A Fabulous Wedding

by Dianne Castell

  “I like discovering a good story,” Dixie said

  And Nick knew that meant her getting into all kinds of trouble. Damn. He touched a curl at her cheek because he forgot he shouldn’t and he really wanted the connection. “What makes Dixie Carmichael tick?” Nick asked.

  “I can’t resist poking my nose in where it doesn’t belong. But I didn’t realize I wanted to do it for a living till lately.”

  “Read one of those ‘getting in tune with your inner self’ books?”

  “Woke up from a three-year coma that was a side effect of a messy divorce. I decided to get on with the business of living, doing what I really wanted because wallowing in self-pity wasn’t getting me anywhere.”

  “Can’t imagine you doing the pity routine. It’s just not you. You’re too…” Feisty, energetic, fun.

  And he wanted so badly to kiss her he could almost taste her sweet lips on his.

  Hi, Everyone!

  Welcome back to Whistlers Bend. This is Dixie and Nick’s story, two smart people who think they have the rest of their lives all figured out…until they cross paths in a little town in Montana and nothing is ever the same again.

  The lump in Dixie’s breast is benign and she knows she’s gotten a second chance at life, to do what she’s always wanted. She’s giving up this one-horse town—or is that a one-buffalo town—to do the exciting, adventurous things she’s always dreamed of. She’s going to be a reporter in Denver.

  Nick Romero is on his last undercover assignment as an FBI agent and has had enough excitement and adventure to last a lifetime. He wants to retire, settle down, open an Italian restaurant and fish. How can Dixie and Nick stay together when they’re headed in opposite directions?

  Take another trip with me and find out how Dixie and Nick work things out, if Maggie hunts down the right dress and marries Jack, how BJ and Flynn expand their family even more, how they catch the smugglers and if Andy is finally ready to come back home and fulfill his manly duties.

  See you in Whistlers Bend for fun, sass and a whole lot of romance, and come visit me at www.DianneCastell.com.

  Peeps to you!

  Dianne

  A FABULOUS WEDDING

  Dianne Castell

  To Gina. Always happy, always fun, a spirit of true joy.

  You are the light of my life.

  To the gals at the Snooty Fox, who know a real Louis Vuitton from a knockoff in two seconds flat.

  You’re the best!

  Books by Dianne Castell

  HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

  888—COURT-APPOINTED MARRIAGE

  968—HIGH-TIDE BRIDE

  1007—THE WEDDING RESCUE

  1047—A COWBOY AND A KISS

  1077—A FABULOUS WIFE *

  1088—A FABULOUS HUSBAND *

  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

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Dixie twisted her fingers in the white sheet as she lay perfectly still on the examining table and tried to remember to breathe. Fear settled in her belly like sour milk. She was scared! Bone-numbing, jelly-legged, full-blown-migraine petrified. It wasn’t every day that her left breast got turned into a giant pincushion.

  She closed her eyes, not wanting to look at the ultrasound machine or think about the biopsy needle or anything else in the overly bright sterile room that would determine if the lump was really bad news.

  She clenched her teeth so they wouldn’t chatter, then prayed for herself and all women who had ever, or would ever, go through this. Waiting to find out was more terrifying than her divorce and wrapping her Camaro around a tree rolled into one.

  God, let me out of this and I’ll change. I swear it. No more pity parties over Danny’s dumping her for that Victoria’s Secret model, no more finding comfort in junk food, no more telling people how to live their lives and not really living her own. And if that meant leaving Whistlers Bend, she’d suck it up and do it and quit making excuses.

  “We’re taking out the fluid now,” the surgeon said. “It’s…”

  Dixie’s eyes shot wide open.

  “It’s clear.”

  Dixie swallowed, and finally got out, “Meaning?”

  The surgeon’s eyes stayed focused on what she was doing but they smiled, Dixie could tell. She’d developed the ability to read people from having waited tables at the Purple Sage Restaurant for three years and dealing with happy, sad and everything in between customers.

  The surgeon continued. “Meaning the lump in your breast is a cyst. I’ll send the fluid off to the pathologist to be certain, but the lump appears to be no more than a nuisance.”

  A nuisance! A nuisance was a telemarketer, a traffic ticket, gaining five pounds! Still, the important thing was—she’d escaped. She said another prayer for the women who wouldn’t escape. She dressed, left the hospital and resisted the urge to turn handsprings all the way to her car. Or maybe she did turn handsprings—she wasn’t sure.

  She was on her way home. In one hour she’d be back in Whistlers Bend. Her life still belonged to her, and not to doctors and hospitals and pills and procedures. She fired up her Camaro and sat for a moment, appreciating the familiar idle of her favorite car as she stared out at the flat landscape of Billings, Montana. This was one of those definitive moments when life smacked her upside the head and said, Dixie, old girl, get your ass in gear. You’ve wanted action, adventure, hair-raising experiences for as long as you can remember.

  Now’s the time to make them happen!

  “NICK ROMERO.” He stood on the piece-of-junk ladder he’d found in the back room of the Curly Cactus and unscrewed the curtain rod with the electric-pink curtains that gave him an upset stomach just looking at them. The bracket let go, swung free, and the material slid off the rod onto the floor with the green rug straight from someone’s garage sale.

  Not that he understood the inner workings of garage sales. Twenty years in the FBI didn’t lend itself to that unless the garage contained something stolen, smuggled, dead or held hostage, and the sale was guns, drugs, cars or even people.

  But all that would soon be over. He was quitting the bureau and getting lost in some little town where no one would know he was ex-FBI. Anonymity would increase his chances for old age. He’d open a restaurant that really was his and not a front for an investigation like this one.

  He’d had enough action to fill two lifetimes. It was the main reason he’d had a girlfriend, not a wife, who’d left him for a high-school history teacher. The FBI had been his life, till he’d woken up one morning and couldn’t remember if he was in his apartment or on assignment because both places looked the same, and he was alone.

  He wanted permanence in his life for a change. He wanted his primary concern to be perfecting an Alfredo sauce, the only thing fired his way compliments on his linguini, the biggest danger an overbaked casserole of Nonna Celest’s ziti.

  He dragged the ladder to the other side of the window and was undoing the other bracket when he heard “I’m too sexy for this town” coming from the back entrance. A woman in a denim skirt, scoop-necked green blouse and a cowboy hat in hand pranced into the room, oblivious to him on his ladder.

  He jumped down, noticing great brown eyes, soft skin, a woman in her early forties, who smelled like heaven on earth, and had the most sensual mouth he’d ever seen.

  “Who are you?” she asked. “What have you done with Jan?” She gazed around. �
��And what in the almighty world have you done to the Curly Cactus? It’s…ruined.”

  Her eyes turned to slits and her lips thinned. “Is this one of those makeover shows? I hate makeover shows. The Curly Cactus doesn’t need a makeover. It’s perfect the way it is…was.”

  He folded his arms and gazed down at her. “Sorry you feel like that. I bought the place and—”

  “You’re going to run the Curly Cactus?” She wiggled her brows and gave him a critical once-over as she sashayed around him. “Well, you’re handsome enough—I’ll give you that. You’d probably get business on your looks alone. But I sure hope you’re good at running a salon, or you won’t last in this town. Women here take their hair real serious.”

  She faced the bank of mirrors and went on without taking a breath. “So, how about starting with me. I need a dye job. Make the red a little brighter. Mine is sort of drab auburn. I’m thinking Lucille Ball red. Some pizzazz.”

  Who the hell was this ball of fire? What had happened to laid-back, aw-shucks and moseying-and-meandering western? He’d been warned he’d have to change his big-city ways to fit in. But this woman wore him out just listening to her.

  His cell phone rang, and he snatched it from the counter, checking the number. Mother, which translated into Wes Cutter, his contact and partner for the past ten years. “Hey, Mom,” he greeted Wes, who just loved being called that. “I got company right now. Call you back.” Nick disconnected and said to the gal with the delicious lips, “I’m not running the Curly Cactus.”

  “That wasn’t a very nice way to talk to your mother. She raised you, you know. Cared for you when you were sick. You should call her back and apologize.”

  Okay, so this was the west. Small-town values, neighbors and where mother really did refer to the woman who’d given you life and wasn’t a derogatory term men used with one another. He pointed at the swivel chairs, wash basins and dryers and tried for a good-old-boy stance. “I’m running a family restaurant. Moving all this stuff into the shed out back. Going to sell it on eBay.”

  The woman’s brown eyes shot wide open. “No!”

  “EBay’s the best.” Except maybe in rural America? “Or I’ll sell it at a garage sale.” See, he was getting the hang of this. That sounded more hometown, right?

  “This is awful. Why would Jan sell?” The gal walked around. “I don’t get it. She was happy here. Everybody was happy here—at least, the females. No matter how bad your day was you could come to Jan for a manicure and feel better, leave all your problems behind. This place is—make that was—great.” She stared back at him, none too happy. “And now you’ve killed it.”

  How could anyone flip out over a salon? “Jan was tired of Montana winters and wanted sun. You can understand that.” And the FBI had paid her a potful of money and thrown in a new car so they could move in ASAP to try to find some smugglers.

  “You’re really not opening a salon?”

  He pointed to his chest. “I do calamari, not curls, lady.”

  “Lady? Maybe I should just call you man.” The woman grabbed a handful of her hair. “What am I supposed to do with this? I need color.” She wiggled her fingers at him. “I need my nails done. I need pampering. I’ve had a rough three days.”

  “Give me some time and I’ll rustle you up some grub.”

  What she gave him was a you-have-lost-your-mind look. Guess he’d carried the John Wayne attitude a little to far. He didn’t get small-town western for crap—until she held out her arms, pulling her silk blouse tight over voluptuous curves and he suddenly got western just fine. Oh, boy!

  “I’m a size fourteen. Do I look like I need grub? I need new hair to go with my new Stetson. I want Jan back. Jan’s the hair diva.”

  “Well, she’s going to be the diva in Sun City, Arizona. Nick’s should be open soon. You’ll have to deal.”

  “Are you always such a smart aleck?”

  “Sorry. I’ve been working my—” ass off, he almost said, then settled on “—working really hard since I took over the place.”

  At least that part was true. Sheriff Jack Dawson had contacted the FBI two weeks ago, and since then Nick had been on fast-forward to get his cover together, learn more than he ever wanted to know about illegal designer stuff and move to Whistlers Bend, Montana, before the smugglers relocated to another town. This was the best lead the FBI had on these guys yet.

  The gal jammed her Stetson on her head and peered up at him. “And how long ago did you take over this place?”

  “Two days. The moving van pulled up yesterday and got Jan’s belongings from her apartment upstairs, and I moved mine in. Thought everyone in town knew. The name’s Nick Romero.”

  “Well, there you have it. I leave for three days and the town goes right to pot.”

  She pointed at him, suddenly smiling big. “I got it—I got it! How about we find you another place to open your restaurant? There’s a vacancy down by Little Fish Lake. A boat rental. Nice view, good place for a restaurant. Bet if I talked to Jan she’d reconsider and got herself back here.”

  She grabbed his hand, her warm fingers making him…light-headed? He needed lunch, a beer. The stress of dealing with this small-town stuff was killing him.

  She pulled on him, saying, “Let me take you to the lake. Beartooth Mountains in the distance, little yellow flowers, blue skies that go on forever. This place smells like perm and nail polish and shampoo. Who wants to eat in a place that smells like that? Gross.”

  She said something else about chemicals and makeup, but he wasn’t too sure with her holding his hand. Damn, what was going on with him? Too many assignments? Too little sleep? Culture shock! Why couldn’t the saloon guy have agreed to sell? Nick would have fit in there, no problem. Order a beer, serve a beer.

  He took back his hand. “I appreciate your loyalty to Jan and this Cactus place, but things change, times change. I’ll open the windows, and once I get all this junk cleaned out the odor will go, too.”

  “Junk?”

  “I’ll paint and refinish the hardwood floors, get new carpet and—”

  “But—”

  “It’ll be fine,” he said, putting his hands to her shoulders to make his point. Who was he kidding? He’d wanted to touch her, feel that blouse. He took in her sparkling eyes and sassy demeanor. “You should run an ad,” he advised her. “Get someone else in town to open a beauty shop. Maybe down by that lake.”

  “You’re not comprehending this, are you? Jan is irreplaceable, especially with a restaurant named…”

  “Nick’s Place,” he informed her as her fresh scent filled his head.

  “Couldn’t you at least call it something with a little more zing?”

  “Like, the Curly Cactus was such a great name? What the hell’s a curly cactus? Come around in a week or so. I’m a decent cook.”

  “I’m giving up food. I want Jan.”

  He folded his arms. “Then there’s a road trip to Arizona in your future.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Denver.” He’d never been to Denver, but he sure as hell had been to every other big city in the U.S.

  “Well, Denver, I’d like to say welcome to Whistlers Bend, but my heart just isn’t in it, and every woman in town’s going to feel the same. I’d consider moving to the lake if I were you. No one’s ever going to think of this place as a restaurant. Everyone’ll blame you for chasing Jan away.”

  Fortunately, Jack Dawson pushed open the front door at that moment and strolled in, carrying a bag of groceries. Dixie pointed at Nick. “Arrest that man for…trespassing, disturbing the peace, anything you can think of. This is a beauty salon, for Pete’s sake.”

  Jack pushed his Stetson to the back of his head and grinned. “I believe he’s got a bill of sale, Dixie, and now he even has groceries.” Jack set the bag on the counter and added, “Besides, you like Italian food.”

  “I can buy a pizza at the grocery. I can’t buy new hair. What am I supposed to do? What are all the women
in town supposed to do? This isn’t over!” She tossed her head and pranced out the way she’d come, except this time mumbling instead of singing.

  Something about her attracted him. She was…alive. Energetic and fresh. All the things he’d lost a long, long time ago.

  Jack craned his neck around, checking to make sure the gal had left, then said, “I see you’re settling in okay and have met some of the local color.”

  “Who is she?” Nick asked, trying to sound normally curious, but not feeling normal at all. Hell, normal for him was gun drawn as he yelled FBI.

  “Dixie Carmichael. The go-to gal for news and gossip around here. She’s also the one who saw the smugglers. They ate at the Purple Sage, the diner where she works, asking about the boy who found that fake Louis Vuitton wallet I called the FBI about. She knew something was up and phoned me, but by the time I arrived they’d gone.”

  “Which means she can ID them and they can return the favor. Where’s the little boy?”

  “On vacation for the summer with his grandmother. We got him out of town. I warned Dixie to be careful, but I don’t think she took me seriously. She’s kind of spirited.”

  Jack sat in one of the white swivel chairs and leaned back as he gazed out the window. “Can’t believe we have smugglers in Whistlers Bend. Thought I’d left that high-profile crap behind when I gave up the Chicago PD and moved here.”

  “It’s the location. Rural, mountains, right in the middle of a bunch of expressways. The knockoff designer goods are made in the East, shipped here, then trucked inland. This is a great place to hide and transfer merchandise from bigger trucks to smaller ones for distribution.”

  “And you’re here to find the trucks, persuade the drivers to roll over on the suppliers, then find the point of entry and confiscate the goods.”

  “Maybe get the foreign governments to stop the pirating. Luggage, perfumes, jewelry, shoes, you name it. I brought samples of the fakes so I’d know what the hell we’re looking for. Three babies nearly died from contaminated jars of designer baby food last month. We’ve got to shut these bastards down and keep an eye on Dixie. I doubt if she has any idea what she’s walked into. Knockoffs are big business. Billions.”