An Honorable Man

“I just don’t want people to feel sorry for you,” Lorraine said. “You know Aunt Clara thinks you somehow messed up your only chance to snag a husband.”

“The breakup was hardly my fault.” Cory, who had never shown the slightest fondness for children that Priscilla had seen, had nonetheless been devastated when Priscilla confessed that she would never be able to bear his children. When she’d brought up the possibility of adoption, he’d closed his mind. His heart had been set on biological children. And that had meant he most definitely would not be proposing marriage.

Priscilla had been shocked and then saddened by his attitude. She’d been sure Cory was “the one.” But she hadn’t known him as well as she’d imagined she did.

“Of course it wasn’t your fault,” Lorraine said. “But Clara doesn’t know that. She doesn’t know what really happened.”

“And she’s not going to either.” It had taken Priscilla years to come to terms with the fact that she could never become pregnant, never carry her own child. She was sixteen when she’d gone in for surgery to have one of her ovaries removed. Just one. But the surgeon, after inspecting them, had declared they both needed to come out, and Priscilla’s parents had signed the consent form on the spot.

She’d awakened from the surgery to the devastating news that she was now infertile, that she would have to take hormones for the next thirty or so years. And she had been angry that her parents had stolen her future from her.

Unreasonably angry, she realized some years later. Her parents had made the best decision they could at the time.

Priscilla had spent the past couple of years repairing her relationship with her parents and she hated to rock the boat now. But she did need to put a stop to her mother’s matchmaking.

“Would it be so very difficult for you to bring a date to the bridesmaid’s dinner?” Lorraine tried again.

“All right, Mother, who is he?”

Lorraine almost managed to hide her smile of triumph. “Remember the Conleys who lived next door to us?”

“Yeah. They moved to Miami or someplace, didn’t they?”

“Yes. But young Bill has moved back recently. And he wants to get into the social scene here.”

Priscilla gasped as memories resurfaced. At age twelve, “young Bill” had worn a white belt and a pocket protector, and the rubberbands on his braces were always shooting out of his mouth.

She shook her head. “No. No can do.”

“Priscilla, he’s so handsome now! You would not recognize him. And he’s an orthodontist. Anyway, it’s just one date.” The pleading note in Lorraine’s voice nearly did Priscilla in. Her mother had such a way of manipulating her, and it drove Priscilla wild even as she fell victim to it.

“I can’t, Mother, really. I’m…well, I’m seeing someone.” Even as she said it, she knew she was heading for disaster.

“Really?” Lorraine’s nose twitched. “Who is he? How come you didn’t say something earlier?”

“It was so new and so fragile, and I didn’t know if it was going to work. I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”

“But it’s working out?” Lorraine asked, her eyes filled with hope. “Who is he? Please end the suspense.”

Priscilla knew her mother was hoping the mystery boyfriend wasn’t a firefighter. “He’s…He’s an arson investigator.” The words just popped out of her mouth.

Lorraine smiled. “How interesting. Tell me more.”

“His name is Roark Epperson.” After that, it became easy to tell her the rest. He was in his midthirties, extremely handsome and came from a wealthy family in Massachusetts.

“Win, did you hear that?” Lorraine asked of Priscilla’s father, who had wandered into the kitchen to get a refill on his wine. “Priscilla’s dating an arson investigator.”

“I heard,” Priscilla’s father said, sounding cautious. “I think I’ve seen that guy on TV.” Generally Winfield Garner was content to remain at a distance from Priscilla’s social life, letting his wife do all the organizing. But not today, apparently. “Does he talk like a Kennedy?”

Priscilla couldn’t help smiling. That did seem to be the feature that everyone remembered about Roark. Well, women first remembered that he was mouthwateringly gorgeous and then they remembered the accent. “He’s the one. They interviewed him the other night about the serial arsonist.”

“An arson investigator,” Lorraine said, trying it on for size. “That’s really kind of interesting, isn’t it, Win?”

The timer went off, indicating the lasagna noodles were ready. “So you can bring this Roark to the bridesmaids’ dinner, right?” Lorraine said as she strained the noodles.

“He wouldn’t know anyone.”

“Why don’t you ask him? And if he can’t come to the dinner, what about the wedding itself?”

Eek. Roark would see her in that hideous pink monstrosity of a bridesmaid’s dress. It might almost be worth it, though, to watch how Roark would weather the combined scrutiny of her entire extended family. By offering to play the role of her devoted boyfriend, he had no idea what he would be getting himself into.

“We’ll see.”

HE WAS FIVE MINUTES late.

Priscilla sat at a bistro table at the Nodding Dog, a cute little coffee shop in Oak Cliff’s trendy Bishop Arts district, waiting for Roark.

If things worked out as she hoped, Roark would attend one function with her and her parents would be relieved, if only temporarily, that she wouldn’t spend the rest of her life alone. Snobby Aunt Clara would be suitably impressed. And Priscilla wouldn’t have to produce a flesh-and-blood boyfriend again for months.

She checked her watch again and took a sip of her latte. Then she saw him.

He looked as if he’d just stepped out of the pages of GQ, in perfectly creased khaki pants and a pale yellow shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow in a sort of casually rumpled but still stylish way. For a few seconds she drank in the sight of him. Then he looked her way and she schooled her face.

She would just die if he knew he could melt her on the spot simply by looking at her. Actual skin-to-skin contact might cause her to spontaneously combust.

He walked up to the counter and ordered, and the pretty barista batted her eyelashes and blushed as she poured his coffee. He paid, chatting and smiling easily. Did he even know the effect he had on women?

He joined Priscilla at her small table, and she wished she’d chosen a larger one. He was so close she could see the tiny shaving nick on his jaw and smell his aftershave. It made her think of being on a mountaintop.

With her clothes off.

“I see you found the place.” Why did she sound so inane? She’d had no problem talking to him that first night, when he’d helped her with her flat tires. She’d opened up to him, confessing how alone she felt sometimes, isolated from the other trainees. Tony and Ethan had befriended her, but back then she’d still felt a bit of an outsider even with them, since the two men already had been best friends for fifteen years.

Roark had been a sympathetic ear. He’d offered her encouragement that she’d needed to hear. A strong shoulder to lay her head on.

She’d been in a vulnerable state at that point in her life, she reminded herself—she’d still been smarting from Cory’s cold rejection. But she was stronger now.

Roark took an appreciative sip from his mug. “I’ve been here before. Best coffee in Oak Cliff.” He drank plain black coffee. No mochaccino whip for Roark.

She tucked that fact into a corner of her mind. Sometimes, when she couldn’t sleep, she remembered the little intimacies she had shared with Cory. He knew she loved the scent of freshly washed sheets; she knew he couldn’t stand green bell peppers. Would she ever be that close to a man again? Did she want to be?

She had a hard time imagining it. Sex was one thing. But the secret looks, the private jokes, the cozy breakfasts…How had she shared all those things with Cory, and yet missed some of the most fundamental aspects of his personality?

Like the fact that not being able to have his own biological children with his wife was a deal breaker?

She swallowed the last few sips of her latte.

“Let’s take a walk,” Roark suggested, gulping down the remainder of his coffee. “The weather is gorgeous.”