Trish Wylie - The Bridal Bet

He folded his arms across his broad chest and waited.

“I mean, you and me—a couple? Who’s gonna believe that?”

He sighed. “Molly—”

“And to suggest that we’d ever be able to fool anyone—I mean, there are days we have difficulty just getting on well enough to still like each other as friends!” She started pacing in front of him.

He sighed again. “If you’d just—”

“We’d have to be able to look at each other without sniggering every two minutes. And as for the kissing thing—” She stopped pacing long enough to waggle a finger at him. “You do realize if we were actually dating we’d be expected to kiss and—well, other stuff like that….”

There was a deadly silence as they stared at each other in shock. Ryan swallowed hard. “I know that—”

Trish Wylie resides in the lakeland border county of Fermanagh in the north of Ireland. She splits her not-long-enough days between five horses, three dogs, writing and her fiancé, in roughly that order. (Though writing only comes third because the first two can’t feed themselves.) She started writing in primary school, about imaginary people who lived on an island sponge in the middle of the bathtub, and has wanted to write for Harlequin® since she read her first romance novel in her early teens. She first tried writing romance when she was about seventeen, but realized that it might be an idea to fall in love and have her heart broken a few times before she attempted writing about it.

Always a little in love with her heroes, Trish prefers that, as in real life, they have a sense of humor. She likes to believe that these men are just around the corner!

Harlequin® is thrilled to bring you Trish Wylie’s first book for Harlequin Romance®. We’re sure you’ll enjoy her lyrical voice and warm, passionate characters. In The Bridal Bet you’ll meet Molly O’Brien and Ryan Callaghan, two friends with a lot of past…and an unexpected future!

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For all the old “Lisburn Crowd.”

We turned out okay in the end, didn’t we?

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

‘YES, I am still standing at the bottom of the ladder, and yes, I am looking straight up your dress.’

Ryan grinned and tried valiantly to avert his gaze. It wasn’t easy. Molly O’Brien had great legs; he had never argued with that. In all his years as her nemesis, friend and elder brother figure he had never once been blind to her good points or her bad. The moment he glanced upwards he was awarded an eyeful of two of those good points….

‘Callaghan, the moment I get down from here, you die.’

‘Are you threatening to fall on me? ’Cos I should warn you, your wee body falling on me isn’t likely to kill me outright. Now, if you were to be up a few feet more you might knock me out, but from where you are the best you’re likely to do is bruise me a little.’

Molly laughed out loud, despite her best efforts not to. ‘A good bruising would do you no harm, buster!’

‘That’s right, treat me rough, Moll. I can take it.’ An obliging breeze lifted the edge of her dress and Ryan was forced to swallow hard as his eyes caught a glimpse of white lace. He felt an irritating warm flush cross his cheeks. ‘Haven’t you got that stupid creature yet?’

She stretched her fingers out an extra inch and was rewarded with the touch of soft fur. ‘Good kitty, come to Mammy…ha!’ She pulled him towards her chest. ‘Gotcha. Next time you climb on the porch, Houdini, you can darn well get down on your own, and then I won’t have to have that lump down there look where he shouldn’t—you hear me?’

Ryan held the ladder patiently until she hit terra firma. Then he grinned a lop-sided grin at her. ‘I could hear that, y’know.’

Molly tilted her head to look up at him. ‘Mmm, you were supposed to. How anyone over six foot two can possibly have vertigo stuns me. If you were any sort of a gentleman you would have gone up there to rescue Houdini yourself instead of sending me up there!’

‘I hate heights—you know I hate heights. And I still maintain if you didn’t keep rescuing that stupid beast every time he gets stuck then he would soon learn how to get out of these messes on his own.’

She stuck her tongue out at him, then laughed. ‘You always bring out my mature side. It’s one of your less endearing qualities.’

Ryan bent down until his nose almost touched hers, his breath fanning her face. ‘Molly, all my qualities are endearing. You just haven’t noticed that yet.’

‘You wish!’

After lifting the ladder down he stored it away beneath the porch, before following her inside the house they had been sharing for almost six months. As pretty much his best friend, Molly had been Ryan’s sparring partner for as long as he had known her, and he had to admit it was fun spending time with her again. Almost like being kids again—well, almost.

Turning a pine stool around to sit astride at the breakfast bar, he watched as Molly moved around the kitchen. She was the same Molly he had known for nearly fifteen years, and yet since she’d come home from the States she was different somehow. Lately he’d found himself watching her, trying to see what it was.

With her back to him as she filled the kettle with water, she felt the hair prickling on the back of her neck and smiled softly. ‘You’re staring again, Callaghan.’

‘Who, me?’

‘Yeah, you.’

‘You know, you’ve really got to stop this ego trip. Thinking I have nothing better to do with my time than stand and stare at you.’

Turning the kettle on, she glanced at him from the corner of her eye. ‘Sit and stare, you mean.’

She moved to lean her back against the counter top, folding her arms across her chest before awarding him one of her patented ‘don’t kid me’ glares. ‘And it’s not the first time this week. What’s up?’

Ryan plastered his best innocent look across his face and blinked at her with dark eyes. ‘What do you mean, what’s up? There’s nothing up. Am I not allowed to look at you now?’ Green eyes narrowed suspiciously as she watched his little act. ‘You are such a bad liar, Callaghan. Come on, spill it….’

‘Spill it? Ah now that would be one of those quaint American sayings of yours, would it? I make that about the twentieth one you’ve used this week.’

‘Don’t change the subject.’

‘I’m not. I’m just saying, that’s all. How long do you think it’ll take to make you Irish again after spending six years going all Yank on us?’

Molly unfolded her arms and slowly moved across the room to face him over the breakfast bar. ‘I have always been Irish and I will always be Irish, you great rat, and you know it!’

He leaned towards her. ‘Now, Molly O’Brien, did you just go calling me a rat again?’ His dark eyebrows raised in question as his eyes shone at her. ‘Because you know that would be the third time today you’ve done that, and that would mean you owe me.’

Her eyes widened and then closed as she shook her head. He had been teasing her about her new accent and her Americanised ways ever since her return. He knew how riled she got at the taunts. ‘I don’t believe you. You tricked me into losing a bet and now you’re going to gloat, aren’t you?’