BEVERLY BARTON – Whitelaw's Wedding (страница 2)

He had to admit that if he didn’t know Manda was only sixteen—and if she weren’t his buddy Perry’s baby sister—he’d be tempted. Manda was just too damn pretty for her own good. Pretty? Hell, she was beautiful. And she knew it.

The girl was too pretty, too rich, too smart and too spoiled. He pitied the poor guy who wound up marrying her someday. She was growing up to be a high-maintenance lady.

“Sure, I’ll do your back,” Hunter said and took the bottle from her. “Turn around.”

She obeyed instantly, but then she did the unexpected. She unhooked her bikini top, jerked it off and laid it on the chaise. Hunter hadn’t been prepared for that particular move, but he supposed he should have been, considering the way Manda had been chasing him these past few days.

“That’ll make it easier,” she said.

Easier for what? Damn, this kid didn’t know she was playing with fire. His guess was that she didn’t understand how easily a guy could become sexually aroused. If she pulled this kind of stunt with another guy, she might get more than she bargained for. “Manda, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“A lady doesn’t strip off her clothes that way and expose herself,” Hunter said. “Your grams would be—”

“Grams is an old-fashioned prude who doesn’t know the first thing about being a modern woman. It’s been so long since she was young and in love that she’s probably forgotten how it feels.”

In love? Damn! He definitely wasn’t prepared to handle that kind of complication. Even if Manda were older, there were too many things that separated them on every level imaginable. She was and always would be off limits to him.

“Damn it, Manda, put your top back on and act like a grown-up instead of a stupid kid.”

“A stupid kid!”

She whirled around, anger flashing in her eyes, but before he could look away, he got an eyeful. God help him, the sight of her was enough to bring a strong man to his knees. Her breasts were large, firm and centered with pouting pink nipples.

Hunter jumped up, grabbed the red bikini top off the chaise and tossed it at Manda. “For heaven’s sake, brat, put that on. Now!”

She ignored his command, flung the top on the patio floor and shot out of the chaise. “I’m not a stupid kid. I’m a grown woman. Damn it, will you look at me? Can’t you see that I’m more than just Perry’s little sister?”

Hunter tried his level best to keep his gaze focused on her face, but that wasn’t an easy task. Not with her sweet, luscious body almost totally bare. He snatched the towel off the chaise and started to wrap it around her, but with another unexpected move, she flung herself at him and clung to him tenaciously. The towel slipped off and down to the floor. Her naked breasts pressed against his chest.

Hunter grabbed her shoulders, pulled her away from him and shook her soundly.

“What the hell’s going on?” Perry Munroe stood at the back door, a beer in each hand.

Manda whirled around, gasped when she saw her brother, then glanced over her shoulder and glared malevolently at Hunter. “Your best friend here was putting the moves on me.”

“Perry—”

“Damn it, Manda, put on some clothes, will you,” Perry said. “And leave Hunter alone.”

“You don’t believe me?” Manda asked in a wounded, little-girl voice.

Perry walked onto the patio, handed Hunter a beer, set the other on the table, then picked up the towel off the floor and wrapped it around Manda, crossing it over her breasts. “Get upstairs and put on a decent bathing suit before Grams sees you. And for the rest of Hunter’s stay with us, will you, please, leave him the hell alone?”

“You might not believe me, but we’ll see what Grams and Daddy have to say.” Manda scurried toward the house.

“Don’t you dare repeat such a stupid accusation,” Perry called after her, then turned to Hunter when Manda disappeared inside the house. “Sorry about that. She’s spoiled rotten. We usually give her anything she wants and unfortunately the one thing she wants the most right now is you.”

“She scares the hell out of me,” Hunter admitted. “Manda’s a stick of dynamite that’s just about ready to go off. Y’all had better tighten the reins on that girl.”

Perry laughed. “And think, she’s only sixteen. Can you imagine what we’ll have to deal with by the time she’s eighteen? Heaven help us.”

Hunter shook his head and laughed. “Heaven help the guy who marries her.”

Chapter 1

P erry Munroe found his sister pacing the floor in Dearborn Memorial Hospital’s ER waiting room. When she’d phoned him half an hour ago, she had been nearly hysterical. She’d kept repeating the same words. It’s happened again! The Manda Munroe Curse. The best he could make out from their brief conversation was that her date had taken ill during dinner and she had rushed him to the hospital. Of all things to have happened to Manda, why this? She hadn’t dated anyone in such a long time. Not since her fiancé Mike Farrar’s death.

Perry had hoped that the nightmare she’d lived through in the past was over, that she could actually live a normal life, find a man to love, marry and have children. He knew that was what his sister wanted more than anything. He’d thought perhaps her colleague, Dr. Boyd Gipson, who worked with her at the clinic where she was a grief counselor, might turn out to be Mr. Right. But somehow, by a trick of fate, Boyd had fallen victim to the Manda Munroe Curse, the phrase an insensitive reporter for the local newspaper had coined five years ago when Mike Farrar’s body had been found a week after his mysterious disappearance. At that time, the reporter had unearthed the tragic story of Manda’s past and the death of her first fiancé when she’d been twenty-one.

The moment Manda saw him, she halted her frantic pacing and ran toward him. He opened his arms and embraced her. She trembled as she clung to him.

“Oh, Perry, it’s happened again. Boyd and I were having dessert and coffee, when he suddenly became very ill. I don’t know how it’s possible, how anyone could have done it, but I know someone tried to kill him.”

Perry grasped Manda’s shoulders. “What does the ER doctor say?”

“He said it was food poisoning, but I know better.” Manda glared at Perry, her eyes wild with fear. “I thought…I hoped and prayed that I could at least have a nice, comfortable friendship with a man, without—without—” She took in huge gulps of air. “We’ve had only three dates. Nothing serious. Just companionship. But then that’s all there was between Mike and me. A marriage of two good friends, both who had lost a loved one in the past and… He won’t let me have anyone else in my life, will he? Not even a friend.”

Perry’s stomach knotted painfully. “Look, brat, I honestly don’t think that lunatic who might or might not have been responsible for Mike’s death had anything to do with this. It’s just a coincidence. It has to be. People get food poisoning fairly often. And you haven’t gotten any notes predicting Boyd’s demise, have you?”

She shook her head. “No, but… I’ll have to tell Boyd that I can’t see him again. Not socially. I can’t take the risk. If anything happened to him, I’d never forgive myself.”

“What do you plan to do, live the rest of your life like a nun? You deserve better. You’re allowing some lunatic to dictate the terms of your life.”

“Two men that I’ve cared for have died tragically,” Manda said. “First Rodney and then Mike.” She cupped her hands over her mouth and sighed in an effort to not cry again. “Someone killed them because he’s obsessed with me and doesn’t want me to marry anyone else. Whoever killed Rodney and Mike is probably still watching me, waiting for me to… I refuse to endanger another man’s life. Not ever again!”

Perry knew that when she got like this there was no point in trying to reason with her. He felt certain that Boyd’s food poisoning had been an accident, but Manda was bound and determined to blame herself. Poor girl. The woman standing before him bore little resemblance to the carefree, spoiled little hellion she’d once been. Rodney Austin’s death in a car crash only a week before their wedding had devastated Manda. That had been twelve years ago. It had taken Manda years to get over that loss, but eventually she had become engaged to her good friend, Mike Farrar, who had lost his wife to cancer. When they became engaged, Manda had received a series of letters warning her to not marry Mike, that if she did, he would die, just as Rodney had. They had taken the letters to the police, but the local law enforcement had been unable to trace the letters to find the author. Only days before the wedding, Mike had disappeared. His body had been found in the Poloma River. He’d been shot in the back. His murderer was never found.

For the past five years, Manda hadn’t dated. It had taken him months to convince his sister to accept Boyd’s pleas for a date.

Had he been wrong to encourage her to put the past to rest and move on with her life?

The letter arrived a week later. Manda had stopped by Perry’s law office in downtown Dearborn and tossed the nondescript white envelope on his desk.