Secret Admirer: Secret Kisses / Hidden Hearts / Dream Marriage

Chapter 6 (#u6ceb5768-c818-5c52-a43c-9a7ead3f015d)

Chapter 7 (#uaaf9c9df-22fe-5f06-b823-db6eca68432b)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Hidden Hearts Christine Rimmer (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 1 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 2 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 3 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Dream Marriage Karen Rose Smith (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 1 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 2 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 3 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Dear Reader,

I feel very lucky to have been asked to write Secret Kisses. The idea of an anonymous love letter being published by a mischievous, elderly editor in a small-town newspaper and that letter wreaking havoc among the gossipy denizens appealed to my imagination. There are all sorts of brokenhearted people in the world, as well as meddlers, who are looking for just such a declaration of undying love from the person who “did them or theirs wrong.”

I grew up in Texas and spent a lot of summers in just such a small town. I could easily identify with my hero and heroine when they are swept into a romance because of this letter and some busybody friends and relatives.

Enjoy,

Secret Kisses

To Patience Smith

Dear Reader,

What’s a self-motivated, big-hearted and independent young woman to do when she finds herself in love with her best friend? How can she make him see that there’s more going on between them than friendship? How can she get him to realize that she’s through playing “little sister” to his overprotective “big brother”?

It’s a tough one. Especially if the best friend and substitute “big brother” in question has painful and deep-seated reasons of his own for not letting himself love his “little sister” as the woman she is.

Luckily, Annie Grant is no quitter. One way or another, she will find the true love she yearns for—whether Greg Flynn will finally open his eyes and see her as a grown woman ready for real love, or not.

And getting Greg to see her as a woman isn’t Annie’s only problem. There’s also her secret admirer, crazed video-store clerk, Dirk Jenkins.

Annie loves Greg and Greg can’t deal with it—and in the meantime, Dirk, gone seriously postal, is determined to save Annie from her own “nowhere” life—if he has to shoot someone to do it!

Buckle up, folks—and I do hope you enjoy Hidden Hearts.

Best always,

Prologue

Saturday

“It’s time for drastic measures,” Ol’ Bill muttered to himself as he drove down Main Street. He glanced toward the sun that was just peeping over one of the distant red hills that gave the village its name.

The trouble with a town the size of Red Rock, Texas, was everybody thought he was something on a stick. All those Texas-size egos buttin’ heads used to make for lots of interestin’ doings.

Used to. Lately the town had gotten downright boring.

Six in the morning was too early for most of the town’s strong-minded citizens to be up meddling. Ol’ Bill Sinclair was the exception to that rule. Seventy-two and feeling it a little more than usual, he drove with care. Despite his caution, Ol’ Bill’s “Spring Fling juices” were flowing like a riptide rushing up to a placid summer beach to wreak havoc on kids building sand castles. He felt bright and chipper and damnably mischievous on this particular May morning.

This was ’sposed to be Spring Fling season, but there wasn’t a speck of trouble brewin’. If a concerned citizen didn’t think up some devilment fast, there was the very real danger the town that prided itself on its Wild West heritage would bore itself to death.

Bill was a cowboy at heart. Not that he was spry enough to ride out and seek adventure. These days he got most of his kicks by organizing the town archives at the library and by working at the Red Rock Gazette. Sometimes after one of his features on politics or religion appeared, folks stormed the Gazette and told him he should do the town a favor and retire. Helen Geary had even gifted him with a colorful ceramic tile that read, “Silence is the best substitute for brains.”

Fans like Helen were a rare and treasured thing to any writer. It was thrilling to know that people were out there, reading him, appreciating him. He was so proud of his tile, he’d hung it above his toilet, so he could pay it a visit on a regular basis.

The big sky was turning all colors of pink when Bill stomped on the brakes and his battered blue pickup skidded to a halt at the last blinking red traffic light on Main Street. Just in the nick of time to miss an eighteen-wheeler whizzing past on the San Antone Highway.

Whew! His old heart raced a little faster.

Good thing he’d rolled to a stop when he had, or he’d have been roadkill for sure. For a second or two he wondered what tasty potluck dish Helen Geary would have brought to his wake to celebrate his permanent retirement.

Slowly, carefully, he made it through the light onto the highway. A few blocks farther down, he turned into the parking lot of his favorite breakfast nook, the Dairy Café.

He bumped across the familiar potholes of the empty parking lot with gleeful pride. Yes sirree, bobcat, just like always good Ol’ Bill was the first customer at Red Rock’s favorite dairy café. Just like always he was wearing the favorite overalls his wife kept trying to throw away. Just like always he had a briefcase full of letters to the editor to mull over while he sat in a plastic booth and swigged black coffee out of one of those tiny white foam cups he detested. Ah, what he wouldn’t give for an old-fashioned, thick ceramic cup and saucer.