The Best Man Takes a Bride

by Stacy Connelly

  Even if she did look like a fairy-tale princess...

  Sunlight glittered on the lace and beads, the shimmering white satin hugging her curves. Her skin was as luminous as the pearls around her slender neck, and her dark hair was held back from her beautiful face by a rose-adorned headband.

  “Did you see Hannah?” she whispered, her sapphire eyes sparkling, as the minister began his greeting. “She was perfect.”

  “I knew she would be.”

  Hannah had been as eager—almost as eager—for this day to arrive as Jamison.

  “You did?”

  He nodded. “I had faith.”

  Those were the same words Rory had spoken a year ago, but so much had changed since then. For him and for Hannah. Gone was the shy, fearful girl he’d first brought to Clearville. She’d blossomed beneath Rory’s care, growing happy and confident, blooming into, well, the perfect flower girl.

  And why not? He and Rory weren’t the only couple to be touched by Hillcrest’s magic. His daughter had had plenty of practice in the past few months.

  So, yes, Jamison had faith. He had hope...

  And when he vowed to take this woman to be his bride, when he sealed that promise with a kiss, and when Hannah turned back to the happy crowd, tossed the rest of her bright red rose petals straight up into the air and shouted, “Now we get cake!” Jamison couldn’t help but throw his head back and laugh.

  He had love.

  * * * * *

  Don’t miss the next installment in

  HILLCREST HOUSE,

  the new miniseries by Stacy Connelly.

  Photojournalist Chance McClaren has—reluctantly—taken on the job of wedding photographer at the family hotel while he recovers from an accident. But when his pregnant ex arrives in town, he may find himself wanting to take the biggest risk of all. Especially when he learns that the child she’s carrying is his!

  Look for

  HOW TO BE A BLISSFUL BRIDE

  On sale September 2018

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  Keep reading for an excerpt from FOREVER A FATHER by Lynne Marshall.

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  Forever a Father

  by Lynne Marshall

  Chapter One

  Daniel Delaney opened the clinic supply closet, but it was nearly bare. “Keela!” He called for his physical therapy assistant before filtering the frustration out of his voice. What was going on? She was usually on top of everything related to the job, yet here he stood, with not a single Velcro tendonitis strap in sight. Disappointed, he glanced around. Where were the red stretch bands, or the electrical pads for the TENS machine? Eyes darting every which way, he added several other items to the list. “Keela!”

  The PT in question stuck her head into the tiny supply closet, her large baby blues registering alarm. “Yes?”

  “Where is everything?” He glanced around to emphasize the point.

  Her light brown brows lowered and she stepped inside. “I told you last week the weather conditions in the East had set back the delivery dates on my last order.” Unlike him, she spoke civilly, though she folded her thin arms and lifted her slightly squared chin.

  “You did?” He’d worked with her for three months, had hired her on the spot the day she’d walked in, which was unlike him. But after having lost on short notice his first PT tech, Tiffany, he needed a replacement. He’d also been limping through an ongoing private hell, making him a bear to work with, which was probably why Tiffany had quit in the first place. That and his high expectations for his employees. Like expecting them to be on time. Bullheaded to a fault, he’d attempted to do everything himself for one long, stressful month and failed miserably. Chalking that up as a major blunder, he’d accepted his shortcoming. He’d been a guy who’d gotten too full of himself with opening his own physical medicine practice, and who’d thought he could do it all...while grieving. Lesson learned.

  On the other hand, he’d had a hunch about the woman from Ireland who’d just completed her accredited associate degree from the local city college, and who desperately needed the job. Maybe the accent he recognized in his own grandfather swayed him a teeny tiny bit. She was new in town, divorced, and had a child to support, and was the complete opposite of Tiffany, who’d complained he was too demanding when he insisted she show up for work on time and finish everything before she left. Keela was employee-of-the-month material.

  He hadn’t regretted spontaneously hiring her, either. She was particularly good at dealing with his no-longer-sunny personality and letting his occasional gruffness roll off her skin. Like right now, when he wasn’t ready to admit she may have told him this information before. “Hmm.”

  “I should know never to talk to you when you’ve got your head buried in paperwork.” She gave an understanding smile, the kind that always brightened her eyes and disarmed him.

  “So when’s the order expected?” Standing nearly nose to nose with her in the tight chamber felt cramped. Plus her vanilla herb perfume was disturbing; he didn’t know whether to sniff her or nibble her neck, which for some reason made him cranky again. He motioned for her to back out, she did and he followed.

  “They promised before the end of this week.”

  He let out his breath. “Then I guess we’ll just have to make do.”

  Her sometimes distracting smile stretched wider. “That’s what you said last time.” She turned in the short hallway, the gotcha moment causing a nearly imperceptible twitch of one brow, and went back into the physical therapy room, where the first of her afternoon patients waited.

  Point taken, and true, he let his job preoccupy him. A perfect excuse to push his ongoing grief aside. The clinic was his bread and butter, and lately there’d been more crust than bread, and only a thin layer of no-name buttery spread. But he was determined to make the business side of medicine work right here in his hometown, Sandpiper Beach. Even though beach towns were notoriously tough on new businesses, and moving back home after losing the woman you loved wasn’t the best reason to throw yourself into a new business venture. But he did love his job.

  He’d wanted to become a physical medicine doctor since he was an injured preteen jock and had been sent to one for multiple issues, all of which related to overdoing it in sports. The doctor had worked wonders on his aches and pains without loading him up on pills, handing him back his jock status to
play football and baseball to his heart’s content. Daniel quickly became a believer. In fact, it changed his life. From that point forward he’d set his goal on the prize of medicine. The refocus may also have had something to do with the reality check that he wasn’t big or burly enough for professional sports. Whatever the true reason, he’d worked tirelessly throughout high school, college, medical school and his residency/fellowship. For this. He glanced around the small, functional clinic as he walked back to his office, the pride planted in his chest blooming a bit. He’d actually done it—survived the first year without Kathryn and in business.

  Business ran in the family. Padraig Delaney, his eighty-five-year-old grandfather, had immigrated to the United States in the 1950s, where he helped develop the lush golf courses along the central California coast. There he’d met Mary and made her his wife. They’d scrimped and saved and bought property in Sandpiper Beach because it reminded him of Sligo Bay way back home in County Sligo, Ireland. Soon after, he and Mary built a small beachside hotel and called it The Drumcliffe.

  Daniel’s father had taken over what was now a family business, after giving up teaching at the local high school, and Daniel’s mother managed reservations and hospitality. Dad had taken to the new job happily and likewise encouraged Daniel to work for himself. He’d been perfectly content with a good job in a hospital group down in Ventura, California, but within a year his personal life had taken a hit. Kathryn had left him. After the major setback, he’d fallen into such a slump that he decided to move back to his beach hometown and set up practice right here. He loved his parents and liked hanging out with his brothers, and Sandpiper Beach would always be home. With or without Kathryn.

  The clinic soon became his sole focus, and with grief and pain as his constant companions, Daniel was convinced this business had saved his life.

  He scratched out a note on his prescription pad: “One Velcro tendonitis strap.” Then he stepped back into the patient exam room. “John, sorry to inconvenience you, but you’ll have to get this filled at the local pharmacy. We’re currently out of stock.”

  The middle-aged man suffering from new-onset tennis elbow took the script and thanked him. “No problem.”

  “If you have any questions about how to put it on, come on in and either I or Keela will show you.” He demonstrated where on the forearm to place an imaginary strap and how to attach it without cutting off the circulation. “It’s not a tourniquet. Oh, and you can keep taking the over-the-counter anti-inflammatories, but don’t forget to use ice, too. If in a couple of weeks you’re not making any progress, we could try a wrist extensor, or after a month or so give you an injection, but let’s start with this.”

  “Will do, Doc.” The silver-templed man hopped off the exam table. “Still feels strange to call little Danny Delaney ‘Doc.’” He winked a blue eye and shook Daniel’s hand, then winced from the tendonitis pain. “Thanks for being here. Otherwise I’d have had to drive forty miles for help.”

  “Glad to be here, John. We’ll get this worked out even if I have to bring you in for some low level laser therapy.”

  He escorted the patient to the hallway and, after watching him exit to the reception area, pivoted toward his small corner office to push through more paperwork before his next appointment in—he glanced at his watch—ten minutes.

  “Daniel?” Keela popped out of the therapy room.

  He glanced up, momentarily content being the guy in charge.

  She approached, looking far better in their khaki cargo pants and white polo shirt uniform than he did. “You’ve written ten repetitions ten times a day for this.” She pointed to the exercise regimen he’d created especially for the patient. “Sure you didn’t mean three times a day?”

  Were the unwanted thoughts from when he woke up this morning, about Kathryn and everything they’d lost, going to set the tone for yet another day? He gave his screwup face and, without saying a word, took the paper and made the correction, which got another one of those beyond-pleasant grins from his PT assistant. Yup, he noticed. Again.

  Keela O’Mara cracked a smile at her boss’s silly face. He’d crossed his forest-green eyes and tipped his oblong chin, just like her four-year-old daughter sometimes did when she colored outside the lines. Sure, he was often gruff, but she didn’t take it personally. On the contrary, she trusted him for it, knowing what she saw was what she’d get. The guy was honest with his reactions, and she could deal with that. There was no question this clinic meant everything to him.

  She liked working for Daniel Delaney and had hit the jackpot when she’d landed this job right out of Central Coast City College. Many of her classmates were still scrambling for work nearly four months later. Being back in Sandpiper Beach was a blessing after struggling for the last year and a half since the divorce from Ron.

  Six years ago she’d started an online friendship with a guy in California. Living in Ennis, County Clare, Ireland, she’d thought the whole thing rather daring, yet safe. He liked her being from Ireland, and after six months she’d agreed to meet him for coffee on his layover at Shannon Airport.

  His big brown eyes and warm, wide smile won her over immediately, then he proved to be the perfect gentleman. She’d known her share of smooth talkers, but this guy was polite and polished, and she wanted to know him better. When she’d wished out loud that she could show him around Ennis, he’d magically arranged to cut his vacation in Europe short by a few days to see her again. Her parents even liked him!

  One thing led to another and he’d offered to fly her to California for a visit. Her parents cautioned her, so she’d made a firm request: I can’t stay with you, Ron. But he’d already booked her a room in a small hotel by the beach, The Drumcliffe—the people who owned and operated it were Irish Americans, he’d said, to make her feel at home—then he’d proved to be the perfect gentleman the whole visit. That was when she fell in love.

  She’d been working as a massage therapist at a day spa in Ennis, getting by on her tips, but not earning enough to move away from home, let alone plan another trip to California. Two months later, she’d discovered she’d fallen pregnant. And though eventually Ron had asked her to marry him, he never seemed quite the same sweet-talking guy again.

  * * *

  Ten after four on Wednesday afternoon, Keela came strolling out of the therapy room. As she and her patient emerged from the hallway, Daniel was at the copier, collating packets for the athletic department staff at Central Coast City College—otherwise known as the 4Cs—for the upcoming presentation he had planned for tomorrow morning. Keela accompanied Mrs. Joan Haverhill, a long-term client at the Delaney Physical Medicine Clinic. That was, if you counted “long-term” as the one year since he’d opened his business.

  “With your joints being fine, and considering normal wear and tear...” Keela said to the patient while nodding to acknowledge Daniel.

  “Go ahead, say it—for a woman my age,” the tall, yet hunch-shouldered, gray-haired woman complained. “It’s all I ever hear when I go to the doctor these days. For your age.” She made sure Daniel heard her, too.

  A lyrical laugh eased out of Keela’s mouth, and it never failed to grab his attention. She might as well be singing.

  “I’d never say that, Mrs. Haverhill. You’re in great shape—”

  The sixtyish lady tossed Daniel a deadpan look that seemed to say, Do you believe the crock she’s feeding me? More, please.

  He smiled and added a benevolent nod.

  “For your age,” Joan repeated, first pasting her gaze on him, then slowly looking back to Keela. “Kind of like the old joke about fortune cookies.”

  Keela gave a blank stare. Joan glanced toward Daniel again. “Dr. Delaney, you’ve got to take your employees for Chinese food once in a while.”

  The woman turned her attention back to Keela. “Here’s the old trick—all you have to do is add ‘in bed’ to whatever the
fortune says.” Keela canted her head, considering Joan’s suggestion. “Um, let me think... For example, ‘Do not mistake temptation for opportunity,’ then you add ‘in bed.’ Get it? It always works, just add ‘in bed.’”

  For her effort, Joan received another uncertain stare. “Didn’t you ever do that, Dr. Delaney?”

  He pressed his lips together and slowly shook his head. “Can’t say I ever have.”

  Resigned, she shrugged. “Maybe that was only my generation. Anyway, that’s the way it seems these days. Every doctor report I get either begins or ends with the phrase for your a—”

  “In bed?” Keela teased.

  Mrs. Haverhill gave an uncharacteristic chuckle. And that was another thing he liked about his employee. She was quick-witted.

  “In that case, I want you to do these four exercises I’ve just shown you, three times a day...” Keela gestured for Joan to finish the sentence.

  “...in bed.” The lady winked at Daniel.

  “Yes. Well, on a bed, actually. Or better yet, on this mat.” Keela breezed to the cubicles that lined the hallway, which thankfully weren’t depleted like the supply shelves, and grabbed a bright pink yoga mat.

  Having clearly won over the usually reticent client with the parting gift—another touch Daniel was proud to offer his patients but was worried he’d have to give up if business didn’t pick up soon—Keela received a smile from Mrs. Haverhill, who took the mat and headed for the door to the waiting room. “Thank you.”

  “Have a great week!”

  “In bed or for a woman my age?” Joan snickered as she went out.

  Keela stood watching the client leave for a moment, then turned toward Daniel with a satisfied smile.

  How could he not smile back? “Good work.”

  As assistant physical therapists went, Daniel had known from the start she was damn good. It was the rest of the package that made him uncomfortable. The woman part.