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Zoe And The Best Man
Carole Buck
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u5cf829e3-fb73-5241-be85-a6a1445c21dc)
Excerpt (#u6b6bad3f-5d0d-5b80-95cd-2f1c16fc3ef1)
Dear Reader (#u666b60bf-67bf-503d-8ce6-22c1e3cfc814)
Title Page (#u6d44f979-dcab-58ab-8f50-c6b85986efce)
About The Author (#u3e318e11-1e21-55e9-b0ed-7c5bd41a8dba)
Dedication (#ub50bc598-7663-59e4-b40a-7f965f6ec90a)
One (#u7d7d68ab-2d92-5ab4-9535-6a57e7782a6e)
Two (#u20560aef-9f07-502b-b001-24f3c78fe5b0)
Three (#u1db286ef-2ab0-5ff9-adc3-9af4c38bd513)
Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Another Nice Catch, Goldilocks.”
“Oh. That. Well, no offense intended, Flynn, but if I ever again have to choose between snagging a bridal bouquet and preventing you from falling on a hardwood floor, I’m going for the flowers. You weigh a ton.”
“I’m fine now, really. You don’t have to stay here tonight.”
“Look,” Zoe said. “You’re on the road to recovery, let’s hope, but a long way from being one hundred percent. Suppose—suppose you start hallucinating.”
Something glinted, deep and dangerous, in his hazel eyes. “I thought I was when I opened the door and saw you standing on my threshold.”
“Really? I thought you were just surprised to see me.”
“That came after I was sure you were real….”
Dear Reader,
Welcome to the wonderful world of Silhouette Desire! This month, look for six scintillating love stories. I know you’re going to enjoy them all. First up is The Beauty, the Beast and the Baby, a fabulous MAN OF THE MONTH from Dixie Browning. It’s also the second book in her TALL, DARK AND HANDSOME miniseries.
The exciting SONS AND LOVERS series also continues with Leanne Banks’s Ridge: The Avenger. This is Leanne’s first Silhouette Desire, but she certainly isn’t new to writing romance. This month, Desire has Husband: Optional, the next installment of Marie Ferrarella’s THE BABY OF THE MONTH CLUB. Don’t worry if you’ve missed earlier titles in this series, because this book “stands alone.” And it’s so charming and breezy you’re sure to just love it!
The WEDDING BELLES series by Carole Buck is completed with Zoe and the Best Man. This series just keeps getting better and better, and Gabriel Flynn is one scrumptious hero. Next is Kristin James’ Desire, The Last Groom on Earth, a delicious opposites-attract story written with Kristin’s trademark sensuality.
Rounding out the month is an amnesia story (one of my favorite story twists), Just a Memory Away, by award-winning author Helen R. Myers.
And next month, we’re beginning CELEBRATION 1000, a very exciting, ultraspecial three-month promotion celebrating the publication of the 1000th Silhouette Desire. During April, May and June, look for books by some of your most beloved writers, including Mary Lynn Baxter, Annette Broadrick, Joan Johnston, Cait London, Ann Major and Diana Palmer, who is actually writing book #1000! These will be months to remember, filled with “keepers.”
As always, I wish you the very best,
Lucia Macro
Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to:
Silhouette Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
Zoe and the Best Man
Carole Buck
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CAROLE BUCK
is a television news writer and movie reviewer who lives in Atlanta. She is single and her hobbies include cake decorating, ballet and traveling. She collects frogs, but does not kiss them. Carole says she’s in love with life; she hopes the books she writes reflect this. Readers can contact Carole Buck by writing to P.O. Box 78845, Atlanta, GA 30357-2845.
To Karen Taylor Richman, whose faith got the Wedding Belles ringing.
Thanks for your skill, support and editorial spirit!
One (#ulink_e2280622-c3d8-5363-b3ff-3950a13d0e60)
With barely ten minutes to go before the scheduled start of the wedding between “Peachy” Keene and “Luc” Devereaux, the best man had yet to arrive. One friend of the brideto-be was fervently hoping he wouldn’t put in an appearance until after the ceremony and reception were over, and she was winging her way home from New Orleans to Washington, D.C.
It wasn’t that she wanted anything irreparable to happen to him, Zoe Alexandra Armitage reassured herself as she stared at the quiet, tree-lined street in front of her. Given the debt she owed the man in question, there was no way she could ever wish him permanently ill. Still—
“Any sign of him?” a throaty voice asked.
Startled, Zoe turned toward the entrance of the small Garden District church where Peachy and Luc intended to exchange their vows before family and friends. The source of the anxious inquiry—a tall, clipboard-clutching individual clad in a stylish ensemble of beige brocade—was looming in the building’s arched, blossom-bedecked doorway.
“I’m afraid not, Terry,” she replied, smoothing the slightly belled skirt of her pale blue silk dress with an immaculately manicured hand. She wondered fleetingly whether she looked as flushed and unsettled as she felt. Some of her discomfort was attributable to the sultry August weather. As for the rest…
She didn’t want to think about the rest.
Terry Bellehurst checked his wristwatch and frowned. Like Peachy, he was a tenant in the Prytania Street mansion cum apartment house Luc Devereaux had purchased with a portion of the profits from his bestselling novels.
He was also the self-appointed coordinator of the day’s festivities, and from what Zoe had observed thus far, he was carrying out his job with great panache. The way he’d maneuvered her into “volunteering” to maintain a vigil for the best man had been particularly deft.
He’d nailed her about twenty minutes ago as she’d walked into the church’s flower-garlanded vestibule with the recently wed Annie and Matt Powell. Annie—the former Hannah Elaine Martin of Atlanta—had been one of two women with whom she’d shared a dorm suite in college. The other had been Peachy’s older sister, Eden, who just happened to be married to Matt Powell’s older brother, Rick. Approximately six months pregnant with her first child, Eden was serving as Peachy’s matron of honor.
“Zoe, honey, I need your help,” Terry had said after he’d eased her away from Annie and Matt. “The best man—Luc’s bonded-through-battle buddy, Gabriel Flynn—is still among the missing. But there’s word he’s been spotted at a private airstrip on the other side of the river. He supposedly rappeled out of a helicopter with his hands tied behind his back. Or parachuted from a plane without a crash helmet. I’m a little vague about the macho details. In any case, he’s allegedly on the ground, more or less in one piece and headed in this direction. Would you mind waiting outside until he shows up?”
“Would I?” she’d echoed, appalled by the request. The anxiety that had been building within her ever since she’d learned the identity of Luc’s best man escalated into something perilously close to panic.
“Somebody has to make certain Flynn gets where he’s supposed to go, wearing what he’s supposed to wear, once he finally arrives,” Terry had explained, seemingly unaware of her plight. “I’d do it myself, but I’m up to my eyebrows in last-minute details. I’m appealing to you because, well, I have the distinct impression that underneath that Princess Grace cool of yours—I love the ice blue dress, by the way. Calvin Klein, am I right? Of course I’m right. The color’s fabulous on you. And the French twist? To die for. I’ll bet you didn’t use one of those hairstyle helpers they sell on late-night TV, either. Are those things tacky or what? I mean—”
“Terry,” she’d interrupted.
“Sorry.” The apology had been accompanied by a quick, contrite smile. “Sometimes a tide of fashion enthusiasm just sweeps me away. Such a failing. But, back to the business at hand. My intuition tells me you’re a girl who’s capable of kicking butt and taking names. And it might come to that, depending on Flynn’s condition.” He’d waited a beat, then moved in for the kill. “So…what do you say?”
Reeling, she’d said the only thing she could say. Which was yes.
Zoe supposed there were some who might consider Terry Bellehurst an outrageous or even offensive character. He was, after all, a retired Super Bowl champion who’d abandoned a highly successful sportscasting career to embrace a new identity as Terree—accent on the second syllable—LaBelle, emcee of what was reputed to be the French Quarter’s classiest drag show. Despite his undeniable eccentricities, she found him quite endearing.
If truth be told, she liked all of Peachy’s neighbors. She particularly admired Dr. Laila Martigny, a regal-looking psychologist who’d put herself through school working as a housekeeper and who allegedly was descended from New Orleans’s legendary witch queen, Maria Laveau. The fiftyish Dr. Martigny was engaged to the newest member of the Prytania Street manage, Francis Sebastian Gilmore Smythe.
An elegant, erudite Englishman in his early sixties, Mr. Smythe had been introduced to Zoe at the previous night’s rehearsal dinner. He’d described himself as a semiretired dealer in objets d’art who was deeply privileged to have a longstanding acquaintanceship with her employer, Arietta Martel von Helsing Flynn Ogden.
Zoe had subsequently been told that although this characterization was accurate, it was less than complete. Yes, Francis Sebastian Gilmore Smythe was the well-connected connoisseur he claimed to be. But he was also a former spymaster for MI5, the British intelligence service.
This highly confidential information about Dr. Martigny’s urbane fiance had been supplied in excited whispers by Peachy’s next-door neighbors and bridesmaids, Mayrielle and Winona-Jolene Barnes. Collectively referred to by their fellow Prytania Street residents as “the MayWinnies,” the Misses Barnes were identical twins. Although they presented themselves as the epitome of white-gloved propriety, gossip claimed these spritely septuagenarians had once been considered among the best of the good times to be had in New Orleansassuming, of course, one was willing to meet their price.
While her time in Washington had taught Zoe to be extremely skeptical about not-for-attribution innuendo, she was inclined to think that this was one case where the rumors were right on target. For all their garden-party primness, the MayWinnies exuded the same born-to-beguile aura as her thrice-married and at-least-as-many-times mistressed employer. And that Arietta Martel von Helsing Flynn Ogden had been hot stuff in her heyday was a matter of public record. In point of fact, it was Zoe’s considered opinion that the reigning doyenne of D.C. society was still abundantly capable of charming the, er, socks off of just about any man she chose.
“The bride-to-be is beginning to get a little bit crazed,” Terry reported, consulting his clipboard with a slightly frazzled expression. “Ditto, the MayWinnies. The matron of honor seems all right, although I wish she’d sit down and keep her feet up until it’s time for the ceremony. I mean, my ankles are starting to balloon just from looking at her and that’s hell when you’re wearing heels. As for the groom, well, it’s hard to tell with him. He’s either very, very calm or entering the first stage of catatonia.”
Zoe nodded, mentally replaying part of a conversation she’d overheard during the rehearsal dinner. Peachy had been questioning her husband-to-be about the whereabouts of his best man. There’d been an unnerving reference to medical quarantines. And something about demilitarized zones.
“He’ll be here, cher,” Luc had said, very simply, very certainly. “He gave me his word.”
A breeze, heavy with humidity and redolent of the lush scent of late-summer flowers and foliage, sent a tendril of blond hair fluttering across Zoe’s left cheek. She brushed it back into place with an automatic gesture, experiencing a sudden flash of guilt about the hopes she’d been entertaining.
“Is there a backup plan?” she asked after a moment.
“You mean if…?” Terry gestured, plainly reluctant to put the possibility into words.
Zoe’s sense of guilt intensified. While she didn’t believe her wishes about Flynn had any real force, she knew she was going to feel at least partially responsible if he failed to fulfill the pledge he’d made to Luc Devereaux. And if Peachy’s wedding day was marred because her bridegroom’s best man didn’t get himself to the church on time…
“Yes,” she affirmed.
“Mr. Smythe’s on standby.”
“Would he be…all right?” Peachy had told her that Luc, who’d lost both his parents in an automobile accident at age nineteen, held the older man in very high esteem.
“Flynn would be better,” Terry said frankly, then glanced at his watch again. He gasped in dismay. “Oh, my God. It’s three minutes before the hour. I’ve got to get inside and tell the organist to stall. Maybe he can take requests from the congregation or something.” He gave Zoe an imploring look. “Will you stay out here a teensy-weensy while longer? Please?”
“No problem, Terry,” she acquiesced, summoning up what she hoped was a tranquil smile. “Just don’t start the ceremony without me.”
“Perish the thought, sweetie,” the former gridiron champion responded feelingly, then pirouetted on one foot and reentered the church.
Squaring her slim shoulders, Zoe turned back toward the street. She was getting all worked up over nothing, she told herself. There was no rational reason for her to be afraid of seeing Flynn again. She was an intelligent, independent, thirtytwo-year-old woman, for heaven’s sake. Luc’s putative best man posed no threat to her. He’d never posed a threat to her!
Except, perhaps, psychologically. There was no disputing that Flynn had had—continued to have—a diabolically disruptive effect on her peace of mind. But that was far more her fault than his at this point. If she’d had a shred of gumption, she would have put what had happened between them behind her a long, long time ago.
Not that what had happened between them had been all that earth-shatteringly significant. Flynn’s existence had intersected with hers for a scant five days nearly sixteen years ago. And during those five days, he’d…well, uh…he’d…
Oh, all right!
During those five days he’d saved her life.
Which wasn’t to say he’d done so because he’d genuinely wanted to, Zoe felt compelled to remind herself, clenching and unclenching her fingers. Oh, indeed, not. Twenty-three-yearold Lieutenant Gabriel James McNally Flynn had made it absolutely clear that he’d been given no choice in the matter. He’d been acting on orders from start to finish. Hauling her— or, rather, what he’d crudely referred to as her “skinny adolescent butt"—out of harm’s way had been nothing more than an assignment to him. And a damned undesirable assignment, too, for a highly trained member of the U.S. Army’s Special Forces.
Zoe gritted her teeth, remembering. She could have been a crate of kitty litter for all the consideration he’d shown her during the time they’d spent together!
She hadn’t even learned Flynn’s full name or age until after he’d delivered her into the custody of U.S. diplomats and departed for some classified location without so much as a goodbye or good riddance. Not that she hadn’t tried to discover them before that. She had. Repeatedly. Unfortunately, her taciturn military escort had proven to be about as giving as a block of granite when it came to answering questions or providing explanations.
He’d known her name and vital statistics, of course, thanks to what she’d gathered had been a very thorough pre-mission briefing. But he hadn’t deigned to call her Zoe more than a couple of times as he’d bullied her through nearly eighty miles of Central American jungle. He’d chosen instead to address her by the appellation “Goldilocks,” which had obviously been intended to goad.
Zoe closed her eyes, muttering a polyglot assortment of less than ladylike expressions she’d picked up during her singularly peripatetic formative years. Flynn had made her feel like such a…such a child during that treacherous five-day trek. She’d hated him for the way he’d treated her! And out of that hatred had come a furious desire to prove that she was more than the burdensome brat he so obviously considered her to be.
“I’ll show him” had been the mantra that had kept her going when every fiber in her body had been shrieking at her to slow down or stop. I’ll show him.
And she had.
“You didn’t think I’d make it, did you, Flynn?” she’d demanded when they’d finally reached safety. Exhausted to the point of illness, she’d been shaking like a leaf in a windstorm. She’d also been scared. For the first time in nearly 150 hours, she’d been scared out of her wits.
Flynn had stared at her without speaking for what had seemed like a very long time. During the course of that silence, she’d discovered that the deep-set eyes she’d thought were stone-cold gray were actually enlivened with flecks of green and gold. She’d also detected subtle hints of the same fear she was feeling in the lean features of the sun-bronzed face she’d come to believe was incapable of registering anything but disdain for her.
“You have no idea what I thought—or think—about you, Goldilocks,” he’d responded at last, his voice edged with an emotion she couldn’t identify.
Then he’d left her.
Zoe opened her eyes. Maybe seeing Flynn again would be good for her, she thought. It would be an opportunity to achieve…what was that popular talk-show term? Oh, yes. Closure. If nothing else, seeing Flynn again would allow her to say the thank-you she’d never had a chance to say. And after she’d uttered the requisite expressions of gratitude, maybe she’d allow herself the luxury of—
Rrrmm. Rrrmm.
An ominous rumbling disrupted what might have been a very pleasant revenge fantasy. Zoe cocked her head, listening. The sound seemed to be coming from somewhere down the street. But what on earth—
