Arlene James - A Bride To Honor

ARLENE JAMES

grew up in Oklahoma and has lived all over the South. In 1976 she married “the most romantic man in the world.” The author enjoys traveling with her husband, but writing has always been her chief pastime.

Dear Reader,

I knew I was going to like Cassidy Jane Penno, the heroine of A Bride To Honor, from the moment she popped into my mind. Cassidy is pragmatic but charmingly quirky. She is a woman of firm conviction and unconditional love. What’s not to like?

Frankly, I wasn’t so sure about Paul Barclay Spencer. After all, Paul lets himself get into a tricky situation. But Paul turned out to be the finest of men, one who recognizes real treasure, who properly appreciates the rare and the true, a modern man of genuine honor. For Paul, like Cassidy, love runs much deeper than its physical expression, though even he didn’t understand that about himself until it was almost too late.

It is that very principle that stands at the heart of the VIRGIN BRIDES series. We romantics know that true romance is about the depth of reward to be found in the expression of true love, physically and otherwise. Without love, sex is empty and totally self-serving. Within the context of total love and heartfelt commitment, sex is one of God’s greatest gifts to humankind. Cassidy’s innate wisdom tells her this from early on. It’s a truth that Paul has to learn the hard way, but learn it he does, and his reward is A Bride To Honor.

God bless all true romantics,

Chapter One

“I know it’s important,” Cassidy said, righting her red yam wig and dusting off her white, ruffled pinafore. “It’s just that it’s so close to Halloween, and you know this is the busiest time of the year for me.”

William looked as though he wanted to pull his short, expensively styled, yellow blond hair. He took a deep breath, though, and merely straightened his gray silk tie, saying carefully, “That’s why I need this favor.”

Cassidy smiled and took pity on her too-serious brother. “I said I’d outfit him. I just hope he doesn’t want anything too exotic, that’s all.”

William leaned across the glass display case, ignoring outrageous false eyelashes, rubber noses, skull caps and an impressive assortment of warts and moles, to seize his sister by the front of her Raggedy Ann costume. “I don’t think I’m getting through the wig. This is my boss, Cass! He’s desperate. I have personally recommended you. For pity’s sake, don’t let me down!”

Poor William, always in such turmoil, so fearful of being embarrassed by his family. All right, they were a tad...eccentric. But they meant well. Usually. She laid a mittened hand against his cheek and smiled reassuringly, completely forgetting that her own face was heavily painted with drawn-on eyelashes, red circle cheeks and a Cupid’s bow mouth. “I promise, brother dear, Mr. Paul Barclay Spencer of Barclay Bakeries will receive star treatment from me. And we’ll find him a costume that will impress this Betty person and make him feel comfortable at the same time. Upon my honor as your sister.”

William was only slightly mollified. “It’s Betina,” he said pointedly, “Betina Lincoln, though if all goes well she will almost certainly be Mrs. Paul Spencer by spring.”

“And Mr. Spencer will have the family business safely back in family hands again,” Cassidy said to prove that she had been paying attention after all, “and he’ll owe it all to you.” She patted William’s cheek encouragingly. He caught her hand and pushed it down to her side.

“Yes, if you don’t mess up everything. Now will you please, for heaven’s sake, get out of that absurd costume before he gets here?”

Cassidy sighed and reached up to tug off her enormous, red yarn wig with one mittened hand while sketching a cross over her heart with the other. “I’ll abandon Raggedy Ann for my own mousy persona and I’ll come up with the perfect costume for your boss, I swear, something that will win him the heart—and the company shares—of the glamorous, elusive Miss Betina Lincoln. Satisfied?”

William straightened, smoothed his unwrinkled Italian suit and nodded tersely. “Just remember, I’m counting on you.”

She smiled encouragingly, and he gave her his patented, big brother look of near approval. Then on his way out he ruined it by raking his clear green gaze over her costume-clad self and shaking his head as if to ask how such a promising young executive as himself had wound up being the sibling of such a pitiful goon as her. She honestly didn’t know what the problem was. She was a costumer. Costumers by definition designed, sewed and—if they were lucky enough to own their own shops, as she did—stored, displayed, rented, sold and, of course, wore costumes. Who on earth would wear a costumer’s costume if she didn’t wear one herself? Poor uptight William just didn’t always see the correlations in life—except as they pertained to him. Still, she reminded herself, the Penno family was a cross for poor William to bear, and she did not want to add to his burden.

He didn’t understand the divorce their parents had gone through last year, even though it was obvious to Cassidy that, despite thirty-five years of marriage—or perhaps because of it—Alvin and Anna Penno were completely incompatible. He didn’t see that they were both happier on their own or that the failed marriage had nothing whatsoever to do with him or her. She supposed that his association with the Barclay Spencer clan was part of the problem.

That family more than any other of whom she was aware made family and family concerns supreme, especially when it came to the family business, Barclay Bakeries. What must it be like, she wondered, to be part of such a cohesive unit? She supposed it was wonderful, since William seemed to admire and envy them so.

It certainly seemed fitting that Paul Spencer, CEO and general manager of the family bakeries, should many his stepcousin, especially since she had inherited shares of the company from the late Mr. Chester Barclay, Paul’s grandfather. A marriage between the two of them would tie everything up all neat and clean. She couldn’t help wondering, though, why “the lovely and sophisticated Miss Lincoln,” as described by William, was so reluctant to marry Paul now, especially considering that he had broken off a torrid affair with the woman against her will some months ago. It looked to Cassidy as if Betina would be getting everything she wanted with this marriage. But then, perhaps she had misunderstood that portion of her brother’s explanation.

Putting the Barclay bunch out of her mind, she started for the changing room, calling Tony away from the new Arabian Nights display that he was putting together out front. He stuck his head into the circus arena that now defined the second of four showrooms in the shop and waggled an eyebrow at her.

“You called, chérie?” he asked in an affected French accent. A jaunty straw boater was pushed onto the back of his head, revealing the black widow’s peak of which he was so proud. He was Maurice Chevalier today. Yesterday he’d been Clark Gable. Tomorrow, he was sure, he’d be the next great superstar of screen and stage, just as soon as he graduated college and left Dallas behind for Los Angeles or New York. He wasn’t quite certain yet which coast he was going to allow to discover him.

At twenty-five, her own dreams of acting success reshaped into a satisfying career as a costumer, Cassidy felt decades older and wiser than her twenty-year-old clerk/assistant Tony Abatto. She could even admit to a bit of impatience with his posturing and half-teasing passes, while at the same time chastising herself for raining, ever so lightly, on his parade. Let him believe in all-consuming passions and shooting-star careers while he could. He’d find out soon enough that it took more than mere talent to get a break in the business. Meanwhile work awaited, and promises had to be kept.