First Date - [Bridesmaid's Chronicles 01] Read online

  First Date

  Karen Kendall

  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 Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-three

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  Don't miss the other books in The Bridesmaid Chronicles

  First Kiss (July 2005)

  First Dance (August 2005)

  First Love (September 2005)

  Praise for the novels of Karen Kendall

  "Sassy and sexy a writer to watch."

  Susan Andersen

  "Effervescent witty fresh fun."

  Christina Skye

  "If you find a Karen Kendall book up on the shelves, don't hesitate to grab it. You'll enjoy it, guaranteed."

  A Romance Review

  "The incomparable Karen Kendall is back with yet another rollicking comical romance, which will have the readers laughing their hearts out [She] is indeed a masterly writer." Road to Romance

  "Will leave you howling with laughter."

  Affaire de Coeur

  " A terrific love story filled with laugh-out-loud humor." Reader to Reader Reviews

  "Smart, sassy, and sensational, this is the contemporary romantic comedy of the year."

  Romance Reviews Today

  "A fast-paced, amusing, and heartwarming romp." Romance Reader's Connection

  "Fans of amusing yet serious relationship dramas will delight in Karen Kendall's I've Got You, Babe ."

  The Best Reviews

  * * *

  * * *

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto,

  Ontario M4V 3B2, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

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  Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

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  Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, June 2005

  10 987654321

  Copyright © Karen Moser, 2005 Excerpt from First Kiss © copyright Jon Salem, 2005

  Lyrics for "Two Tons of Steel."

  "Sweet Elena."

  "Red-Headed Woman," and

  "I'd Do Anything" copyright © Two Tons of Steel, San Antonio, TX.

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARKMARCA REGISTRADA

  Printed in the United States of America Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER'S NOTE This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

  * * *

  Though it's a lighthearted romantic comedy, this book is dedicated to the victims of Alzheimer's disease and their caretakers. My heart goes out to them, especially those who are affected by early-onset Alzheimer's, which runs its course so breath-takingly fast.

  * * *

  Acknowledgments

  This book would not have been possible without the support of Kara Cesare, Rose Hilliard, Anne Bohner, Claire Zion, Kara Welch, and so many others behind the scenes at NAL. I'd also like to thank Kimberly Whalen and Celeste Fine for their endless patience, hard work and straight-faced answers to innumerable stupid questions.

  Thanks to the towns of Fredericksburg and Grueneyou'll always have a place in my heart! And especially to Debbie Schumann and Troy Rose of Grape Creek Vineyards, who couldn't have been kinder and took me on an impromptu tour.

  Dennis Fallon, what can I say? You've come a long way, baby, from your days playing garage guitar with my husband! I love to hear you any chance I get, even living vicariously through my characters. Listening to Two Tons of Steel is always a pleasure.

  Finally, thanks to Kylie Adams and Julie Kenner for being a lot of fun to work with; Wendy Wax for just being there, my Dad for supplying those Italian words and Don for putting up with my madness, scary deadline hair and gross consumption of chocolate. Love you guys!

  * * *

  Chapter One

  If home is where the heart is, I need to work on being more heartless . Sydney Spinelli stared at the accounting mess in front of her, and reflected that there were some things you'd only do for family.

  Just like Sydney's mother, South River, New Jersey, had received a face-lift in the last few years. In spite of this, she didn't want to be here.

  A town of about fifteen thousand, South River was known for some apparel manufacturing and not much else. Sydney's father Marv loved the place, probably more out of habit than anything else. He'd become a big fish in this small pond. Marv shared with it an inferiority complex: He'd resent Howard Johnson, king of the road motel, until dirt got shoveled over his short, round body. South River felt much the same about nearby New Brunswick.

  Bobby, Marv's postman, ambled through the door. He brightened when he saw Sydney muttering at the computer screen. She looked up with a tolerant smile and waited for his inevitable question.

  "Hey, Syd. Good to see you. What's new?"

  "Not a lot, Bobby." She accepted the stack of mail from him, nodded her thanks and paused expectantly while he worked up to his next inevitable question. "How's your sister?" Every male in town asked the same thing.

  "Julia's just fine. You want me to tell her you said hello?"

  "Yeah." Bobby gave her a bashful smile. "Well, see
you around."

  "Okay, Bobby. Take care." She turned back to the computer. What's new? Absolutely nothing. Not in ten years, maybe twenty .

  Oh, if anyone were to get technical about things, the carpet was new. Her father Marv had ordered replacement shag six months ago, resulting in another vast, depressing brown lawn under all the vintage 1974 furniture.

  Nineteen seventy-four had marked the utterly un-grand opening of Marv's Motor Inns, the year that Sydney had her fifth birthday. A photograph, slightly askew, hung on the faux wood-paneled wall in front of her desk. Marv beamed with pride, resembling a pudgy, plaid-clad Bonaparte. Myrna, Sydney's mother, had a bad blond beehive and didn't quite carry off the part of Josephine. Sydney winced at her own five-year-old image: She sported a snaggletooth, a dress in green polyester plaid and one of Myrna's horrifying home haircuts.

  The photo had been snapped just as she yanked little Julia away from the radiator. Myrna didn't appear to have noticedher smoggy blue gaze focused on the camera lensbut judging from Julia's expression, the normally sunny child had resented her big sister's interference. Her petal pink lips formed a midhowl " O ." Her Gerber-perfect eyes sparkled with angry tears. Her sculpted, dimpled chin jutted at a resentful right angle from the rest of her pampered little body.

  Julia had grown from an adorable baby into the blond teenaged goddess craved by every boy in school.

  Sydney hadn't. She looked wryly away from the photograph and sighed. Well, hell. At least she'd lost the snaggletooth and the green plaid dress. And the once-orange hair was now auburn.

  She squinted at the computer screen again. The family had come a long way, financially speaking, since 1974. Marv could hire a platoon of accountants to do this miserable job. He could burn the office to the ground and build a compound with an indoor swimming pool. But no.

  Fuhgeddaboudit . Here she sat, in the same old dump, tracking the gradual embezzlement of Betty Lou Fitch, Marv's bookkeeper, over a thirty-year period. Betty Lou had disappeared with the funds about three weeks ago, and Marv had threatened, pleaded and blackmailed Sydney until she'd agreed to leave her own business, hightail it to South River from Princeton and figure it all outno pun intended.

  Her eyes were crossing from glaring at the computer screen. Still, matters could be worse: Marv had only transferred his records onto the machine as of 1992. Syd shuddered at the thought of going through thirty fat, handwritten ledgers.

  She stood up, yawned and stepped accidentally on Humphrey, Marv and Myrna's long-suffering basset hound. "Sorry, boy! I'm so sorry"

  Humphrey gazed up at her piteously and didn't even grunt. Since he was ignored by everyone else in the household, he seemed to consider being squashed by her size nine foot a sign of affection.

  Sydney bent down, kissed him and gifted him with a nacho cheese-flavored Dorito, her chosen poison during stressful times. He licked at it but left it on the floor and followed her to the watercooler, his droopy bloodshot eyes full of adoration. She drank some water from a pointed paper cupso annoying, what genius had designed a cup you couldn't set down?and then allowed him to slurp the rest of it.

  The front door burst open. "Da hell is dat dohg doin' heah?" Marv said, taking three pugnacious steps forward. His ducktail quivered against the fat folds at the back of his neck, which swallowed the heavy gold chain he wore until it tunneled out at the side.

  "He's lonely. Ma's out all day."

  Marv snorted. "Dohg's too lazy to get lonely. Besides, Marcella's there."

  "Marcella vacuums him."

  "You find my money yet? Unbelievable, that Betty Lou! You can't trust nobody."

  Sydney restrained the urge to point out that Betty Lou had stolen less than the amount she'd deserved in back vacation pay, Christmas bonuses and 401k contributions over the last twenty years. It still didn't make the theft right, and Marv would blow a gasket.

  "You heah from dat useless sistah o' yours? I can't get holda her, an' I want her receivables."

  Sydney sighed. "She's not useless. And it's high tourism season right now, so I'm sure they're run off their feet."

  Marv grunted.

  "She's going to do great there, Pop."

  Marv grunted again. "You find that money, Syddie. Okay?"

  "I'll find it, Marv. Don't worry."

  At the end of the day, Sydney turned with a wince into the circular drive of Marv's latest acquisition: a house that could only be described as a palace dipped in gingerbread batter. Syd sat staring at the monstrosity from the driveway, reluctant as always to enter the place. It shrieked pretension, from the ornate motifs frosted onto the brown stucco exterior to the tasteless fountain erupting like a volcano of new money from the landscaping. She averted her eyes from the swan paddleboat tied to a Grecian arcade at the edge of the man-made pond. Several fake ducks were anchored in the water at intervals, too, among faux lily pads with painted resin frogs perched on them.

  Sydney closed her eyes briefly, took a deep breath and then inched her Acura forward into the "arbor" which hid the automobiles not parked in the garage. She opened the car door and knocked off yet another bunch of the rubber grapes clustered at artistic intervals on the trellis that made up the walls of the arbor. "Come on, Humph." The basset hound slunk out of the car. He, too, viewed the house with a jaundiced eye.

  Sydney wanted passionately to hunt down Marv and Myrna's interior desecrator and burn her at the stake. If the woman had only stopped with the inside of the house. But no! She had massacred the outside, too.

  Her parents were the laughingstocks of the entire town, and they didn't even realize it. Syd slammed the driver's side door, hitching her purse over her shoulder. She bent down, retrieved the cluster of grapes, and jammed them back into a bare spot on the trellis. Every time she pulled in here, she man-aged to accidentally harvest another bunch of grapes, whether it was with her shoulder, her briefcase, or the car's door. Marv's spare Mercedes was parked too close to her spot, giving her very little leeway.

  Humphrey dragged after Sydney, stopped to sniff the air and looked even more depressed when he caught Eau de Marcella.

  Syd was veering for the side door, what Marv called the service entrance, but Marcella had already spotted her. The wide double doors of the Gingerbread Palace opened noiselessly and the creepy housekeeper stood waiting for her at the top of the stone steps.

  Sydney pasted a smile on her face and changed direction. Marcella's smooth olive face betrayed no emotion whatsoever and she stood sentrylike in her black dress with the white lace collar and starched white half apron. Syd had decided that the housekeeper was an android, and that she had an extra eye in the back of her head.

  Without fail she opened the front door for family members and guests, but only the side door for any maintenance people or salespersons. Marcella was an expert in matters of condescension. A recent addition to the family, she had come with the house undoubtedly part of the decor.

  Myrna had confessed to Sydney that she was actively afraid of the woman, but Marv liked the prestige of having her.

  "Doll-baby," Myrna whined, "she swipes my dirty laundry off the bathroom floor while I'm in the shower! She returns it clean two hours later. I know I shouldn't complain, but it's just weird . I don't like her sneaking in there while I'm naked, and I don't like another woman handling my personal washing."

  "So why don't you tell her that?" Sydney asked.

  "I'm afraid she'll put a curse on me."

  "Because you won't let her wash your panties?"

  Myrna nodded.

  "That's crazy, Ma. If you can't tell her yourself, then have Pop tell her."

  "He says most women would beg for worries like mine."

  Syd supposed that he had a point, but still, her mother shouldn't be terrorized by a uniformed panty thief in her own home.

  "Hello, Marcella," she said now to the housekeeper. "How are you?"

  Marcella nodded without expression and reached for Sydney's computer bag. She had the habit of mugging family m
embers of their belongings right when they came in the door: coats, purses, bags. Syd hung on and a minor tug-of-war ensued. "I'm going to check e-mail again right now, so I'll take it up," she said firmly.

  The housekeeper finally let go. She didn't like anyone disturbing the carefully orchestrated surfaces of the house. God forbid that a gas station receipt or movie ticket stub should mar the hall table or kitchen counter. Marcella even alphabetized the family mail on a silver tray.

  Sydney felt Marcella's evil eye square in the middle of her back as she went upstairs, and resisted the urge to straighten her top or brush lint off her backside.

  She entered the guest room she currently occupied, wrinkling her nose at the rococo reproduction antiques. Marie Antoinette would have felt comfortable in the room, but she did not. Such an abundance of gold and carved curlicues made her itch. She kicked off her shoes and unzipped her computer bag, placing the laptop square in the middle of a writing desk with elaborate, S-shaped legs. The thing could have galloped here from the court of Louis XVI. Sydney shook her head and hit the computer's on button.

  The information she needed from Marv's tax attorney was not there, but there was a new e-mail from her younger sister, Julia. "BIG NEWS!!!" was the heading.

  Sydney clicked it open.

  "Syd!!!!!! Oh my God, call me as soon as you get this!!!!! I am over the moon!!!!!"

  Huh ? Had Julia stumbled into a buy-one-get-one-free shoe sale at Neiman's? Added another pair of

  Christian Louboutins to her collection of torturous footwear?

  Even as Sydney wondered, another e-mail from "CrownJule" popped up on her screen. This one said "No time to call, but"

  She clicked on the heading to open it, and almost fell out of her chair.

  Subject: No time to call, but

  Date: XXXXXXX

  From: Crownjule

  To: numbersgeek, vshelton@kleinschmidtbelker

  GETTING MARRIED!!! To the most amazing guy, Roman Sonntag. Gotta fly, xoxoxo Julia. PS not sure how to break it to pop and ma? Don't say anything! Promise!