LITMIR.BIZ

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smiled, amazed at how much relief she felt that her adoptive parents weren’t behind the fact she was sitting in this lawyer’s office. Couldn’t possibly be behind it.

      “I guess,” she said thoughtfully, “not even Mr. and Mrs. Conroy Patterson are rich enough to clone people. Not that I think they’d want to clone me.”

      “Why not?” Abby, the one in the navy blue dress that looked like something a nun would choose, asked with mild indignation.

      So, Brittany thought, and nestled deeper into the warmth creeping through her, this is what it meant to have a sister. Abby didn’t even know her, and it was evident she chose to believe the best of her, anyway.

      But about getting married—

      The door to the lawyer’s office whispered open behind her. Brit glanced over her shoulder, and felt her eyes widen.

      If that’s what appeared when you even thought about getting married in a place called Miracle Harbor, then she was all for it, after all.

      He was gorgeous. The proverbial tall—at least six feet of him—dark—crisp black hair and olive-tinted skin—and handsome—slanting brows, straight nose, sensual lips and strong chin. Add to that the fact that his conservative clothing did nothing to hide a lean body that rippled with easy male strength.

      Then she noticed his eyes and felt her heart would tumble from her chest. They glittered wickedly, an impossible shade of blue, almost aquamarine, framed in a sooty abundance of spiky lashes.

      Those eyes met hers, and held, coolly professional, and yet just beneath that look lurked something else. Something wildly intriguing…a hint of the untamed, a suggestion of potent male strength, a shadow of leashed sensuality.

      In fact, despite the impeccable cut of the white linen shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, the silk tie, loosened slightly, she thought he’d look very at home with those long, muscled legs wrapped around a big black, silver-chromed engine-growling motorcycle, or a plunging wild-eyed stallion or—

      She felt the heat rising in her cheeks, and looked swiftly away from him.

      “My son,” Jordan Hamilton murmured by way of introduction, “Mitch.”

      “Dad, I just have the Phillips’ contract I need your signature on.”

      His voice was like raw silk caressing heated skin, and Brit shivered as if he had touched her. She felt almost panicked by the attraction she felt to him, curbed her urge to drink him in, and studied her fingernails instead until he had left the room.

      “Now,” the elder Mr. Hamilton said apologetically, “about the bakery…”

      She tried to keep her mind from wandering out of the room with the intriguing younger Mr. Hamilton. Frankly a bakery wasn’t even remotely close to what Brittany was looking for. Something in public relations had seemed more her line, or marketing. Or being the buyer for a posh clothing store. Something like that. A fun job where she had an expense account and a clothing allowance and flew to Paris and Milan on a regular basis.

      But since not one of the companies where she had applied for such positions had even had the courtesy to call her back, she’d have to use a dumb bakery to show everyone just what she could do, to live up to the faith in her that she saw shining in her sisters’ eyes.

      An hour later, she was walking arm and arm with her sisters, reveling in the looks of delighted surprise they attracted from the citizens of Miracle Harbor as they sashayed down the main street.

      A main street out of a picture book. White-capped waves crashing against a sandy shore on one side of the street, lovely old brick buildings, with colorful awnings lining the other.

      “This won’t be such a terrible place to spend a year,” she decided, out loud. “It’s cute and quaint. Perfectly adorable. And being here with you, with my sisters, and getting a chance to know you…” she sighed happily without finishing the sentence.

      “You seem to be forgetting the husband part,” Corrine pointed out, sourly. Corrine was dressed in blue jeans with a rip in the knee and a denim jacket faded nearly white.

      “Oh, pooh, people get married all the time for less than romantic reasons. I doubt any of the couples my parents know got married because they loved each other. Certainly my parents didn’t.” Nothing in her tone of voice revealed a little girl who had ached for authentic love, the only gift her wealthy parents had seemed incapable of giving.

      “I think that’s sad,” Abby said softly, just as if she had glimpsed that little girl despite Brittany’s carefully measured tone.

      “It’s realistic,” Brittany said quickly, and added with a devilish wink, “If I like my bakery, I’ll put an ad in the paper—Husband Wanted. Must be tall, dark and handsome. Something like that gorgeous lawyer who came into the office to get something signed. What was his name?”

      As if she would ever forget. But if Brit had a talent it was for not letting people know exactly what she really felt, a talent for never being too vulnerable. It seemed to her it might be unnecessary to protect herself from her sisters, but on the other hand, old habits died hard, and in this one area she always chose to err on the side of caution.

      “I think it was Mike,” Corrine said.

      “No, it wasn’t,” Abby corrected her. “Mark.”

      “Well, definitely an M,” Brit said, secretly delighted that neither of her sisters had apparently seen him as a prospect.

      “I’ll move here for a year to get to know both of you,” Corrine said, “but I can’t just drop everything and come. It will be at least May before I can get here. And I’m not getting married because someone tells me I have to. Forget it.”

      “I’ll help you find a husband you like,” Brittany said cheerfully, “but first we’ll have to lose the jeans. You’d look wonderful in Ralph Lauren because,” she giggled, “I do.”

      And then she laughed at Corrine’s dark expression. She squeezed her hand, and was rewarded with a small smile that allowed her to glimpse the sweetness of her sister Corrine’s spirit.

      It seemed to Brittany that Abby and Corrine’s love was wrapping around her, an unconditional gift she had done nothing to earn, and it was as soft as the fragrant mist off the sea.

      She felt she had never been so happy, so full of hope, so excited about life and all its wonderful possibilities.

      She looked up at the bronze numbers over the businesses, and felt herself holding her breath. 201, 203, 205…

      Then, she saw the bakery. Her bakery.

      Chapter One

      Two months later…

      “Just a minute,” Brittany called, when the knock came on her apartment door, again. She looked in the full-length mirror in her bedroom, oblivious to the unmade bed, the scattered clothing, the open makeup pots.

      “I look awful,” she wailed. “Awful.”

      The knock came again, firm, unrelenting. She ignored it.

      It was hopeless. The bridesmaid’s dress was peach chiffon. Sleeveless, it fit her like a dream, swirled around her trim figure, showed off the slender length of her legs, the swell of her bosom, the curve of sun-kissed shoulders. The dress was perfect.

      And her makeup was perfect, too. Her high cheekbones accentuated, the blue-gold of her eyes shown off, her lips looking dewy and wet, her skin golden peach.

      Her long hair, expertly highlighted so that it glittered with threads of gold and wheat and honey, was piled up on top of her head, just the odd wild tendril allowed to escape.

      She looked absolutely stunning, in every way, and it was spoiled, totally ruined by one disastrous detail. Paint.

      Pink paint.

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