A Man of her Own Read online

  A Man of her Own

  By

  Jan Scarbrough

  Copyright © 2008, Jan Scarbrough

  Published March 2008 by Resplendence Publishing, LLC

  Edgewater, Florida

  All rights reserved

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and occurrences are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places, or occurrences, is purely coincidental.

  For Devon Matthews; hold on to the dream.

  Table of Contents

  A Man of her Own

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sarah Colby rolled her eyes. Her former college roommates were at it again.

  “Men are disgusting toads,” Kate announced in a sharp voice, swiveling her barstool. “Both of you are naïve to think kissing a man will turn him into Prince Charming.”

  “C’mon, Kate, lighten up,” Tracy chided. “Sarah’s ready to look for her Prince. You’ll discourage her.”

  Sarah lifted her wine glass to her lips and sipped the smooth liquid, the noise of the Fourth Street Live nightclub practically drowning out all thought, let alone conversation. Tracy was right. Kate’s cynical remark wasn’t the kind of encouragement she needed, especially tonight when she was determined to put Tracy’s plan into action.

  She’d always wanted a Prince Charming. As a little girl she’d lie awake at night imagining him. He would walk toward her in her dreams with a warm smile on his lips and a tender look in his eyes. Tall. Dark. He’d put his arms around her and kiss her. Slow and easy. The image always faded with the kiss. But Sarah knew, just by that kiss, she’d marry him.

  The strange fantasy stayed with her as she grew up. Maybe it was normal to want to feel cherished. After her mother died of cancer when she was nine, she always felt lost and alone, as if a piece of herself was missing.

  With a heavy sigh, Sarah glanced at her barhopping companions—Tracy, single but looking, and Kate, divorced and not looking. They were her best friends in the whole world. She’d met them at the University of Kentucky.

  Sarah ran her fingertip along the edge of her wine glass. She was ready. Hearing Tracy voice her desires made the knowledge settle deeper into her heart just as the wine settled into her head. At twenty-four, it was time to get serious. If she was ever going to find a man of her own, she needed to do something about it.

  “I doubt anything I say will scare Sarah off.” Kate shrugged. “Women do stupid things where men are concerned. Look at me.”

  “We’re not here for one of your pity-parties,” Tracy said.

  “Excuse me.”

  “Cut it out, both of you.” Sarah shifted on her barstool, uncomfortable with their bickering as well as wearing the skimpy black cocktail dress that hiked up her legs. “Along with celebrating the one year anniversary of Kate’s divorce, I’m here to learn how to kiss frogs.”

  “Toads,” Kate amended under her breath.

  “You didn’t think David was a toad when you married him,” Tracy pointed out.

  Kate slurped down the rest of her piña colada. “Well, he had me fooled. Then the man morphed from Prince Charming into a toad as soon as the wedding ring was on his finger. You’d think I’d put it through his nose.”

  Sarah sighed, struggling with mixed feelings. Her romantic heart still supposed there was a guy somewhere just for her. “Tell me again how kissing a lot of guys will help me find the man of my dreams.”

  Tracy leaned forward on her barstool. “It’s very simple. To make sure you’ve found the right man, you need a point of reference. Because you’ve been so busy with school, you’ve not dated and have no baseline. I guarantee your judgment about men is faulty.”

  “There are no guarantees,” Kate grumbled into her empty glass.

  “We know that.” Tracy waved Kate’s complaint away. “We’re being proactive.”

  “And how many toads have you kissed?” Kate asked with a direct glare.

  Tracy frowned, her normal optimistic smile fading. “Too many, I’m afraid.”

  “And you haven’t found ‘Mr. Right’ yet.”

  “You don’t have to remind me.”

  Sarah ignored Kate and focused on Tracy. “So, how do I start?”

  Tracy swiveled around and surveyed the whole nightclub. “Check out that guy over there hitting on the blonde.”

  Sarah studied the man in the low-rider jeans and the biceps-baring tank top. “Looks rough to me.”

  Kate wrinkled her nose. “By the looks of that guy, I guarantee he’ll be glad to give you practice.”

  “Or there’s that hunk sitting beside you,” Tracy said, ignoring Kate’s disdainful comments.

  Sarah turned and eyed the man hunched over his drink beside her. He seemed oblivious to the clamor around him, but she liked his clean-cut, Romeo good looks.

  She sipped her wine. What were her options? If Aunt Amelia had her way, she wouldn’t be going back to graduate school this summer. Sarah’s former guardian and food critic wanted her to do historical research for a regional cookbook she was writing. Not much chance of meeting the man of her dreams if she was stuck in a dusty library or behind a computer screen working for her aunt. So, it was now or never.

  Besides she’d come dressed for the occasion, prepared to take that critical leap from dream world to reality. Still, it was scary. She’d always been shy. Maybe that was the real reason it had taken her so long to find Mr. Right. But she was ready and anxious to begin.

  Sarah drew a deep breath. Eyeing the loud guy who’d just been dumped by the blonde, she said to her friends, “Okay, ladies, time I kissed a toad.”

  ***

  Lane Williams nursed his Woodford Reserve and spring water. It was his first bourbon of the night and it was late. He was tired. Not just physically, but mentally.

  He’d just finished one of his typical twelve-hour days and should be home in bed. Alone as usual. Instead he’d detoured to a bar near his downtown condo. He needed time to unwind. Time to think things through. To try to make sense out of his new life.

  After his dad had deserted his mom and siblings when he was fifteen, he’d become the man of the family. Now for the first time in twenty years, he was totally without family responsibility. His mother, God rest her soul, had died last year after a long battle with breast cancer. His two sisters were married, and his brother was graduating from the University of Kentucky in a few weeks and had already landed a job in Atlanta. No one needed him now. It was an odd feeling.

  Lane slowly rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. Why did life never get any easier? His chain of gourmet restaurants was going like gangbusters, so much so that they consumed his whole life. He hardly had time to see those three siblings he’d spent his life providing for.

  With plenty of money in the bank and his obligation to his family over, it seemed counter-productive to keep on pushing himself, opening restaurant after restaurant in one Midwest metropolitan area after another. But he didn’t know what else to do. He’d taken his responsibilities to heart. Driving himself mercilessly was part of his makeup.

  In the corner of the room, a piano player pounded out a Scott Jopl
in tune. Its staccato rhythm jarred Lane’s already ragged nerves. High-pitched conversation competed with the music. Lane lifted a finger and ordered his second bourbon.

  Now that his sisters were happily married, they urged him to do the same. But he couldn’t picture himself with a wife and the burden of another family. Raising and providing for his sisters and brother had been enough duty to last him a lifetime. Besides, a man didn’t need to marry to have sex. There were simply too many willing women around.

  Like that one sitting on the barstool nearby. Her strained laughter drew his attention away from his own problems. She had her back to him but was slightly turned so he could see a shapely leg crossed over one knee and a tight black dress riding up her thigh. Long mahogany curls hid most of the creamy flesh of her back. He noticed a flashy diamond-like earring dangling from her right ear.

  The man she was talking to was a noted lounge lizard. He’d seen the guy around. Lane’s skin crawled involuntarily. He’d spent far too many years trying to protect his kid sisters from such creeps.

  He shrugged in disgust. Maybe this woman knew what she was after. Her dress and body language were certainly provocative enough. He tried to dismiss them both, but found his eyes drawn to the scene playing out in profile before him.

  The petite woman uncrossed her legs and leaned forward on the stool as the man put his huge hands on the sides of her face. Lane’s eyes widened as the man’s lips descended upon hers. The resulting kiss wasn’t just a short, friendly peck. It lingered. Deepened. The man’s mouth moved slowly, ravenously over the woman’s.

  Lane’s traitorous, sex-deprived body hardened in reaction. His palms began to sweat. Dragging his gaze away, he turned back to the bar.

  I ought to get a life. When was the last time he’d gotten laid?

  Angry at himself—at the fact that watching the two lovebirds had aroused him, and that at thirty-eight, he had no sexual companion to give him the physical release he wanted—Lane frowned at himself in the ornate mirror behind the bar. After breaking up with Paula in New York, he’d shied away from casual sex in Kentucky. It had the potential for trouble, and Lane had always been cautious.

  “My, what a frightening frown,” a feminine voice jarred him out of his musing.

  Lane glanced into the mirror behind the bar to see the woman who’d recently been lip-locked with the lounge lizard. She looked at him with interest, facing the bar and sipping a glass of red wine. Her male companion was long gone.

  “Are you talking to me?”

  “Sure.”

  Great. Just what he needed: to strike up a conversation with a young girl who apparently had one thing on her mind.

  Fleetingly he wondered if getting to know her could bring him the quick release he needed. No, he just didn’t have one-night stands in him. Not after he’d spent so many years being a good role model for his brother and two sisters.

  “I thought you were occupied,” he said, sarcasm heavy in his voice.

  “Oh, you mean that man I was kissing? He was just giving me a lesson.”

  “A lesson?”

  “Yeah, my friends tell me I need to learn how to kiss.”

  For the first time Lane really looked at the woman beside him. Her dark green eyes held none of the hard experience he’d expected to see. In fact, they were guileless, naïve. Her smile was pleasant.

  “You’ve got to be kidding?”

  She angled her head. “I don’t think so.”

  They stared at each other a moment. Hers was a cool appraisal. Her curious gaze roved up and down his length. Lane’s body responded with a fierce surge of lust. His grip tightened on his empty glass.

  “I’m Sarah Colby.” She extended her hand.

  “Lane Williams. Nice to meet you.” Letting go of the glass, he accepted her surprisingly firm grasp.

  He held her small hand a little longer than was necessary before dropping it quickly. A strange thrill jolted him.

  “Are you from Louisville?” she asked.

  “Yes, how about you?” The bartender brought his new drink. Lane peeled off several bills and handed them across the bar.

  “No.” Sarah moved over to the stool next to his. “But I’m here for the summer working for my aunt as her research assistant. She’s a newlywed for the first time at age fifty-nine.” Taking another sip of wine, she added, “Actually, Amelia and Henry are really cute together.”

  Now he smelled her perfume. Nothing heavy. It had a light, floral scent. Appropriate for the kind of inexperienced woman her words revealed, not this lady with the drooping décolletage, exposing mounds of milky flesh, who’d just brazenly kissed a known womanizer in public.

  “So what are you doing here?” she inquired.

  “I sometimes stop by after work. To unwind.” He heard his voice falter. “And you?”

  “Actually, I’m here with my friends,” she said with a tiny nod toward two women nearby. “We’re here to meet people.”

  Lane glanced down the bar at the two chatting women, girls really. He frowned. “I don’t think I’d recommend meeting the kind of men that hang out at bars.” He could be talking to one of his sisters.

  “You’re at the bar.”

  “I’m not here to ‘meet people’.” His fingers made quotation marks in the air to emphasize her words.

  “Oh.” Her voice sounded small, chastised.

  She was quiet a moment, as if distracted by her thoughts.

  “So, how was the lesson?” He found himself wanting to know, but despised himself for asking.

  “Pretty good, actually. Kate told me Brian is quite experienced.”

  Lane couldn’t take his gaze off the woman’s large eyes and full lips. “I gathered as much. Experienced, but harmless.”

  Sarah seemed not to catch his sarcasm. Instead she appeared to be dead serious about taking kissing lessons.

  “My friends want to make sure I have a baseline, something to judge from,” she said with a casual shrug of one shoulder.

  He was beginning to suspect she was tipsy. “Have you been drinking?”

  “Just this glass of wine. It makes me dizzy so I don’t drink much.”

  “I see.” Lane tasted his own drink.

  “I’m not sure you do. You’re making fun of me.” She twisted on her stool to face him.

  Her bare knees almost touched his right leg. The skimpy black dress hardly covered what it should be covering, and Lane tried hard to ignore the revealed expanse of thigh. He fought to hold his gaze on her face, but his body responded once more to her nearness, her delicate scent and her smile.

  “You must admit it’s strange to watch two people kiss in public the way you were kissing and then be told it was just ‘practice.’”

  “Practice makes perfect, you know.” Now she was teasing him. A flirtatious smile curved her lips.

  “Why do you have to get it perfect?” He turned his gaze away, only to see her reflection in the mirror.

  “Oh, it doesn’t have to be perfectly perfect.” She frowned. “I just need to know when it’s right.”

  “What’s right?” He eyed the mirror and toyed with his glass.

  “Not what, really. Who.”

  “Now I’m confused.”

  Sarah leaned forward, folding her arms on her knees. Lane shot a quick gaze at the flesh she so innocently revealed. He swallowed slowly.

  “My friend Tracy has this theory.” She indicated with the toss of her curly mane one of the girls at the end of the bar. “She says you’ve got to kiss a lot of toads before you meet your Prince Charming, and that when you kiss him, you’ll know instantly he’s the one.”

  Lane found himself scowling. The big brother in him responded to her remark and his physical reaction to her cooled instantly.

  “You mean to tell me you’re out sampling kisses? With strange men? What else are you sampling?”

  Sitting upright, she lifted her chin. “It’s not like that at all.”

  “What’s it like then? I see
you here in a bar, giving off all kinds of come-on signals, just waiting to be picked up.” His voice was gruff.

  “I’m not going to leave with anyone,” she defended herself. “I’m just here to meet people. And I never sleep around either, if that’s what you mean.”

  He gave her a scornful look. “You could’ve fooled me.”

  Sarah held her head high and sat stiffly on the barstool.

  Lane watched her in the mirror. Had he hurt her feelings? “I’m sorry. It’s not my place to be lecturing you.”

  “That’s okay.” She was thoughtful a moment. “I suppose I was behaving badly.”

  It was his turn to back off. “Why is it so important to meet this Prince Charming?”

  “To find the right person to marry. I don’t want to be almost sixty years old like my Aunt Amelia before I find ‘Mr. Right.’”

  He lifted one eyebrow. “How old are you anyway?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  “A baby.” He inwardly groaned.

  “I’m not a baby. I’m a college graduate. I’ve been around.”

  Lane didn’t know how to take her. He saw a spontaneous, candid side to her personality that collided with a sense of raw sexuality he knew she wasn’t aware she possessed. What made her think she’d have trouble finding someone to marry?

  “Why is it important for you to get married, little one?”

  She pursed her lips. He could tell she didn’t care for his hasty endearment.

  “Everyone wants to get married, don’t they?”

  She’d noticed his bare ring finger. Lane gave her a bland smile.

  Her brows drew together as she caught the meaning of his smile. “You don’t want to get married?”

  “No.”

  Her eyes widened. “Why not?”

  He sipped his bourbon before he replied, “Too much responsibility.”

  She considered his answer with a reflective look on her face. Thoughtfully, she sipped her wine.

  “You didn’t answer my earlier question,” he prompted. “Why do you want to get married?”