Jennifer Drew - One Bride Too Many - One Bride Too Many / One Groom To Go

Two brand-new stories in every volume…twice a month!

Duets Vol. #59

What could be better than one sexy hero who wants like heck to avoid marriage? How about two? Talented mother-and-daughter writing team Jennifer Drew is back with a hilarious Double Duets with linked stories about bad-boy twin brothers Cole and Zack Bailey—and the women who catch ’em!

Duets Vol. #60

Look for an exciting Western theme in this volume! Silhouette Romance author Gayle Kaye makes her Duets debut with a fun, sassy story. Joining her is new author Anne Gracie who takes us to Montana and gorgeous sheriff J. T. Stone. Enjoy!

Be sure to pick up both Duets volumes today!

www.millsandboon.co.uk

One Bride Too Many One Bride Too Many

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue

One Groom To Go

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

“I suppose it depends on whether she likes you.” As if anyone in her right mind wouldn’t like Cole, she thought.

“Come on, Tess. Teach me some nice-girl rules.”

“Don’t get smashed on the first date?”

“Good point, but if I were stone-cold sober, would you let me practice?”

“Cole, please…” Her heart was racing so hard she was afraid he’d hear it.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Once she would have done anything for a good-night kiss from him. Now she had a chance to see if he lived up to her fantasies.

The flesh around her mouth tingled as he gently touched it with his lips. His tongue slid between her teeth as he covered her mouth, drawing her into the best kiss of her whole dating career.

Dear Reader,

What could be better than one sexy, hunky hard-hat hero who wants like heck to avoid marriage? How about two?

Bad-boy twin brothers Cole and Zack Bailey are about to lose their bachelor status. They need to find nice-girl brides or risk their marriage-minded grandfather’s wrath. It will take two special women to convince these reluctant grooms to head for the altar, and Tess Morgan and Megan Danbury are up to the task!

Cole’s Ms. Right is a face from his past. He makes a deal with Tess for some matchmaking, but his real interest is in the matchmaker! Being reunited with a high school crush is an intriguing fantasy for us (Jennifer Drew is the pseudonym of mother and daughter Barbara Andrews and Pam Hanson) and provided inspiration for Cole’s story.

Then there’s Zack…. From the minute he creates chaos on the set of Megan’s home-repair cable TV show, she’s bothered and bewildered. They, too, strike a bargain…and then the sparks start to fly!

We hope you enjoy the results!

Jennifer Drew

P.S. We love hearing from readers. Please write to us at P.O. Box 4084, Morgantown, WV 26504.

HARLEQUIN DUETS

7—TAMING LUKE

18—BABY LESSONS

45—MR. RIGHT UNDER HER NOSE

For Laura Huff Herring, Jody Myers Berry and Sue Rozman Delia (1960–1998). Nothing finer ever came out of the Motor City.

HE’D EAT SOME CAKE, kiss the bride and look for a virgin, maybe not in that order.

Cole Bailey pulled into a spot as far away from the sprawling Tudor-style building as possible. As an uninvited guest, he didn’t want to make his pickup look conspicuous by using the Detroit country club’s valet service.

This wasn’t where he wanted to be. He’d been crazy to let a coin toss decide whether he or his twin brother, Zack, would be first to buckle under to their grandfather’s unreasonable demand of marriage.

His immediate problem was to figure out a smooth way to crash the wedding reception of his mother’s friend’s niece. He drew a blank on her name, not surprising considering how mad he was at Marsh Bailey, his maternal grandfather and more recently evil nemesis.

The parking lot was crowded with enough high-ticket wheels to stock a ritzy dealership, but that was fine for him. Big receptions meant a lot of the bride’s friends would be looking for a good time. There was nothing like a wedding to make shy girls bold and nice girls naughty. Unfortunately, the last thing he wanted right now was a fling. He wasn’t here for a good time.

Darn! How could the old codger do this to the family? He and Zack had to marry nice girls and settle down, or their grandfather would sell their shares in the family business. That would leave controlling interest in Bailey Baby Products in the hands of strangers on the board of directors. It didn’t really matter to Zack and Cole, because they had great hopes for their construction firm, but their mother would be devastated. The company was her life now, and she ran it as well as her father ever had.

Only an autocrat like Marsh Bailey could believe the company would be better off with a male at the helm. He was deluding himself if he thought marriage would turn any of his three grandsons—the twins and their half brother, Nick—into management material.

Worse, how could Marsh do this to his daughter, his only child? Since their stepfather’s death two years ago, Cole’s mom lived for her job as CEO of Bailey Baby Products. To retain control of the business when her father was out of the picture, she needed votes from the stock that at least two of her sons stood to inherit. Nick was the lucky one. He was still in college, and Marsh hadn’t started pressuring him to get married yet.

Cole rubbed his chin, which was smooth for a change because he’d taken the trouble to shave after work. He shrugged his shoulders, feeling confined by the jacket of his seldom-worn charcoal gray suit. Maybe all the hard manual labor he did trying to make a go of his and Zack’s company had beefed up his shoulders. He ran his finger under the collar of his white dress shirt and loosened his conservative wine-colored tie a little.

He was twenty-eight years old and had spent his whole life trying to prove to his grandfather that he wasn’t like his father, Stan Hayward—not that Cole had ever set eyes on the guy. Marsh had made sure of that. He’d sent Stan packing, threatening him with jail if he came near his pregnant seventeen-year-old daughter again. The Bailey surname was the one listed on the birth certificates.

Cole snorted derisively, but walked toward the clubhouse. He’d lost the flip to Zack with his own coin. He had to be the first to go wife-hunting, and he couldn’t let his mother down—not that she even knew about this marital blackmail.

Marsh insisted his grandsons marry soon, and their brides had to be nice girls, his code word for virgins. Just because Grandad’s own brother had messed up his life by marrying “a henna-haired hooker,” the old man was paranoid about letting a bad girl—or in his daughter’s case, a bad boy—into the family.

Cole stopped to admire one of the finest domestic sports cars ever to roll off the line in the Motor City, but he knew he was only procrastinating. He wanted to go to this reception like he wanted a case of poison ivy. Everything about weddings soured his disposition, especially the necessity of having one himself in the not-distant-enough future.