Third Time Lucky
Allison Leigh
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 Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
“It’s going to be the most rockin’ wedding gown ever.”
Charlene Kelley smiled at the reverent tone in her sales assistant’s voice. Meredith was ten years younger than Charlene’s own thirty and had been the first person she’d hired after opening Charlene’s two years earlier. And the young redhead thought everything inside the downtown Red Rock boutique was “rockin’.”
“It’s turning out nicely,” Charlene agreed.
Meredith rolled her eyes. “That’s like saying the Fortune family is mildly successful.” Then she grinned and ran a fingertip lightly down the skirt of the gown. “Emily Fortune was smart to have you design her gown. She could have gone anywhere. But she chose you.”
And Charlene was still having a hard time believing it. Who knew that by finally coming home to Red Rock she’d find the sort of success in Texas that had eluded her for ten years in California?
The tinkle of the crystal bell hanging above the entrance to the boutique warned them that another customer had come in, and Meredith promptly headed out of the workroom.
Leaving Meredith to deal with the customer, Charlene leaned back against her sewing table and studied the gown draped around a dressmaker form. It really was beautiful.
The silk was imported; the cut was divine. And even unfinished as it was, she knew the gown would be a triumph. When it made its appearance at the church on New Year’s Eve—just two weeks from now—it would be the culmination of months of designing, planning, fitting.
Too bad she wasn’t the bride wearing it.
She shook her head. The only reason that particular thought kept creeping into her head was because she’d been working so hard on Emily Fortune’s wedding gown.
It was a convenient excuse, if nothing else.
She rubbed her tired eyes, then studied the sweep of white silk with a critical eye. The embroidery embellishing the skirt and bodice was nearly done. The design was subtle; only someone looking closely beyond the shimmer of delicate crystals would see that the pattern resembled daisies. Sophistication flowed from the gown, yet that daisy element added the perfect touch of vulnerability. The gown would suit Emily to perfection.
The front bell jangled again, breaking her reverie. Before the gown could suit Emily, Charlene had to actually finish it.
She straightened, flexing fingers that were stiff from the hours already spent stitching that afternoon, and went to the supply shelves. She needed a fresh embroidery needle and she was just ready to tuck the thin, sharp needle into the pin cushion wrapped around her wrist when she heard a deep voice from the direction of the front of the shop. A deep, painfully familiar male voice.
Her fingers closed spasmodically around the needle and her knees turned to water. She actually had to lean against the desk for support.
Six months. The thought screamed through her mind. She’d known Dane Dalton all of her life, but she hadn’t heard his voice in six months.
Not since the evening he’d asked her to marry him.
And she’d said no.
If she hid out here in the back room, Charlene wouldn’t have to see him.
She would just let her petite, stylish salesgirl attend to Dane.
But alarm followed on the heels of her cowardice, and she edged closer to the doorway leading to the front of the shop. What disaster had prompted him to step foot in Charlene’s?
Dane Dalton was six-foot, two-inches of male who thought mucking out horse stalls and castrating calves was just this side of heaven. Even before she’d broken things off with him, he’d rarely come to the shop. He’d told her more than once that he felt like a bull in a china shop being around all the feminine frippery.
And then there was no more time for her to worry because the man himself stepped into the doorway, catching her hovering there.
Familiar coffee-brown eyes stared down at her, narrowing. “Hiding, Leenie?”
The nickname jolted her. Only Dane had ever called her that. She cleared her throat and waved at the elaborate wedding gown consuming a good portion of the space in her small work room. “Working, actually,” she managed. “What, uh, what brings you here?” She was vaguely aware of Meredith chattering to someone in the front of the shop.
But mostly she was aware that an absence of six months hadn’t made Dane think more fondly of her. Not if the chilliness on his numbingly handsome face was any indication.
To be fair, she had turned down his marriage proposal. The one six months ago. And also the one twelve years ago. The first time, she’d been a girl. Of course she’d turned him down. But now she was a grown woman. And she’d given him the only answer a sensible person could when two people were so wildly different.
“Mom’s helping me find a Christmas present for Becca.”
So it was his mother with whom Meredith was talking. Alarm drained away, replaced by disappointment that he’d come in only to shop.
Just because she’d been sensible didn’t mean it had been easy to walk away from him. She missed him. Desperately.
She brushed her hands down her thighs, only to poke herself through her velvet slacks with the needle she was still holding. She focused on tucking it safely into the pin cushion rather than looking at him. “I’m sure there’s something here your sister would like.” Along with the rest of Dane’s family, Becca worked on their ranch. But unlike her big brother, she didn’t roll her eyes at a little frippery now and then.
“That’s what Mom says.”
Charlene