If one of her girlfriends should dare to tell her to get over herself, that men were just teenage boys at heart who could be expected to fool around one last time before they got dragged down the aisle—well, so much for that friendship. Mary Beth drew the line at cheating.

Though this was the first time she’d been cheated on. She amended the thought. This was the first time she knew for sure she’d been cheated on. It felt horrible.

Any woman so lacking in self-respect that she put up with crap like that even once would be doomed to a lifetime of it.

No way. Not her. But she had no Plan B. And now here she was in a noisy lounge staring at a man who made her feel like she actually mattered. And feeling flummoxed.

He’d come to her aid instantly. And held her as if he knew what had just happened when he didn’t know a thing. Tried to help. Been a gentleman the entire time, including that funny, old-fashioned kiss. She’d felt like a lady.

In that roughly tender voice, he’d claimed out of nowhere that he’d needed her and seemed as surprised by his confession as she had been.

It was impossible to tell why or how it had all happened so fast, but she still wanted him to hold her, to caress her, to love her. By all rights she should be afraid of him, but she just wasn’t. Her barely restrained desire ought to have been a warning not to get involved, but she didn’t hear any alarm bells.

Mary Beth didn’t think anyone had ever really needed her, not even her lovingly protective father. Being a widower with a growing child who was only four years old when he’d had to learn to do for himself after his wife’s death in childbirth, Howard Caine had become a very independent man who did it all, including cooking and cleaning.

It was only natural that his daughter grew up to be a strong, independent woman taking care of herself too. She had a BA and a master’s in social work, and a career she loved. She invested her own money and had been saving for a house even before she met her soon-to-be-former fiancé, that rat bastard. Life skills were par for the course: she could change a tire, and she could even hem a dishcloth, although she never did, considering that the dollar store sold perfectly good dishcloths every day of the week for ninety-nine cents plus tax.

But more than anything she wanted a real family of her own, and especially a mother-in-law who could substitute for the mother she’d lost.