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Chapter One

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me” Bryan Metcalf nearly choked on the words as he searched for his discarded coat He had to get the hell out of here before things got even more bizarre

“Oh co the expression she’d crafted in childhood and perfected as the years went by

Quinn always did this to hi for help, like she was at her wit’s end and was desperate for his help, and by the tiot there, desperation was nowhere to be found Instead, he’d find a carefully planned set of tasks lined up for hi sister, proverbial whip in hand

Today was no different

She’d phoned hi about the last bachelor in tonight’s charity auction having the flu and would hein? Her job was on the line and, truly, he wouldn’t have to do much One date with a nice lady anted to help the hospital raiseor stupid

It was all very convincing And so, like the big dumb idiot he was, he swooped in to save the day What she didn’t ht’s festivities

Adam and Eve

Even that wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the fact that all the bachelors in her little auction were practically naked, covered only by underwear ether by the last renity

Getting hiht have been yet another notch on Q’s belt of manipulation, but he’d be da and berries covered by nothing except a few s and berries

He was just sizing up the other guys to see whoe a coup when his sister’s voice dragged him back to his bizarro reality

“It’s really not that bad,” Quinn was saying “You’re going to look great Green’s totally your color” She s around her face “What are you, a medium?” She held up a pair of briefs with a particularly slued onto them and then tossed them in his direction

“Very funny No chance in hell you’re getting me to wear that”

She surveyed hi soft and watery and her rounded features pinching into a pathetic, sad-clown face “Please, bro It’sevent I need you”

Damn it

His sister had been in the party planning business for less than six months and already had landed a plum spot at an established co, and he kne important it was to her that she succeed

He snatched a pair of extra-large leaves froe”

And as if by one

“I have a feeling you’ll be the one thanking me by the end of this, actually”

She straightened the golden pendant holding her white toga together and s had paid off And since he’d shielded hi off the rest of his clothes and putting on the wretched costume, her look of triumph was understandable

Still, as her words sank in, his gut clenched These schemes of hers were al up takeout for her, it wasn’t just because she couldn’t do it herself, it was because there was a nice waitress working the counter who’d already seen a picture of hi in If she suddenly needed him to randdaughter as about his age

She hadn’t pulled him here just because she needed the help This was her utopia A veritable gold mine of potential wives The ultiirl to settle doith”

Fuck That

“Not again, Quinn” His voice was ice cold, but she held her ground, shrugging her shoulders and wrinkling her brow in faux confusion

“I don’t knohat you’re talking about”

“Did you set this whole thing up?”

She batted her eyelashes and nodded “The

event? Yeah, you know tha—”

“Not the event Did you set me up? Did you plant so?”

He’d only been home for a month and already she’d hoodwinked him into three “accidental” dates All with her friends, who had proved themselves to be on the husband hunt within tenhim

It was too ned hi websites while he’d been deployed, even going so far as to sucker hiether so she could submit them on his behalf

“You know, it wouldn’t be so terrible for you to find a woot to find soe to take care of yourself”

And so the fa to let her quick-step her way out of the line of fire “That wasn’t a no”

Quinn let out a long-suffering sigh and plopped onto the vanity chair, Trojan-style sandals in hand “No, then No I didn’t set you up, okay But I’ to think I should”

“Starting to think you should?” Had everything up until now been a practice run? The thought chilled him to the core

“You clearly have no intention of ever givingout to save the world Soht never come back” This tienuine sadness he hadn’t seen in a very long time Maybe not since the first time he’d been deployed

In the eight years he’d been away from home in medical school and then in the ared The kid sister he’d left behind was a flighty flower child, innocent and sweet While the woman in front of hi brunette braids and her doe-like eyes, her spirit had matured She understood the world better now and realized how hard life could be

But that still didn’t mean she knew best for him when it came to women

“Don’t worry I’ht now”

And she should know that They’d both seen firsthand what a career in the military could do to a fa “Sir” or “the Colonel”—had been gone h love” and to cultivate an ego-boosting a off again, leaving the up the pieces until he did it all over again