Whitelaw's Wedding

“Name it.” Although he and Perry hadn’t seen each other in a couple of years, Hunter still considered the man one of his best friends. And if for no other reason than the good times they’d shared in the past, he would always be there for Perry, if and when his old pal ever needed him.

“I have a job offer for you,” Perry said. “A bodyguard job.”

“You need a bodyguard?”

“Not me.”

“Your wife?”

“No, not Gwen.”

“Then who?”

“Manda.”

“You want to hire me as Manda’s bodyguard?”

“Sort of,” Perry said. “Actually, there’s more to the job than just acting as her bodyguard.”

“Exactly what do you want me to do?” Hunter asked.

“I want you to marry my sister.”

Chapter 2

M anda had no choice but to attend tonight’s gala celebration. After all, how would it look to Dearborn society if she didn’t show up for her sister-in-law’s birthday party? Throughout high school and college, she had loved parties and had given her share of them. But that had been years ago. Before Rodney died. Before Mike was murdered. She could barely remember the person she’d been before tragedy had struck her life. Everything had been fun once. Lighthearted enjoyment. Boyfriends and parties and laughter. Manda realized that she would have been forced to grow up, sooner or later, and take on adult responsibilities. She had thought those duties would include being a wife and a mother. But the fulfillment of those long-ago dreams was as out of reach for her as grasping a distant star and holding it in the palm of her hand. As unlikely to come true as her teenage fantasy of Hunter Whitelaw loving her the way she had loved him.

“The birthday girl is beaming, isn’t she?” Chris Austin came up beside Manda and slipped his arm around her waist. “Just looking at her, no one would believe she’s forty.”

Manda smiled at Chris, Rodney’s younger brother, with whom she had tried to remain friends for Rodney’s mother’s sake. Chris was Claire Austin’s only child now, and she doted on him, despite the fact that he disappointed her on a regular basis. Although physically similar to Rodney, with the same golden hair, hazel eyes and lanky build, Chris didn’t possess the brilliance or charm that had been such an integral part of his older brother. She supposed having grown up in the shadow of an overachiever had given Chris an excuse to do absolutely nothing with his life.

“Gwen is lovely,” Manda agreed. “And she doesn’t look a day over thirty.”

“Living the good life doesn’t put wrinkles on a face, does it?”

When Chris pulled Manda closer to his side, she glared at him. Chris had been making passes at her for years, and for years, she’d been giving him the brush-off. After all this time, it had almost become a game with them. He advanced; she retreated.

“What say we ditch this boring society gig and head over to the Blues Club for some real fun,” Chris said.

Manda disengaged herself from his annoying hold. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Not tonight. Not ever. Go find yourself another playmate, while I go speak to my sister-in-law and wish her a happy birthday.”

With a little-boy pout on his face, Chris released her. “How long are you going to fight it, honey? You know Mother would love to see us get together.”

Manda laughed. “Claire would think I’d lost my mind if I even gave you the time of day. Your mother knows, better than anyone, what a womanizing rascal you are.”

“If you’d be mine, I’d—”

Grady Alder, who was Perry’s law partner, came up behind Chris, clamped his hand down on Chris’s shoulder and said, “Austin, why the hell don’t you leave Manda alone? She’s been telling you no for ten years, hasn’t she?”

Chris tensed and frowned, but when he glanced over his shoulder at Grady, he grinned broadly. “It seems I have several years on you, then, don’t I, Grady? She’s only been turning you down for how long now? Three or four years?”

Grady instantly released his hold on Chris and glowered at the younger man. “I think I heard your mother calling you. You’d better see what she wants or she might tighten the purse strings, and then where would you be?”

Chris smirked at Grady, then smiled at Manda. “I don’t blame you for refusing to date this jerk.”

“Will you two stop,” Manda said. “There are dozens of other women here for both of you to pester, so why don’t you leave me alone?”

“How does it feel, Alder, being lumped together with me?” Chris asked, a devilish twinkle in his eyes. “Both of us rejected suitors.”

Manda wished both men would go away and leave her alone. She tolerated Chris for Claire’s sake, because she adored Rodney’s mother. And although she genuinely like Grady, she had just about reached her limit of tolerance with him, too. The man had been persistently pursuing her since his divorce several years ago.

“Sorry, Manda, sugar.” Grady epitomized the old-fashioned Southern gentleman, and she knew Grams would approve of him as a husband for her. He’s our kind, Grams had once told her.

In her peripheral vision, Manda caught a glimpse of Dr. Boyd Gipson heading in her direction. Another suitable beau. Great, she thought, that’s all she needed—one more man vying for her attention. After Boyd’s bout with food poisoning, she had politely refused to see him socially, but he, too, had difficulty accepting her refusals. He had called her almost every day. Please, Lord, help me escape, Manda prayed silently. But with the wall at her back, flanked closely on each side by Grady and Chris, and with Boyd closing in on her, she was trapped.

“Manda, honey, you look gorgeous tonight,” Boyd said as he joined her other two admirers. “Would you care to dance?”

“Hey, I was here first,” Chris said like the spoiled child he was, despite the fact he was thirty-two years old.

“Austin, I believe Manda had already told you to get lost, hadn’t she?” Grady said.

“Remember, that request was for you as well as me,” Chris reminded his rival.

Manda put her hands on her hips, huffed and glanced from one man to another, taking in all three. “If I promise a dance to each of you, will y’all stop making spectacles of yourselves and of me?”

“Sorry, sugar,” Grady said again.

“Honey, I apologize if I’ve embarrassed you,” Boyd said.

“So, who’s going to get you first?” Chris asked.

She wanted to scream, Leave me alone! These men were fools. Didn’t they understand that she was a dangerous woman? Any man who cared for her risked his life in doing so. Her affection was as deadly as that of a black widow spider’s.

Hunter entered the house where he’d spent some happy days as a teenager. The last time he’d been in this house was eleven years ago, for a wedding reception, when Perry had married Gwen Richman and he had served as Perry’s best man. And that had been the last time he’d seen Manda, who had been one of Gwen’s bridesmaids. Although she’d been breathtakingly beautiful, he’d sensed the sadness in Perry’s little sister and had known taking part in the wedding had been difficult for her. It had been a little over a year since she had lost her fiancé in a car crash, only days before their wedding.

Making his way through the laughing, chatting congregation of Dearborn’s elite, Hunter searched the crowd for Perry, but the person who caught his eye was Perry’s sister. Manda stood across the room from him, a strained smile on her face as three men formed a crescent around her, all of them talking at the same time and directing their conversation at her. Some things never changed. Now, as in the past, Manda Munroe was surrounded by admirers, each hoping she would grant him the privilege of a dance, a date or any small crumbs of attention. Who could blame these poor fools? Manda was more beautiful now than she’d ever been. So beautiful that she could easily take a man’s breath away.

However, Hunter noticed that she did nothing to accentuate that beauty. The exact opposite was true. She wore her long blond hair restrained in a neat bun at the nape of her neck, had applied only a minimum of makeup and dressed conservatively in a simple black sheath. But looks like hers couldn’t be disguised. She possessed a to-die-for body and a face like an angel. Just looking at her was enough to give any man a hard-on.

And this was the woman Perry wanted him to marry!

Perry had given him a brief rundown of the problem, telling him that he’d fill him in on the details once he arrived in Dearborn. But the gist of the situation was that Manda was convinced that any man she became emotionally involved with was destined to die. Apparently her bevy of suitors was either unaware of the danger or each was so enamored that he didn’t care.

As he came nearer, he realized that the men were actually arguing over who was going to dance with Manda first. God help them. Didn’t they know a damn thing about this woman? He hadn’t seen her in eleven years, but he figured some things about Manda hadn’t changed since she’d been the bane of his existence when she was a kid. With a strong-willed, stubborn woman like Manda, you didn’t beg. She respected strength and decisiveness…and always wanted what she couldn’t have.

He dove through the partygoers like Moses parting the Red Sea, and headed straight for the most popular woman at Gwen Munroe’s birthday party.

Manda saw him, then blinked her eyes and looked again. She hadn’t been imagining it. It was him. Hunter Whitelaw. Big, bold and towering over the other men in the room from his six-foot-four height. His shoulders were so broad, his arms so huge that she assumed the tuxedo he wore had been tailor-made for him. Except for a few lines around his eyes and mouth and just a hint of gray in his military-short hair, he had changed very little in the past eleven years. He was now, as he’d been then, totally, absolutely, devastatingly male.