The Engagement Party Read online

  The Engagement Party

  Barbara Boswell

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  The Women:

  Hannah Farley: Blue-blooded bad girl.

  Emma Wynn: Once burned, twice shy.

  Sophie Reynolds: Single mom with secrets.

  Lucy Maguire: Not left at the altar for long.

  Katie Jones: Always a bridesmaid….

  The Men:

  Matthew Granger: Stranger in a small town.

  Michael Flint: Mr. Wrong has never been so right.

  Ford Maguire: Lucy’s lawman brother falls for shady lady?

  Max Ryder: Mystery man appears in the nick of time.

  Luke Cassidy: Single dad makes impassioned plea.

  Why is Matthew really in Clover? Will Hannah ever walk down the aisle? Can Emma forget the man she let get away?

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  One

  One

  “The party is great, Katie. And Abby and Ben look so happy.”

  Hannah Farley smiled with satisfaction as she gazed at Abby Long and her fiancé, Ben Harper, who were standing in the middle of the large living room of Katie’s Clover Street boardinghouse. The newly engaged couple were surrounded by a noisy, laughing group of family and friends who’d gathered for the surprise engagement party.

  “I didn’t think we’d be able to keep the party a surprise, but we pulled it off, didn’t we?” Hannah, a longtime friend of Abby’s and one of her bridesmaids, was helping fellow bridesmaid, Katie Jones, replenish the snack dishes on the long, linen-covered table that had been set up to hold the refreshments. “Abby and Ben didn’t suspect a thing.”

  “They both did a credible job of acting surprised,” Katie said dryly. “But yesterday at the Beauty Boutique, I overheard Jeannie Potts talking about the party to every customer who sat down to be shampooed. You have to assume if Jeannie knew...” Her voice trailed off, and Katie shrugged, not bothering to state the obvious.

  “How did Jeannie find out about the party?” demanded Hannah. “It was supposed to be a secret. Who told?”

  “Who knows? When it comes to gossip, Jeannie Potts has more sources than any tabloid or wire service.”

  “You’re right. Jeannie doesn’t hear things through the grapevine. She is the grapevine of Clover, South Carolina.”

  Katie grinned. “So if Abby and Ben didn’t know about this party, I’ll take a swim in the punch bowl. But who cares if it was a surprise or not? We’re all here celebrating their engagement and they really do look happy.”

  Both the bridesmaids-to-be watched Ben reach over to lovingly tuck a loose strand of hair behind Abby’s small diamond-studded ear. Abby smiled at him, her eyes radiating an almost tangible tenderness.

  “They’re really in love, aren’t they?” Hannah sighed wistfully. “I wonder what it feels like. To love someone enough to want to spend your whole life with them.”

  Katie gave her a measuring look. “You don’t know?”

  Hannah laughed, her slate gray eyes suddenly lighting with humor. “You really are tactful, Katie. And so diplomatic! It’s very kind of you not to refer to my three engagements, my three broken engagements. My family certainly does often enough. And to answer your question, no, I never have really been in love.”

  “I guess it wouldn’t be tactful or diplomatic of me to ask why you got engaged three times when you weren’t in love,” Katie murmured. It was a question she never would’ve asked anyone else, but Hannah was so frank and open it was easy to respond in kind.

  “Ah, The Question. Don’t think I haven’t asked it myself a few thousand times.” Hannah tossed her head and her thick, dark hair fell luxuriantly over her shoulders—a feminine, seductive gesture that she’d perfected back in her early teens. Now she was twenty-six, and her practiced gestures had become so natural they were an integral part of the alluring Hannah Farley charm.

  “I was eighteen the first time I got engaged,” she continued, smiling ruefully in reminiscence. “Some of my sorority sisters were getting pinned to Brent’s fraternity brothers, and Brent and I thought it would be cool to get engaged instead. Imagine our shock when his family and mine began making wedding plans! We ended that engagement on a note of mutual panic.”

  Her smile dimmed a little. “My second fiancé came along the year both of us were graduating from university. Neither of us knew what we wanted to do with our lives. Getting engaged seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “Until faced with those wedding plans again?” Katie guessed.

  Hannah nodded, growing pensive. “My third engagement was shortly before my grandmother got sick three years ago. You remember, I was living and working in Charleston back then. So was Carter Moore, who was a virtual clone of my brother and brothers-in-law. He convinced me that it would “serve both our interests to get married.”

  “That’s how he proposed?” Katie arched her brows. “Not quite the romantic type, was he?”

  “Not quite. Instead of an engagement ring, he presented me with some stock certificates, which he considered far more sensible than a frivolous piece of jewelry.” Even three years later, Hannah’s gray eyes flashed with indignation at that spectacularly unromantic gesture.

  Katie couldn’t suppress her amused smile. “And you ended the engagement then and there?”

  “I should have, but I didn’t. My family was so thrilled with Carter, I sort of felt I owed it to them to make him an official member of the clan. I swear they liked him better than they liked me. When we got engaged, all the Farleys were ecstatic. I’d finally done something that pleased them, something they understood! It was a heady feeling, for a while.” Hannah rolled her eyes. “But then my grandmother got sick and nearly died and I moved back here. Carter couldn’t understand why I’d give up my job and life in the city to be with what he called ‘a dying old woman whose days are numbered anyway.’ That’s when I told Carter to take back his stock certificates, we were history.”

  Katie winced. “Sounds like you had a lucky escape from Bachelor Number Three, Hannah.”

  “I agree. And everything worked out for the best. Grandmother recovered, and I have my antique shop here in Clover. I’m very happy,” she added resolutely. The firm line of her jaw was set with a determination underestimated by those who saw only her striking beauty. “In fact, I’ve never been happier. At this point in my life, I’m dedicating myself to buying antiques and collectibles to resell at outrageous prices to tourists and Clover matrons who like to redecorate their houses every other year.” Hannah smiled mischievously. “So who needs men? Who needs a social life? We’re businesswomen, Katie—the backbone of Clover’s economy. Someday we might actually get elected to the board of the chamber of commerce and then look out—we’ll rule this town!”

  Katie laughed along with her. Hannah’s exuberance was contagious. “There’s just one thing I have to dispute,” Katie said, her green eyes twinkling. “Your alleged lack of a social life. You haven’t spent a Saturday night dateless since you turned thirteen, Hannah.”

  Hannah didn’t deny it. “That doesn’t mean I don’t find dating an insane concept. I’ve had some unsuccessful dates—I specialize in them, actually.” She cast another glance at Abby and Ben. “And even though I am definitely not looking for another fiancé, when I see those two together, I can’t help but wish—”

  “Hannah!” Tall, lanky Sean Fitzgerald came up behind her. “You’re looking beautiful as always. Have I ever told you that you’re the unrequited love of my life?”

  “
You’ve mentioned it on occasion.” Hannah smiled languidly, knowing he was posturing. Sean, whose grandfather had founded the ever-popular Fitzgerald’s Bar and Grill on Clover Street, and Hannah had been friends for years. They playfully flirted with each other without a single thought of deepening their relationship.

  “And here is the lovely Lady Kate!” Sean turned his megawatt smile on Katie. “Well, the surprise was probably the worst-kept secret in Clover history but this party is terrific. Even the weather cooperated, huh? A beautiful June evening made to order for the happy couple.”

  He laughed as another violent crack of thunder seemed to shake the house to its very foundation. The summer thunderstorm intensified, and the rain, which had been steadily drizzling all day, suddenly began to teem. The heavy drops pelted the windows so hard, the glass rattled.

  “When your conversation sinks to bad jokes about the weather, it’s time to move on, Sean.” Hannah gave him a friendly shove, her gray eyes gleaming. “Go chase Ben’s cousin, the blonde in from Charleston. I saw you drooling over her earlier.”

  “As always, your wish is my command, Dream Girl.” Sean winked at Hannah as he moved toward the perky blonde dressed in pastel pink from head to toe.

  “Heaven help the woman who takes Sean seriously. He breaks new ground in superficiality every day,” Hannah said wryly as she and Katie watched him approach the giggling pink blonde.

  Katie nodded, amused. She agreed with Hannah’s assessment, though she never would’ve voiced it aloud. Hannah had no such inhibitions; she said exactly what she thought. Katie, who was reserved by nature and tended to keep her private thoughts just that, found Hannah’s company entertaining, albeit occasionally unnerving.

  Undoubtedly the difference in their stations in life affected them as much as their contrasting introvert-extrovert personality types. Though both young people were Clover businesswomen—Katie owning and operating the Clover Street Boardinghouse, Hannah the proprietor of Yesterdays, which featured an eclectic assortment of antiques and collectibles—the two sprang from very different roots.

  Katie had been raised by her aunt Peg, the warm, hardworking owner of Peg’s Diner, a Clover Street institution, the past and present town hot spot for down-home cooking, people-watching and good-natured gossip. Despite her own busy schedule at the boardinghouse, Katie still helped out her aging aunt at the diner, dividing her time between the two places.

  Hannah was the youngest daughter of Clover’s old-moneyed, blue-blooded Farley family, who traced their genealogy back to the aristocratic antebellum South. Hannah, a cheerful flirt, lively, laughing and teasing, with a gift for mixing with all types and putting anyone at ease, was an enigma to her very proper relatives. With the exception of her beloved grandmother, who doted on her, the rest of the Farleys were still trying to adjust to having “a shop girl” numbered among their kin. They did not understand or wholly approve of her friendships with “tradespersons” such as Katie and her aunt Peg, the Fitzgeralds and Emma Wynn, who managed the bookstore on Clover Street.

  At her own insistence, Hannah was the first and only Farley ever to attend the Clover public schools and the state university, and she’d graduated with a degree in marketing despite her relatives’ dire predictions concerning her fate.

  Hannah knew nothing would please her family more than for her to marry well, although they lived in horror of yet another disrupted engagement. The thought of a fourth broken engagement alarmed Hannah, as well, one of the very few things she had in common with her kin.

  A brilliant bolt of lightning reflected through the rain-streaked windowpanes. It was almost simultaneously accompanied by a boom of thunder. The lights flickered, went out, then almost immediately flashed back on. There were groans and squeals among the party guests, followed by a rowdy burst of cheering when the electricity held its own against the storm.

  “Miss Jones!” The voice, deep and peremptory, very annoyed and very male, caused nearly every head to turn to the foot of the stairs, where a very annoyed man stood on the landing, his arms folded across his chest, his dark eyes glowering. He projected the air of an infuriated marine drill sergeant, looking over a group of unsatisfactory recruits, and for a moment, the entire crowd shifted uneasily, as if feeling the apprehension of a hapless young corps.

  But the group was too jolly to sustain any mood but a festive one for very long. They quickly resumed their partying, ignoring the imperious intruder. Not Hannah, though. She bristled. The nerve of this stranger. No one used that tone with her, nor would she permit her friends to be verbally accosted in such a manner. Why, poor Katie looked positively stricken!

  Hannah started toward the stairs, determined to cut the obnoxious intruder down to size. When she was through, he would be miniaturized, so small that the antique dollhouse featured in her shop window would be too big for him.

  Her eyes met the stranger’s when she was only a few feet away from him.

  Hannah stopped cold in her tracks. The man’s smoldering dark eyes, so dark they appeared as black as onyx, were making a leisurely perusal, moving over her from head to toe and then back again. Males had been giving Hannah the admiring, assessing once-over since she’d donned her first training bra at age twelve. She knew how to deal with it, knew when to be flattered or insulted, knew how to respond playfully or forbiddingly.

  But she wasn’t sure how to respond to this man. For after taking careful, minute inventory of her every feature, her every curve, he merely blinked and dispassionately looked away, totally dismissing her.

  Hannah followed his gaze, saw those dark eyes of his fix on Katie, who was crossing the room to him, looking worried and nervous and apologetic. Hannah’s eyes widened. She silently willed the dark stranger to look over at her. She intended to devastate him with her most sultry stare, then reduce him to a quivering pool of nerves with an ego-shriveling insult.

  But the man never looked her way again. She might as well have been invisible. It was as if he was unaware she existed, hadn’t seen her at all during those few charged seconds when she’d watched him devour her with his eyes.

  “Mr. Granger, is there something wrong?” Katie asked breathlessly.

  Hannah was standing near enough to overhear the conversation, and she moved closer, listening shamelessly.

  “Yes, Miss Jones, you could say that,” Mr. Granger growled. “I want you to come upstairs to my room immediately.” He turned and headed up the stairs, not looking back, expecting Katie to follow him without question, without protest.

  And she did exactly that! Hannah’s jaw dropped as she watched Katie trail after the man, up the steps and away from the party.

  “I want you to come upstairs to my room immediately.” The deep, commanding voice seemed to echo in Hannah’s head while her mind’s eye kept flashing his image as visual accompaniment.

  She pictured him so clearly he could still be standing in front of her, dressed all in black, his T-shirt, jeans and sneakers nearly the same dark shade as his hair. His complexion was swarthy, his teeth very white. It was as if Dracula had appeared at the summer-night party, a dark, menacing presence among the colorful floral and pastel dresses of the ladies and the light ice-cream suits of the men.

  Hannah shivered. She felt edgy. Worst of all, she felt ridiculous! Her imagination, always active—why had she been the only Farley ever to possess one?—had clearly gone into overdrive. Dracula, indeed! The man was obviously a tenant here, seeking out the proprietor, and most rudely, too!

  His bare arms flashed to mind, unnerving her further. He was muscular, his forearms covered with a sprinkling of hair, his shoulders broad. His hands were big, his fingers long. He was probably very strong.

  Hannah was disconcerted by her detailed observation of the man. After all, she’d only seen him for a few moments. And then he had summoned Katie to his room. The party no longer held Hannah’s interest. Impulsively she climbed the stairs to the second floor of the three-storied house, hurrying through the halls, listenin
g.

  “...I’ve been in dumps and dives all over the world, but this place has to be the worst! I have never experienced...”

  The irate male voice was coming from the end of the hall, and Hannah rushed into the room. Katie was standing beside the window, looking mortified as the man she called Mr. Granger lambasted the Clover Street Boardinghouse, comparing it unfavorably to accommodations found anywhere in an inner-city slum.

  Hannah glanced around and understood why. It looked like it was raining inside the room. Water didn’t simply trickle or drip; it was pouring through several places in the ceiling, as if there were shower heads embedded in the roof directing the water down into this bedroom.

  “The roof is leaking,” Hannah blurted out.

  “Did you figure that out all by yourself?” The stranger turned from Katie to Hannah, his dark eyes mocking. ”You’re a real genius, aren’t you, little girl?”

  “I am not a little girl!” Hannah snapped, instantly incensed. “Of all the sexist remarks to make, that one—”

  The man’s eyes swept over her. “I was referring to your height. You’re short. Little. Can’t a man make a truthful observation without being called sexist?”

  Hannah was indignant. Her height—or the lack of it—was a sore point with her. She was barely five foot three and considered herself too short. She had never stopped wishing that she were tall and willowy like her two older sisters.

  Tonight, the nearly four-inch heels she wore gave her a sense of height and power. “You’re not much taller than I am. Does that make you a little boy?” She squared her shoulders and held her head high. Her power shoes did bring her somewhat closer to his height, which was an inch or two under six feet.

  “You’re on stilts and you’re still shorter, honey,” he observed ungallantly.

  “Mr. Granger, I am sorry.” Katie jumped into the decidedly confrontational conversation. “I was aware that the roof had a-a couple of small leaky spots but I didn’t realize...I never dreamed...this has never happened before—”