Darlene Scalera - May The Best Man Wed

Savannah asked, Cash’s smile aggravating her.

“You must know by now that what I think is of little importance in this family.”

“Well, I’d like to know what you think.”

“People in love are always fools.” Cash’s amusement was gone, leaving a darkness on his features. A darkness that encouraged the doubts Savannah had been battling since her fiancé ran off. “Do you love my brother?”

She looked into his eyes. “I may not be a woman of passions—”

“On the contrary, Ms. Sweetfield. I think you are exactly that.”

Dear Reader,

Welcome to another wonderful month at Harlequin American Romance. You’ll notice our covers have a brand-new look, but rest assured that we still have the editorial you know and love just inside.

What a lineup we have for you, as reader favorite Muriel Jensen helps us celebrate our 20th Anniversary with her latest release. That Summer in Maine is a beautiful tale of a woman who gets an unexpected second chance at love and family with the last man she imagines. And author Sharon Swan pens the fourth title in our ongoing series MILLIONAIRE, MONTANA. You won’t believe what motivates ever-feuding neighbors Dev and Amanda to take a hasty trip to the altar in Four-Karat Fiancée.

Speaking of weddings, we have two other tales of marriage this month. Darlene Scalera pens the story of a jilted bride on the hunt for her disappearing groom in May the Best Man Wed. (Hint: the bride may just be falling for her husband-to-be’s brother.) Dianne Castell’s High-Tide Bride has a runaway bride hiding out in a small town where her attraction to the local sheriff is rising just as fast as the flooding river.

So sit back and enjoy our lovely new look and the always-quality novels we have to offer you this—and every—month at Harlequin American Romance.

Best Wishes,

Melissa Jeglinski

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin American Romance

May the Best Man Wed

Darlene Scalera

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To the Sisters of the Lake who, when the ship was sinking, threw me a lifeline.

Darlene Scalera is a native New Yorker who graduated magna cum laude from Syracuse University with a degree in public communications. She worked in a variety of fields, including telecommunications and public relations, before devoting herself full-time to romance fiction writing. She was instrumental in forming the Saratoga, New York, chapter of Romance Writers of America and is a frequent speaker on romance writing at local schools, libraries, writing groups and women’s organizations. She currently lives happily ever after in upstate New York with her husband, Jim, and their two children, J.J. and Ariana. You can write to Darlene at P.O. Box 217, Niverville, NY 12130.

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

762—A MAN FOR MEGAN

807—A MAN IN A MILLION

819—THE COWBOY AND THE COUNTESS

861—PRESCRIPTION FOR SEDUCTION

896—BORN OF THE BLUEGRASS

923—HELP WANTED: HUSBAND?

967—MAY THE BEST MAN WED

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

All of Atlanta slept except Savannah Sweetfield. Her feet, resplendent in open-toed Pradas, shoes being her one frivolous passion, click-clicked across the concrete. Her thoughts spoken into the microcassette recorder in her right fist held the same peal of purpose.

“Cathedral flowers?”

“Two dozen urns filled with larkspur and white waxflower branches, fourteen feet tall, front pew to back. Candles on metal stands ringed with lemon leaves and gardenias at aisles. Confirm white candles on altar.”

She jabbed Up for the elevator connecting the underground garage to the Sweetfield corporate offices.

“Champagne?” she asked into the recorder.

“Perrier-Jouet,” she answered herself.

“Crystal?”

“Baccarat.”

The elevator ascended.

“Guests?”

“Double-check Grammy Eta is seated as far away from Auntie Luanne as possible. Have Cousin Charlene keep count of Great-Uncle Pom’s gin fizzes. Check on hotel gift bags for out-of-town guests. Remind—monogrammed gold W on bag or no go.”

The elevator stopped, the doors opened and Savannah stepped out, her staccato steps swallowed by carpet. All was silence as she walked through the reception area, past the offices on the fifteenth floor of Sweetfield’s corporate headquarters. She was the first to arrive. Always.

The click of the record button broke the silence. “Cocktail buffet?”

“Dungeness crab cocktail shooters, iced jumbo prawns, eastern oysters shucked to order, served on cracked ice.”

Her mother had suggested one of the wedding planners renowned in their circle, but Savannah had rejected flat-out the very idea of trusting a complete stranger with the needs and nuances of this event. This was more than a wedding. It was an alliance between old Southern stature and new South self-made standing; a merger between a Goliath of old-guard tradition and a Goliath of modern capitalism. And everybody who was anybody in Georgia had been scrambling for the right outfit and the perfect present since the day the engagement of Savannah Ainsling Sweetfield and McCormick Beauregarde Walker hit Atlanta’s society pages.

Even Savannah’s immediate family had been impressed enough to conceal their surprise that she would be the first of the five Sweetfield offspring to marry. She’d been born somewhere amongst three handsome brothers and a sister whose inherited beauty and charm had secured her place in the world since birth. When nothing else had developed on Savannah except her comprehension of her position in the overall scheme of things, she had realized she’d have to work harder, longer and smarter than any of her siblings just to be more than an afterthought in her family of natural wonders.

Her mother, a woman of complex and contradictory passions, had been most moved by the news of her less-endowed daughter’s engagement. Once bold enough to go by train unescorted all the way to New York City to dance on the stage, Belle Sweetfield had soon found her way back to the bosom of her birth—but not before marrying a Yankee whose canny business abilities, it was politely whispered, had been supplemented by enigmatic resources. Motherhood had swiftly followed, diverting the young beauty’s energies into more conventional channels and sterner standards which now, as she wept, seemed to have culminated in her daughter’s betrothal to a family with land and money and pale skin and blond hair and blood as blue as anyone else’s in Dixie. Savannah had even witnessed, prompted by his wife’s joy, a sheen in the eyes of her father, Jack Sweetfield, a man whose fortune had given the woman he helplessly adored everything except the social acceptance she so craved.