The Secret Wedding Dress. Roz Fox Denny

      “ I meant to ask about your neighbor, Sylvie. I hear he’s really hot.”

      “Who said that, Kay?” Sylvie Shea stopped cold.

      “You mean he’s not?”

      Sylvie shrugged. “I suppose, if looks are all you care about. He’s a bit of a grouch. Which you’ll discover if I don’t get out there and save his daughter’s cat. He’ll yell at me through an upstairs window and order me to corral my dog.”

      “ Joel Mercer has a daughter? Wow, I don’t think the gals at the nail salon know he’s married.

      A couple of them are drawing straws over him already.”

      Sylvie didn’t mention that she hadn’t seen a wife show up next door. Nor would she admit that Joel Mercer was better to look at than a chocolate fudge sundae. The last thing Sylvie needed was her mother or her sisters to get wind of the fact that she considered her neighbor worthy of a second glance. If Mercer was separated, as she’d begun to suspect, the last thing he needed was to get flattened by the Shea freight train—aka the wedding express.

      Dear Reader,

      Ideas for stories come to writers in different ways. We don’t have (as some people seem to think) warehouses brimming with plots and characters. Ideas pop into my head at odd times—like when I sleep, or travel, or I’m reading a funky weekly newspaper I found in an airport. I never know if a setting will grab me first or a character will. But I’ve learned to take whatever I get, in whatever form it arrives.

      Sylvie Shea and Joel Mercer kicked around in my brain for months. She’s a woman of eclectic talents who once left a small town nestled in the Smoky Mountain foothills and went to the big city, when she imagined fulfilling a lifelong dream. Her hopes dashed, she returns to Briarwood, North Carolina, a changed person.

      He’s a city guy who made his mark in his career, failed at marriage, but wants to raise his daughter in the warm, small-community environment he remembers fondly from boyhood summer visits. That place, too, is Briarwood, North Carolina.

      I confess that it took me too long to see that Sylvie and Joel were meant to find each other. I always knew, however, that Joel’s six-year-old daughter, Rianne, needed the unconditional love and acceptance of an extended family. A family just like Sylvie’s.

      I hope readers reach the same conclusion—that Joel and Sylvie belong together. Sylvie’s sure that after being a bridesmaid thirteen times she’ll never find a love of her own. And Joel, a confident man, a good father, a successful comic strip artist, is equally sure he’s insulated against falling in love. I hope you’ll enjoy discovering that they’re both wrong!

      I love to hear from readers. You can drop me a line at P.O. Box 17480-101, Tucson, AZ 85731. Or e-mail me at [email protected].

      Roz Denny Fox

      The Secret Wedding Dress

      Roz Denny Fox

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Books by Roz Denny Fox

      HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

      1036—TOO MANY BROTHERS

      HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE

      649—MAJOR ATTRACTION

      672—CHRISTMAS STAR

      686—THE WATER BABY

      716—TROUBLE AT LONE SPUR

      746—SWEET TIBBY MACK

      776—ANYTHING YOU CAN DO…

      800—HAVING IT ALL

      821—MAD ABOUT THE MAJOR

      847—THE LYON LEGACY

      “Silver Anniversary”

      859—FAMILY FORTUNE

      885—WELCOME TO MY FAMILY

      902—BABY, BABY

      926—MOM’S THE WORD

      984—WHO IS EMERALD MONDAY?

      999—THE BABY COP

      1013—LOST BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

      1046—WIDE OPEN SPACES

      1069—THE SEVEN YEAR SECRET

      1108—SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME

      1128—THE SECRET DAUGHTER

      1148—MARRIED IN HASTE

      1184—A COWBOY AT HEART

      1220—DADDY’S LITTLE MATCHMAKER

      1254—SHE WALKS THE LINE

      1220—A MOM FOR MATTHEW

      Contents

       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 One

      Through an open window in her sewing room, Sylvie Shea heard car doors slamming, followed by men’s voices and, very briefly, a child’s. Seated on the floor, Sylvie was busy stitching a final row of seed pearls around the hem of an ivory satin wedding dress. The commotion outside, unusual to say the least, enticed her to abandon her project. Her rustic log cabin, nestled into the base of the Great Smoky Mountains, didn’t exactly sit on a highly trafficked street. Not that any street in her sleepy hamlet of Briarwood, North Carolina, could be called highly trafficked, she thought fondly. But because her family reminded her often enough that a woman living alone on the fringe of a forest couldn’t be too careful, she’d better spare a moment to investigate.

      Sylvie didn’t expect anyone with a child for a fitting today. Nor was it garbage collection day. Russ Peabody’s grandson sometimes rode with him in the truck.

      Checking her watch, Sylvie saw she had at least an hour before Oscar, the Great Pyrenees belonging to Anita Moore, was scheduled to be dropped off for grooming. Her Mutt Mobile, as she’d named her mobile pet-grooming service, was Sylvie’s second job; the first had always been making wedding gowns.

      Pushing aside the dress form that held the cream-colored gown, she squeezed her way through eight other forms displaying finished bridesmaids’ dresses for Kay Waller’s wedding.

      An eighth headless mannequin had been shoved into a corner. Sylvie automatically straightened