A Proposal at the Wedding Read online

  You are cordially invited…as the bachelor father of the bride falls for the sweet and single wedding planner! Don’t miss the latest installment of Gina Wilkins’s new Special Edition miniseries, Bride Mountain!

  It’s the perfect place for a wedding…and Paul Drennan’s lovely daughter will make a beautiful bride. But Bride Mountain Inn co-owner Bonnie Carmichael only has eyes for the father of the bride. Too bad she’s already married—to the inn itself. Still, if anyone could make her think of her needs, her wants, it’s this sexy single dad….

  Marrying off his only child, Paul can taste freedom for the first time in two decades. What’s not on his agenda is falling for a young woman with commitment for a middle name. The only aisle Paul wants to walk is on the arm of his daughter…until spending time with Bonnie makes him rethink his future plans. After all, the strangest things happen at weddings….

  She hadn’t planned to go this far.…

  But she didn’t want to bring the night to a close. For the first time she wasn’t thinking about the future, about the inn. This night belonged solely to them—to her—and she wasn’t ready for it to end.

  Paul cleared his throat. “Maybe I should go.”

  “Why?”

  “I think you know why.”

  She told herself he’d ask her out again and maybe they’d finish what they’d started. Or maybe they could just finish it now, she thought, nibbling his lips. She felt a quiver run through him.

  “I’m a big girl, Paul. I haven’t had a vacation in three years. I have a rare few hours for myself, and a very handsome, occasionally charming man with whom to spend them. Now, I could light a candle and we could play gin rummy, or we could adjourn to my bedroom with no strings and no regrets.”

  His smile flashed in the dim light. “Well, when you put it that way….”

  * * *

  BRIDE MOUNTAIN:

  Where a trip down the aisle is never far away…

  Dear Reader,

  Nothing in this life stays the same for long. Seasons pass, we change jobs and homes, friends and loved ones move away or pass on, our children grow up, move out, begin their own lives. As I complete this book, school has just started again in central Arkansas, making me nostalgic for the days when my now-grown son and two daughters were young and living at home. I miss those days of back-to-school shopping and school programs and recitals. They grew up so quickly! Now my daughters are living on opposite coasts while pursuing their postgraduate science and medicine career training, and my son lives in his own apartment as he completes med school. A great son-in-law and adorable little grandson have joined our family to the delight of my husband and myself, reminding us that change can be very good.

  In A Proposal at the Wedding, Bonnie Carmichael and Paul Drennan find themselves facing a few of those major life changes. As co-owner and proprietor of a Virginia Blue Ridge Highlands bed-and-breakfast inn, Bonnie is trying to figure out how to fit a social life—and a new romance—into her busy work schedule. As his daughter prepares for her wedding, single dad Paul finds himself with an empty nest for the first time since he became a father—at only eighteen! Should he take full advantage of his carefree bachelorhood—or is he ready to start a new life with irresistible Bonnie Carmichael? I enjoyed exploring their reactions and adjustments to these big changes in their lives, and I hope you are entertained by their romantic journey at Bride Mountain Inn.

  Gina Wilkins

  A PROPOSAL AT THE WEDDING

  Gina Wilkins

  Books by Gina Wilkins

  Harlequin Special Edition

  ∆A Home for the M.D. #2123

  ∆Doctors in the Wedding #2163

  Husband for a Weekend #2183

  His Best Friend’s Wife #2206

  The Right Twin #2248

  The Texan’s Surprise Baby #2261

  A Match for the Single Dad #2272

  §Matched by Moonlight #2306

  §A Proposal at the Wedding #2319

  Silhouette Special Edition

  *The Family Plan #1525

  *Conflict of Interest #1531

  *Faith, Hope and Family #1538

  Make-Believe Mistletoe #1583

  Countdown to Baby #1592

  The Homecoming #1652

  ΩAdding to the Family #1712

  ΩThe Borrowed Ring #1717

  ΩThe Road to Reunion #1735

  The Date Next Door #1799

  The Bridesmaid’s Gifts #1809

  Finding Family #1892

  The Man Next Door #1905

  The Texan’s Tennessee Romance #1954

  ¤Diagnosis: Daddy #1990

  ¤Private Partners #2027

  ¤The Doctor’s Undoing #2057

  ¤Prognosis: Romance #2069

  ∆The M.D. Next Door #2092

  Harlequin Books

  Special Edition Bonus Story: The Anniversary Party—Chapter Five

  Silhouette Books

  Mother’s Day Collection 1995

  Three Mothers and a Cradle

  “Beginnings”

  World’s Most Eligible Bachelors

  Doctor in Disguise

  Logan’s Legacy

  The Secret Heir

  ΩFamily Found

  *The McClouds of Mississippi

  ¤Doctors in Training

  ∆Doctors in the Family

  §Bride Mountain

  Other titles by Gina Wilkins available in ebook format.

  GINA WILKINS

  is a bestselling and award-winning author who has written more than seventy novels for Harlequin. 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 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 RT Book Reviews.

  For my writing friends,

  who commiserate the dark days, celebrate

  the good days, and are always there with encouragement and the occasional crack of the whip.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Excerpt

  Chapter One

  The farmers’ market bustled with shoppers on this warm Tuesday morning in early July. Bonnie Carmichael browsed the outdoor displays of fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs, occasionally making purchases and adding the bounty to the increasingly heavy canvas bags dangling from her arms. She should have brought her little wheeled market trolley, she thought with a shake of her head. She’d told herself that not having it with her would make her less likely to purchase too much, but instead she was simply juggling bulging bags.

  She loved visiting the farmers’ market, surrounded by the bright colors of fresh produce, cut flowers, handcrafted pottery and jewelry, the scents
of fresh-baked bread and pastries, the sounds of chattering shoppers and busking musicians. The market was even more active on Saturdays, but it was hard for her to get away on weekends from the bed-and-breakfast she co-owned and operated with her two older siblings. She was the chef at the inn, so shopping was both her responsibility and her pleasure. She came to the market regularly enough that most of the vendors knew her by name.

  She was chatting with a local organic farmer, lifting a plump heirloom tomato for an appreciative sniff, when someone bumped hard against her arm, having been jostled by someone else in the milling crowd. The tomato fell to her feet with a squishy thump.

  “I’m so sorry,” a man said immediately, his voice coming from approximately a foot above her head. “Are you okay?”

  She looked up to assure him no harm was done, but felt the words freeze on her tongue when she recognized Paul Drennan.

  This just couldn’t be happening again.

  Twice, Bonnie had run into Paul—literally—at the inn in the Virginia Blue Ridge Highlands. The first time she’d met him, in May, she’d carried a box of stainless steel wine bottle stoppers that had scattered around her when she’d landed on the floor. He’d been with his twenty-one-year-old daughter, Cassie, who was planning an August wedding on the grounds of the inn, and Bonnie had been mortified to crash into a client. The second incident a few weeks later had been his fault; he’d been talking over his shoulder while walking and had barreled into her, though she’d managed not to fall that time.

  It should have come as no surprise that the next time she encountered him, only a couple of weeks later, it would be with another collision. Or that once again she was as jarred by her immediate and powerful attraction to him as by the physical contact. Something about this man had taken her breath away the first time she’d looked up at him from the floor where she’d landed. She’d felt a spark between them when he’d offered his hand to help her to her feet, a clichéd reaction she hadn’t expected, but had seemed very real, all the same. Apparently, nothing had changed. Her pulse tripped again in response to seeing him here.

  Beneath a thick shock of dark auburn hair touched with a few white strands at the temples, Paul’s jade-green eyes lit with a smile that meandered more slowly to his firm lips, drawing her attention there. “If this keeps happening, you’re going to file a protection order against me,” he said in the deep voice she remembered so well from those other two brief meetings. She’d heard it a few times in her daydreams since, she thought sheepishly. “I swear I’m not actually targeting you.”

  “I believe you,” she assured him with a weak laugh. “It is getting rather funny, though, isn’t it?”

  Using a paper towel given to him by the vendor, he quickly cleaned up the half-smashed tomato. “I’ll pay for that one,” he promised the good-natured farmer, who waved off the offer.

  Handing some bills to the vendor, Bonnie accepted a bag of pretty little multicolored heirloom tomatoes in exchange. When she fumbled a bit with the new bag, Paul reached out to help. “Let me carry a couple of those sacks.”

  He divested her of all but the smallest of the bulging bags before she could even respond. As he did, she smiled up at him—way up. She estimated him to be perhaps six feet three inches, in marked contrast to her own five feet three inches. The flat sandals she wore with her scoop neck mint top and summer print skirt gave her no extra height. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. How’s business at Bride Mountain Inn?” Paul asked as he shuffled with her through the throng to the next booth.

  “The past few weeks have been hectic with June weddings,” she replied. “And July hasn’t slowed down much.” Trying to focus on her reason for being here, rather than the man who’d unexpectedly become her shopping assistant, she examined a crookneck squash in a display basket.

  “Being busy with weddings is a good thing, right?”

  “Absolutely.” Though she’d already bought so much, she couldn’t resist picking out a few squash.

  “Those look good,” Paul said, nodding toward her selections. “I like squash, but I don’t know how to prepare them.”

  “Oh, they’re easy to cook,” she assured him. Her momentary self-consciousness dissipated with this subject she could discuss comfortably. “Very versatile, baked, grilled, steamed or even raw in salads.”

  She didn’t know if Paul had any interest at all in cooking, but he nodded attentively. “I like them all those ways. Just haven’t tried cooking them myself. Do you have time to help me select a few? I’ll look up some recipes online.”

  “Of course.” Speaking briskly and casually, as she would with just anyone who’d asked for her help, rather than a man who happened to make her toes curl in her sandals, she gave him a quick lesson on checking the stems, skin and heft-weight for ripeness and freshness. She watched as he paid for four then stuffed them into his own market bag. A price tag still hung from one strap, making her suspect he’d purchased it when he’d arrived. It appeared to be almost empty.

  Seeing the direction of her attention, he chuckled. “I guess you can tell I’m new at this sort of shopping. My daughter has been lecturing me lately about eating better, so I figured this was as good a place as any to buy a few healthy ingredients. I usually just throw bags of frozen vegetables in the microwave to eat with whatever meat I’ve cooked on the grill. Or I have takeout. But Cassie’s staying with me for the next few weeks until her wedding, so I’m trying to be a little more health-conscious when it’s my turn to cook.”

  “You sound like my brother. If I didn’t cook dinner for him fairly often, he’d live on spaghetti with sauce from a jar, or grilled steaks and microwaved potatoes.”

  Paul’s crooked smile was undeniably charming. “I’ve eaten more than my share of both those meals.”

  Someone cleared her throat rather loudly, making Bonnie aware that she was blocking access to the squash. She’d completely lost track of where she was and what she’d been doing while she’d admired Paul’s smile. Murmuring a quick apology, she moved aside, followed again by Paul.

  He motioned toward a little coffee shop near the market where several outdoor tables beneath colorful umbrellas invited a leisurely chat. “May I buy you a cup of coffee? Or do you have to rush back to the inn?”

  She hesitated before answering. He’d given her the perfect excuse, but she really wasn’t in a hurry to get back. Rhoda and Sandy, her full-time and part-time housekeepers, were taking care of things back at the inn. Even during this busy season, Tuesdays were typically slower-paced days, giving Bonnie a weekly opportunity to escape for a few hours.

  While there were advantages to living in the inn’s private basement apartment, it gave her the feeling sometimes of being at work 24/7. She’d made a promise to herself recently that she’d start going out more, cultivating a social life away from the inn and her siblings, out of the rut she’d fallen into during the past few years. A friendly coffee with one of the inn’s clients wasn’t exactly a groundbreaking departure from the norm, but it was a start. It didn’t hurt, of course, that this particular client was so very nice to look at across a table.

  “I don’t have to rush back,” she said. “Coffee sounds good. Just let me put these bags in my car.”

  He followed her to the parking lot where she’d left her dependable sedan and helped her stash her purchases. Then she accompanied him to the coffee shop, claiming a recently vacated outdoor table while he went inside to order. He returned carrying a black coffee for himself and the fat-free iced latte she’d requested in deference to the building heat of the day. She’d declined his offer of a snack, but he’d bought a cookie for himself.

  “It’s oatmeal raisin,” he said with an appealingly sheepish grin as he unwrapped it. “That’s healthy, right?”

  Because there didn’t seem to be an ounce of fat on his solid frame—something she had noticed
more than once—she doubted his diet was as bad as he’d claimed earlier. “Sure,” she teased lightly. “Keep telling yourself that.”

  He chuckled and took a big bite of the cookie, washing it down with a sip of his coffee. “I’ll make up for it at dinner tonight,” he said. “I’m eating with my daughter’s other family. Holly—my daughter’s mom—always cooks something fancy and healthy.”

  Bonnie had briefly met Cassie’s mother, Holly Bauer, and her husband, Larry, at that first pre-wedding meeting back in May. As she remembered, the relationship between them all had been quite cordial.

  “It’s nice that you and your ex-wife get along so well,” she commented somewhat tentatively. “We’ve dealt with some very awkward situations at a couple of weddings at the inn when exes refused to be seated near each other or to even acknowledge the other parent’s presence.”

  “Holly and I were never married,” Paul admitted. “I was only eighteen and Holly not even quite that when Cassie was born—she’d skipped a grade to graduate a year earlier than most. We were the stereotypical high school sweethearts who slipped up on prom night, I’m afraid. We stopped trying to be a couple during our freshman year of college, though we’ve remained good friends.”

  “I see.” She’d figured Paul looked young for his age, considering he had a twenty-one-year-old daughter, but now she knew he really was younger than she’d thought. Thirty-nine? Only eleven years older than her twenty-eight, rather than the fifteen years or more she’d estimated. “And still Holly became an attorney. Good for her.”

  “Yeah. She refused to let one night’s bad decision derail her dreams. She had a lot of help from her family, and from me, and from my mother during the first two years of Cassie’s life, but Holly worked her butt off to finish her education and still be a good mom. She earned her undergraduate degree in three years, then entered law school. A law school friend introduced her to Larry, and they married when Cassie was almost six. Their twins were born a year after that.”