After Darke
Page 22
Afterward, the bride and groom’s limousine led a caravan of private cars and buses filled with wedding guests back to the city. Even Maureen decided she’d risk returning to New York. She’d stay on the bus, walk into the hotel, then stay in the room where the reception was being held. Afterward, she’d get back on the bus, and would never been seen by anyone except friends and family.
The reception was at an exclusive hotel and was possible only because Cokie and Nora Darke had started planning it from the instant the door closed behind Bonnie and Jaron on their first—and only—date.
The food was plentiful and catered by a wildly popular new Hawaiian restaurant. The champagne flowed, the band was great, and flanking the wedding cake was an enormous bouquet with all best wishes from Seamus McDormand.
Maureen didn’t consider herself sentimental, but as she watched Jaron and Bonnie gaze adoringly at each other during their dance together, she felt tears threaten—at least until Frank Quigg touched her arm.
“What’s happened?” she whispered. He’d told her he’d have an officer keeping watch outside the hotel, just in case, but she hadn’t expected to see him.
“Sorry to intrude. I wanted you to know that the fingerprints we took off that glass you sent belong to a Gene Vogel.”
“I don’t know the name.”
“He’s a private investigator from here in New York.”
A chill crept over her. “We know he wasn’t hired by McDormand. Do you think he was hired by the Nevils to find me?”
Quigg shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Well, if he was, then my cover is blown.” How could she stand this?
Frank gave her a sympathetic look. “Hang in there. We’re working on it.”
She nodded to him as Randi and Robin, who had been flower girls in the wedding, came running up. “They’re leaving! It’s time—”
“—to throw the birdseed!”
Maureen looked down into their happy faces and the happy faces of everyone around them, and hid her anxiety. She took their hands. “Well, come on then! Let’s throw birdseed!”
* * * * *
Welcome to Twin Oaks—the new B and B in Cooper’s Corner.
Some come for pleasure, others for passion—and one to set things straight...
COOPER’S CORNER
a Harlequin continuity series continues with
STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET
by Marisa Carroll
Radio talk-show host Emma Hart thought Twin Oaks was supposed to be a friendly inn, but fellow guest Blake Weston sure was grumpy! Blake had planned to buy an old farmhouse just outside Cooper’s Corner, flee the rat race and propose to his girlfriend...until he’d caught her in bed with the real estate agent.
Here’s a preview!
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EXCERPT
BLAKE STOOD ON THE DECK that overlooked the fields and meadows stretching up the hillside behind Twin Oaks. The night was quiet, as quiet as the nights of his Indiana boyhood, as silent as the deserts of Saudi Arabia or the ravaged Somalian countryside. The stars were high and bright, cold and far away. The scent of fallen leaves and dried grass mixed with the tang of spruce and pine from farther up the hill, and a chill hung in the air, the harbinger of frost before dawn.
He’d been standing there long enough to notice the chill. Turning up the collar of his worn leather jacket, he faced away from the starlit vista of shapes and shadows, his attention captured by the scene in the inn’s gathering room, just beyond the French doors.
Emma Hart was sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing dominoes with Maureen Cooper’s small twin daughters, Randi and Robin. Blake had met them the evening before when they’d put in an appearance at teatime. He’d avoided tea this afternoon in case Daryl Tubb came by. He didn’t want to be in the same room as the bastard.
The twins were three or three and a half, Blake guessed, sturdy little girls with chestnut hair and blue-green eyes that sparkled with health and mischief. They were well mannered and well behaved, but not above wheedling one or two of their uncle Clint’s chocolate chip cookies off a guest’s plate.
The domino game was proceeding with what seemed to be little regard for the rules. There was much laughter and jumping up and down on the twins’ part, and lots of smiles and hugs on Emma’s part. From Blake’s perspective, she looked to be a natural with kids. He bet she wanted a big family of her own, though how he knew that he couldn’t say. It was something he himself wanted in life, and had been yet another sticking point with Heather, who thought two kids were more than enough, and then only someday in the distant future.
Finding her naked with Daryl Tubb had been a blessing in disguise.
For him.
But for Emma Hart, it was going to be a heartbreaker.
If she found out, that is.
Should he tell her?
He couldn’t quite see himself in that role. How did you go about breaking a woman’s heart? Over breakfast the next morning, perhaps? Just come out with it? Oh, by the way, that guy you’re with—the one you’re going to marry... Well, the damnedest coincidence. Remember the guy I told you I found my girlfriend naked with? It’s him. Your Daryl. Do you need a little more maple syrup on that griddle cake?
God, how had he gotten himself into such a mess? He supposed if you thought about it, the odds of him meeting Emma weren’t as astronomical as they seemed. Cooper’s Corner was a small town, after all. He could accept the chain of events that had brought them into each other’s orbits. She’d met Daryl through her grandparents. He’d met Daryl because he wanted to buy property in the area.
Heather had betrayed him with Daryl. Daryl had betrayed Emma with Heather.
And then fate had brought them to Twin Oaks at the same time.
ISBN: 9781460310885
Copyright © 2002 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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