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rediscovering little pieces of herself she’d lost.
    Looking at the food, she allowed herself one moment of melancholy. She’d invited Katie to spend the day with her, but at the last minute her daughter backed out, claiming she had too many papers to grade and declaring she was behind on her lesson plans. Laura accepted the excuses, though deep down inside, she questioned the truth of them.
    Prior to the divorce, she and her daughter had been as close as best friends. There was very little Katie didn’t tell her, and they’d spent hours discussing boys, shopping, watching romantic comedy movies together. All of that stopped when Laura left Mason. Always a daddy’s girl, Katie had taken her father’s side, tossing her anger and bitterness over the split solely on Laura’s doorstep. No amount of explaining would sway her daughter’s opinion, so Laura accepted the blame because ultimately she had been the one to walk away from the marriage.
    The distance between them these days sliced through Laura like a knife. Kristen insisted Katie just needed time, but that was a hard thing to give. She missed her daughter. Desperately.
    “Enough,” she muttered. Today was meant to be fun. A chance for her to revive some of the Laura she’d left at the altar when she said, “I do.”
    Her cell phone rang. She smiled when she spotted Bryan’s name on the screen.
    “Hey, stranger. How was the business trip? You back in town?” she asked.
    Bryan’s work had sent him to oversee the beginning of a new project in a city nearly three hours south of Harrisburg two weeks earlier.
    “Yep. I’m back. Got in late last night. I’m out running a few errands today. Are you at home?”
    “I sure am. Why?”
    “I’m in the neighborhood and wanted to drop something off. You up for a bit of company?”
    Laura’s heart started to race. She’d had a full month’s worth of dirty, dirty fantasies about Bryan since their dance at the bar. They’d become so overwhelming, she’d actually spent an evening shopping on the internet with Georgie, letting her friend help her find a vibrator to order. It had arrived a few days earlier, but Laura had been too nervous to try the thing out.
    “I’d love to see you, but I should warn you. I’m in my casual Sunday attire, not my Friday night barhopping clothes.”
    Bryan chuckled. “I’ll consider myself warned. I’m about ten minutes away. See you in a few.”
    Laura disconnected the phone and hopped up from the couch. She briefly considered carrying all the food she’d just set out back to the kitchen lest Bryan thought she was insane, then she dismissed the thought. She’d spent too many years of her life trying to fit a mold, to be the wife she thought her husband expected, to be the perfect mother. She was tired of hiding who she really was. Bryan was either going to have to accept her eccentricities or move on because she wasn’t playing games this time around.
    This time around? Shit.
    Time to practice restraint.
    No relationships. No relationships. No relationships.
    She couldn’t sort out her own messed-up life. She definitely shouldn’t drag someone else into her murky future. She’d started this year determined to figure out who she was…and that would be a hell of a lot easier without a man.
    Even so…she dashed upstairs to brush her teeth, fluff her hair and swipe on some mascara and lipstick. While she wasn’t going to hide her personality and she was going to attempt to keep her association with Bryan strictly in the just friends category, her vanity wouldn’t let her look like a complete slouch in front of him.
    She’d just come back downstairs when she heard a knock on the door. She opened it to discover she hadn’t imagined Bryan’s unbelievable hotness. Today, in broad daylight, he was even more handsome than she’d remembered.
    He wore faded jeans and a simple blue T-shirt that looked soft and comfortable, but still outlined his muscular arms. Gone was the tall,