LITMIR.BIZ

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job at Second Chance a few months earlier, replacing Eve D’Allesandro, who had taken off for the south of France with Elizabeth’s employer, the novelist Richard Halstead, sighed and shook her head. “It’s Doreen Nesbit again, isn’t it? You’d think that by the time you got to your third groom, you’d learn to pick one who isn’t a control freak. He’s had her change the table favors three times already.”

      Marylou waved her fire-engine-red-tipped fingers as if erasing Doreen Nesbit from the conversation. “This isn’t about the business—and, no, he didn’t change the favors again. I told him I’d tell Doreen about his little friend who works at the ice creamery on Broad Street if he tried.” She took a deep breath and let it out dramatically. “Here’s the deal, and it’s deadly serious. Chessie has to get married.”

      Elizabeth and Claire exchanged puzzled glances, which left it up to Nick to put his foot in his mouth all by himself: “She’s pregnant? I didn’t even know she was dating anyone.”

      The puzzled glances turned to twin expressions of female disgust.

      “One, husband mine, pregnancy does not mean an automatic walk down the aisle. And two … well, you’re right. Chessie hasn’t had a date since the last time Will set her up and she made us all promise to kill her first if we ever got it into our heads to set her up again.”

      “Are we done?” Marylou asked, adjusting the pearls at her throat. “Ready to get back to the problem? Which means, by the way, listening to me.”

      By this time Will had joined them, and Elizabeth quickly put a finger to his lips before he could say anything. Clearly Marylou was on a mission, and when Marylou was on a mission people with an even cursory sense of self-preservation stayed out of her way.

      “It’s Richard Peters,” Marylou said, and then sighed for dramatic effect. “He called the shop an hour ago. He called last week, but I thought I’d gotten rid of him by saying Chessie moved to Boston and I was the new owner of the shop. Anyway, Missy took the message and was about to deliver it to Chessie when I intercepted her. The child nearly swallowed her gum, which she knows full well she’s not supposed to chew within five miles of the wedding gowns.”

      Will, who happened to also be Chessie’s cousin, slipped his arm around Elizabeth’s waist, which was rapidly disappearing as she was now six months pregnant. “Rick Peters, Marylou? It isn’t an uncommon name. Doesn’t mean it’s him.”

      “What am I missing here? Who’s Rick Peters?”

      “Nick, shhh,” Claire warned quietly. “We’re in the role of audience here.”

      “Rick Peters is the guy who left Chessie at the altar so he could run off and elope with the maid of honor,” Elizabeth whispered.

      “Damn.”

      “Oh, please, Claire,” Marylou said, “you’re being too polite. I can think of much better words. And it is that Rick Peters, Will, because his message was that he wanted Chessie to know he’s moved back to Allentown and he’d like to take her to dinner. The man is scum. And you know what’s going to happen, don’t you?”

      “Chessie might say yes,” Will said, nodding his head as if in agreement with what Marylou hadn’t said. “That’s always been her problem. She’s too damn nice. It’s been six years or so, and I’d still like to bust the guy one in the chops.”

      “We could form a line, and all of us take a shot at him,” Marylou agreed, “but that isn’t going to solve anything.”

      “And getting Chessie married would?” Elizabeth asked, feeling she’d at last gotten a firm grip on Marylou’s strategy. “Isn’t that just a little bit drastic?”

      “Drastic times call for drastic measures,” Marylou pronounced. “Now, it only took me twenty minutes to drive over here, so maybe my plan doesn’t have all the bugs worked out of it yet, but here’s what I’m thinking.”

      “This should be good,” Nick said, earning him a jab in the ribs from his loving wife.

      “We’re all going to find Chessie a prospective groom. All of us,” she stressed, glaring at Nick. “Even you, Will, although you really need to cultivate a more acceptable circle of male friends to draw from, Counselor. Chessie says if she sees another lawyer she’s going to have to hurt you.

      “Anyway, that’s the plan. We keep Chessie so busy with blind dates and discreet setups that she has no time to listen to Rick Peters tell her what a huge mistake he made and how now he wants her back. Because we all know how that works—they always want back what they once had and then tossed away. Men are so predictable it’s almost embarrassing.”

      “He’s divorced?” Claire asked, but then shook her head. “Never mind, of course he is. I won’t even ask how you know that, Marylou. Sorry for the interruption. Go on, please.”

      Marylou smiled, rubbing her palms together as she neatly stepped into the role of general of this campaign she’d concocted. “Peters isn’t just visiting. He’s back to stay. Which means we have to get Chessie settled, sooner rather than later. Agreed? We’ll call it TBP—The Bride Plan. Each one of us produces a prospective groom. We’ll make up a schedule so we don’t accidentally double book Chessie for the same date. If we find enough of them, one of them is bound to stick, right?”

      “Like bubble gum to a wedding gown,” Elizabeth said quietly.

      “She’ll thank us one day,” Marylou said, her smile now only slightly apprehensive. She looked at her friends for reassurance. “Won’t she?”

      Chapter One

      Chessie Burton turned the sign in the window from Open to Closed and wearily began making her way toward the stairs to her apartment, situated above Second Chance Bridal and Wedding Planners.

      Eight months had all but flown past since Chessie and her friend Marylou had decided they’d expand Chessie’s business by also offering wedding-planning services to their clients.

      The logic had been unassailable.

      First-time brides often took a year or more to plan their weddings; they had family and lots of pals to help them make their big day perfect.

      Second-chance brides? Not so much. Second-chance brides often had kids, car pools, soccer practice or ballet class, a full-time job and a much shorter time frame between “Okay, let’s do it” and “I do.” This was why Chessie always maintained such an extensive in-stock bridal-gown selection; ordering in a gown that might take six to twelve weeks to arrive often didn’t work well for second-chance brides.

      So, in theory, branching out to wedding planning had seemed a great idea. Marylou could be very persuasive, and thanks to her husband Ted’s considerable wealth and eagerness to please his wife in all things, financing the project had been no problem.

      In practice, however, the idea had turned into a case of too much of a good thing. Chessie and Marylou had found themselves pretty much on call 24/7, which didn’t make Marylou’s husband all that happy, and Chessie was spending entirely too many nights sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of her TV, dealing with trays of sugared almonds and net doilies and tiny little bows and a hot-glue gun.

      It was great that Elizabeth had stepped in to replace Eve, and Missy, their teenage part-timer, had shown a remarkable talent for concocting spreadsheets that kept each wedding’s to-do list organized and up-to-date. Berthe, longtime Second Chance Bridal seamstress, had volunteered to help out on the sales floor as well, and Marylou often seemed to be everywhere at once, putting out small fires before they could become conflagrations.

      But none of that got the boxes and boxes of supplies out of Chessie’s apartment, her beloved private sanctuary, and she had adamantly refused to relocate somewhere other than the huge Victorian home she had bought and furnished and simply adored.

      Chessie waded through the crowded living room, eyeing the boxes holding three new albums of

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