The Wedding Date Read online

  The handsome stranger knows what to do as The Wedding Date….

  Ceremony: Clamp hand over Emma’s mouth when minister asks if anyone objects to bride and groom being joined in holy matrimony.

  Receiving line: Hold (tight) both of Emma’s hands as she congratulates the woman who stole her fiancé.

  Reception: Realize that he and Emma are kissing like crazy when the bride and groom are too busy cutting the cake to notice.

  Dear Reader,

  Ah, weddings…A blushing bride walks down the aisle toward Mr. Right, the guests’ hearts burst with happiness, their eyes filled with tears of joy, their cameras poised for the big kiss. Until the bride passes one particular guest on her way. Suddenly, all eyes are on the groom’s recent ex-fiancée, and whispers of “poor dear” can be heard above “The Wedding March.

  Well, no one’s going to call Emma Thorpe a “poor dear” in Christie Ridgway’s wonderful novel, The Wedding Date. Invited to her ex-fiancé’s wedding, Emma asks the most handsome stranger she can find to be her date. All the man needs to do is kiss her a few times, dance a few slow numbers—and fall in love with her by the cutting of the cake.

  Britt Kingsley, in Janice Kaiser’s terrific title Just the Way You Are, can’t exactly expect to walk down the aisle anytime soon. Especially because the man she’s in love with doesn’t even know she exists. You see, before Britt ever realized he was Mr. Right material, she pretended to be someone else. And now he’s fallen for the other woman—who’s really her in disguise!

  Next month, look for (extraspecial!) Yours Truly titles by Marie Ferrarella and Lori Herter (see the sneak-previews blurbs in the back of this book)—two new novels about unexpectedly meeting, dating…and marrying Mr. Right!

  Happy New Year!

  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

  The Wedding Date

  Christie Ridgway

  About the Author

  Since I’m a native of California who’s lived within breeze distance of the ocean all my life, it’s no surprise that the hero and heroine of my first book meet on the warm beaches of Southern California. And where there’s an ocean, there’s a bottle with a message inside. As a kid, I always dreamed of finding a message in a bottle, so it was the fulfillment of a fantasy to write The Wedding Date.

  When I’m beachcombing these days, I take along my husband of ten years and my two young sons. Sometimes we bring the puppy, and sometimes we leave him at home with the two cats, thirteen goldfish and assorted crawdads. (My older son wants a llama, but thank goodness we’re not zoned for one!)

  Apart from writing and mothering, I run, read (how I wish I could do both at the same time!) and volunteer at my children’s school. I’m also an active member of two local chapters of Romance Writers of America.

  The Wedding Date is Christie Ridgway’s first novel.

  For Rob, first and always

  1

  An overeager wave reached Trick Webster, and salty foam slid beneath his calves to the small of his back. The water sloshed warm against his chilled skin, still damp from his daily workout. Trick refused to open his eyes or make the effort to move farther up the hardpacked sand. Another wave licked his toes, then something bumped his leg, right at the jagged scar on his upper thigh.

  Trick’s fist shot out, punched the object away. “Damn fool.” He jerked upright, irritated by his own involuntary start and the careless beach goer who’d left behind the object—an empty two-liter bottle of diet cola.

  In the next rush of foam the bottle floated close again, and Trick noticed it wasn’t empty after all. A sheet of neon pink paper lay inside, dry and loosely curled.

  The water sucked the bottle back, but stretching forward, Trick grabbed it, then rose to his feet. He rubbed his palm against the plastic, brushing away strands of seaweed.

  A raspy voice called to him. “Found something there?”

  A few yards away, an old man, sporting a white undershirt, limp khakis and rubber thongs was sweeping his metal detector across the sand. “Whatcha got there?” he asked again.

  “Trash.” Trick held up his find.

  “Recycle place on Third will give you five cents for it.”

  “Yeah?” Trick eyed again the tube of paper inside, but then extended the bottle. “You want it?”

  The old man shook his head. “I’m lookin’ for my own treasure.” He ambled off down the beach, waving the detector like a blind man’s cane. “That one’s got your name on it.”

  Trick grinned at the old guy’s back, then, bottle in hand, turned up the beach toward the nearest trash can. Folks, mark today on your calendars, he thought, still smiling, Trick Webster finds a treasure, an empty diet soda bottle.

  Nearly empty. Trick’s hand hovered over the cavernous drum marked Litter, but his gaze snagged again on the paper.

  “Hell,” he muttered. “It’ll be someone’s blasted grocery list.” But he unscrewed the top and upended the bottle anyway, and tried to shake the paper into his palm. Only a few grains of sand landed on his skin.

  He tried jamming a finger down the neck of the bottle to pry out the elusive sheet. “Damn.”

  The back of his neck prickled, and he turned to find an elderly couple staring at him. He shook his head. What a picture he made, cursing like a sailor and his finger stuck in a bottle like the Dutch boy’s in the dike.

  With an unpleasant tug on his knuckle, he pulled his finger free and dropped the plastic in the garbage drum. To its soft echo, he marched up the beach with determination.

  Ten steps.

  Then he glanced over his shoulder to check his footprints, just a little habit he’d developed during months in physical therapy. Marks in the sand gave irrefutable evidence. He walked his gaze back each step, glad to note that even following a two-mile ocean swim, the footprints showed his gait even and firm.

  His visual survey returned him, smack dab, to the garbage can. What the hell is on that piece of paper?

  In two seconds he was doubled over the trash drum, fishing out the bottle. Five minutes later he stepped from the sand over the beach wall to his tiled terrace, mentally searching each of his kitchen drawers for his wire cutters. Letting himself into his house, he realized he hadn’t felt anticipation like this in a long time.

  He groaned. “Face it, Webster, you’ve hit rock-bottom boredom.”

  A nasal voice responded. “What’s the skinny? What’s the skinny?”

  Trick saluted the flame-hued parrot in the ornate cage in the corner of the living room. “I need something to do, Captain.” Trick always answered the one-legged bird’s questions with all seriousness, mostly because he thought they were asked that way.

  Captain’s tone turned sly. “Polly wants a cracker.”

  Trick rummaged through the “everything” drawer in the galley kitchen. “Then Polly can get herself one.”

  “Polly wants a cracker!” the parrot shrieked.

  “Listen, Captain, I’m not that bored. You’re not Polly and you already got your morning rations.” Trick found the wire cutters in the jar holding wooden spoons and rubber spatulas, of course.

  Captain fell silent, but huffed around his cage, hopping on his one good leg and fluffing out his shoulder feathers. Trick ignored the bird’s moodiness and attacked the plastic bottle. He cut open the plastic, extracted the neon pink paper and smoothed it flat on the granite countertop.

  In black pen, a few feminine lines of textbook cursive handwriting crossed the paper.

  Dear Poseidon,

  I need the perfect man for ten
days—tall, blond and handsome. I’ll do the rest.

  Emma

  Hell, it is a damn shopping list.

  Trick felt disappointed. Nothing new here. Didn’t all women want the perfect man? And didn’t the sharks of the female sex bite the poor schlob at his lowest, least perfect moment?

  “What’s the skinny?” Captain had apparently recovered his temper. “What’s the skinny?”

  “An Emma,” Trick answered. Not a shark’s name. “An Emma who says she’ll ‘do the rest’ but she needs the perfect man for ten days.”

  Captain let out a sympathetic whistle. “Polly wants a cracker,” he mumbled.

  Trick left the letter on the counter and hit the shower, scrubbing the salt from his skin. Fifteen minutes later, dressed in dry swim trunks and rubbing a towel through his hair, he stared again at Emma’s letter to Poseidon. “Tall, blond and handsome,” he read aloud. He met the first two requirements. About the third—

  “What a hunk,” Captain offered in a high pitch. His voice lowered throatily. “She’s foxy.” He drew out the words.

  Trick stared out the living room windows. Emma. He tried to imagine what she’d look like. Fourteen? Forty? No image came to him, but he liked the name. It went with the handwriting. Old-fashioned. And most intriguing, what was “the rest” Emma would do once Poseidon provided the perfect man?

  The scene outside his windows registered. Though still early morning, this was August, and people had already begun claiming space on the sand. Lots of people. “What the heck am I thinking?”

  “What’s the skinny? What’s the skinny?”

  “Emma could be anyone, anywhere.” Trick picked up his house key and tied it to the cinch string of his swimsuit. Maybe he’d find something else to think about on the beach. “Yeah, Captain, I definitely gotta get a life.”

  Trick left the house, out of habit touching the surfboard mounted over his door, his fingers following the unforgettable, jagged tear bitten out of it. He ambled south toward the lifeguard station, weaving in and out through occupied blankets and towels.

  He saw Trickwear all around him—swimsuits, shorts and shirts. Intentionally easy to spot, his Trickwearlogo—a yellow and rage red surfboard with a ragged chomp from the side—sizzled on clothes all over the sand. His clothes. But even that thought gave only distant satisfaction.

  “Hi, Trick.” In a red tank suit, huge straw hat and gangster sunglasses, the lifeguard called down from her perch. “How’s it going?”

  “Hey, Marcy.” The young woman, biceps bulging, was writing on a white board. “Today’s temperature?” he asked.

  “Right now, seventy-six.” She wrote the number in blue.

  “Water temp?”

  “Sixty-eight.”

  “Surf?”

  “One to two feet.”

  Trick sighed. “Marcy, that’s yesterday.”

  “Uh-huh.” The lifeguard continued writing. “And the day before that, and the day before that.” She lifted her head to scan the surf, then went back to her task.

  “It’s getting boring, Marcy.”

  “This is San Diego in August, Trick.” Marcy surveyed the waves again, then pulled her glasses down her nose and looked at Trick with naked eyes. “What’s wrong, Trick? Early retirement getting to you?”

  He dug his toes in the sand. “Maybe so. There’s a reason Uncle Sam doesn’t dole out Social Security until you’re twice my age.”

  “I guess.” Marcy thumbed her glasses back and turned her gaze to the surf. “Your life seems pretty good to me. House on the beach. Leisure time, money…”

  Trick stopped listening. Two beach blankets forward and five to the left a pastel quilt was stretched in the sand. Three of its corners were held down with thick paperbacks. Anchoring the corner closest to him was a pad of paper, its pages ruffling in the sporadic breeze. Neon pink pages. Next to the pad of paper lay a sweating, two-liter bottle of diet cola. The same brand as the mutilated bottle currently atop his kitchen counter.

  It couldn’t be—could it? His bottle could have washed ashore from Ventura or Mexico, for God’s sake. Or Hawaii, for that matter.

  But wasn’t it more likely that…“Hey, Marcy.”

  The lifeguard stopped talking, mouth open, midvowel.

  Trick pointed to the quilt. “You know the person that goes with that?”

  Marcy’s brow furrowed and she pursed her lips. “Um…Woman. In her twenties. Never goes out past her knees.”

  Excitement gave Trick’s pulse a little jump start. “You’ve seen her before?”

  “She’s been around the last two days. I don’t know about before that. I had the weekend off.”

  “You see her now?” Could it possibly be Emma? And if it was, what would he do about it?

  Marcy’s head swiveled as she stared up and down the sand, then at the water. “Nope. Why do you want to know?”

  “Uh…no reason.” What could he say? I’m bored,

  so I’m looking for the woman looking for the perfect man? Hell, if he said that, the next thing he knew it would be all over the sand that Trick Webster was so desperate he was trolling for beach bunnies.

  Which he definitely wasn’t. The last beach bunny he’d hooked up with had taken his ego and his heart when she left. He’d recovered the first.

  He considered pumping Marcy for more about the woman of the quilt, but decided against giving out any more gossip fodder. Beach people knew lifeguards were notorious rumormongers. Instead, he waved goodbye and found himself a spot down the beach, with a clear view of the quilt. He propped his back against the fourfoot wall that separated a pink villa from the sand.

  Homeowners on this stretch of real estate weren’t too crazy about beach goers even leaning on their milliondollar properties, but the couple who owned this house were his friends. They’d invested in Trickwear years ago, and the profits his company had earned them had probably paid for the place.

  Trick relaxed, but kept his eyes on the quilt. The salty, coconut scent of the beach in summer surrounded him, a familiar combination of ocean plus tanning oil, as comforting as bread baking.

  Retirement did have its advantages. A Wednesday in summer, and he had the time to sit on the beach and wait for a woman. He liked the sense of purpose he felt for the first time in the few months since leaving Trickwear behind.

  When the lady of the quilt, pink stationery and diet cola returned, he’d find out if she was Emma. And if she was, he’d also satisfy his curiosity. If a perfect man could be found, why would a woman want him for only ten days? And then…?

  Well, life got boring when it was overly planned.

  The second hand of his dive watch crept around maybe fifteen times before a woman approached the quilt. Emma’s quilt, as he called it in his mind.

  In the right age range according to the lifeguard, the woman trudged through the soft sand. She’d have to pass him to get to the quilt.

  He spotted her magenta fingernails from fifteen paces. She wore a loopy, monogrammed E on the left side of her oversize beach cover-up, à la Laverne from the old “Laverne and Shirley” sitcom. She looked like Laverne, too.

  He suppressed a groan of disappointment. Though he hadn’t really come up with an Emma image, he expected someone delicate and old-fashioned.

  The scent of bubble gum wafted by him as she passed. Maybe I’ll just forget the whole thing.

  And always wonder why Emma needed the perfect man.

  Laverne-maybe-Emma stopped beside the quilt and turned up one magenta-toenailed foot for inspection. She must have stepped on something. Trick rose to his feet and scuffed toward her, searching back through the years for good beach getting-to-know-you lines.

  He came up with a big zero. During his surf-circuit days he’d fallen quickly for Carina and hadn’t needed any. Since then, he avoided sand bunnies like he avoided sand fleas. Once bitten, twice shy.

  “How ya doin’?” Unoriginal but inoffensive, Trick thought.

  The woman dropped her foo
t to the edge of the quilt. “Uh—hello.” Her gaze ran from his face to his feet, then back up. She smiled.

  Would the perfect man tell her she had lipstick on her front teeth? “Are you maybe looking for, uh, something—someone?”

  Her eyebrows rose. A breeze spurted between them and kicked up the hem of her cover-up, revealing her belly—all hugely pregnant inches of it.

  Sweat popped out on Trick’s upper lip. He stumbled back a step. And another. Oh, Emma, he thought. I didn’t even think of this.

  “Ellen! Over here!” Ten towels away, a burly man with a Marine haircut waved.

  Trick’s gaze swung back to the pregnant lady. She smoothed her cover-up over the ripe curve of her stomach. “I’m looking for him,” she said. “But under other circumstances…”

  Trick nodded emphatically, then beat a hasty retreat to his wall. His heart still pumped heavily as he slid down to the sand. Maybe finding Emma isn’t such a good idea. Maybe I should head home.

  And spend all afternoon making up skinny to tell Captain.

  Face it, man, you haven’t been so interested in anything in weeks. Trick settled back against the wall and fixed his gaze again on the pastel quilt and the fluttering stationery.

  Another half hour slowly passed, as slowly as all the minutes had since parting from his business. Friends had said he’d get bored with retirement—and it was looking more and more like they might be right.

  He’d recently vacationed in Hawaii and Australia, but now that he was home he found himself searching for a reason to get up in the mornings. Yesterday, the thought had even niggled at him that if not for the necessary daily workout of his leg, he’d never leave the house.