Wedding Willies

Kit suddenly found her thoughts split between what Ad was saying and the scenario forming in her head.

A scenario in which they were at the end of a date. A date she’d thoroughly enjoyed. And that they were about to kiss good-night.

But they weren’t about to kiss good-night. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” she forced herself to say, attempting to escape her daydream. “Thanks for all your help tonight,” she said, prolonging this moment.

“Don’t mention it. I’d be your kitchen assistant anytime,” he joked with a lascivious note in his voice, tossing her a sexy half smile to go with it.

And that was when it struck her that Ad Walker absolutely was not like any other guy. And spending the last couple of hours with him hadn’t cured whatever it was she’d been infected by the moment she’d met him.

No, if anything she thought that she really had been bitten by the Ad bug. Bitten but good.

And there was only one thing that would cure her.

Dear Reader,

Well, the lazy days of summer are winding to an end, so what better way to celebrate those last long beach afternoons than with a good book? We here at Silhouette Special Edition are always happy to oblige! We begin with Diamonds and Deceptions by Marie Ferrarella, the next in our continuity series, THE PARKS EMPIRE. When a mesmerizing man walks into her father’s bookstore, sheltered Brooke Moss believes he’s her dream come true. But he’s about to challenge everything she thought she knew about her own family.

Victoria Pade continues her NORTHBRIDGE NUPTIALS with Wedding Willies, in which a runaway bride with an aversion to both small towns and matrimony finds herself falling for both, along with Northbridge’s most eligible bachelor! In Patricia Kay’s Man of the Hour, a woman finds her gratitude to the detective who found her missing child turning quickly to…love. In Charlie’s Angels by Cheryl St. John, a single father is stymied when his little girl is convinced that finding a new mommy is as simple as having an angel sprinkle him with her “miracle dust”—until he meets the beautiful blonde who drives a rig called “Silver Angel.” In It Takes Three by Teresa Southwick, a pregnant caterer sets her sights on the handsome single dad who swears his fatherhood days are behind him. Sure they are! And the MEN OF THE CHEROKEE ROSE series by Janis Reams Hudson concludes with The Cowboy on Her Trail, in which one night of passion with the man she’s always wanted results in a baby on the way. Can marriage be far behind?

Enjoy all six of these wonderful novels, and please do come back next month for six more new selections, only from Silhouette Special Edition.

Gail Chasan

Senior Editor

Wedding Willies
Victoria Pade

www.millsandboon.co.uk

VICTORIA PADE

is a bestselling author of both historical and contemporary romance fiction, and mother of two energetic daughters, Cori and Erin. Although she enjoys her chosen career as a novelist, she occasionally laments that she has never traveled farther from her Colorado home than Disneyland, instead spending all her spare time plugging away at her computer. She takes breaks from writing by indulging in her favorite hobby—eating chocolate.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Chapter One

I t was nearly nine-thirty on Saturday night when Kit MacIntyre’s bus pulled in to Northbridge, Montana. She was the last passenger and the driver unloaded her luggage and carried it all the way into the station for her.

“I spend the night here and then do the return trip in the morning,” he explained along the way.

Inside, the station was about the size of a grade-school classroom. There was no one on the pewlike benches or using the vending machines, and the elderly woman who was manning the place had already closed the ticket counter.

She greeted the driver by name, nodded to Kit, and then locked the rear door they’d come in through.

“Somebody meetin’ you, sweetie?” the woman asked Kit after the driver had left through the front door.

“My friend was supposed to be here,” Kit answered, scanning the space even though it was obvious there wasn’t anyone else there.

“Who’s your friend?” the woman inquired.

Anywhere else that question might have seemed odd, but Kit’s friend had warned her that in a small town everyone knew everyone.

“Kira Wentworth,” Kit informed her.

“You must be here for the wedding next Saturday,” the older woman said reverently, as if the wedding were the social event of the year.

“I’m the maid of honor,” Kit confirmed. “I’m also making the wedding cake.”

Light seemed to dawn for the elderly woman whose blue eyes widened into saucers. “Oh, I’ve heard about you. My niece got married in Colorado and she wouldn’t have any cake but yours—Kit’s Cakes. The minute Kira told me who was making hers I recognized the name.”

“That’s me.”

“Well, I can’t wait to have that cake again. My mouth has been watering for it ever since.”

“I’m glad you liked it,” Kit said.

That apparently ended the cake conversation then because the woman said, “I haven’t seen Kira tonight. Did she know what time the bus was getting in?”

Kit assured her that Kira did.

The woman checked the big round clock on the wall behind the ticket counter and said, “I need to close up and get home to my Henry to give him his pills. But it’s a nice night. Maybe you could wait on the bench out front.”

It wasn’t like Kira to be unreliable so Kit felt certain her friend would be there any minute. “Would it be all right if I used the rest room first?” she asked. “I’ll hurry.”

“Sure thing. I’ll just give my Henry a buzz and let him know I’m on my way.”

Kit thanked her and followed the arrow on the aged sign that said Lavatories.

The ladies’ room contained two stalls and a sink, and smelled of pine cleaner. Kit quickly entered the first stall that she came to so she could have a few minutes after she’d washed and dried her hands for a fast assessment of how she looked. She was about to meet Kira’s fiancé for the first time, and she didn’t want to do that all wilted and haggard.

She’d had a long day. She’d needed to put the final touches on four wedding cakes before she was able to rush home to do last-minute packing and then get to the airport. But glancing in the mirror above the sink, she decided that she wasn’t too much the worse for wear.

Her pale skin needed a swipe of the blush brush from the makeup bag she took from her purse, but the mascara she’d applied that morning was still helping to darken her eyelashes. She did use her little fingers to smooth away a few smudges under her blue-violet eyes, however. Then she freshened her light mauve lipstick and pulled out the rubber band that held her hair in a ponytail.

Her hair fell to three inches below her shoulders in an unruly cascade of curls and waves. It gave Kit fits. The curl was natural and untamable, and her hair was so thick that it always seemed too bushy to her. She’d always wished for sleek, smooth hair that she could wear in a chin-length bob, but as it was, if she cut the hair she had she lost the heaviness that helped weigh it down and ended up with what she considered clown hair.

At least she didn’t mind the color, she conceded as she brushed out the dark walnut brown mass and left it to fall free around her face.

She replaced her makeup bag in her purse and left the rest room to find that it was still only the older woman waiting for her in the station.

“No Kira yet,” the woman informed her.

“It’s okay. I’ll wait outside so you can get going,” Kit assured her.

The woman led the way through the front door and Kit followed, carrying her own suitcase this time, along with the oversized shopping bag that held her pans and utensils.

Outside Kit found herself across the street from a gas station, and she spotted a pay phone she could use if Kira didn’t show up soon.

As the other woman locked the door from the outside, Kit set her suitcase in front of the bench that was beside it, put her bag on the seat and sat down.

“If Kira and Cutty were still at the old house you could walk from here,” the station attendant said. “The new house is farther away, though. Not too far a walk if you didn’t have anything to carry, but with your suitcase and… Well, I’m sure Kira will be here any minute. I can’t imagine what’s keeping her.”

“I’ll be fine,” Kit said, assuming the older woman wanted reassurance that it was okay to leave her.

She must have been right because the woman said, “I’ll say good night then.”

“Good night,” Kit responded as the woman headed down the street on foot herself.

It was a beautiful mid-August night. Warm enough without being too hot, and there wasn’t so much as a breeze to disturb the air.

But even so Kit wished that her friend would get there. It was almost eerily quiet and there wasn’t a soul anywhere to be seen after the bus station attendant turned a corner about a block down.

Not that Northbridge didn’t look like a nice little town from Kit’s vantage point. It did. The gas station and the bus station were face-to-face at the end of Main Street, which seemed to be the gateway to the town proper.

Kit couldn’t see all the way to the end of Main Street from where she was, but what she could see of it was lined on either side by two-and three-story, primarily brick structures. Quaint and old-fashioned, they had such a country-town feel to them that Kit wouldn’t have been surprised to see a horse-drawn streetcar coming toward her or an old Studebaker parked at the curb somewhere along the way.

Tall, ornate wrought-iron pole lamps lit the sidewalks on both sides of the wider-than-average thoroughfare, and each light was circled with flower boxes that held the riotous yellows and oranges and burnt umbers of the marigolds planted around them.

But as nice as it looked, Kit would have preferred taking it all in on a leisurely afternoon when she and Kira could browse through the shops. At that moment she just wanted Kira to come get her.

Kit was beginning to consider crossing to the gas station to call her friend when movement quite a ways down Main Street caught her eye and distracted her.

It appeared to be a man who had just left one of the buildings, but the distance was too great for her to tell what kind of establishment he’d come out of. He was headed for her end of the street though, and despite the fact that Kit expected him to get into one of several cars parked nose-first at the curb, he just kept coming in her direction.

Maybe he would be turning off onto a side street the way the bus station woman had, Kit thought, feeling slightly edgy when that didn’t seem to be happening.

She reminded herself that Kira had said Northbridge was a safe place. The man Kira was marrying was a Northbridge police officer, and he’d told Kira that keeping the peace involved mostly speeding tickets, a domestic violence complaint here and there, and underage drinking due to the presence of the small college.

But Kit felt uneasy anyway.

It was dark, after all, and she was alone without any indication that there was anyone who would hear her scream for help if she needed it. And the man not only kept coming, when he was about a block away he looked right at her, smiled and waved.

He wasn’t Kira’s fiancé, Kit knew that. Her friend had sent her a picture of them together, along with his twin nineteen-month-old daughters. And the man who was headed in Kit’s direction was not that man.

This man was someone else.

He didn’t look threatening—if that meant anything. Although he was a big son of a gun, she thought. And just because a guy was really handsome didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous.

But this guy was really handsome. Really, really handsome. Handsome in the extreme.

Long, muscular legs were bringing him closer by the second. He had a narrow waist and broad, powerful shoulders, and he wore his sable-colored hair short on the sides and slightly longer and mussed on top. And what a face. He could have done shaving commercials with those sculpted features. High cheekbones; a wide, square forehead; a thin, almost sharp and very straight nose; lips that were a little thin but seemed to suit him just the same; and when he smiled at her yet again as he drew nearer, it put two matching creases down his cheeks and gave him a hunky, mischievous air….

“Kit?” he said when he was several yards away but close enough for her to hear him.

“Yes,” she answered tentatively, not sure whether she was unsettled by being approached by a strange man on a deserted street, or by the fact that he was so amazing looking that it had sort of stunned her.

He pressed a big, long-fingered hand to the chest that was barely contained in a red knit polo shirt and said, “I’m Ad. Ad Walker. I’m a friend of Cutty’s.”

He said that with a question in his deep baritone voice, clearly wondering if she’d ever heard of him before.

She had. Not only had Kira talked about her fiancé’s best friend, but what had prompted Kira’s trip to Northbridge in search of her sister in the first place had been a newspaper article about Cutty and this man. Cutty and Addison Walker had rushed into a burning house to save the family inside. Which they’d done, only to end up injured themselves—Cutty had broken his ankle and Addison Walker had been knocked unconscious.

Not that there seemed to be any lingering effects because he looked in robust health now.

Belatedly, Kit said, “Kira told me about you. I’m Kit. Kit MacIntyre,” she added, feeling foolish when she recalled that he’d already known that or he wouldn’t have been able to call her by name.

Then, to make matters worse, she held out her hand with an aggressive thrust, as if she were trying to impress a prospective employer with her enthusiasm.

Ad Walker smiled and accepted her hand to shake, taking it into his massive mitt, enveloping it in a warm strength that sent heat up her arm and all through the rest of her body, and left her wondering how a mere handshake could be sensuous.

“Nice to meet you,” he said.

The handshake seemed over much too quickly for Kit and she was shocked to find herself disappointed when he let go. So disappointed she had to force herself out of her own thoughts and into paying attention to what he was saying.

“Mel—one of the twins—fell and hit her head,” Ad Walker explained. “Cutty and Kira had to take her in for stitches, so they asked if I’d pick you up.”

“Is the baby all right?”

“She’s fine. It was just a cut,” he assured. “I don’t know if Kira told you or not, but you’ll be staying with me.” He held up a big hand to wave away that last statement. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. What I meant was, I have two apartments above my restaurant—” He poked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction from which he’d just come. “I live in one of them and I rent out the other to college kids when school is in session. But my extra apartment is vacant for the summer, and since Kira and Cutty’s new house is torn up with the remodel—and since you’ll be using the restaurant ovens to make the wedding cake anyway—we thought it would work out for you to use the empty apartment while you’re here.”

Kira had told Kit all that. But she liked listening to the sound of Ad Walker’s voice so much that she didn’t mind hearing it again.

“I hope it isn’t an inconvenience for you,” she said rather than letting him know he’d gone through that entire explanation for nothing.

“Nope, not at all. They’re two completely separate apartments so I won’t even know you’re there, and you won’t know I’m there, either.”

Somehow Kit doubted that even separate apartments could wipe away the knowledge that this man was somewhere nearby.

But she didn’t say that.

She did, however, remind herself that she was in men-pause. She was taking a hiatus from men and romance and relationships after two huge fiascoes that she took full responsibility for.

Ad Walker picked up her suitcase. “My place is just up the street. I thought we could go there, get you settled in, and then maybe get you something to eat and drink while we wait for Kira and Cutty to finish up with the baby and come by. If that’s all okay with you?”

“Sounds fine.” Kit took the shopping bag from the bench, explaining as she did, “I brought my own pans for the cake. I wasn’t sure how equipped you were for baking.”

“Beyond the ovens, I’m not equipped for baking at all,” he informed her as they started off, retracing his path. “I do pub-style food—fish-and-chips, burgers, sandwiches, soups, a mean steak, ribs, barbecue, that kind of thing. The only desserts I offer are cheesecake and chocolate cake that I buy frozen from my food supplier.”

“Oh dear.”

Ad Walker laughed a laugh that rolled around in his chest as if it were a deep barrel. “Believe me, I’m embarrassed to admit that to someone who makes cakes for a living.”

“I could teach you a few basic recipes that wouldn’t be difficult but would taste better than prepackaged, frozen, mass-produced, preservative-laden, not-much-of-a-treat desserts.”

He glanced over at her, smiling. “You’d do that? Give up a couple of your world famous recipes to me?”

“Well, maybe not the world famous ones,” she joked. “But I think I could be persuaded to teach you a few lesser-knowns for room and board this week.” And she was enjoying bantering with him much more than she wanted to be.

“It’s a deal,” he said.

They’d reached his restaurant and bar by then.

A large neon sign proclaimed the place Adz. The front of the restaurant was mostly windows with dark green café curtains halfway up for the privacy of diners at the tables just inside. The doorway was recessed, and Ad Walker stepped into the alcove ahead of Kit to open the door for her.

The English pub theme wasn’t only in the food. The dark wood paneling, dim lighting and booths that lined the walls around the freestanding tables all looked like they’d been taken straight from England or Ireland. And the long, carved, walnut bar with the brass foot rail and the full mirror behind it only added to the warm, friendly, casual ambience.

“Nice,” Kit judged.

“Thanks. I like it.”

Ad Walker led her through the crowd that was eating and drinking despite the fact that Kit had seen so little life on the street outside. He used his backside to push open the swinging doors to one side of the bar and waited for Kit to precede him into the kitchen.

The kitchen was impressively clean and much the same as most restaurant kitchens—a brightly lit space with sinks and stoves and ovens lining the walls, and workstations in the form of stainless steel tables in the center.

Ad wasn’t paid a lot of attention by the staff, who were busy with their own duties, as he took Kit to the rear door and out into an alley.

It was a very appealing alley, though. The street was brick-paved to make it look cobbled, the buildings were all painted, windows were shuttered, trash receptacles were enclosed and carriage lights provided illumination from both sides.

“We’re up here,” Ad said, nodding to the wooden staircase that ran alongside the restaurant’s back wall to a wide, railed landing that accommodated two doors.

Ad unlocked the first door they came to and then gave Kit the key that he’d used. Once she’d accepted it he reached in, turned on a light and waited for her to precede him inside.

Kit did, finding a small studio apartment complete with a double bed and dresser in one section; a tiny kitchenette in another; and a sofa, matching chair, a desk and a television in another section.

“The place is kind of bare-bones,” Ad said apologetically. Then he stretched out a long arm and pointed at the two doors at the opposite end of the apartment. “Left is closet, right is bathroom. I put clean sheets on the bed this morning, fresh towels are in the linen cupboard in the bath. The fridge is stocked with a few essentials but not many, and there’s no coffee or coffeepot, but whatever you want to eat or drink is yours for the asking from the restaurant.”

He was right, the furniture was sparse and unassuming, but the place was neat and tidy and dust-free, the walls looked newly whitewashed, and all in all it seemed comfortable.

“I don’t expect you to feed me the whole time I’m here but the apartment will do just fine. In fact, it’s cozy. I like it,” Kit assured him, meaning it.

He lifted her suitcase over the brass footboard that matched the bed’s brass headboard and set it on the mattress as Kit put the shopping bag on the tiny kitchen table.

They turned to face each other at about the same time and that was when Kit was treated to the sight of his eyes.

The man had amazing, vibrant, bright aquamarine-colored eyes.

And for a moment she got lost in them.

Until his deep voice brought her out of it.

“So, do you want some time up here alone or shall we just go down and get you fed?”

Since she’d already used the rest room at the bus station, she said, “To tell you the truth I didn’t have time to eat all day and I’m starved. I think I’ll just take you up on dinner.”

He smiled as if that was what he’d been hoping to hear, putting those intriguing creases down the sides of his handsome face. “Great. Let’s go.”

They hadn’t closed the door and this time Ad stepped outside ahead of her, as if giving the place over to her as her own.

Kit followed him out, flipping off the wall switch beside the door to turn off the overhead lights he’d turned on before. Then she checked to make sure the door was locked and closed it after herself.

“I recommend the fish-and-chips. They’re especially good tonight,” Ad said as they retraced their path down the stairs. “But you can have whatever you want.”

“Fish-and-chips it is. And iced tea if you have it.”

They went back in through the kitchen and Ad told the cook they needed an order of fish-and-chips sent out. Then he took her into the restaurant once more.

He poured two glasses of iced tea from a pitcher behind the bar before nodding to a small corner table that was free.

“Let’s sit over there,” he suggested.

“Don’t feel as if you have to keep me company if there’s something else you need—or want—to do,” Kit felt obliged to say.

“There isn’t anything else I need—or want—to do,” he answered, making her wonder if there had been special emphasis on the or want part, or if she’d just been imagining it.

Then, as if it had just occurred to him that she might not want his company, he said, “Unless you’d rather be alone—”

“No,” Kit answered much too quickly. “I just don’t want to be a bother.”

“It’s no bother. I’ve been kind of enjoying myself,” he said.

That pleased her more than it should have but Kit tried to ignore it and made her way to the table.

They settled in across from each other and as Kit took a sip of her tea she worked to come up with something to talk about with this man she’d just met…and couldn’t seem to keep her eyes off of.

But then she doubted it would be easy for any normal, red-blooded woman not to look at that handsome face and the muscular body that went with it.

It was that robustly healthy physique that suddenly spurred the memory of the newspaper article that had been her first exposure to Ad Walker and she seized that to make conversation with.

“I heard about you and Cutty saving that family from their burning house and about you both getting hurt. How are you after getting beamed?”

Ad smiled. “Shouldn’t that be beaned?”

“As I recall you didn’t get hit with a bean, you got hit with a beam,” she said, smiling to let him know her play on words had been just that.

“I’m as good as new.” He tapped on his head as if knocking on a door. “Hard head.”

“Not hard enough to keep you out of the hospital for a couple of days—or so I heard.”

“I’m okay now, though. But thanks for asking.”

“Kira said Cutty got the cast off his ankle last week and he’s doing all right, too,” Kit said, trying to keep things going.

“He did. And the burned house has been repaired, and the family we dragged out of it has moved back in, and even the dog’s singed tail looks normal again. It’s as if it all never happened.”

“Except that as a result of it I no longer have my best friend living across the hall from me,” Kit pointed out as a waitress served her meal.

When she’d thanked the woman, Kit shot another sly smile in Ad’s direction and added, “Of course I blame you for that.”

Ad laughed. “Me? What did I do?”

“You talked to Kira about Cutty and that was instrumental in her decision to pursue her relationship with him.”

“Ah.” Ad’s engaging grin said that he realized she was only teasing him. But rather than commenting on the subject of the part he’d played in his friend’s romance, he nodded at her plate with his chin. “How’s your food?” he asked.

Kit had tasted both the beer-battered, deep-fried cod and the French fries and could honestly say, “It’s the best fish-and-chips I’ve ever had. But don’t think it makes up for costing me my best friend.”

“Doesn’t it make up for it a little?”

Was he flirting with her?

Had she been flirting with him?

Kit wasn’t sure on either count. But she was enjoying the exchange just the same.

“It makes up for it very little,” she countered.

“Hmm. Well, as I understand it, you did some encouraging of your own when it came to the fork in the road for Kira and Cutty. Kira told me you opened her eyes to some things that got her to thinking and ultimately coming back here to Cutty.”

“It was already too late by the time I got in on this. I just had to roll with things,” Kit claimed. “So I still blame you.”

Okay, maybe that had sounded slightly flirtatious.

Stop it! she told herself.

“I guess I’ll have to think of a way to make it up to you,” Ad conceded with an innuendo-laden tone of his own.

Kit played along with skepticism. “That’s a tall order.”

“I love a challenge,” he said.

His aquamarine eyes glinted with mischief and held hers in a spell that left Kit completely unaware of anything or anyone else around them.

So completely unaware that she only realized her friend was standing right beside the table when she heard, “Umm, are we interrupting something?”

Ad seemed as surprised as Kit felt to discover that Kira Wentworth and Cutty Grant had joined them.

“Kira!” Kit exclaimed, jumping to her feet to cover her own preoccupation with a man she had no business being preoccupied with.

Kira gave her a hug and said, “I’m so sorry I couldn’t meet your bus! I made you come all the way to Montana, and I wasn’t even there when you got here. But Mel fell against the corner of the fireplace in the new house and cut her forehead. We had to take her in for stitches.”

“I know, Ad told me. It’s okay,” Kit said.

But Kira went on anyway. “I couldn’t leave her. She was scared and upset and she doesn’t like anything to do with doctors as it is, let alone having to get three stitches, poor thing. And then we decided that rather than push it, we should just get the girls home and put them to bed and call the sitter to stay with them after we got them to sleep for the night.”

“I totally understand. You needed to do what was best for the babies. Really, it was no big deal. I’m just glad to see you now,” Kit assured.

Ad had risen to his feet when Kit had and he’d been very busy pulling two chairs from another table.

“What can I get you guys?” he asked then. “Something to eat? To drink?”

“I’ll have a beer,” Cutty said.

“Nothing for me,” this from Kira. “I just want Kit to meet Cutty.”

While Ad got Cutty’s beer Kira introduced Kit and Cutty and by the time that was accomplished and the four of them were situated around the small table whatever it was that had been going on between Kit and Ad Walker before Kira’s and Cutty’s appearance had been put to an end.

But as happy as Kit was to see her best friend and to meet the man who had made Kira nearly glow with delight, as happy as Kit was to know that their baby daughter was okay, there was still a tiny speck of regret lurking deep down in her.

A spark of regret that had something to do with Ad Walker.

And with that interruption of whatever it was that had been going on between them.