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The Wedding Heiress

Harlequin Superromance
October, 2008
ISBN: 978-0373715213

 

 

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Excerpt ~ Chapter One

Delaney McBride knew her fortunes had changed the moment the telephone rang.  She tapdanced across the room to take the call she’d been waiting for all afternoon, the one that would put her back in control of her life.  She paused to compose herself, then said in her most businesslike voice, “Delaney McBride.”

“Pumpkin.  How the hell are you?”

Her brain stopped.  Her heart stilled.  Suddenly she was the fat, orange-haired teenager who’d obsessed over Mike Connery all her life.  The high school junior who’d pressed a note into Mike’s hand that said she would save herself for him.  Her face began to burn.  Thank God she and her mother had moved out of town a few months later.

“Pumpkin?”

She dropped into the soft leather cushion of her living room sofa and pressed a hand to her cheek, the heat warming her palm.  How could something she did fifteen years ago have such an effect on her today?  This call was supposed to be a job offer, not a connection to a past she’d rather forget.  She tried to pull her thoughts into order.  “Yes?”

“This is Mike Connery from–”

“Holiday Bay.  I know.”  The words came out more sharply than she intended.  Surely he wouldn’t be calling about the will–

“I’m really sorry about your great aunt.  She was a wonderful lady.”

A sympathy call from Mike Connery?  “Thanks.  She was really special.”

“Uh, I’m calling about her will.”

There it was.  She exhaled.  Well, why wouldn’t he call?  He stood to lose as much as anyone else.  For a moment, she felt a comradery with him, swept like everyone else into the maelstrom of her aunt’s eccentric ways by the woman’s last will. 

She shoved her bangs off her forehead as if to shove the emotion away.  “I can’t believe this will is legal,” she said.  “I’ve never heard of anything so absurd.  I even met with another lawyer…”

“I’m an attorney, Pumpy.  It’s ironclad.”

Her stomach clenched.  She wasn’t Pumpy anymore.  Pumpkin and her insecurities no longer existed, thanks to years of therapy.  She wanted to tell Mike to call her Delaney, but couldn’t bring herself to let on that the nickname bothered her.  She made a fist and inhaled slowly, then let out a controlled laugh.  “So my lawyer confirmed,” she said in a low voice.  “Although, as an attorney you should know nothing is ever ironclad if you have the right connections.”

He gave an equally controlled chuckle.  “Does that mean we shouldn’t count on you?  The other heirs want to know so they can quit planning…”

“Planning?”

“Yeah.  To pay off credit cards, take their first vacation in years, have an operation.  Sully Sullivan was going back to Ireland to see his mother–hasn’t seen her in twenty-five years, and she’s getting old.”

“Is this why you’re calling?  To pressure me into complying with that ridiculous will?  To guilt me into overseeing a bunch of weddings?”  Delaney stood and crossed the living room of her Victorian row house to look out at the organic food store across the street.  She’d chosen to live in Boston’s South End because it was full of young professionals, people with drive and an eye on the future.  Her lifestyle was totally incongruous with wedding planning.

He ignored her questions.  “Are you in or not?”

God knew she needed the $100,000 her great-aunt had left her.  She’d been unemployed for more than three months, laid off when the ad agency where she worked lost her big account.  Now she was in debt up to her eyeballs.  Her savings were depleted, her rent was due, her car payment was overdue, the balance on her credit card kept going up, and all she had to live on was a small unemployment check.  The mere thought of her finances made her heart begin to race and she sucked in a breath to calm herself.

“Pumpkin?”

Which made this inheritance a godsend.  Except, in order to get the money–which she desperately needed–she had to back to her hometown in Wisconsin–Holiday Bay.  Worse, she had to finish planning the weddings that remained on the books of her late aunt’s shop. 

“Are you in or out?” he pressed.

“It’s not that simple.”

“What’s the problem?  You have an aversion to money?” he said with thinly disguised impatience.

She huffed.  She was supposed to be getting a job offer today.  One with a salary that would nearly rival what she’d receive from her inheritance–and wouldn’t require she plan weddings to get paid.  If only she’d heard from them already.  “Of course not.  It’s just, I’m not sure I have the time to take this on.  I don’t know a thing about wedding planning.”

“You don’t have to be incredible at it, just good enough to–”

“And, frankly, I’m not into that happily ever after scene.” 

Mike laughed out loud.  “Pumpkin, seems to me you were quite the little hopeless romantic in your day.”

Every possible thought in her head vaporized.  For a moment, she couldn’t speak.  What kind of man would bring up her old infatuation with him to win an argument?  She forced herself to say something, anything.  “Yes, well, I’ve long since learned the error of my ways.”

He made a choking sound.  “So you’d give up $100,000 because you don’t want to plan a few weddings?  Hell, for $100,000, I’d clean out horse stalls barehanded.  And I’d smile the whole time.”

“Therein lies the difference between us, now doesn’t it,” she said with a sniff.

“We’re talking about a few months–not a lifetime.  So what is it really?  You don’t need the money?  You can’t get a leave from your job–”

“I can take off whenever I want.”  With no job at all, taking time off wasn’t even an issue–she just didn’t feel like baring her entire life to him.  She’d spent enough years being a loser in Mike Connery’s eyes.  She opened the front door and stepped outside, pausing at the top of the steep concrete steps.  A cool spring breeze slid over her bare arms.

“What’s the big deal then?  You afraid to fail?  Or afraid to try?”

“I just told you.”

He laughed out loud, a long laugh that took her straight back to high school.  It irritated her to no end.  They were talking to each other with the same friendly antagonism they’d had in childhood, as though fifteen years hadn’t even passed.

“Oh, I get it.  You’ve got a boyfriend–”

“No, I don’t.”

“You’re so in love you don’t want to leave Boston.”

“You’re full of crap.”  Her voice went up a notch and she grasped the stair rail.  God, he was the same old Mike.  A year older than she and always had to win the arguments.  Didn’t matter if the sky was blue; he’d argue that it was pink until he won.  No wonder he’d become a lawyer.  

She hard a call-waiting beep and pulled the phone from her ear to check the caller ID screen.  It was the ad agency she’d been waiting to hear from.  Her stomach flopped.  With her job offer.  She grinned.  No wedding planning in her future.

“I have to call you back.  I’ve got a business call on the other line.”  She clicked him off without waiting for a reply.

Mike was so wrong.  No boyfriend would ever prevent her from doing something she wanted to do.  That described her mother–and she would never be like her mother.  Always needing a man to rely on, always thinking a man would make everything better–and never getting the man.

Ten minutes later she felt more like her mother than she ever had in her life.  All dressed up and nowhere to go.  Reaching for the brass ring and missing once again.  She stared out her front windows without seeing a thing.  They’d offered the job to someone else.  Someone with more experience.  When all was said and done, she hadn’t been good enough. 

She glanced at her watch without knowing why.  She had no place she needed to be, no meetings, no conference calls, no deadlines.  She wanted to bang her head against a wall.  How could she have lost complete control of her life?  She had no job.  She had no money.  She had no prospects.  She had no choices.  None except go to Holiday Bay and get up to her elbows in white satin, butter cream frosting, and rosebud bouquets.  She loved her aunt dearly, but what had ever made the woman think this was a good plan?

“I can’t do it.  I can’t go back there,” she said to no one, knowing full well that was exactly what she had to do–at least until a high-paying job offer came her way.

She thought about calling Mike and decided to put it off for a while.  She thought about him and wondered whether his teenage good looks had matured into handsome.  Whether he was still as lean and fit as when he was playing high-school baseball.  Whether his black hair was prematurely peppered with white like his father’s had been.  And whether his blue eyes could still make her heart pound.

Afraid?  Darn right she was afraid.  But it wasn’t wedding planning she was afraid of.

 

#

Mike rounded the door into his law office to find his friend, Dan Hobart, kicked back in Mike’s black leather desk chair, work boots up on the cherrywood desk, and fingers laced behind his head.  Though his blue mechanic’s jumpsuit looked completely out of place in the richly appointed office, Dan’s demeanor was that of a full partner.  Mike leaned against the doorway and grinned.  “Anything I can get to make you more comfortable, Hobes?” he asked.

“Yeah, how about a massage therapist?”  Dan grinned, then pulled his feet off the desk and sat up.  “I had to drop Bill Brighton’s car off for him and figured I’d stop in before I head back to the shop.  Did you talk to Pumpkin?” 

Mike nodded.  “You know how she used to be the tag-along, the gnat we were always trying to get rid of?  Well, now she’s morphed into a giant pain-in-the-ass.”

“Still a no-go, huh?”

“Yeah.  She’s going to call me back but I’m not holding out a lot of hope,” he said. 

“We should have left her tied to that maple tree when she was eight.”

Despite his irritation, Mike laughed.  He could still see chubby Pumpkin McBride and her mop of unruly orange hair as they ditched her in the woods with the false assurance that this was how you played King Arthur and they’d be back for her in five minutes.  Three hours later when they’d finally come back, it had taken a Hershey bar and the seventy-two cents they pooled between them to keep her from tattling.  “Could be she wants revenge because I hit her with an arrow that time we were playing William Tell, he said.

“It was only a foam arrow,” Dan said.  “I can’t believe she’d hold that against you.”

“I suspect her memory may be long.”

Dan started to chortle.  “Maybe she didn’t like that snowman we made in her front yard–the one where we put a real pumpkin on the top for a head.”  He sobered.  “So, what do you think’s the problem?”

“I don’t know.”  Mike shoved his hands in the pockets of his khakis.  “Maybe she doesn’t need the money.”

“Doesn’t she care that the rest of us do?”  Dan took a drink from his coffee cup and grimaced.  “Cold.”

“Doesn’t sound like it.  I played all the guilt cards–even told her Sully wanted to go back to Ireland to see his mother.”

Dan snorted.  “You nabbed the plot from Going My Way?  What if she’s seen the movie?”

“It was a spur of the moment strategy.  I just couldn’t believe anyone would seriously consider giving up $100,000 no matter what clause was attached to it.”  He collapsed into one of the upholstered chairs opposite his desk.

“She knows she’s not the only heir that has to do something, doesn’t she?” Dan asked.  “That we have to restore the ‘57 Chevy.  That other people have to–”

“She got a copy of the will.”

Dan stood and walked across the office, turning to face Mike.  “The way I see it, you only have one choice.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you.  She was always in love with you–”

Mike laughed.  “Not anymore.”

“You can get it back–women never forget their first loves.  Play to that attraction and you’ll get her to sign on.  Once she’s knee-deep in wedding planning, you can slide away, no one the wiser.  Then we can all get our inheritances and live happily ever after.”

“I’ve got news for you.  She’s not into that happily-ever-after scene,” Mike said, standing.  “Her words.  Not mine.”

Dan clapped him on the back.  “Well then, you’re just the man to change her mind.”

The office phone rang and Dan leaned over and picked it up after one ring.  “Connery Law Office.  How can we help you?” he said cheerfully.  His eyes narrowed as he asked, “Can I tell him who’s calling?”  One hand over the mouthpiece, he raised his eyebrows at Mike and whispered, “Pumpkin.  Be nice.  Really nice.”

Mike put the phone to his ear and sat on the edge of the desk.  “Hey, Pumpkin, thanks for calling back,” he said in the friendliest voice he could muster.  “Dan and I were just talking about all the fun we three had as kids.”

Dan rolled his eyes.

Silence greeted him from the other end of the line.  Maybe he’d gone too far.  “Pumpy?”

“Okay,” she said.  “I’ve, ah, thought the whole thing over and decided to, ah…that it would be worthwhile for me to give wedding planning a try.  Do one or two weddings and–”

“That’s great!”

“So I cleared my schedule for a couple of weeks.”

“Everyone will be really happy to hear this.”  Mike gave Dan a thumb’s up. 

Dan jabbed an index finger in the air.  “Play it up,” he whispered.

“I’m really happy to hear this,” Mike added hastily.  “Can’t wait to see you.  When will you get here?”

“I’m driving, so it’ll be a few days.  Is Sunday soon enough?” she asked in a less-than-enthusiastic voice.

Dan did an out-of-rhythm hip-hop dance around the room in celebration, his fingers curled in the symbol for “rock on.”  Mike ignored him.  “The first wedding is less than two weeks away, so I guess the sooner the better.  I’ll have someone open the apartment above your great-aunt’s wedding shop so it’ll be ready for you to move in.”

“Thanks.  Um, guess I’ll see you next week.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”  Yeah, right.  What he was looking forward to was getting this whole thing out of the way and getting his life back to normal.  He hung up the phone and grinned at his friend.  “Houston, we have lift-off.  She’s going to try a wedding or two.”

Dan froze.  “Try it?  She’s got to do the whole job.”

“One step at a time.  At least she’s coming to town.”

“Yeah, but none of us gets our inheritances unless everyone fulfills the terms of the will.  If we lose Pumpkin, we all lose.”

“We won’t lose her.”

“There’s only one way to be sure of that.”  Dan smiked at Mike like the Cheshire cat.

“Oh, no.  Don’t look at me.”

“Oh, yes.  It’s only for a couple of months.  And you’re the only one who can do it.  You don’t have to seduce her–just keep our sweet Pumpkin happy so she doesn’t quit before the weddings are finished.”

Mike gaped at Dan for a long moment then dropped back down into the chair, shaking his head.  As much as he didn’t want to do it, he had to admit Dan was right.  For everyone to get their inheritance, he had to make Pumpy his own personal project over the next couple of months.

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