Chapter One
"So what’s this older sister of yours like, Summer? Am I going to fall madly in love with her?"
Summer Anderson smiled fondly at the lethally handsome blond male who'd thrown himself on the floor at her feet as she rested in an easy chair in her den. She'd found Clay McEntire on her doorstep when she'd returned home from her college class—not an unusual occurrence at her Sausalito house, where her friends often dropped by unexpectedly on Friday evenings. "Not likely," she told him. "I don't think she's your type."
"Since when do you know my type?" he demanded challengingly, grinning up at her. "So far you've tried to fix me up with about a dozen women, and none of them was my type."
"I had such hopes for you and Autumn," Summer mourned with a dramatic sigh, her eyes sparkling mischievously beneath her heavy fringe of golden-brown bangs. "You were supposed to meet her at my wedding and be knocked right onto your cute tush."
"Autumn is certainly a knockout," Clay agreed solemnly. "I liked her very much."
"You treated her like a kid sister," Summer complained.
"She is a kid sister."
Summer sighed gustily. "Mine, not yours, idiot."
"So tell me about Spring. God, those names. What would your parents have done if they'd had a fourth daughter born in December? Anyway, all I know about Spring is that she's an optometrist and she's a couple of years older than you."
Summer laughed. "I've always been glad that my parents stopped with three kids. Can you imagine going through life with the name Winter Reed? Sounds like a flavor of LIFE SAVERS. Anyway, about Spring. First off, she's not a couple of years older than I am. She'll be twenty-seven in two months—her birthday's May 14—and I'll be twenty-six in July. She's very fair—blond hair, violet eyes, English-rose complexion. She's taller than I am, five-seven, and slender. Like a model. She takes after our Scandinavian maternal grandmother."
"Don't any of you sisters look alike?" Clay asked in amusement, remembering Autumn's earthy, auburn-haired, green-eyed beauty. Summer's wholesomely attractive features matched her cheerfully extroverted personality—enormous blue eyes, uptilted nose, golden tan, petite frame. From what Clay had heard of the family, it seemed as if the Reed sisters had inherited entirely different features to match their very individual personalities.
"Not a bit," Summer replied gaily. "As far as personality goes, Spring is hard to describe. She's a little like my Derek in some ways. Serious on the surface but with a lively sense of humor hidden underneath. Hardworking, ambitious, goal oriented. Punctual, conscientious, responsible."
Clay chuckled and shook his golden head as he shifted to a more comfortable position on the plush beige carpet of Summer's den. "She's going to hate me, right?"
"I said she wasn't your type," Summer pointed out. "But, to be perfectly honest with you, I think Spring is bored out of her mind. She's tired of always being responsible and mature, and just itching to do something really crazy for a change. She'd never admit it, of course, but I still believe it's true. I think I'll advise her to have a mad passionate affair while she's visiting me. It would do her a world of good."
Clay held up both hands in a gesture meant to call attention to himself. "Sounds good to me. Where do I sign up?"
Summer laughed. "With Spring."
"I can but try."
"Don't blame me if you get shot down."
He looked affronted. "Why? I'm reasonably attractive and definitely available."
"You're more than reasonably attractive and you know it, you gorgeous hunk," Summer teased. "But let's face it, Clay. Spring is going to take one look at those clothes of yours and shudder. You won't get to say a word."
"What's wrong with my clothes?" Clay demanded, shoving himself to his feet and looking down at his lean, six-foot-four length. He wore an unbuttoned purple-yellow-and-white-printed cotton shirt over a yellow T-shirt and baggy white pleated pants. A purple print bandana was knotted around his neck. His sockless feet were tied into bright yellow Reeboks with green laces in the left shoe and red in the right. For Clay, he was actually dressed quite conservatively.
"You don't really want me to answer that."
"Oh, well." He dismissed her c
riticism with an indolent shrug. "Just remember to tell your lovely sister that I'm willing if she decides to take you up on your advice to have a mad passionate affair. Satisfaction guaranteed."
"Oh, the ego of the man," Summer murmured, her eyes turned toward the ceiling.
"Just stating the facts, ma'am," he drawled.
Summer shook her head sadly. "When it comes right down to it, I'll have to step in and protect her from you, anyway. What I really want is to get her fixed up permanently. You know what they say about us happily married women. We can't stand it until all our friends are suitably wed."