The Bride Plan

Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author Kasey Michaels

“Lots of witty dialogue and humorous situations.”

—RT Book Reviews on Suddenly a Bride

“Funny, down-to-earth and likable characters, along with

snappy dialogue, make this story one that’s hard to put down.”

—RT Book Reviews on A Bride After All

“Kasey Michaels aims for the heart and never misses.”

—New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts

“Michaels’ new Regency miniseries is a joy. This wonderful

storyteller combines passion, humor, emotional intensity

and depth of characterization with a devastating secret and

attempted murder. She makes it all work and shows how the

power of love can overcome. You will laugh and even shed a

tear over this touching romance.”

—RT Book Reviews on How to Tempt a Duke (4½ stars Top Pick)

“Michaels delivers a poignant and highly satisfying read.

The second Daughtry family book is filled with simmering

sensuality, subtle touches of repartee, a hero out for revenge and

a heroine ripe for adventure. You’ll enjoy the ride.”

—RT Book Reviews on How to Tame a Lady

“Known for developing likable characters and humorous

situations, Michaels adds an element of danger and suspense to

this sexy romp.”

—RT Book Reviews on Dial M for Mischief

“Michaels has done it again … Witty dialogue peppers a plot full

of delectable details exposing the foibles and follies of the age.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on The Butler Did It

“[A] hilarious spoof of society wedding rituals wrapped around a

sensual romance filled with crackling dialogue reminiscent of

The Philadelphia Story.” —Publishers Weekly on Everything’s Coming Up Rosie

Dear Reader,

It has been such a pleasure writing about Second Chance Bridal, and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading the first two books in the trilogy, A Bride After All and Suddenly a Bride.

If so, you’ve already met Chessie Burton, owner of Second Chance Bridal, and her friend Marylou Smith-Bitters (one of my favorite characters ever!).

Well, now it’s time for left-at-the-altar Chessie to find her true love, her own second chance. And if Marylou has anything to do with it, we’re in for a fun ride!

Come along as Chessie discovers a passionate side of herself she didn’t think she had, and a handsome contractor looking for anything but love gets the surprise of his life!

Enjoy!

Kasey Michaels

KASEY MICHAELS is a USA TODAY bestselling author of more than one hundred books. She has earned three starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, and has won a RITA® Award from Romance Writers of America, an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award, Waldenbooks and Bookrak awards and several other commendations for her writing excellence in both contemporary and historical novels. Kasey resides in Pennsylvania with her family, where she is always at work on her next book.

Readers may contact Kasey via her website, Kasey Michaels.com.

The Bride Plan

Kasey Michaels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my pal Joan Hohl—because it has been a while …

Prologue

Elizabeth Hollingswood sat on a blanket on the grassy hillside overlooking the baseball diamond, her friends Claire and Nick Barrington occupying the next blanket. The sun was bright, the freshly mowed grass smelled wonderful and the small white petals of the flowering crab trees that lined the street bordering the ball field, loosened by the breeze, made Elizabeth think of a soft, fragrant snow shower. It was a perfect afternoon. Well, at least for those not suffering from pollen allergies, she corrected mentally as Nick sneezed.

It was another spring, and another Grasshopper baseball season. Elizabeth smiled as she watched her husband, Will, going through the signals from the third-base coaching box, first touching a finger to his nose, then to his chin, and then tipping his cap before rubbing a hand across his chest and beginning again, the signals now to cap, chin, nose.

“Look at Mikey just standing there at the plate with that dazed expression on his face,” Elizabeth said, sighing as she reached for her bottle of water. “He doesn’t have a clue what Will is trying to tell him to do.”

Nick grinned at her. “I think I’ve got it about figured out. He’s either telling him to bunt … or blow his nose. Ah, here we go. The direct approach.”

Elizabeth watched as Will called for time, and then motioned for Mikey to meet him halfway along the baseline. A whispered conversation accompanied by more cryptic hand gestures followed; Mikey returned to the plate and promptly struck out, ending the game.

“Well,” Nick said, standing up, and then helping his pregnant wife to her feet, “that wasn’t so bad. Fourteen to two.”

“You can say that,” Elizabeth groused. “You don’t have to go home with the coach and the kid who made the last out. If Danny says one wrong word to his brother I’m going to have to murder him. For the second time this week,” she added as she folded the blanket.

The twins, Mikey and Danny, along with Sean, Nick’s son from his first marriage, ambled up the hill to gather the fruit and juice boxes it had been Claire’s duty to provide as team mom for the day.

“You okay, Mikey?” Elizabeth asked him quietly.

“Sure, Mom. Pops says it was his fault for telling me to swing. Gotta go, we have to collect the bases and hand out the treats.”

Claire looked over at Elizabeth. “Pops? That’s new, isn’t it?”

Elizabeth nodded, feeling her cheeks flush. Her first husband, Jamie, father of the twins, had died nearly six years ago, and her marriage to Will was not quite a year old. “They said they felt funny calling him Will, and all the other kids have dads. But they didn’t want to forget their own dad, so they came up with Pops. Will doesn’t say much about it, but I know he’s pleased. So am I. Kids need to be kids.”

“I think it’s terrific. Sean’s mother is still in the picture, although not as much as any of us would like, so I’m Claire to Sean. But sometimes he slips. I don’t say anything about it, either. But, yes, I’m pleased. Uh-oh, here comes Marylou. Look at her trying not to do a flip in those high heels. Do you think there’s something wrong at the shop? I hope nothing’s happened to Chessie.”

Marylou Smith-Bitters, thrice-married socialite and now not only Chessie Burton’s good friend but also part owner of Second Chance Bridal and Wedding Planners, did a quick two-step down the grassy slope before grabbing on to Elizabeth’s arm to stop herself from a headlong plunge down the remainder of the hill.

“I’m so glad I found you both together,” she said rather breathlessly. “We’ve got a problem. A b-i-i-g problem.”

Elizabeth, who had taken a part-time job at Second Chance a few months earlier, replacing Eve D’Allesandro, who had taken off for the south of France with Elizabeth’s employer, the novelist Richard Halstead, sighed and shook her head. “It’s Doreen Nesbit again, isn’t it? You’d think that by the time you got to your third groom, you’d learn to pick one who isn’t a control freak. He’s had her change the table favors three times already.”

Marylou waved her fire-engine-red-tipped fingers as if erasing Doreen Nesbit from the conversation. “This isn’t about the business—and, no, he didn’t change the favors again. I told him I’d tell Doreen about his little friend who works at the ice creamery on Broad Street if he tried.” She took a deep breath and let it out dramatically. “Here’s the deal, and it’s deadly serious. Chessie has to get married.”

Elizabeth and Claire exchanged puzzled glances, which left it up to Nick to put his foot in his mouth all by himself: “She’s pregnant? I didn’t even know she was dating anyone.”

The puzzled glances turned to twin expressions of female disgust.

“One, husband mine, pregnancy does not mean an automatic walk down the aisle. And two … well, you’re right. Chessie hasn’t had a date since the last time Will set her up and she made us all promise to kill her first if we ever got it into our heads to set her up again.”

“Are we done?” Marylou asked, adjusting the pearls at her throat. “Ready to get back to the problem? Which means, by the way, listening to me.”

By this time Will had joined them, and Elizabeth quickly put a finger to his lips before he could say anything. Clearly Marylou was on a mission, and when Marylou was on a mission people with an even cursory sense of self-preservation stayed out of her way.

“It’s Richard Peters,” Marylou said, and then sighed for dramatic effect. “He called the shop an hour ago. He called last week, but I thought I’d gotten rid of him by saying Chessie moved to Boston and I was the new owner of the shop. Anyway, Missy took the message and was about to deliver it to Chessie when I intercepted her. The child nearly swallowed her gum, which she knows full well she’s not supposed to chew within five miles of the wedding gowns.”

Will, who happened to also be Chessie’s cousin, slipped his arm around Elizabeth’s waist, which was rapidly disappearing as she was now six months pregnant. “Rick Peters, Marylou? It isn’t an uncommon name. Doesn’t mean it’s him.”

“What am I missing here? Who’s Rick Peters?”

“Nick, shhh,” Claire warned quietly. “We’re in the role of audience here.”

“Rick Peters is the guy who left Chessie at the altar so he could run off and elope with the maid of honor,” Elizabeth whispered.

“Damn.”

“Oh, please, Claire,” Marylou said, “you’re being too polite. I can think of much better words. And it is that Rick Peters, Will, because his message was that he wanted Chessie to know he’s moved back to Allentown and he’d like to take her to dinner. The man is scum. And you know what’s going to happen, don’t you?”

“Chessie might say yes,” Will said, nodding his head as if in agreement with what Marylou hadn’t said. “That’s always been her problem. She’s too damn nice. It’s been six years or so, and I’d still like to bust the guy one in the chops.”

“We could form a line, and all of us take a shot at him,” Marylou agreed, “but that isn’t going to solve anything.”

“And getting Chessie married would?” Elizabeth asked, feeling she’d at last gotten a firm grip on Marylou’s strategy. “Isn’t that just a little bit drastic?”

“Drastic times call for drastic measures,” Marylou pronounced. “Now, it only took me twenty minutes to drive over here, so maybe my plan doesn’t have all the bugs worked out of it yet, but here’s what I’m thinking.”

“This should be good,” Nick said, earning him a jab in the ribs from his loving wife.

“We’re all going to find Chessie a prospective groom. All of us,” she stressed, glaring at Nick. “Even you, Will, although you really need to cultivate a more acceptable circle of male friends to draw from, Counselor. Chessie says if she sees another lawyer she’s going to have to hurt you.

“Anyway, that’s the plan. We keep Chessie so busy with blind dates and discreet setups that she has no time to listen to Rick Peters tell her what a huge mistake he made and how now he wants her back. Because we all know how that works—they always want back what they once had and then tossed away. Men are so predictable it’s almost embarrassing.”

“He’s divorced?” Claire asked, but then shook her head. “Never mind, of course he is. I won’t even ask how you know that, Marylou. Sorry for the interruption. Go on, please.”

Marylou smiled, rubbing her palms together as she neatly stepped into the role of general of this campaign she’d concocted. “Peters isn’t just visiting. He’s back to stay. Which means we have to get Chessie settled, sooner rather than later. Agreed? We’ll call it TBP—The Bride Plan. Each one of us produces a prospective groom. We’ll make up a schedule so we don’t accidentally double book Chessie for the same date. If we find enough of them, one of them is bound to stick, right?”

“Like bubble gum to a wedding gown,” Elizabeth said quietly.

“She’ll thank us one day,” Marylou said, her smile now only slightly apprehensive. She looked at her friends for reassurance. “Won’t she?”

Chapter One

Chessie Burton turned the sign in the window from Open to Closed and wearily began making her way toward the stairs to her apartment, situated above Second Chance Bridal and Wedding Planners.

Eight months had all but flown past since Chessie and her friend Marylou had decided they’d expand Chessie’s business by also offering wedding-planning services to their clients.

The logic had been unassailable.

First-time brides often took a year or more to plan their weddings; they had family and lots of pals to help them make their big day perfect.

Second-chance brides? Not so much. Second-chance brides often had kids, car pools, soccer practice or ballet class, a full-time job and a much shorter time frame between “Okay, let’s do it” and “I do.” This was why Chessie always maintained such an extensive in-stock bridal-gown selection; ordering in a gown that might take six to twelve weeks to arrive often didn’t work well for second-chance brides.

So, in theory, branching out to wedding planning had seemed a great idea. Marylou could be very persuasive, and thanks to her husband Ted’s considerable wealth and eagerness to please his wife in all things, financing the project had been no problem.

In practice, however, the idea had turned into a case of too much of a good thing. Chessie and Marylou had found themselves pretty much on call 24/7, which didn’t make Marylou’s husband all that happy, and Chessie was spending entirely too many nights sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of her TV, dealing with trays of sugared almonds and net doilies and tiny little bows and a hot-glue gun.

It was great that Elizabeth had stepped in to replace Eve, and Missy, their teenage part-timer, had shown a remarkable talent for concocting spreadsheets that kept each wedding’s to-do list organized and up-to-date. Berthe, longtime Second Chance Bridal seamstress, had volunteered to help out on the sales floor as well, and Marylou often seemed to be everywhere at once, putting out small fires before they could become conflagrations.

But none of that got the boxes and boxes of supplies out of Chessie’s apartment, her beloved private sanctuary, and she had adamantly refused to relocate somewhere other than the huge Victorian home she had bought and furnished and simply adored.

Chessie waded through the crowded living room, eyeing the boxes holding three new albums of wedding-invitation samples that had arrived a week ago, promising herself she’d unbox them tonight after she’d eaten dinner … if she could find the kitchen. Thank God they were going to start that addition soon, to make a dedicated workspace and also to house all of this stuff.

She paused in the hallway and turned to look at her reflection in the full-length mirror that hung there because she’d hadn’t found any better place for it.

She looked tired. She was tired. Her coppery hair had pretty much outgrown its careful shaping, and looked more wild than artfully disheveled. She put her hands to her pale cheeks, wondering when last she’d seen the sun, and sighed as she looked at the huge blue eyes that were looking back at her, shiny with tears.

Rick was back in town. Chessie knew this because she’d found a note next to the telephone, scribbled by Missy. Rick was back in town and wanted to meet with her, have dinner. His phone number was scribbled beneath the message. She knew the number. He was back living with his parents. Was that pitiful, some sort of twisted poetic justice, or was it more pitiful that she still had the number committed to memory?

The last time she’d seen him had been six years, three months and twelve days ago—she’d worked that out in her head earlier. They’d just left the rehearsal dinner, her maid of honor and best friend walking with them into the parking lot. He’d apologized for not driving Chessie home, but he had something he had to do. He’d intimated that it was a surprise, and she’d been certain it had something to do with their honeymoon in Cape Cod, because he’d hinted as much.

She’d laughed, told him she loved him, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly—a kiss he’d returned with considerable fervor and a bit of pleasant groping that suggested the last thing he wanted was to leave her alone for the rest of the evening. Then she watched him walk toward his car.

And out of her life.

“How do you do that, Rick?” she asked the empty apartment as she entered the kitchen, flipping on the overhead light. “How do you all but make love to one woman, while another woman is standing there watching, the same woman you’ll be taking to Mexico with you on a midnight flight? How does someone’s best friend watch something like that, and then drive her supposed best friend home and say she’ll be back in the morning to help her get dressed for the wedding? What kind of monsters were you, both of you? And what kind of blind victim was I, not to have seen it all coming?”

It had been years since Chessie had thought about either Rick or Diana. She wished she wasn’t thinking about either of them right now, but sometimes a mind wouldn’t turn off just because you wanted it to. So, as she spread peanut butter on two slices of fresh bread and then slapped the two pieces together, she attempted to concentrate on the positives.

She wouldn’t have Second Chance Bridal if it weren’t for Rick and Diana. She’s started the business with her own unused wedding gown as the first piece of stock, and it had turned out to be the very first gown she’d sold. She loved her business, loved the friends she’d made, the life she’d built.

She wouldn’t have any of that if she’d married Rick.

Chessie took a bite out of her sandwich and then quickly poured herself a glass of iced tea, hoping to get that bite unstuck from the roof of her mouth. Jelly helped to cut peanut butter so that it wasn’t so sticky, wasn’t a choking hazard. She knew that, but she’d forgotten. Granted, she didn’t want to see Rick again, but suicide by peanut butter wasn’t on her agenda, either.

Still munching on her dinner, Chessie threaded her way to the bedroom, stripped off her clothing and stepped under the shower, swallowing her last bite of the sandwich.

Once in the T-shirt and running shorts that served as both casual wear and pajamas, her hair still damp and forming itself into the natural burnished curls she’d have to straighten in the morning, she retraced her steps to the living room, glared at the three large boxes that seemed to be staring right back at her and searched the floor for the TV remote. Maybe she’d just lie down and watch a sitcom or something before she got to work, because it was going to be another long night.

Not that she was lonely. She was simply alone. Being alone hadn’t been her choice six years ago, but it was now.

Jace Edwards considered himself a self-made man. He’d begun working construction as a teenager, and over the ensuing years he’d learned how to do any job the members of his crew could do, often better. It hadn’t happened quickly or easily, had probably helped destroy his marriage, but the Edwards Construction Company was still his baby, and he was a very proud father.

It was just past 7:00 a.m. and he’d already had his third cup of coffee. He made it a rule to always be on-site for the first day of any new job, and today’s job hadn’t been an exception, even if the idea of running into Marylou Smith-Bitters’s business partner wasn’t something he was looking forward to, not by the way Marylou had described Ms. Chessie Burton.

It wasn’t any one thing Marylou had said, but more of an impression he’d got listening to her. Chessie Burton was driven, successful, particular, didn’t want her customers disturbed with a lot of noise and was extremely concerned with the amount of dust and mess that might accompany the construction.

As if construction could be kept noise- and dust-free. Get real, lady!

If he hadn’t needed the work, he might have turned down the job. Second Chance Bridal? Why didn’t they call it what it really was? Strike Two Bridal. The whole concept was pretty creepy when you got right down to it. Or maybe his own Strike One had made him leery of any place that catered to people like himself—marital losers.

In any case, in his mind, Jace had conjured up a middle-aged woman with her hair in a bun and a pair of reading glasses hanging from a strap around her neck. She’d be on his case for the month it would take to put the two-story addition on the house that, if Jace were the owner, would have remained exactly the way it was, which was perfect. He loved these old Queen Anne Victorians, even owned one himself.

“You want to tell me again how we’re going to build everything first, and only then break through the walls?”

Jace turned to look at his head framer, who was holding the unrolled plans in his hands and looking confused.

“I know it’s the hard way, Carl. The back of the house consists of the owner’s bedroom and bath upstairs and, downstairs, the room where they store the wedding gowns and all that stuff. We can’t just rip out those walls and have them open to the elements until we get the job done. Not to mention the noise.”

“Uh-huh,” Carl said, nodding. “But we are going to strip off the siding before the new walls go up, get rid of the shutters, the rain gutters, right? Tie in to the electricity and plumbing, since there’s going to be another bathroom? Then just cut in the two doors giving access to the building, right, cutting through those two existing windows? No way we can do any of that without some noise and dirt. We’re not knitting a sweater here, Jace. The owner knows that, right?”

Before Jace could answer there came the shrill beeping sound of a warning signal and the rumble from the engine of a piece of heavy equipment backing up into the yard along the cement driveway. This was followed hard by the squeal of massive air brakes, the grinding noise of gears meshing, lifting and then loudly depositing the large metal Dumpster that would hold the construction waste. The ground beneath them actually shook a little from the impact.

“I’d say she does now,” Jace said, grinning. “Okay, get the guys up on the ladders and start stripping off that siding. I’ll be back later to see how it’s going.”

He’d almost made it to the alley at the back of the yard, and to his car, when he saw her. Her appearance hit his brain in separate bursts of information. Coppery curls tumbling wildly around a pale oval face. Eyes as blue as the summer sky and big as quarters at the moment. A slim, trim, not-too-tall body, with pinup-calendar-worthy legs that went up to her ears. A chest that heaved up and down interestingly as she seemed to be trying to catch her breath. She wasn’t wearing a bra under that T-shirt, either. Nice. Bare feet. A TV remote clutched in her right hand.

A TV remote?

“Wh-what do you think you’re doing?”

Nice voice, he added mentally. Sort of husky. Sexy. Possibly slightly tinged with homicidal rage, but still sexy.