Free A Lover For Rachel by Lynn Crain Page B

freedom before the realities of life set in. Samantha soon decided she didn’t like the rigors of court, so she worked behind the scenes, helping lawyers prepare their cases. There’d only been a few times Samantha had seen the inside of a courtroom since the day she won a case for a man who swore he would change and not beat his wife. The woman ended up dead the very next week and Sam was done defending just anyone the firm wanted her to defend.
    Even before Sam had that case, Rachel came to a decision to go into the more mundane side of law. She wished to deal only with contracts and property and avoid shady customers. Not that those cases couldn’t be boring. Still, they had their moments when she defended people against the government and eminent domain issues. She once had a case in which murder played a part in a property line dispute, but the victim was a person’s dog that had wandered from the ranch house. Overall though, she could say she didn’t have the same problems Sam had had when she had been working the court system defending less-than-honorable people.
    So this vacation was for both of them. Sam, because her long-term relationship finally ended when they couldn’t come to terms over marriage, children, or anything else. Rachel failed to snag the attention of the average man and never went beyond three dates with any of them. She supposed her size scared off any potential suitor, even though her weight was at a healthy level now. Then again, maybe her attitude that she wasn’t quite perfect had a lot to do with her inexperience on the dating scene. Yet with all the improvements she made, men still didn’t seem interested. Maybe it was because she’d finally reached the ripe old age of thirty-five, or something else that she just didn’t understand.
    While she had some practical experience with men—a boyfriend in high school whom she’d dearly loved, another in college that rocked her world—she knew exactly what she wanted in a lover. Definitely someone more mature than the college guy, she thought to herself. Definitely someone who could accept her inside and out and overlook her less-than-admirable traits.
    Thinking about the last ten years made her stop a moment. All in all, it had been a good ten years but certainly not everything she’d wanted. There was more to life than work. This experience would cross the boundary between living life and just participating.
    The sounds of happy people around her brought her out of her reverie. “I know what you mean. There’s definitely more people.” Rachel snugged her coat around herself and opened the car door. Even though it was the height of summer in the British Isles, there was a nip to the morning air. Pulling her pack out of the back of the car, she fished out their tickets and waited for Sam.
    Once Sam joined Rachel, they took off on the trail that led to the henge. Handing their tickets to the guide at the gate, they entered the tunnel that descended under the road, coming out on the other side. Rachel had watched the stones for miles as they approached the site by car and continued to do so as they now approached the ancient site on foot. At first, the stones were just a shadowy bump on the hills, but as they got closer, the monoliths cast their shadows in the moonlight in strange and beautiful ways. The celebrations were going on all day and throughout the evening because the full moon fell on the solstice this year. The timing couldn’t be more perfect as it offered her a once-in-a-lifetime experience. She couldn’t avoid the opportunity to live as she wished on this day.
    As they emerged from the tunnel that went under the highway, the air almost crackled with unseen magic. “Do you feel that?” Rachel whispered.
    Sam’s answering grin flashed white against the shadows. “Yeah. The air is alive, isn’t it?”
    They continued along the path and watched the people ebb and flow around the ancient stones. People were rarely allowed