Free Second Chance With the Rebel: Her Royal Wedding Wish by Cara Colter

stuck-up kids just became a whole lot less exclusive, and unless I miss my guess, you are in at the yacht club.”
    “You hate the yacht club,” she reminded him.
    “I’ve always had a strange hankering for anything anybody tells me I can’t have.”
    Her arms folded more tightly over her chest and her eyes looked shiny again.
    “I didn’t mean you,” he said softly.
    “Let’s not kid ourselves. That was part of the attraction. Romeo and Juliet. Bad boy and good girl.”
    “I don’t think that was part of the attraction for me,” he said, slowly. “It was more what I said before. It was watching you come into yourself, caterpillar to butterfly.”
    “Actually,” she said, and she shoved her little nose in the air, reminding him of who she had been before he’d taught her you didn’t go to hell for saying damn , “I don’t want to have this discussion. In fact, if you don’t mind, I need to get dressed.”
    “I have to give this to you first. Special delivery,” he said, holding out the money to her. “What was that about rezoning?”
    She ignored the envelope. “I think it had to do with the canoes. I think you’re supposed to rezone to run a business.”
    But she suddenly wasn’t looking at him. He was startled. Because, scanning her face, he was sure she was being deliberately evasive. What did renting canoes have to do with finally getting rid of the young thugs next door? Though it was Claudia they were dealing with. That was a leap in logic she could probably be trusted to make.
    “I can put a lawyer on it if you want.”
    “I don’t need you to fix things. I already told you I’m not in the market for a hero.”
    “Take your money.”
    “No. Are you in my house without an invitation?” she asked, annoyed.
    “Boy, I saved you from drowning and from Claudia, and your gratitude, in both instances, seems to be almost criminally short-lived.”
    “Oh, well,” she said.
    “Anyone could come in your house without an invitation. You should consider locking the back door at least.”
    “Don’t you dare tell me what to do! This is not the big city. And don’t show up here after all these years and think you are going to play big brother. I don’t need one.”
    But it was evident from what he had just seen that she needed something, someone in her court. Still, he was no more eager to play big brother to her than she was to cast him in that role.
    But again, if that was what being a better man required of him, he’d suck it up. No looking at her lips, though. Or at the place her housecoat was gapping open slightly, revealing the swell of a deliciously naked breast.
    “Lindstrom Beach may not be the big city,” he said, reaching out and gently pulling her housecoat closed. “But it’s not the fairy tale you want to believe in, either.”
    She glanced down, slapped his hand away, and held her housecoat together tightly with her fist. “As a matter of fact, I gave up on fairy tales a long time ago.”
    “You did?” he said skeptically.
    “I did,” she said firmly.
    He looked at her more closely, and there was that subtle anger in her again suddenly. He missed the girl who had lain on the floor, clutching her throat. He also felt the little ripple of unease intensify—the one that had started when he saw her clumsy repair job in Mama’s porch. It was true. There was something very, very different about her.
    In high school she had been confident, popular, perky, smart, pretty. She’d been born with a silver spoon in her mouth and had the whole world at her feet. Her crowd, including Claudia, expected it that way.
    But Claudia had always had a certain hard smoothness to her, like a rock too polished. In Lucy, he remembered a certain dewy-eyed innocence, a girl who really did believe in Prince Charming, and for some of the happiest moments of his life, had mistakenly believed it was him.
    But Lucy Lindstrom no longer had the look of a woman waiting for her prince.
    In fact, from