The Bridesmaid's Gifts. GINA WILKINS

      There were things about Aislinn he couldn’t easily explain.

      They reached the doorknob at the same time, his hand landing on top of hers. He should have removed his immediately, but instead he lingered, intrigued by the feel of her. She glanced up at him, their eyes meeting. Holding.

      From the first moment he had seen her, he had been aware of her beauty. He had pushed the attraction to the back of his mind as he had tried to deal with his wariness of everything else about her.

      He removed his hand slowly, letting her open the door for him.

      “Ethan?”

      He glanced over his shoulder. “Yes?”

      “Be careful at the stoplight.”

      “What stoplight?”

      “Every stoplight,” she answered, and closed the door.

      Drawing a deep breath to steady his racing pulse, he proceeded with caution. Yep, there were definitely things about Aislinn that were getting harder to explain….

      Dear Reader,

      I’ve mentioned in previous notes that I don’t always know where my characters are going to take me when I start a book. I usually have an idea in mind, but before long I find them taking the story away from me and sometimes taking it in directions I never envisioned.

      That happened with this book, The Bridesmaid’s Gifts. What I had originally intended as a lighthearted story about a reluctant psychic soon changed into something much more serious. I began to realize how hard it is being “different.” Never quite fitting in. Something we’ve all felt at one time or another, but that my heroine, Aislinn, had been fighting all her life. Add to that a hero with serious trust issues…and the conflict between them took shape. A couple of other characters I’d never expected popped up in the book, as well—one of them taking me completely by surprise as she revealed her role in the tale!

      This book is a little different from my usual fare, but it’s been quite an adventure for me. I hope you’ll be as caught up as I was in Aislinn and Ethan’s quest for acceptance, trust…and most important, love.

      Gina Wilkins

      The Bridesmaid’s Gifts

      Gina Wilkins

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      GINA WILKINS

      is a bestselling and award-winning author who has written more than seventy novels for Harlequin and Silhouette Books. She credits her successful career in romance to her long, happy marriage and her three extraordinary children.

      A lifelong resident of central Arkansas, Ms. Wilkins sold her first book to Harlequin Books in 1987 and has been writing full-time since. She has appeared on the Waldenbooks, B. Dalton and USA TODAY bestseller lists. She is a three-time recipient of a Maggie Award for Excellence, sponsored by Georgia Romance Writers, and has won several awards from the reviewers of Romantic Times BOOKreviews.

      For Kerry

      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 Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter One

      “So you’re the psychic.”

      Aislinn Flaherty had to make a massive effort to hold on to her pleasant expression in response to the drawled comment. She was doing this for her best friend, she reminded herself. Nic was so happy about her engagement, so pleased to be entertaining her future brother-in-law for the first time. Aislinn was going to do everything in her power to get along with him, even though she already suspected that it wasn’t going to be easy.

      “Someone has obviously been pulling your leg,” she said lightly. “I’ve never even pretended to be a psychic.”

      “Hmm.” Ethan Brannon was visibly unconvinced. Whatever he had been told—and Aislinn intended to grill Nic about that when they were alone—he apparently believed that she did, indeed, make claims to some sort of extrasensory abilities.

      She had met Ethan only ten minutes earlier when she’d arrived at Nic Sawyer’s house for this small dinner party. After introducing them, Nic and her fiancé— Ethan’s brother, Joel—had moved into the kitchen to finish the dinner preparations, leaving Aislinn and Ethan to chat in the living room. This was Ethan’s idea of a conversation starter, apparently.

      In an attempt to dispel some of the awkwardness, she moved across the room to an antique buffet in one corner of the room. Nic had set the buffet up as a bar, and had encouraged Aislinn and Ethan to help themselves to a before-dinner drink while they waited. “Can I get you anything?”

      “Yeah, sure. Whatever you’re having.”

      She poured a glass of white wine for herself, a Chivas for him. Carrying both across the room, she handed him his glass. He frowned, looking suspiciously from the drink to her. “Parlor tricks?”

      Sipping her wine, she lifted an eyebrow, then lowered the glass. “I beg your pardon?”

      “I asked for whatever you were having, and you brought me my usual preference. I suppose Nic told you what I like?”

      “Nic and I haven’t talked about what you like or don’t like to drink,” she said, her brusque tone meant to hide a sudden wave of discomfort. “You just don’t look like the white-wine type to me.”

      Still looking at her, he lifted the glass to his mouth.

      Despite the inexplicable antagonism she had felt from him from the start, she couldn’t help noticing that his was a particularly nice mouth. He looked very much like a more sharply planed version of his younger brother. Both had crisp brown hair with a slight tendency to wave, clear hazel eyes and strong chins. Both were just under six feet and solidly built. Yet there was a…well, a hardness about Ethan that seemed to be missing in his more easygoing younger brother.

      Ethan was three years the elder. A self-employed small-business consultant, he lived in Alabama in a house that Nic had told her was rural and rather isolated. This was his first visit to Arkansas, though his brother had lived here for almost two years. Having met Ethan eight months ago, Nic seemed to like her future brother-in-law, but she had admitted that he wasn’t the easiest man to get to know.

      “Joel says Ethan was born grouchy,” she had confided with a laugh. “But he’s actually quite nice.”

      Aislinn was reserving judgment on that.

      “It was generous of you to offer to help Joel and his partner make their clinic run more efficiently,” she said with a determined smile. “They’re both wonderful pediatricians, but Joel claims they’re both a little challenged in the business-management area.”

      Ethan shrugged. “I advised Joel to take some undergraduate business courses, but all he wanted to take were science classes. He spent so much time preparing for medical school that he forgot to prepare for the business of being a doctor.”

      “And