Society, Sweet Pea.”

“You are every bit as annoying as I remember!” she said, exasperated. It was hard enough for her to keep her dignity while accepting his offer.

“You never thought I was annoying,” he said with the silky and aggravating confidence of a man who, unfortunately, women did not find annoying. Ever.

“Remember the time you said you were going to the library and I gave you my books to return and you didn’t?”

“I wasn’t really going to the library,” he said.

“Whatever. Annoying. Six dollars in fines.”

“Your only brush with the law?”

She ignored him. “And how about the time you showed up at my door with a kitten two minutes before I was supposed to be leaving for band camp?”