This was his dream. He had to chase it, no matter what.
“All right. Let’s do this.”
…
Shemeantto text Daniel and tell him she wasn’t coming. Honest, she did. Something always popped up every time she opened their thread to text. The first few times, when Thomas caught Samantha’s eyes flickering between her cell phone and the pauper’s bouquet she placed by the window near her favorite reading chair, he made a point to embarrass her about it, asking if she was textingHer Mechanic. Then, her phone died, and she’d been getting so many texts from Captain about their “date” she didn’t bother plugging it back in.
And she was a coward. A huge coward who dressed herself for a ball while trying to talk sense into her revolting heart. Her brother and her father both agreed, and Sam’s sensible side did, too. Captain was the expected, respectable choice. An inevitability she needed to get used to. Her father had set her on a collision course with him, and she couldn’t find the brakes. Daniel was a distraction.
A useful Mud Duck of a distraction, but a distraction all the same.
Yet, when she got into her car, ball gown and all, she thought about spending the night with Captain, dancing in his arms, feeling his hot breath against her ear. And somehow, through those waking nightmares, her car just…sort of drove itself away from the address Captain had sent her. And before she knew it, she was standing on a blustery street in a gown of chiffon and lace, staring through frosted windows at the golden haze coming from inside of the shop.
An aging woman in an oversize sweater leaned against a nearby wall and smoked, tugging nicotine clouds into her mouth before releasing them into the chilly air around her.
“Well. Look what the cat dragged in.”
“Pardon me?”
“You’re her, aren’t you?” The woman gazed at her once from head to toe, drinking in the obnoxious gown, a surefire giveaway of exactly who she was. “The lord’s daughter.”
“Sam. I’m Sam. I’m a friend of—”
“Yeah. I know all about you.” She dropped her cigarette, stomping the embers of the ash into the cobblestones. “He told me what you said to him.”
Sam didn’t need specification. The old woman’s voice was hard enough to explain everything. Whoever she was, Daniel told her about the penniless guitar player insults.
“And I’m so sorry about what I said. I lost my cool, and—”
“Daniel’s a good boy. He deserves better thanlost my cool.”
There was maybe no one on earth who understood as well as Sam what Daniel Best did and did not deserve. She was doling out both in heaping measures.
“I know. Believe me, I know—”
A sudden arrival halted the heated chat. A woman with a bob of blindingly red hair, hair like a tropical sunrise, appeared from the nearby alleyway. She wore a Crowdwell’s Bookshop T-shirt under an army-green jacket, Sam’s only hint this might be a friendly intrusion.
“You must be Sam!” The woman slapped her hand into a vigorous shake. The gesture was friendly and peaceful, but the rest of her was guarded. She, too, must have been skeptical of Sam’s presence here, though not nearly as much as the chain-smoking woman. “I’m Angie. Danny’s mate. God,” she said, then popped a mouthful of air between her lips. “You couldn’t look richer if you tried, could you?”
Sam could have taken offense, but instead she chuckled and returned the good-natured jest. She recognized this kind of teasing from Daniel. “Ididleave my tiara at home.”
“Is she bothering you?” Angie asked, pointing at the woman, who had, by now, lit up yet another cigarette.
“I’m looking out for my grandson,” she defended.
“Nan.” Ah, this must be the famous Nan about whom Daniel talked often. “Sam here’s fine. She and Danny were out until six yesterday morning.” Angie wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. “She’s back in the good books.”
“His good books, maybe. He writes his good books in Sharpie and his bad books in pencil. Mine’s the other way around.”
Angie rolled her eyes and looped her arm through Sam’s.
“Let’s get out of here before she starts breathing fire.”
When she was sure they were at least mostly out of earshot, Sam whispered, “She’s intense.”
“She’s not usually so aggressive. Danny’s her baby, though. She’s very protective.”
“I really didn’t mean what I said to Daniel about—”
