Midnight Lies: The Wildefire Series Read Free Page A

place. “See you tonight.”
    She grimaced in sympathy. When compared to meeting with a despised ex-spouse, facing
     an unfriendly judge didn’t sound so bad. “I hope it’s not too unpleasant.”
    “I just hope I can get out of there without strangling her,” he muttered, and was
     out of the apartment almost before Samantha could register his astonishing statement.
     For Quinn to reveal his hatred was rare. Charlene must have really pissed him off
     this time.
    Samantha dropped her head onto her pillow again. Her granddad would have approved
     of Quinn’s restraint in not discussing other people. Though her hometown of Midnight,
     Alabama, had been rife with gossipers and busybodies, Daniel Wilde had looked upon
     gossiping as an evil deed. The fact that the Wilde family had often been the subject
     of those gossipers hadn’t helped. And their hometown newspaper,
Midnight Tales
, had been the worst. Every salacious remark that had been whispered about the Wildes,
     they had printed as thinly veiled innuendos—skirting as close to libelous as possible
     without going over the edge.
    But her grandfather would have approved of Quinn for other reasons, too. She had often
     worried that she would never find the right man. She had dated often but had never
     felt a real connection with anyone. Her sisters, Savannah and Sabrina, had called
     her a hopeless romantic, insisting that there was no perfect man outthere. She had been almost to the point of believing that. Then she’d met Quinn.
    Silly, but sometimes she worried that he was too perfect. That perhaps she was seeing
     only what she wanted to see. When she was a kid, how many times had she looked up
     at her daddy and thought him to be the most wonderful man alive? And what had he done?
     He had brutally murdered her beautiful mother and then had cowardly taken his own
     life. That had shaken Samantha’s trust to the core and destroyed her innocence.
    Then, years later, both of her sisters had thought they’d found their ideal matches,
     only to learn how wrong they’d been. With that history, why should she have faith
     in any man at all?
    Now Savvy was back in Midnight for a short time to ready the Wilde mansion for sale.
     And she would most likely have to see the man who had shattered her heart. Life was
     just too damn unfair sometimes.
    Even though Samantha and her sisters understandably had trust issues with men, they’d
     thankfully had one wonderful example. Daniel Wilde, their grandfather, had epitomized
     everything honorable and good. If Samantha could find a man half as fine as Daniel
     Wilde had been, she would call herself lucky. And unless she was seriously mistaken,
     that man was Quinn Braddock.
    There was one major fly in her happily-ever-after ointment: Quinn wanted nothing permanent—he
     had made that clear from the start. Samantha, quite confident of her feminine powers,
     hadn’t been worried when he had made that announcement on their first date. It was
     the first time any man had ever made that stipulation. Instead of being insulted,
     she had been amused, almost seeing his warning as a challenge. Weeks later, when she
     realized she was falling in love with him, she wasn’t feeling quite so confident and
     was most definitely not amused.
    After almost four months of dating, their relationship was intense, passionate, and
     more satisfying than anything she’d ever experienced. Even sex was exciting and thrilling.
     Before Quinn, her sex life had been about as bland as cold grits. She had decided
     that, for her at least, the idea of sex was much more enjoyable than the actual act.
     She was good at a lot of things … sex just didn’t happen to be one of them.
    Then, the first night she and Quinn made love, she had changed her mind. She had been
     terrified, worried that she would disappoint him. Quinn had been incredible. Patient
     and oh so very thorough in his intent to pleasure her. He had praised her, making
     her feel