His Darling Bride (Echoes of the Heart #3) Read online

  Praise for Anna DeStefano

  “Anna DeStefano is a treasure!”

  —Teresa Medeiros, New York Times bestselling author

  “A completely captivating story.”

  —The Reading Café for Let Me Love You Again

  “One of the most powerful novellas I’ve ever had the fortune to read and review.”

  —Fresh Fiction for Here in My Heart

  “You won’t want to put it down.”

  —Night Owl Reviews for Love on Mimosa Lane

  “Anna DeStefano is a rare talent.”

  —Brenda Novak, New York Times bestselling author

  “Celebrates the resilience of not only the holiday spirit, but the human spirit as well.”

  —USA Today for Christmas on Mimosa Lane

  “One of the best books I’ve read all year.”

  —Kristan Higgins, New York Times bestselling author, for Three Days on Mimosa Lane

  ALSO BY ANNA DESTEFANO

  ECHOES OF THE HEART SERIES

  Here in My Heart: A Novella

  Let Me Love You Again

  SEASONS OF THE HEART SERIES

  Christmas on Mimosa Lane

  Three Days on Mimosa Lane

  Love on Mimosa Lane

  DAUGHTER SERIES

  The Unknown Daughter

  The Runaway Daughter

  The Perfect Daughter

  ATLANTA HEROES SERIES

  Because of a Boy

  To Protect the Child

  To Save a Family

  The Firefighter’s Secret Baby

  OTHER CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

  A Sweetbrook Family

  All-American Father

  The Prodigal’s Return

  ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

  Shattered Witness

  SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASY

  Secret Legacy

  Dark Legacy

  NOVELLAS/ANTHOLOGIES

  “Weekend Meltdown” in Winter Heat

  “Baby Steps” in Mother of the Year

  “A Small-Town Sheriff” (Daughter series)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 Anna DeStefano

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503951426

  ISBN-10: 1503951421

  Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

  To the family we hope to be.

  To the love we’re born to give.

  To the dream.

  Community.

  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

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  “Come on, Law,” said the older man behind the bar of McC’s Tavern. “Don’t leave me in the lurch.”

  “I can’t cover tomorrow night, Rick,” the bartender said to what appeared to Mike Taylor to be the pub’s owner.

  Rick plunked a pint of ripe strawberries onto the bar. “I got no one else to cover second shift.”

  “And that sucks,” Law commiserated. “But my last final’s Monday morning. And I have a wife and daughter who’d like to get to know me again, once I’m not chained to campus and my course work every hour I’m not hauling ass here. I can’t blow my shot to finish my undergraduate degree ’cause Paisley crated her cat, strapped it on the back of her Harley, and went trailing after some dude.”

  Mike’s full attention lifted from the local paper he’d been reading at the bar. He pushed away his half-eaten lunch and nudged up the brim of his Stetson. The other men’s conversation had officially become too entertaining to tune out.

  It was an early-August Thursday in the small community of Chandlerville, Georgia. McC’s was midafternoon empty. He’d been the place’s only customer for the last half hour while he’d lingered over a cheeseburger, sweet potato fries, and a draft. The bartender and owner had mostly ignored him since Law pulled Mike’s beer and Rick ran his food out from the back. The two were prepping for their evening shift, making numerous trips to wherever they stored supplies. Replenishing booze and napkins and swizzle sticks, and the menagerie of condiments that mixing popular drinks demanded.

  “If you have to study for exams,” Rick said, the shorter, rounder of the two men, “do it here.”

  “During Friday-night rush?” Law maneuvered a fresh keg of Guinness under the dark oak counter.

  Rick pulled glasses from the compact dishwasher and slid them into their overhead runners. “It’ll be a slow night.”

  “Then cover the shift yourself.”

  “It’s not gonna be that slow.”

  “No kidding.”

  “So don’t bail on me.” Rick jammed his hands to his waist, a midlife paunch spilling over his jeans’ belt.

  “It’s the only time I’ve asked off in two weeks.”

  “Hell, I know you got other priorities. I’m just in a bind.”

  “And I sympathize.” The rangy bartender sounded more like a commiserating friend than a pressured employee. He wiped down the counter with a soft cloth, his attention stalling on Mike before returning to his boss. “Things have been in a bind since the recession nearly dragged you under. But you and Kristie kept the place open. Business is growing. Train another second-shift bar back.”

  “Next week, I promise.” Rick nailed Mike’s eavesdropping with a WTF stare. “In the meantime, Friday-night baseball will be on the flat-screens. We’ll have a packed crowd from six till last call. You’ll make a week’s worth of tips in one easy shot.”

  Law shook his head. “I’m pulling all-nighters straight through the weekend.”

  “I’ve got nothing going on until early next week,” Mike said.

  He eased back on his stool, as stunned by the offer he’d blurted out as the other two seemed to be.

  Needing to clear his head, he’d hit town early with a few necessities loaded in his Jeep and a powerful hankering to drift for several days. A new contract was on the horizon. It would be a much-needed distraction from the business he’d left behind in Atlanta. And from the other realities of his life that clung like a second skin no matter how far or how fast he moved. Especially this time of year.

  Tending bar for these guys would kiss off some of the free time he’d carved out. But he liked to get the lay of the land when he rolled into a new place. Ease into the flow of things. And McC’s was a local hangout, according to the guy Mike was subleasing his furnished apartment from—and the kid behind the gas station register, and the elderly checkout clerk at Sweetie’s Fairway, a cross between a mom-and-pop general store and a full
-service butcher shop.

  “If you need someone to fill in for a day or two,” he reasoned, “I could—”

  “Don’t reckon we’ve met,” Rick interrupted.

  “Mike Taylor.” He held out his hand. “I’m new in town.”

  Rick eyed Mike’s worn Stetson and wrinkled clothes.

  The bartender shook Mike’s hand.

  “Law Beaumont,” he said. “You have any experience tending bar?”

  “Worked my way around the country and back a few times doing it. Paying the bills. Meeting interesting people. I’ve got something steady lined up starting next week. But I could give you a few nights if you need a stand-in for Flora or whatever her name is—the one with the cat and the Harley.”

  “Paisley.” Rick crossed his arms over a belly that could have seemed jolly on a less cranky man. “My wife’s niece. She’s flighty, but she’s the second-best bartender in the county.”

  “Was the second-best,” Law reminded him.

  “That would make you number one?” Mike nodded at the bartender and pushed the brim of his hat higher. “And me nobody from nowhere. I get it.”

  “You’re a drifter.” Rick glanced through the bar’s open-paned windows at Mike’s mud-encrusted Jeep. “Just waltzed into town. Already nosing into people’s business. Probably blow right back out whenever the mood strikes you.”

  “Probably.” It had been close to a decade since Mike had been a sticking-around kind of guy.

  Law went from studying him to grabbing more of the glasses sitting in the dishwasher. He wiped them and hung them overhead with the rest. “I don’t expect his mood will change before tomorrow night.”

  “So I should sign him right up?” Rick asked. “To take care of my best customers during my busiest rush?”

  Mike recognized the distrust, the cynicism. And he’d typically steer clear of the vibe.

  But there was something about the place, the town itself. He’d arrived only last night, but he’d spent the morning walking picturesque streets warmed by a sluggishly rising sun. Everywhere he’d turned, people and homes and small businesses had invited him closer with smiles and waves and introductions. Chandlerville seemed spun from the kind of charm you wanted to capture in a postcard image, to keep in a memory box instead of mailing. He couldn’t help but want to burrow in for a spell.

  “I’ll be out of your hair in a couple of days,” he said. “I don’t mind pitching in.”

  “Why?” Less confrontational, Rick seemed to be debating whether Mike was just plain nuts.

  “I like helping where I can.” Wasn’t making a difference what taking this break was about? Maybe this one more than all the rest? “I like places where good people do the best they can for each other. Being part of something like that for a couple of nights wouldn’t be a hardship.”

  “No, I don’t suppose it would be.” Law gave Mike a more thorough once-over. “I could work with Cowboy here tonight. See how he fits in with the staff.”

  Rick threw his hands in the air.

  “What the hell.” He headed out from behind the bar and stalked past Mike. “Show Law what you’re worth, before the afternoon rush starts. If you know one end of a mixed drink from another, you’re on tonight while he’s around to pick up after you. Handle the happy hour and dinner food orders folks make at the bar, and we’ll talk about tomorrow.”

  Rick stalled out a few feet away.

  “And . . . thank you, I guess.” He dug his hands into his jeans’ pockets. “I’ll go find the paperwork you gotta fill out. Even if we all end up regretting this by sundown, Kristie will have my ass come payroll if I don’t make it official.”

  The man headed down the same strip of a hallway that led to the kitchen and wherever McC’s stored its supplies.

  “Kristie?” Mike asked Law.

  “His wife. Rick’s CPA. His conscience. He’ll tell ya she’s the real reason he kept this place going a few years back when businesses all over were tanking. The woman’s a genius at investments and taxes, strangling the last gasp of oxygen from every dime.”

  Mike joined him on the other side of the bar. “You know them pretty well?”

  “They’ve been good to me since I moved to town.”

  Mike took the absence of details in stride. Lots of people kept the nuts and bolts of their lives close, for a lot of reasons they didn’t discuss. “So folks around here don’t automatically distrust every newcomer on sight?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Law tossed him an apron identical to the one wrapped around his hips. “But helping out a neighbor who’s got nowhere else to turn should earn you some cred.”

  “It’s really no big deal.” Mike relaxed deeper into the right-place, right-time moment. “Where do we start?”

  Law waved a hand at the bar’s shelves and cabinets, the bottles and glasses and equipment and other flotsam. “Make me a seven and seven. A lemon drop. A frozen margarita. A manhattan. Then we’ll move on to the complicated stuff.”

  “After you taste what I mix?”

  “I’m a recovering alcoholic,” the guy said with the same emphasis Mike would have given to announcing that he was left-handed. “But I’ll know you’ve got game when you don’t have to cheat with a mixology app on your phone. Ready to rumble, Cowboy?”

  Mike lifted his hat, smoothed back his hair, and resettled his Stetson. Nuts or not, this was going to be fun. He reached for a highball and twirled the glass in his hand.

  “Guess we’re about to find out.”

  “Benjie’s not seriously here,” Nicole said to Bethany Darling, taking the words right out of Bethany’s mouth.

  She’d been thinking it ever since her louse of an ex had slinked back into town the end of May, and kept popping up on her radar with disturbing regularity.

  “Maybe he just wants a beer?” Bethany begged the universe at large.

  “Honey.” Nic crossed her supermodel-long legs. She was perched on the stool to Bethany’s left. “Richie Rich wouldn’t be slumming in a place like this for anyone else but you. I’m sure Mummy’s wondering why he’s not holding court with her at their family table at the country club. You gotta nip this one in the bud.”

  “Put that dirty dog down,” Clair insisted from Bethany’s right, really needing a mute button. “He’s been panting after you for too long. You’ve ignored him. Your family’s ignored him. Even we’ve ignored how he did you wrong, because it’s what you wanted. If the guy had a clue to catch, he would have by now.”

  Bethany snuck a glance around at the half dozen or more people casually listening in. Most of them were dressed in jeans and Braves shirts, a lot of the guys and more than a few of the women wore team ball caps. As she caught their attention, several smiled. Some in support. Others in commiseration.

  It was nearly eight o’clock. McC’s Thursday-night happy hour had been a crazy swarm of friends and neighbors clustering around nearby tables. Now the dining room that doglegged off to the right brimmed with patrons, too. Standing room at the bar was maxed out, with more regulars pouring in by the minute—most recently, Benjie Carrington.

  Thankfully, he’d stopped to talk with an elderly couple sipping wine and waiting near the hostess stand.

  “It’s time to be brutal.” Clair’s sage wisdom came with a side hug.

  Bethany shrugged off her bestie. “We don’t all do brutal as effortlessly as you do. You have a revolving door of hotties—including one of my brothers—perfectly happy to be loved and left anytime you crook your finger at them.”

  Nic, not the hugging type, nudged Bethany with a sharp elbow. “Smack him across the nose with a rolled newspaper. Can you think of a better place to finally be done with the jerk?”

  “So, basically, make a spectacle of myself?” Bethany toasted the overfull room with her nearly empty glass of wine. “I don’t think so.”

  Her days of embarrassing herself over guys were behind her. She’d lost it after she’d dumped Benjie the end of their senior year of high school
. Then she’d compounded her misery by attaching herself to a steady stream of emotionally unavailable men—so sure with each new love that she’d finally found the one who’d be everything her heart desired. Now her heart was firmly focused on more important things. Permanent things, like friends and family and the community she’d come back to.

  “To hell with anything Benjie or any man wants from me,” she told her friends and herself.

  “Like that guy has ever cared about what you want,” Clair warned. “In his warped view of reality, you two are back to ground zero.”

  “While the whole town watches the show?”

  “You’re a Dixon, honey.” Nic shook her head. “Your family should have its own Facebook page, the way people keep track of your comings and goings. Everyone’s weighing in on him panting after you again.”

  “He’s kinda pitiful these days,” Clair said. “Folks are shunning him for the lying, cheating dog he was to you. Meanwhile he’s running his sainted daddy’s dry cleaning business into the ground.”

  Bethany winced. “His father died, C.”

  “Ralph Carrington was a crank,” Nic reminded her, “and he’s been gone for two years.”

  “And Benny had no problem,” Clair added, “leaving his mom to sink or swim handling things on her own—until he skidded out of art school, with no one interested in commissioning or showing his no-good sculpture.”

  Bethany shrugged.

  “His family’s money could have bought him some kind of apprenticeship in New York.” She’d refused to follow Benjie to Manhattan after high school. It had meant giving up her scholarship, but it wasn’t like she’d been able to paint anymore anyway. “It was his father’s donation that finally got him a spot in art school.”

  “Your talent’s the main reason Benjie got into Pratt, and you know it.” Clair tossed her long blonde hair over the nearly bare shoulder of her micro-mini sundress. “Make this a smackdown to remember.”

  Nic wiggled her smartphone in Bethany’s face. She was constantly tweeting, sharing, tumbling, gramming, or whatever else she did with her legion of virtual playmates.