Merline Lovelace – Third Time's The Bride! (страница 1)
“Let me make sure I understand the terms of this contract,” she said slowly.
“You’re asking me to give up my condo, my job, my life, and take up permanent residency in your gatehouse until such time as we mutually decide to terminate the arrangement.”
He was blowing it. Forcing a smile, he tried again. “Actually, I’m asking you to move into the main house. With Tommy and me.”
Neither the smile nor the offer produced the desired effect. If anything, they added fuel to the temper darkening her eyes.
“You pompous, conceited jerk. You think all you have to do is waltz in, invite me to be your live-in lover, and expect me to …”
“Whoa! Back up a minute! I’m asking you to marry me!”
“What?”
Third Time’s the Bride!
Merline Lovelace
A career Air Force officer, MERLINE LOVELACE served at bases all over the world. When she hung up her uniform for the last time, she decided to try her hand at storytelling. Since then, more than twelve million copies of her books have been published in over thirty countries. Check her website at www.merlinelovelace.com or friend Merline on Facebook for news and information about her latest releases.
For my niece, Stephanie Fichtel, who’s as beautiful as she is talented. Thanks for giving me such great insight into the busy, busy life of a graphic artist, Steph.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Dawn McGill would be the first to admit her track record when it came to relationships with the male of the species sucked. Oh, she’d connected with some great guys over the years. Even got engaged to two before dumping them almost at the altar. Fortunately—or unfortunately for the dumpees—she’d discovered just in time that she didn’t really want to spend the rest of her life with either of them.
Given that dismal history, Dawn never expected to tumble hopelessly in love during what was supposed to have been a carefree jaunt across northern Italy with her two best friends. Callie and Kate were as shocked as Dawn at how hard and fast she fell.
Nor could any of them have imagined that the man of Dawn’s dreams would turn out to be a pint-size ball of energy with soft brown hair, angelic blue eyes and an impish grin. But when the three friends had converged in Venice last week to help babysit the six-year-old, whose nanny had taken a nasty spill and broken her ankle, Tommy the Terrible had wrapped Dawn around his grubby little fist within hours of their first meeting.
Now they were back in Rome. She and Callie and Kate. With Kate’s husband, Travis, who’d orchestrated a surprise ceremony to renew their wedding vows using the Trevi Fountain as a backdrop.
Tommy and his dad were here, too. Brian Ellis had worked with Kate’s husband on some supersecret project at the NATO base north of Venice and they’d become good friends. The father was too conservative and stuffy for Dawn’s taste, but the son...
God, she loved watching the boy’s antics! Like now. She had to grin as Tommy scrambled onto the fountain’s broad lip. His dad grabbed the back of his son’s shirt and kept a tight hold.
“Careful, bud!”
The three women stood in a loose circle to watch the byplay. Kate was a tall, sun-streaked blonde. Callie, a quiet brunette who seemed even more subdued than usual since she’d walked away from her job as a children’s advocate. And Dawn, her hair catching fire from the afternoon sun and her ready laughter bubbling as Tommy barely escaped a dousing from one of the cavorting sea horses.
“That kid is utterly fearless,” she said with real admiration.
“A natural born adventurer,” Callie agreed with a smile. “Just like you. How many times did Kate and I follow you into one scrape or another?”
“Hey, I wasn’t always the ringleader. I seem to recall you convincing us to shimmy through a window of the library one night, Miss Priss and Boots. And you—” she smirked at Kate “—were the one who suggested ‘borrowing’ my brother Aaron’s car so we could zip over to the mall. We’re lucky the cop who stopped us on a stolen vehicle report didn’t let us sit in jail overnight before calling our parents.”
The smirk stayed in place, but the memory of that brief joyride churned a familiar acid. Her parents had each blamed the other for their daughter’s brush with the law. No surprise there, since they’d been feuding for years by that point. Dawn’s three brothers were all older and had escaped the toxic home environment by heading off to college and then careers. She hadn’t been as lucky. She was a freshman in high school and almost drowning in the anger her mom and dad spewed at each other when they’d finally decided to call it quits.
The divorce should have been a relief to all parties concerned. Instead, her folks had turned it into an all-out war. No way either would agree to joint custody or reasonable visitation rights for their teenage daughter until the judge was forced to step in and make the decision for them. Dawn ended up shuttling back and forth between her parents, each of whom blamed the other for their subsequent loneliness.
The constant tug-of-war had chipped away at their daughter’s breezy, fun-loving disposition. Might have demolished it completely if not for Kate and Callie. They’d all grown up in Easthampton, a small town in western Massachusetts, and had been inseparable since grade school. The Invincibles, as Kate’s husband, Travis, called them, not always intending it as a compliment.
Her parents’ turbulent history was part of the reason Dawn had bonded so quickly with young Tommy Ellis. The boy’s own emotional upheaval had occurred when he was much younger. Not much more than a baby, actually. But the fact that he’d grown up without a mother had colored his life, just as her parents’ battles had Dawn’s.
Too bad she hadn’t bonded as well with Tommy’s dad. Lips pursed, she watched as Brian Ellis hauled his son back from the brink yet again. The man was sexy as all hell. She couldn’t deny that. Big, but quick, with six feet plus of impressively hard muscle to go with his razor cut brown hair and killer blue eyes. Those eyes had gleamed with undeniable interest when she and Brian had first met in Venice, Dawn recalled. But they’d turned all cool and polite when she’d laughed playfully with one of the other men present.
Oh, well! Not a problem, really. She and the Ellises would share the same address for only a few days. A week or two at most. Just until Brian could determine whether Tommy’s injured nanny would be able to return to work and, if not, hire a new one. In the meantime, Dawn had already advised her boss at the relentlessly healthy natural foods company where she worked as a graphic designer that she would be working remotely for that week or two.
As if reading her mind, Kate gave her a sideways look. “Are you sure you want to take a leave of absence from your job to play nursery maid?”
“You told us you’re being considered for director of marketing,” Callie added. “Won’t that get put on hold?”
“No. Maybe. What the heck, I don’t care. I need a break from the temperamental artists and computer nerds I spend my days with. Plus, my job’s pretty portable. I can work in DC almost as easily as in Boston.”
“A director’s position isn’t that portable,” Kate protested. “And I know you don’t spend your days only with artists and nerds.”
An executive herself, Kate regularly interfaced with clients and senior management.
So did Callie, who’d had to attend an endless grind of meetings at the Massachusetts Office of the Child Advocate. Both women knew all too well that supervisors at every level of every organization weren’t particularly sympathetic to employees taking short-notice, nonemergency leaves of absence.
More to the point, they’d both watched their friend fall in and out of love. Or what she’d thought was love. Dawn knew they were uneasy about her current infatuation.
When Brian Ellis hauled his son off the fountain and aimed him in their direction, though, all she could see was the eagerness on the boy’s face as he darted through the crowd.
“Dawn! You gotta come throw a coin over your shoulder. Dad says it’s tradition.”
“Kate and Callie and I did that when we first got to Rome.”
“Oh.” His face falling, he opened his fist to display two shiny euros. “But Dad gave me these. One for you ’n one for me.”