The Bride-In-Law

The Bride-In-Law
Dixie Browning

LAST-CHANCE BRIDE… Single father and marriage cynic Tucker Dennis was sure his too-romantic dad had been roped into saying "I do." So he hightailed it down to the Blue Flamingo Motel to halt the honeymoon and talk some sense into the elderly groom. And that's where he found the bride's riled relative…Annie Summer's heart melted with happiness when she saw the blissful newlyweds - or was it at the sight of the groom's son? But sexy Tucker didn't seem to have a heart of his own underneath that muscular chest! He'd stopped believing in love and marriage long ago, yet Annie believed in him … and years of in experience were telling her to take a chance on Tucker… .

“We’ll Tackle The Next Few Items On Your List,” Tucker Suggested. (#u1a241ad7-b972-5188-864a-617aaed85d44)Letter to Reader (#u397717dc-bc44-5cb1-871b-213179b21f80)Title Page (#u437075b6-abfa-59e2-9828-333c8091befe)About the Author (#u9c0e9cb6-59b7-5011-8701-07900f03f33c)Chapter One (#u522605d9-31ee-5218-b0f5-5928050fe752)Chapter Two (#u7d836b4e-0106-5c17-bc1f-68b23484b0ec)Chapter Three (#u84884715-ef79-5c69-b3d6-de9a8e69e5ce)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

“We’ll Tackle The Next Few Items On Your List,” Tucker Suggested.

“The missing fiancé, the threat of a mother-in-law invasion and—what’s next? Tires? Glasses? You name it. Least I can do, since we’re family now.”

“We’re what?” Annie asked.

“Gousins-in-law?”

“Loose connections, at the very most,” she said repressively. “Temporary loose connections.”

On the wide front porch, Tucker turned and lifted a hand in careless salute. She watched him stride down the front walk and wondered what there was about the man that made him so impossible to ignore.

Family?

No way. There was something going on here, but for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what it was. They weren’t really family. On the other hand, they weren’t really friends. Which left...

“Don’t ask. Don’t even think about it,” she muttered, and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the beveled glass panels.

Dear Reader,

Hey, look us over—our brand-new cover makes Silhouette Desire look more desirable than ever! And between the covers we’re continuing to offer those powerful, passionate and provocative love stories featuring rugged heroes and spirited heroines.

Mary Lynn Baxter returns to Desire and locates our November MAN OF THE MONTH in the Heart of Texas, where a virgin heroine is wary of involvement with a younger man.

More heart-pounding excitement can be found in the next installment of the Desire miniseries TEXAS CATTLEMAN’S CLUB with Secret Agent Dad by Metsy Hingle. Undercover agent Blake Hunt loses his memory but gains adorable twin babies—and the heart of lovely widow Josie Walters!

Ever-popular Dixie Browning presents a romance in which opposites attract in The Bride-in-Law. Elizabeth Bevarly offers you A Doctor in Her Stocking, another entertaining story in her miniseries FROM HERE TO MATERNITY. The Daddy Search is Shawna Delacorte’s story of a woman’s search for the man she believes fathered her late sister’s child. And a hero and heroine are in jeopardy on an island paradise in Kathleen Korbel’s Sail Away.

Each and every month, Silhouette Desire offers you six exhilarating journeys into the seductive world of romance. So make a commitment to sensual love and treat yourself to all six!

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

Please address questions and book requests to:

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The Bride-in-Law

Dixie Browning

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

DIXIE BROWNING celebrated her sixty-fifth book for Silhouette with the publication of Texàs Millionaire in 1999. She has also written a number of historical romances with her sister under the name Bronwyn Williams. A charter member of Romance Writers of America and a member of Novelists, Inc., Dixie has won numerous awards for her work. She divides her time between Winston-Salem and the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

One

The note was in the sugar bowl, where he’d be sure to find it. Tucker read it through, swore, shook his head and swore some more. It was the last straw in a week that had been filled with last straws.

“Dammit all to hell, Dad, this had better be a practical joke,” he muttered.

The first straw had been Monday, when one of his subcontractors had gone belly-up. Then on Tuesday, right in the middle of Hanes Mall Boulevard at the height of rush hour traffic, one of his trucks had blown a transmission.

To add to the misery, after a solid week of rain, the entire site was a mud hole. The paving was behind schedule, the framing crew, unable to work, had celebrated by getting drunk, starting a brawl and busting up a bar. Now two of his carpenters were in jail and a third was hobbling around on crutches.

If he thought it would help, he’d get cross-eyed, rubber-lipped drunk himself, something he hadn’t done since his freshman year in college. If he thought it might solve a single one of his problems, he’d go out and buy himself a carton of cigarettes and a fifth of whisky and let nature take its course.

But he didn’t smoke and other than the occasional beer, he didn’t drink, and besides, what good would it do to lock the barn door after the horse had bolted?

He reread the note, which was scribbled on the back of an envelope with a carpenter’s pencil, judging from the smudges. It was short and to the point. “Bernice and I are honeymooning at the Blue Flamingo near Pilot Mountain. Don’t forget to deposit my check on the first. Harold.”

“Ah, for crying out loud, Pop,” he growled. You’d think that at the age of seventy-four, a man would know better than to blow his whole damn social security check on one of these new virility drugs, start trawling the senior citizen circuit, and wind up marrying the first female he could talk into his bed.

Tucker wanted to believe he’d behaved with a little more dignity when his own marriage had ended, if working his buns off to fill in the hours until he could fall in bed exhausted could be called dignity. At least he hadn’t done anything seriously stupid, much less dangerous.

“Dammit, Dad, why’d you have to go and mess up now, just when we were getting back on track?”

Tuck had been barely making it, back when his old man announced his decision to move back home. What with the divorce settlement, child support, school fees and the building business in a temporary slump, he’d felt lucky to find an affordable dump to move into.

Shelly had got the house, along with just about everything else he owned. He’d been too numb to put up much of a fight. The anger had come later, when it was too late. By the time Harold had called to ask about coming back to North Carolina, he’d just begun to realize how empty his life was without a family to come home to.

He’d figured that having his father back home would eat up some of the loneliness that crept up on him when he was too tired to work and too restless to fall asleep.

So he’d paid for a one-way ticket and gone to meet his widowed father at the airport, expecting to see the same man he’d known all his adult life. Gray-haired, bushy-browed, wearing the familiar high-rise khakis with an open-necked dress shirt.

That wasn’t what he got. Baggy shorts and a flowered shirt he could’ve understood. His folks had retired to Florida, after all, and the old man had stuck it out for a few years after being widowed, claiming he liked the sun and the shuffleboard, and even the occasional game of geezer softball.

The Harold Dennis who’d walked off the plane had been wearing faded jeans and a raunchy T-shirt. He’d been sporting a gray ponytail, a scraggly gray beard and one gold earring. Tucker had barely managed to turn a snort of disbelieving laughter into a greeting, but he’d hugged the old guy and told him he looked terrific. What the hell, he remembered thinking at the time—at that age, what harm could there be in kicking over the traces one last time?

Obviously, Tucker thought now, his brain hadn’t been hitting on all eight cylinders. He’d be the first to admit he hadn’t offered much in the way of companionship for a lonely widower, but they’d rocked along together pretty well. Once he’d settled in, Harold had looked up a few old friends, made a few new ones. On the nights when Tucker got home early enough, the two men shared a meal, watched the news on TV or a game if Tampa or the Marlins were playing. Harold was partial to Florida teams.

When the old man had taken to staying out late, Tucker hadn’t thought much about it. Once baseball season was over, he’d joined a square-dancing club, started playing a little bingo. Where was the harm in that? Tuck was just glad he’d made a new life for himself after forty-six years of a good marriage. At least the rented house no longer felt so empty when Tucker came home after a twelve-hour day on the site.

The thing was—and Tucker should have thought about it sooner—the rules had changed since Harold’s bachelor days. There were dangers out there a man his age couldn’t even imagine. He should’ve warned him. Should’ve taken him aside for a father-son talk about scams and women and being too trusting. Reminding him to take his blood pressure medicine wasn’t enough.

Instead, he’d worked right alongside his crews, buried himself in plats, blueprints and the never-ending bookwork, not to mention the constant worries over rising interest rates, rising lumber costs, tightening regulations and the shrinking market for new houses. And wondered how his son was getting along and if Shelly would allow the kid to spend at least part of the summer with his father and grandfather.