Marie Ferrarella - A Triple Threat to Bachelorhood

“…a charming storyteller who

will steal your heart away.”

—Romantic Times Magazine

looking up at a young man she trusted more than she trusted anyone else in the world.

It took Melinda a moment to focus back on the present. On the three children clustered around her like chicks around a hen, and on the man standing on her doorstep.

He’d filled out, she thought. A lot. And gotten taller, too. There seemed to be almost a foot difference between them. The thin shoulders were broad now, and the forearms she saw peering out from beneath the rolled-up sleeves were strong and muscular.

It couldn’t be him. And yet, it had to be.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To all the readers who enjoyed the Cutlers, This is Carly’s story

earned a master’s degree in Shakespearean comedy and, perhaps as a result, her writing is distinguished by humor and natural dialogue. This RITA Award-winning author’s goal is to entertain and to make people laugh and feel good. She has written over one hundred books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide and have been translated into Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Polish, Japanese and Korean.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

“So, how long are you going to pretend you don’t know she’s back?”

Carl Cutler looked up from the fresh batch of wanted posters he was tacking up on the bulletin board and fixed the man who was both his boss and his cousin, as well as the sheriff of the thriving though undersize town of Serendipity, Montana, with what he figured was a vague look.

“Who?”

It wasn’t like Carl to be devious, Quint thought. But his young cousin’s demeanor had definitely changed in the last two weeks. It was time to stop standing on the sidelines, waiting for nature to take its course and to give nature—and his surprisingly stubborn deputy sheriff—a little shake.

“Melinda Morrow,” Quint said.

Carl picked up another poster and four thumbtacks. He did his best to sound totally uninterested. “It’s Greenwood now, isn’t it?”

“Was.” It was hard gauging a man’s response when all you had to look at was the back of his blond head. Quint shifted in his chair, trying to get a glimpse of Carl’s face. “She dropped it when she dropped that loser who took her away from here.”

Carl shrugged, pretending that Melinda Morrow hadn’t dwelled on his mind, at least fleetingly, every day for the last seven years. Ever since she’d left town for what she was certain was a far more exciting, wonderful life with Steven Greenwood elsewhere. Elsewhere being anywhere but Serendipity.

It’s too homespun for me, too predictable. I want to feel alive, Carly. Haven’t you ever wanted to feel alive?

He couldn’t tell her when she’d asked then that he felt alive every time she was anywhere nearby. That she was the one who made him feel alive. They weren’t his words to say. Melinda had thought of him as her best friend, her confidant. Someone to tell her secrets to. Like that she was in love with Steve Greenwood and that the two of them were going to “reach for the moon together.” Which meant getting out of Serendipity.

But not out of his heart.

Carl’d tried to shut her out, to forget about her. He’d tried to shed memories of Melinda just as he had shed the last letter of his name. To everyone in Serendipity, he was Carl now, a name he felt was far more befitting a deputy sheriff.

But while the letter was easy enough to leave by the wayside—after reminding everyone in town half a dozen times or so to call him Carl—memories of Melinda were not. They came with the haze that was tucked around his brain when he first woke up each day and snuck back just as he drifted off to sleep each night, giving him no rest.

Damn, but a man shouldn’t be making a fool of himself over a woman he hadn’t even kissed, Carl had upbraided himself more than once. But it never did any good. Because each time he thought he was over Melinda, something would happen to trigger a relapse and he’d have to start all over again, trying to root her out of his life.

He’d allowed himself to be set up with other women by his well-meaning extended family, hoping that something would click, that he’d feel that surge of elusive chemistry that had ambushed each one of his five cousins, bringing them all to the altar in quick succession.

But it never happened. No chemistry, no spark. Just a series of nice, meaningless dates with attractive women that led nowhere.

And now Melinda was back. Back with her children, three adorable kids he’d heard, two girls and a boy, each a carbon copy of the other. Triplets. And they all looked almost exactly like tiny, blond miniatures of Melinda, to hear Wylie Pruitt tell it. The old man was almost a fixture in front of the general store and most of Serendipity passed his way sooner or later. He was better than a newspaper, and more animated. Wylie had given him vivid descriptions of all four of them. It made Carl ache, but that was neither here nor there.

He studied two posters before him, not seeing either. “I know she’s back, Quint.”

“You haven’t said anything.”

Carl looked up sharply. It wasn’t like Quint to prod this way. “Like what?”

Ordinarily Quint could wait almost anything out with the patience of Job, but he sighed now and shook his head. Of his three brothers and one sister, he was the only one Carl had ever confided in about the feelings he had for Melinda. Carl wouldn’t have said anything to him, either, except that Quint had learned how to read him like a book and guessed at the extent of his feelings. It had never been in Carl to lie.

Carl had always been the open one, the one who took an interest in everyone. It wasn’t like him to hold back this way.

“Like you’re going to go over and see her to say hello,” Quint prodded.

Irritation flared, surprising Carl. He didn’t usually get annoyed with anyone, least of all Quint. Banking the foreign feeling, he kept his voice mild.

“Melinda doesn’t need me saying that. Plenty of people in Serendipity can say that word to her. And lots of others besides.”

“Don’t pretend to be thick, Carl, you know what I mean. The way I see it,” Quint said easily, “she needs a friend.”

There was a time when he would have wanted to be everything to Melinda, she’d only have to say the word, Carl thought. But that time was gone. A man had to look out for himself once in a while.

Quint closed the box of thumbtacks, forcing Carl to look at him.

“If she needs a friend, that would be Morgan,” Carl told him, naming his youngest cousin. “They were pretty close once.”

“That would be you,” Quint corrected. “You were closer to her.”

Carl closed the empty folder that had housed the posters, dropping it on his desk. “Not close enough. Otherwise…”