The Mona Lucy Read online

  “You’re quite an actress, aren’t you?”

  “What in the world are you talking about?”

  “All that sentimental garbage about your bad childhood. It was merely a ploy to gain my sympathy, wasn’t it?”

  Her face paled, and her shock looked genuine. “That is probably the vilest, lowest thing anybody has ever said to me. I’m sorry I ever confided in you. And even sorrier I ever met you.”

  Matt cornered her, and now she was on the run. He blocked her escape.

  “If you don’t step aside I’m going to…to…” Sandi sagged, the fight suddenly gone out of her. She covered her face with her hands and made a sound that nearly broke his heart. The heart he’d tried so hard to keep deep-frozen and safe.

  “Sandi…” Her shoulders shook; her whole body shook. Alarmed, Matt touched her arm, and that was all it took.

  Suddenly she was in his arms, her face pressed tightly against his chest, wetting the front of his tuxedo with her tears. He patted her shoulders, stroked her hair, smoothed her back.

  Then magically everything changed. He was no longer comforting her, and she was no longer sobbing. They were touching, caressing, giving in, giving up, giving over to the powerful currents that arced between them….

  Dear Reader,

  Your best bet for coping with April showers is to run—not walk—to your favorite retail outlet and check out this month’s lineup. We’d like to highlight popular author Laurie Paige and her new miniseries SEVEN DEVILS. Laurie writes, “On my way to a writers’ conference in Denver, I spotted the Seven Devils Mountains. This had to be checked out! Sure enough, the rugged, fascinating land proved to be ideal for a bunch of orphans who’d been demanding that their stories be told.” You won’t want to miss Showdown!, the second book in the series, which is about a barmaid and a sheriff destined for love!

  Gina Wilkins dazzles us with Conflict of Interest, the second book in THE MCCLOUDS OF MISSISSIPPI series, which deals with the combustible chemistry between a beautiful literary agent and her ruggedly handsome and reclusive author. Can they have some fun without love taking over the relationship? Don’t miss Marilyn Pappano’s The Trouble with Josh, which features a breast cancer survivor who decides to take life by storm and make the most of everything—but she never counts on sexy cowboy Josh Rawlins coming into the mix.

  In Peggy Webb’s The Mona Lucy, a meddling but well-meaning mother attempts to play Cupid to her son and a beautiful artist who is painting her portrait. Karen Rose Smith brings us Expecting the CEO’s Baby, an adorable tale about a mix-up at the fertility clinic and a marriage of convenience between two strangers. And in Lisette Belisle’s His Pretend Wife, an accident throws an ex-con and an ex-debutante together, making them discover that rather than enemies, they just might be soul mates!

  As you can see, we have a variety of stories for our readers, which explore the essentials—life, love and family. Stay tuned next month for six more top picks from Special Edition!

  Sincerely,

  Karen Taylor Richman

  Senior Editor

  The Mona Lucy

  PEGGY WEBB

  For Michael with love.

  Books by Peggy Webb

  Silhouette Special Edition

  Summer Hawk #1300

  Warrior’s Embrace #1323

  Gray Wolf’s Woman #1347

  Standing Bear’s Surrender #1384

  Invitation to a Wedding #1402

  *The Smile of an Angel #1436

  *Bittersweet Passion #1449

  *Force of Nature #1461

  †The Accidental Princess # 1516

  †The Mona Lucy # 1534

  Silhouette Romance

  When Joanna Smiles #645

  A Gift for Tenderness #681

  Harvey’s Missing #712

  Venus DeMolly #735

  Tiger Lady #785

  Beloved Stranger #824

  Angel at Large #867

  Silhouette Intimate Moments

  13 Royal Street #447

  Silhouette Books

  Silhouette Christmas Stories

  “I Heard the Rabbits Singing”

  PEGGY WEBB

  and her two chocolate Labs live in a hundred-year-old house not far from the farm where she grew up. “A farm is a wonderful place for dreaming,” she says. “I used to sit in the hayloft and dream of being a writer.” Now, with two grown children and more than forty-five romance novels to her credit, the former English teacher confesses she’s still a hopeless romantic and loves to create the happy endings her readers love so well.

  When she isn’t writing, she can be found at her piano playing blues and jazz, or in one of her gardens planting flowers. A believer in the idea that a person should never stand still, Peggy recently taught herself carpentry.

  Dear Reader,

  When I wrote The Accidental Princess I had no idea I was writing the first book in a series about THE FOXES—Sorority sisters grown up and long out of college—but I loved the characters so much that they stayed in my mind awaiting their turn on center stage. The Mona Lucy continues the story of these funny, passionate, tender characters in a book that is Southern from cover to cover.

  The Mona Lucy brings back the hopeful romantic Sandi Wentworth, as well as the irrepressible O’Banyon and Coltrane women whose scheming sets the stage where love blossoms amongst merry mayhem.

  I grew up and still live in rural Mississippi, and I have a deep, abiding love for small-town characters with all their eccentricities. A host of O’Banyons and Coltranes are still waiting in the wings to tell their stories. I hope you will laugh and cry with these characters, that you will root for them, love them and stay with them as I spin out their wonderful tales of romance.

  Happy reading!

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter One

  Matt Coltrane hadn’t wanted to come to the wedding. Thank God it was almost over. The reception was winding down—mainly because everybody was getting drunk—and Matt could soon go home.

  He didn’t believe in love or matrimony. Marriage only led to divorce, as far as he was concerned. He ought to know; he’d handled enough of them in the past fourteen years to make a man think twice and then some before he took that suicidal walk down the aisle. Or in this case, around the corner of his mother’s swimming pool, which was the only reason he was here.

  Lucy O’Banyon Coltrane had offered her house and grounds for the wedding of her prim and proper college roommate and sorority sister, Ellie Jones, and she’d asked Matt to be there “in case somebody falls into the pool.”

  “That’s a ridiculous reason for me to drive three hundred miles,” he’d told his mother when she called. “Nobody’s going to fall into the pool.”

  “Yes, but in case they do, you’ll know how to handle it. And besides, I haven’t seen you in weeks.”

  He’d driven up from Jackson, Mississippi, to Shady Grove out of guilt and had stayed out of curiosity. Members of the Foxes, the sorority his mother helped charter, had flown in from all over the country to celebrate the wedding of one of their own. One of them was the U.S. attorney general. Matt had hoped to talk with her, but she’d called at the last minute to cancel.

  The entire event was over the top, if anybody had asked Matt’s opinion, on the hottest day of June, all these candles adding to the heat. They kn
ew better, of course. He was not the type of man to withhold his opinions. He was trying hard not to put a damper on the celebration.

  God knows, he’d done nothing but scowl since he got there. You couldn’t move without stepping over a bridesmaid. There was a flock of fifteen, wearing those ridiculous hats, no two alike, all dressed in pink.

  It was a pure relief to spot a woman dressed in green. She was on the other side of the pool, her shoes kicked off, snapping pictures and attracting a crowd. Men, of course. So many swooning swains gathered around her that Matt had to stand up to see.

  His mother slid into a chair at his table. “Lovely, isn’t she?”

  He nonchalantly eased into his chair. “Who?”

  “The photographer. Don’t think I didn’t see you watching her. I think she’s quite charming.”

  “Don’t start,” he said, and Lucy gave him a crestfallen look. “All right. I concede. She’s easily the most striking woman here.”

  “See, I told you you’d be glad you came.”

  “Now, Mother, get that look out of your eye. I came for you. That’s all.”

  “I’m glad you did, Matt. Since you’re here, why don’t you go around the pool and introduce yourself to that delightful-looking woman.”

  Matt would rather eat arsenic. Women in general were dangerous, but women of her kind were lethal. They reeled you in with their innocent act then knifed you in the back. That angel’s face didn’t fool him. Inside that sweet little package beat the heart of a barracuda.

  “She’s not my type,” he said.

  “You shouldn’t let one bad experience color your opinions.”

  One bad experience wouldn’t begin to describe the events that had colored his opinions. But he would never tell anyone, least of all his mother.

  “Can I get you some more food, Mother?”

  Lucy got that same look she always got when she was all set to deliver a rare motherly lecture, but this time Matt stared her down. She sighed.

  “No, thank you, dear. I’m on a diet.”

  “Why? You look fine to me.”

  “I don’t want to look fine. I want to look great. Like Dolly.”

  “Where is Aunt Dolly?” She wasn’t really his aunt, but he’d called her that for so long she might as well have been. Of all the Foxes, she was his favorite.

  “Quaffing booze and flirting, no doubt.”

  “I’d better see if I can find her.”

  “She’ll be mad as a hornet if you try to drag her away from one of her little peccadilloes, as she calls them.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  As Matt set out to rescue the indomitable actress Dolly Wilder from her baser impulses, a green hat lifted on the breeze, sailed across the pool and landed at water’s edge practically at his feet.

  He scooped the hat out of the water and strode around the pool to give it back to its owner.

  The wind that had stolen her hat whipped her dress and her long blond hair. She was a beautiful woman, fresh-scrubbed and wholesome. Just like his ex-fiancée. A heartless floozy in disguise.

  “My hat! You found it.”

  She turned her flutelike voice and innocent-looking green eyes on him, and Matt came within a hairbreadth of succumbing to her siren song. After all, he was human, in spite of rumors to the contrary.

  The sooner he got out of there, the better. He rammed the hat into her hand, then watched in mortification as it dripped on the shoes she’d kicked off, leaving huge water spots.

  Obviously her shoes were dyed-to-match silk, a fact he wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t grown up in a household with two sisters.

  Matt didn’t know whether to kneel down and try to wipe her shoes dry or to let well enough alone.

  “Sorry about the shoes,” he said. His cohorts would die laughing if they could hear him. The man known in the courtroom as Bulldog Coltrane was acting like a nervous Chihuahua. His only saving grace was that he hadn’t tried to put the soggy hat back on her head.

  “Oh, it’s no problem. I’m going to throw them away anyhow. They pinch my toes.”

  Matt didn’t want to make small talk with this woman, but Lucy had tried to teach him to be a gentleman and he guessed some of her lessons stuck.

  As he cast about for an escape tactic, he spotted the perfect one: Aunt Dolly sashaying to his mother’s table looking none too steady on her spike-heeled shoes.

  Before he could excuse himself, the woman said, “You’re the strong silent type, aren’t you?”

  Good God. She was worse than Matt had thought. “No,” he said. “Mainly I’m the surly type.” Then he scowled at her just to prove it.

  The woman was not the least bit discouraged. “Look at that terrific hat,” she said.

  Who could miss it? It stood out like an oversize hippo in the Swan Lake ballet. He watched as his aunt Kitty O’Banyon made a beeline for his mother’s table, her hat bobbing with every step.

  “I wish I had one like that. I wonder where she got it?”

  “It came as a gift with the case of tequila she ordered from Mexico.”

  “You know her?”

  “Yes.” He didn’t bother telling her the family relationship.

  “Such a strong, arresting face. I’d love to paint her.”

  The next thing he knew, the woman would be wanting to meet Kitty, and since he wasn’t a total cad he couldn’t very well turn her down. Then before he could blink twice, his mother and Aunt Dolly and Aunt Kitty would have her booked for lemon-balm tea on Tuesdays and bad tennis on Wednesdays and arguments over Eastern religious philosophy every Saturday, and there would be no way in heaven or on earth Matt could avoid seeing her again.

  He never would have rescued her hat in the first place if he’d thought it all through. His life was well ordered and relatively sane, and he planned to keep it that way.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “I have to rejoin my party.”

  “I didn’t mean to keep you.” The woman held out her hand, and what could he do but take it? “Thanks for rescuing my hat.”

  The scent of gardenia wafted off her skin, his favorite fragrance. “Of course,” he said, or was it You’re welcome?

  Before the woman could play any more tricks on him, he hurried off with all his anonymity and most of his dignity intact.

  “She’s gorgeous,” Aunt Dolly said the minute he sat down. “Lively, too. You can always tell.”

  His mother got right to the point. “Did you get her phone number?”

  “I didn’t even get her name.”

  “Ellie says she’s a sweet girl.” Kitty adjusted her liquor-advertisement hat. “She’s not only a great photographer, she’s an artist specializing in portraits.”

  Matt didn’t care if she specialized in Kama Sutra, he still didn’t want to know her name.

  “She studied art in Paris,” Kitty added. “Her name is Sandi Wentworth.”

  “I have to be going.” Matt pushed his chair back, then leaned down to kiss his mother’s cheek.

  “Don’t rush off,” she said. “Ellie and Sam just got back. He’s fixing to toss the garter.”

  “I pity the poor unlucky fool who catches it.”

  Matt rushed off and had nearly gained safety, when the garter sailed through the air and smacked him in the back of the head. He kept on going. But not before he noticed that the garter was made of red feathers with something attached that looked suspiciously like a sequined phallus.

  Who would have thought Ellie Jones was that kind? And at her age. It just proved his theory: women were a devious lot bent on man’s total undoing.

  “There wasn’t a single man at your dad’s wedding who made me tingle,” Sandi told her best friend, and C. J. Garrett said, “Thank God.”

  The two of them were sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch of C.J.’s childhood home holding cold glasses of lemonade to their heat-flushed cheeks and trying not to comment on the twenty-nine candles that blazed on the birthday cake beside them.


  Every candle burned a hole in Sandi’s heart. It was her birthday, and the only person in the whole world who remembered was C.J.

  “You didn’t have to get me a cake,” Sandi said.

  “I wanted to.” C.J. retrieved a small gift-wrapped box from the pocket of her sundress and handed it to Sandi. “Happy birthday.”

  “You shouldn’t have.”

  “For Pete’s sake, Sandi. You’re like family to me.”

  It was true. The only real home Sandi had ever known was this warm yellow cottage next door to the cold house Sandi had inherited from the grandmother who had raised her, a stern, upright woman who had taught her everything about walking the straight and narrow and nothing about love.

  The only real love she’d ever known had come from C.J. and her parents, Sam and Phoebe. She’d basked in the reflected glow for years, and truth to tell, that’s still what she was doing.

  C.J. was a newlywed and had been matron of honor as her widowed dad had just married his long-ago sweetheart, Ellie. If Sandi shut her eyes, she could almost smell the sweet scent of requited love wafting on the breeze that ruffled the roses on the trellis behind the swing.

  “Aren’t you going to open it?”

  Sandi carefully peeled back the paper, folded it into a neat square then opened the little black-velvet box. Nestled inside was a delicate necklace with a filigreed gold heart.

  “Oh, it’s beautiful, C.J. Thank you.”

  “I put pictures of you and me inside.” Sandi popped open the clasp and on one side saw a photo of two gangly-legged kids with their arms draped around each other. On the opposite side was a close-up shot of them mugging for the camera, their faces smeared with chocolate icing and hope.

  “My thirteenth birthday,” Sandi said. She remembered it well. The day she’d turned teenager she’d waited all day by the telephone, certain her mother would call. “You might as well give up,” her grandmother had told her. “Meredith’s too busy with her new husband to bother with you. Take what you’ve got and be satisfied.”