Page 15 of The Love Lie
She buries the memories. She blinks them away.
With her arms crossed, she stares hard at the closet full of Emily’s clothes and suddenly wonders what the hell she’s going to wear. Swapping places meant swapping everything—wardrobe included. And while she grew up in Georgia, the frilly, lacy, ruffled trappings of a Southern belle like her sister make her physically ill. She can’t remember if she’s always been this way, or if New York just vaporized the sweet tea from her blood. Give her a power suit. Give her stilettos. Give her a pencil skirt over a peplum blouse any day of the week, a smoky eye over smocking. That soft, feminine look works for Emily. It works for a lot of women, and good on them, because the absolute last thing Sam wants to do is to slip on an approachable sundress and suddenly appear like someone who might actually offer to give a lost tourist directions to the subway when she’s running five minutes late for a meeting and it’s their own fault for not being able to figure out a freaking grid system. It’s not that hard!
God. I really have turned into an asshole.
She groans, grabs a muted floral cover-up—the only beige thing she can find—and makes a silent promise. Next week, she’s going to help one of those poor lost souls get to Times Square if it kills her. And she’s going to buy a whole bag of groceries forthe homeless vet who lives outside her building. She and Winnie usually take turns giving him food from the apartment on their way out, but he deserves more. And…she might even feed a pigeon.
Nope. I’ve gone too far.
Sam slips into a pair of beaded flip-flops and glances back toward the living room, envisioning the cowboy waiting patiently on the other side of the wall.
I probably owe him another apology while I’m at it.
She sighs. The only thing she hates more than actually being wrong is copping to it. Losing gives her hives.
Being gracious isn’t a crime, Samantha.
It’s her mom’s voice this time and she rolls her eyes. The woman is a perfect Southern belle—a stay-at-home mother turned flower-shop owner who runs the local garden club and always has an ear in the town gossip. A true steel magnolia. Soft and feminine and the bedrock of the family. And while she’s been trying to turn Sam into a lady her entire life, the lessons never stuck. As if they were two halves of one whole, Em got all the magnolias and Sam got all the steel.
She groans.
The flowers on this dress mock her as she yanks open the door.
You’re not Emily, they whisper.You’re not the sweet, kind, strong, loving woman who is supposed to be wearing these clothes.
She straightens her spine and lifts her chin.
No, I’m definitely not.
Sam spots Cooper across the hall. He’s waiting with his arms crossed over his broad chest and one knee bent, his foot up against the wall. That white T-shirt strains across his muscles. Worn light-wash jeans hug his thighs. Boots poke out from underneath the hems, and his bright red hair is in wild disarraywithout the cowboy hat to hold it down. It’s not messy, though—it’s effortlessly tousled, mussed up in the sexiest way as loose strands curl over his eyes and around his ears, just waiting to be smoothed back. But it’s the shit-eating grin on his face that stops her cold. One glance into his devilish eyes and any thought of being the bigger person goes out the window.
“You haven’t by chance seen a cowboy hat lying around anywhere, have you?”
Sam reaches to the side and snatches it off the dresser before nestling it onto her head with a grin. “What? This old thing?”
A spark lights his gaze. “It looks good on you.”
“Maybe I’ll keep it.”
“It’s bad luck to take another man’s hat,” he says. That dimple digs a little deeper into his cheek. “Unless, of course, you’re planning to keep me too.”
Sam scowls and marches across the room to plop the offending item on his head. “Not a chance.”
“Aww, I think there’s a chance, Cuj,” he counters as he resettles the hat on his head, and dammit if the sight of it doesn’t twist her insides. She shouldn’t have given it back. It’s like sprinkles on a cupcake—a little extra touch that makes him all the more delicious. “Breakfast?”
She rolls her eyes. “Let’s go.”
The moment they step out onto the pier, he takes her by the hand and twirls her around until she lands pressed up against his side with their clamped fingers against her hip.
The first thing she notices is the sheer size of his hand.
The second is a little flutter deep in the pit of her stomach.
And the third is an electric bolt of red-hot rage.
Oh, hell no.
A flutter?
