Mismatch Read Free Page A

telling me what I can and can’t do? Who died and made you king of Vermont?”
    “I don’t need this,” Wade muttered, shaking his head. He’d been sent to Vermont for peace and quiet, not to argue with some goofy broad who probably didn’t have sense enough to wear a hat in a hailstorm. “I’m leaving.”
    “Fine,” Bronwynn said, running her hands up and down the slick, cool satin of her dress. A tremor of shivers shook her, then subsided. She tried to swallow the knot of fear that felt like a tennis ball lodged in her throat. “The last thing I want around tonight is a man,” she mumbled.
    Wade took a step back toward the door.
Go and don’t come back till she’s gone,
he told himself. One night alone in this rodent’s paradise, and the little rich girl won’t be able to drive her Mercedes back to Boston fast enough. His feet dragged reluctantly back another step. “I mean it. I’m going. You can stay here alone with the mice and whatever else might be living here.”
    “Fine.” She stood there looking lost and pale and cold with her toes peeking out from under the dirty hem of her wedding dress.
    “There’s a perfectly nice motel in Shirley—and three inns. There’s no light or heat in this house,” he pointed out to her. She just stared at him in the fading light. Something in her look tugged at his heart.
    Oh, no, Grayson,
he told himself,
get your fanny out of here and away from this silly, strange woman. Don’t go turning into a marshmallow simply because she’s got that kitten-up-a-tree look.
    He pointed a warning finger at her and shook his head. “I’m not coming back.”
    “Good,” she said, trying to ignore the panic that threatened to rise up in her throat.
    Wade told his body to turn and leave, but it didn’t. Dammit, he thought. There was an almost frightening haunted quality in her eyes. Her square jaw had begun to tremble. She was shaking all over. He had the impression that if he touched her or spoke too loudly, she would shatter into a million tiny bits like a piece of fine crystal.
    He snarled a little under his breath. He was a practical, levelheaded person with a solid Midwestern upbringing. He didn’t get involved with silly women like Bronwynn Prescott Pierson. It didn’t matter that she was beautiful and, apparently, available. She was the last person he wanted to get tangled up with.
    He would stay away from her—even if she did look as vulnerable as a lost fawn. When she left he could contact her lawyer about purchasing the property, but he wanted nothing to do with Bronwynn herself.
    “I’m going now,” he said, not moving an inch. As an added threat he threw in, “And I’m taking my dog with me.”
    Dropping a mutilated shoe on the floor, Tucker sat down in the doorway and leaned against the jamb.
    Bronwynn barely took notice of either of them. She felt the darkness closing in on her and wished for the bright flame of anger that had burned inside her all afternoon. Anything would have been preferable to the cold emptiness that was threatening to swallow her whole. Her long, fine-boned hands were like ice when she pressed them to her cheeks.
    Her life was a mess. She’d walked out on a wedding she never should have agreed to in the first place. She’d almost married a man she didn’t love. What was the matter with her?
    “Ah, hell,” Wade said. He had lost the battle within himself and placed the blame on Bronwynn as if she had been begging him to stay instead of waiting for him to leave. “All right, I’ll stay.”
    Not listening to him, she looked up with a tortured expression on her pretty face and whispered, “This would have been my wedding night.”
    Then the dam burst inside her and the tears began to flow, and without giving it a second thought, Wade took her into his arms and held her.

TWO
    S HE DIDN’T CRY like a socialite, Wade reflected, trying to distract himself from the automatic flash of male panic at the sight of a woman’s tears.