Christine Flynn - Prodigal Prince Charming

THE CAMELOT CRIER

ABOUT TOWN: Newport News, Virginia

Recipe for Romance?

Camelot’s most infamous playboy has developed a sweet tooth. Cord Kendrick, second son of the Kendricks of Camelot, has been seen in the company of caterer Madison O’Malley. The innocent beauty, best known for her heavenly muffins, is a departure from the models and starlets Cord is known for romancing, and Newport News is a far cry from the jet-setting bachelor’s favored haunts. Although the Kendrick family has offered no comment on the simmering romance, sources say Cord has been seen spending an awful lot of time not only with Madison, but with her family, as well—a sure sign that things are heating up in any relationship. But is this sweet-as-sin chef more than Cord’s latest indulgence?

Dear Reader,

We’re smack in the middle of summer, which can only mean long, lazy days at the beach. And do we have some fantastic books for you to bring along! We begin this month with a new continuity, only in Special Edition, called THE PARKS EMPIRE, a tale of secrets and lies, love and revenge. And Laurie Paige opens the series with Romancing the Enemy. A schoolteacher who wants to avenge herself against the man who ruined her family decides to move next door to the man’s son. But things don’t go exactly as planned, as she finds herself falling…for the enemy.

Stella Bagwell continues her MEN OF THE WEST miniseries with Her Texas Ranger, in which an officer who’s come home to investigate a murder fins complications in the form of the girl he loved in high school. Victoria Pade begins her NORTHBRIDGE NUPTIALS miniseries, revolving around a town famed for its weddings, with Babies in the Bargain. When a woman hoping to reunite with her estranged sister finds instead her widowed husband and her children, she winds up playing nanny to the whole crew. Can wife and mother be far behind? THE KENDRICKS OF CAMELOT by Christine Flynn concludes with Prodigal Prince Charming, in which a wealthy playboy tries to help a struggling caterer with her business and becomes much more than just her business partner in the process. Brand-new author Mary J. Forbes debuts with A Forever Family, featuring a single doctor dad and the woman he hires to work for him. And the men of the CHEROKEE ROSE miniseries by Janis Reams Hudson continues with The Other Brother, in which a woman who always contend her handsome neighbor as one of her best friends suddenly finds herself looking at him in a new light.

Happy reading! And come back next month for six new fabulous books, all from Silhouette Special Edition.

Gail Chasan

Senior Editor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Christine Rimmer, a wonderful writer and dear friend,

with thanks for the title of this book!

admits to being interested in just about everything, which is why she considers herself fortunate to have turned her interest in writing into a career. She feels that a writer gets to explore it all and, to her, exploring relationships—especially the intense, bittersweet or even lighthearted relationships between men and women—is fascinating.

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

“Madison O’Malley, this here’s the nicest thing anybody’s done for me all week.” Grinning like a young boy, the burly construction worker tipped back his hard hat and swiped a fingerful of frosting from the cupcake in his hand. The flame flickered and danced on the small candle stuck in the fluffy chocolate. “I can’t believe you remembered.”

“She remembers everybody’s birthday,” the rangy welder on his right informed him. “The cupcake she baked me for my birthday even had sprinkles on it.”

“Yeah? Did she put your name on it, like she did mine here?”

The shorter man nodded at the white icing loops that spelled out Tiny.

“She sure did. Didn’t you, Madison?”

“I sure did, Jake.” Madison’s smile came easily, her brown eyes sparkling with the pleasure it gave her to make one of her customer’s day just a little special. She baked birthday cupcakes for all the customers on her route, once she got to know them, and she always put their name and a candle on the little treat. “I just didn’t know if you liked chocolate or carrot cake better. If you’ll tell me, I’ll remember for next year.”

Tiny told her that what she’d given him was just fine, and walked off, still grinning.

The welder she knew only as Jake took a cellophane-wrapped muffin from the display on the side of the gleaming silver catering truck and handed her a dollar.

“Morning, Madison.” Another of the forty customers crowding toward her held out a five. “I’m taking two poppy seed and a banana.”

“I have coffee and a ham-and-cheese roll here,” a voice from behind him announced.

“Same here.” Another worker, this one unfamiliar, took Jake’s place. He handed her two five-dollar bills. “That’s for me and Sid back there.”

Madison glanced at the front of the newcomer’s white hard hat. Buzz was written in felt pen on the strip of masking tape centered above the brim.

“Thanks, Buzz.”

Having been acknowledged by name, the new guy smiled and stepped back to be swallowed by the forward surge of others wanting to make the most of their morning break.

“Hey, Madison! Do you have those carrot-cake muffins today?’

“She only does those on Tuesday and Friday,” someone replied for her. “Today is zucchini and poppy seed.” Another dirty hand bearing dollar bills appeared through the sea of worn denim and work shirts. “I took one of each.”

A machinist with a streak of grease on his cheek held out a ten. “Same. And orange juice.”

Taking the men’s money, she made change from the small black pack she wore around her waist. The carefully arranged rows of muffins and cheese rolls she had baked herself that morning were quickly disappearing, along with iced cartons of juice and milk and gallons of coffee from her catering truck’s built-in urn.

She didn’t mind the dirt on the men’s hands and clothes. Most of the welders, electricians, steelworkers and laborers at this construction site—like the stevedores and dock workers she would feed next on her route—were salt-of-the-earth, hardworking men who knew the value of even harder work. They were much like the people in the neighborhood where she’d been born, still lived and would probably die. Some were even from her neighborhood, the Ridge, as those who’d grown up in Bayridge, Virginia, called it. So were some of the guys on the dock. She was one of them. She knew the value of hard work, too. Day in and day out. She couldn’t imagine living her life any other way.

“Hey, Madison.” The deep, self-conscious voice came from beside her. “What are you doing this Friday night?”

Her smiled moved to the strapping steelworker who’d asked the same question three weeks running. Eddie Zwicki was tall, cute, built and probably only a year or two younger than her own twenty-eight years. “Going to bed early. I have to get up to shop and clean my truck on Saturday so I’m ready for you guys again next week.”