âYou canât get married without a groom,â Grant said, shaking his head
Annie grabbed his arm, her fingers crumpling the sleeve of his tuxedo with desperation. âPlease. Youâve got to help me. All you have to do is pretend to go through the ceremony as your brother. Then you can just drop me off at the airport and that will be the end of it.â She paused and looked pleadingly up at him. âI just canât face this town as a deserted bride again.â
Taking a step closer, she touched his chest, reminding him of the sizzling kiss theyâd just shared. A kiss that struck Grant as far from brotherly.
Damn. âOkay,â he said. âIâll play along.â
Annieâs face transformed into a dazzling smile. Before he could brace himself, she hugged him close, her body colliding with his, her curves reminding him how good it felt to hold her. Her musky scent whispered to him like a loverâs invitation, and he felt the tug of desire. His gaze dropped to her mouth and he remembered how sweet and tempting she tasted.
âThank you,â she whispered before he could dip his head for another forbidden sample. âYou wonât regret this.â
But he already did.
Dear Reader,
When I was a small child, my mother gave me a precious giftâthe love of reading. While she sewed dresses for me, she read aloud my favorite stories, like Go Dog Go, over and over again as I turned the pages. When I became an adult, my sister suggested I should turn that âgiftâ into a professionâwriting. And itâs changed my life. Now that Iâm a mother and a writer, I spend nap time and late night hours weaving stories. At all other waking moments, I am trying to pass the âgiftâ on to my two toddlers. I canât imagine a better life!
Iâm especially thrilled to be part of the Get Caught Reading campaign, a national promotion created by North American publishers to encourage reading for the sheer pleasure of it. Iâm sure my heroine, Annie Baxter, wouldnât mind being caught readingâ¦but as the book opens, sheâs more worried about being caught without a groom! I hope you enjoy Annieâs amorous adventures. And I hope even more that Iâve passed the âgiftââthe love of readingâon to you.
Enjoy,
Leanna Wilson
âYOU SAW HIM?â Annie Baxter worried her bottom lip. âYouâre sure? Positive? No mistake?â She knew she sounded paranoid, but sheâd earned the right.
âAll tuxed out and ready to marry you.â Aunt Maudie grinned, revealing a smear of hot-pink lipstick across her front tooth. She stuck one final bobby pin into Annieâs blond hair to secure her veil then stepped back with a âVoila!â
Surveying the effects of the cascading veil, Annie felt a pinch in her chest. Would it really happen this time? Without a hitch? Maybe today sheâd finally wed and be off to her new life.
Aunt Maudie fingered the satin trim along the veil and read Annieâs expression in the mirror. âYou donât like what I did with your hair?â
âNo, no.â She touched her wispy bangs and smoothed a lock behind her ear. Sheâd worn her hair in a pixie cut for years. There wasnât much that you could do to mess it up. Taking a tissue, she erased the lipstick off her auntâs enamel. âMy hairâs fine. This is simplyâ¦unbelievable.â She took a steadying breath. âI canât believe itâs really happening this time.â
âOf course itâs happening. Now quit your worrying. You need to stop listening to those old windbags in town. You should know itâs only idle gossip.â
But their words had prickly points that jabbed and wounded. Sheâd been the headliner for the past three years.
Unfortunately, sheâd given her nosy neighbors grist for their rumor mills. After all, sheâd been jilted twice. Folks called her jinxed, and sheâd been on the verge of believing themâuntil today.
Her groom was here. Griffin Thomas Stevens had arrived, ready and willing to marry her, to take her away from this dull town and insipid life!
It was her turn to have the last laugh. And she would, as she and her new husband peeled out of town on their way to their fabulous honeymoon in some romantic cityâhopefully Paris or Rome. She wouldnât look in the rearview mirror at her hometown or the sad and humiliating memories that had trapped her here for too long.
âYou are not the jinxed bride-to-be that everyone says.â Maudie gave a curt nod, making her dyed platinum-blond hair bob around her flamboyant earrings. âThatâs pure nonsense.â
Annie sank onto a velveteen chair in the corner of the bridal room at the Second Baptist Church of Lockett. She crossed her arms over the Hawaiian-print shirt sheâd worn while her hair was being coiffed. She had a nightmare vision of living here the rest of her life in her parentsâ house as an old-maid schoolteacher. Kids would ask their folks why Miss Baxter was so tart, so irritable. âItâs because she couldnât catch herself a husband,â theyâd say with a mixture of pity and sympathy.