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Happily Never After
Kathleen O'Brien
Members of the wedding party are starting to die.No one could believe that Thomas Beckham was the kind of man to leave a woman at the altar, but he couldn't marry his bride-to-be. Not after what he'd seen her do. His only choice was to leave and never look back–and to keep to himself everything he'd witnessed.After the wedding-that-wasn't, everyone, including Kelly Ralston, went on to other things. Or so it had always seemed. But ten years later, Kelly finds herself attending the funeral of another one of the bridesmaids–the third member of the wedding party to meet a tragic death. Kelly can't help but wonder if the deaths are a coincidence. Or are they linked? If so, who will be targeted next?Thomas Beckham may be her only chance to find the killer. Before the killer finds her…
“Tom? Are you there? It’s Kelly.”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m here. What’s wrong?”
Tom understood that something must have happened. Something bad. Kelly hadn’t called him in ten years, though at first he had deluded himself that she might.
“I don’t know if you heard about Lillith Griggs. I mean, she became Lillith Griggs—you knew she and Jacob got married, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I knew that.” He and Jacob still kept in touch, still wrote now and then, though of course, Jacob didn’t admit that to Lillith, who had, like Kelly, been one of Sophie’s bridesmaids and therefore subscribed to the official position that Tom Beckham was scum. “What about Lillith?”
“She was killed in a car accident. Three days ago.”
Tom hadn’t known Lillith well, but she’d always seemed much more…alive than most people. She was a beauty, a brain and a class clown all in one. What kind of accident had been potent enough to extinguish all that?
“I’m sorry to hear that. How is Jacob?”
“He’s a mess,” Kelly said. “That’s why I’m calling. The funeral is tomorrow and he hopes you can come. He needs a friend…and you seem to be the one he wants.”
It was subtle but he could hear how inexplicable she found that fact to be. “Okay,” he said.
“You’ll come?” She must have been expecting an argument.
“Yes. Tell him I’ll be there. What time is the funeral?”
“One. But Tom, if I tell him you’re coming, and then you…”
“Kelly, I’m telling you I will be there. Have I ever lied to you?”
“No,” she said slowly. “Not to me.”
Happily Never After
Kathleen O’Brien
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dear Reader,
Sometimes, true love makes an appearance at the worst possible moment. When you’re too young, when you’re living on another continent, when you’re on opposite sides of a stormy issue. Or when you’re about to marry her best friend.
For Tom Beckham, the hero of Happily Never After, falling in love with Kelly was the dumbest thing he could do. Well, maybe the second-dumbest. The first was getting engaged to beautiful but troubled heiress Sophie Mellon.
The three glamorous Mellon siblings have always been clouded in a miasma of rumors. Their neighbors hear things they can’t quite understand—and don’t dare to repeat. But Tom, a young, ambitious lawyer, didn’t care. Sophie’s good looks and impressive mansion could help his career, and that was all that mattered.
Until he fell in love with her bridesmaid. Until ugly rumors became hideous truth. Until he left Sophie at the church, dressed in antique lace, her beautiful face streaming with tears.
He spent ten years trying to forget Kelly—and the terrible truth about the woman he almost married. But now members of the wedding party are starting to die. He’ll have to face all his old demons—including his love for Kelly—if he’s going to survive.
I have a special fondness for the “reunion” romance. I adore the thought that, like water seeking an outlet, true love can trickle through the years, overcoming the most daunting barriers, navigating the most amazing bends and turns. And then, somehow, find its way safely home. I hope you enjoy watching Tom and Kelly earn their second chance.
My next Harlequin Signature Select book, Quiet as the Grave, will also feature a couple who must endure years of separation. Thanks to my Firefly Glen readers who wrote asking for Mike and Suzie’s story, these two fascinating characters will finally find out whether puppy love has the strength to survive in the real—and very dangerous—adult world.
I love to hear from readers! Please visit my Web site at www.KathleenOBrien.net, or write me at P.O. Box 947633, Maitland, FL 32794.
Warmly,
Kathleen O’Brien
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
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Bonus Features
CHAPTER ONE
THE BEST VIEW of the tortured and beautiful Mellon house was from the top of the East River Bridge. In winter, when the elm trees had shivered themselves to skeletons, you could see everything, right down to the statue that had toppled over in the fern garden twenty years ago and had never been set right.
Mrs. Mellon must hate to see the sheltering leaves fall, Kelly Ralston thought as she turned right on Market and headed toward the bridge. The proud old woman would hate feeling so exposed. Coeur Volé had been built a hundred years ago, but even then it had been designed for privacy. And that was long before Sebastian’s accident, Mr. Mellon’s death or Sophie’s…
Long before tragedy knocked on the door of Coeur Volé and apparently moved in to stay.
Even so, Kelly—and probably half the population of Cathedral Cove—never crossed the bridge without slowing down to stare. She did it now, though it was a foggy autumn midnight, not winter, and she couldn’t realistically expect to see anything but shadows.
Lillith Griggs, whose restored Jaguar was right in front of Kelly’s, wasn’t slowing down, though. Lightning Lillith, as her husband teasingly called her, was infamous for collecting the most speeding tickets in Cathedral Cove. Of course, she was a lawyer, so she wiggled her way out of a lot of them.
Suddenly the cell phone tucked into Kelly’s cup holder vibrated noisily.
“Hey, I meant to ask you,” Lillith said without preamble. “Did you hear that Sophie’s checked herself out again?”
“No. Really? Is she back at home?” Kelly maneuvered onto the bridge, keeping close to her friend’s car. In an un-characteristic display of caution, Lillith had asked Kelly to follow her home from the bar where they’d had a late dinner. Lillith was ordinarily the most self-confident person Kelly had ever met. But she’d been getting weird phone calls, she said. And for the past few days, she’d had the feeling someone was following her.
Kelly had a horrible thought. “God, Lily. Are you saying you think Sophie’s been following you?”
“Well, no, probably not. Actually, I’m sorry I even mentioned that. I’m probably imagining it all.” Lillith laughed, and for the first time tonight she sounded like herself. “It’s probably just this spooky feeling of having another person living in my own body. Pregnancy is weird, if you really think about it.”
Kelly laughed, but kept both hands on the wheel. The East River Bridge was steep, and they were reaching the peak. “No, it’s not. It’s perfectly normal and wonderful. I can’t wait to hear what Jacob says when you tell him. Promise you’ll call me immediately.”
“I won’t have to. You’ll hear him all the way out to your studio, beating his breast and whooping like the darling dumb jock he is. He’ll be insufferable. He’ll act like his sperm has made a field goal from the fifty-yard line.”
“In a way, it has.” Kelly didn’t pay much attention to Lillith’s acerbic tone. The Griggses had been married six years, and they were silly in love. Kelly had always struggled with a little jealousy, not being very good at the marriage thing herself. And now that there was a Griggs baby on the way…
But just then Kelly caught her first glimpse of the strange, needlelike tower of Coeur Volé piercing the low-lying fog, and she remembered that she had a lot to be grateful for, after all. She might not be as happy as Lily Griggs, but at least she wasn’t cursed.
Her car crested the top of the bridge, just feet behind Lillith’s. Over the phone line she heard Lillith’s sudden intake of breath. “What the hell?”
“What?” Kelly asked, but then she saw it. The stained glass in the highest tower window was glowing. “It’s probably Sophie. She’s always had trouble sleeping, even as a teenager. And now that she spends so much time in institutions—”
She heard a low curse from Lillith’s end, and an ominous, repetitive thumping sound. “Damn it,” Lillith said harshly. “What’s wrong with this damn thing?”
“What?” But suddenly Kelly realized that Lillith’s gasp hadn’t been a reaction to the tower light. She probably hadn’t even seen it.
Something was wrong with Lillith’s car. She was taking the down slope of the bridge much too fast, even for Lightning Lillith. Fog shot from beneath her tires like jet contrails. Her taillights were pulling away, stretching the distance between their two cars.
At the foot of the bridge, hidden at the moment in a blanket of damp silver fog, the road made a sharp right-hand curve to avoid the first of the riverfront mansions. If Lillith didn’t slow down…
“Lily!” Kelly realized she was shouting into the cell phone. But Lillith’s car was still gathering speed, sucked down by gravity, going twice as fast now as Kelly’s. Kelly had to fight the instinct to hit the accelerator, to try to catch her. That would be madness. And yet, it was impossible to accept that there was nothing she could do.
“Lily, for God’s sake, slow down!”
“Damn it.” Lillith’s voice was tight and husky, as if her throat were raw. The thumping sound continued. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“What’s happening?”
“The brakes.” And then Lillith’s voice seemed to come from a distance, and Kelly knew she’d dropped the cell phone. “Damn it, damn it. Catch, damn it. Why won’t—”
“Lily! The hand brake! Pull the hand brake!”
Was that the right advice? Kelly’s mind wasn’t working, didn’t have time to work. Maybe Lillith should turn the car in a circle, or try to use the median to interrupt the momentum—
The red sports car changed lanes, deliberately, Kelly thought. Then it clipped the guardrail of the bridge. Yellow and white sparks flew as the two metals kissed. It helped a little, but they were running out of time, running out of bridge. Kelly began to pray.
At the last minute, Lillith swerved, but it was too late. The car was still going much too fast. Though Kelly was now a hundred yards behind, she felt the shudder as Lillith’s car lifted off the asphalt, bumped over the curb, shot across the smooth green grass of an elegant lawn, and finally rammed headfirst into the scarred trunk of an ancient, unyielding oak.
The car seemed for a horrible instant to be trying to climb the tree, but of course it couldn’t be. The nose of the car collapsed like an accordion, and the air exploded with lightning bolts of broken glass.
And then everything was still.
Kelly slammed on her brakes and tumbled out of her car without even stopping to turn off the engine. She was trying to punch in 911 on her cell phone, but her fingers were like rubber, and she misdialed twice before she got through. She ran, but her legs were shaking so hard she twisted her ankle and had to hobble the last few yards.
“We need an ambulance. There’s been a terrible accident.”
“Where are you?”
She looked around. For a moment she couldn’t think where they were. It was so dark. Everything was foggy and silent, except for the hiss of something coming out of Lillith’s car.
“The bridge,” she managed to say. She stumbled over the curb and dropped the telephone. Somehow she found it again, just in time to hear the voice on the other end asking her which bridge.
Which bridge? This bridge. This cruel, dangerous, deadly bridge. But what was it called? She needed to be more coherent. She had always hoped she was the kind of person who would be good in a crisis. But she felt as if her heart and mind had collapsed, just like the hood of Lillith’s car.
“The foot of the East River Bridge,” she said. “The south side, the Destiny Drive side. She hit a tree. Please. Send someone right away.”
Her toe jammed a boulder half-hidden by the fog. Pain streaked up her shin, and once again she dropped the telephone. This time it clattered against other rocks and disappeared into the fog. Kelly felt the ground for it briefly, but then she heard a sound coming from the Jaguar. A low, moaning sound.
“I’m here,” she called out. She scrambled over wet grass until she finally reached the car.
It was the saddest sight she’d ever seen.
Everything gaped unnaturally, pitifully exposed. The right front headlight had been knocked free and was dangling by wires. Both doors had been ripped open, and the trunk was open, too. Even the glove box had been knocked loose.
