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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Brides Gone Wild

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Heaven Can’t Wait

  So Caught Up in You

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Wedding Party

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  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. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2006 by The Berkley Publishing Group.

  “Brides Gone Wild” by Cathie Linz copyright © 2006 by Cathie L. Baumgardner.

  “Heaven Can’t Wait” by Pamela Clare copyright © 2006 by Pamela White.

  “So Caught Up in You” by Beverly Brandt copyright © 2006 by Beverly Brandt.

  “The Wedding Party” by Whitney Lyles copyright © 2006 by Whitney Lyles.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  BERKLEY SENSATION is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. The “B” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  p. cm.

  Contents: Brides gone wild / Cathie Linz -- Heaven can’t wait / Pamela Clare -- So caught up in you / Beverly Brandt -- The wedding party / Whitney Lyles.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-46594-3

  1. Love stories, American. 2. Humorous stories, American. 3. Weddings--Fiction. 4. Single Women--Fiction. 5. Bridesmaids--Fiction. I. Lyles, Whitney.

  PS648.L6C38 2006

  813’.0850806--dc22

  2006040738

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Brides Gone Wild

  CATHIE LINZ

  CHAPTER ONE

  Maybe it was the full moon.

  Maybe it was the five weddings that floral designer Pam Greenley had scheduled this first weekend in June.

  Or maybe it was the fact that her lucky CUTE AND CHEERFUL T-shirt had gone up in smoke yesterday when she’d inadvertently stuck it in the oven instead of the washer.

  The end result?

  Brides Gone Wild.

  Five normal women transformed overnight into demanding Bridezillas.

  One wasn’t happy with the size of her bouquet and wanted hers to be as big as the “honker” at the Hissie-Phitt nuptials two weeks ago.

  Another was refusing to walk down the aisle because the all-white roses she’d insisted she’d wanted were “boring.”

  A third wasn’t happy with the height of her centerpieces, while the fourth and fifth brides wanted to change their floral selections entirely.

  Pam had never had so much go wrong so fast. But things went from bad to worse the instant she heard that Michael Denton was back in town.

  This info was the last straw. It was now official. Her hometown of Serenity Falls, Pennsylvania, had morphed into Hysteria Heights.

  “Really? Michael Denton?” Outwardly, Pam remained calm while inside she was totally hyperventilating. Not that she could show it.

  After all, she was the proud owner of Bloomers Flower Shop and the employer of several assistants, including Jessica Schmidt, who’d just broken the “Michael news” to her.

  For Pam to reenact Munch’s famous painting, The Scream, hands pressed to her cheeks and mouth hanging agape, simply would not do for the newest member of the Better Business Association. Instead, she meticulously placed a single lavender rose in the midst of pink miniature carnations and gerberas for the centerpiece she was creating. “I thought he wasn’t coming here from Chicago to attend his cousin’s wedding.”

  “Yeah, well, I heard that the best man, like, broke both legs and an arm when he fell playing basketball,” the nineteen-year-old Jessica informed her. “So Michael had to step in. Is there a problem?”

  Yeah. A big one. “I used to go with him.”

  “You did?” Jessica frowned. “Like, when?”

  “Like, when we were in high school together.”

  Jessica rolled her eyes and handed her a fresh batch of eucalyptus. “That was decades ago.”

  “Only ten years. One decade. Singular.”

  “Which means I was, like, nine when you two were going together.”

  “Thanks for sharing,” Pam muttered. She didn’t need reminding that she was rapidly approaching the big three-oh. Thirty had never seemed like a big deal until recently.

  Pam checked her reflection in the large mirror on the flower shop’s workroom wall in front of them. She wasn’t narcissistic, but she did like seeing how her floral arrangements looked from all angles. The mirror helped accomplish that.

  Today it helped reassure her that her short dark hair hadn’t turned white yet, despite the wild antics of this week’s batch of Bridezillas. Her high cheekbones and green eyes were her best features, while her pointy chin didn’t please her at all.

  Frowning, she leaned closer. Was that a smudge on her forehead? Or a wrinkle?

  “So, like, did you two have a secret baby together or something?” Jessica asked. “They’re always doing that on the daytime show I watch. That or switching babies or stealing them.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Pam was no longer really listening. Instead she was focused on wiping the smudge off with a damp paper towel. If it was a wrinkle, it was a water-soluble one, thank heavens.

  “And then those babies turn into teenagers overnight with some hunky young actor taking the role. Yummy.” Jessica smacked her lips.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but Michael and I did not have a secret baby.” They did share a secret, though. At least she’d kept it a secret. He better have, too, if he wanted to liv
e to see that wedding this weekend.

  Jessica took a sip of her Diet Coke before asking, “So were you a cheerleader and he was, like, the football hero or something?”

  “How did you know I was a cheerleader?”

  “Because you’ve got that totally perky thing going on.”

  “Hey, I can be crabby.”

  “Only if someone calls you elfin. They warned me about that before I took this job.”

  “Who did?”

  “Everyone in Serenity Falls.”

  “Well, that sure narrows it down,” Pam noted drily.

  “So tell me about you and this Michael.”

  “Yeah, go ahead and tell her about us,” a male voice drawled from the doorway.

  Pam’s heart sank faster than stocks in Enron.

  She took her time turning to look at him. Even so, his appearance reminded her why she’d made the stupid mistakes with him that she had. Tousled brown hair that he was even now shoving out of his storm-cloud gray eyes. He’d once claimed they were just blue, but she knew better. They could go dark with passion or light up with humor.

  The slight bump just below the bridge of his nose was caused by her throwing a football at him and breaking his nose when they were in high school. It was how she’d first gotten his attention, not that she’d planned on doing him bodily harm. At least not at that point in their relationship.

  She’d tearfully apologized as only a fifteen-year-old girl could. He’d manfully accepted as only a sixteen-year-old could.

  Two weeks later they were going steady.

  Two years later, they were going at it hot and heavy in the backseat of his black Camaro, where she gave him her virginity.

  “Uh . . . I’ll, like, leave you two alone,” Jessica said.

  “Your assistant seems a little nervous,” Michael noted after she’d departed. “Why is that?”

  Pam shrugged. This gave her more time to compose her voice into something resembling indifference. She wasn’t there yet, so she wasn’t prepared to actually speak.

  “Are you nervous, too?”

  She shook her head, trying her best to do so with a scoffing expression on her face. A quick glance in the mirror told her she’d done a pretty good job of it. Then she remembered that the last time they’d gotten together he’d told her that what he referred to as her “surely-you-jest” look turned him on immensely.

  The last time they’d gotten together . . .

  It wasn’t that long ago, actually. Only the four weeks since their ten-year high school reunion—when she’d once again fallen into his arms and had sex with him.

  Granted, it wasn’t in the backseat of his car this time. They’d done the deed, several times, in the king-size bed in the hotel room he’d rented clear over in Redmond because all the local places were full. But still . . .

  She wasn’t the kind of woman who was into one-night stands. Even if they were with her first love.

  “So I’ve merely left you speechless, is that it?” Michael asked, swirling his index finger around her ear.

  “Yeah, right,” she mocked him before quickly moving several steps away. No way was he seducing her with that finger swirl thing again. That’s how things had gotten started last time.

  “Hey, you want to dance?” he’d asked her at the reunion.

  She’d been prepared to say no. Then he’d circled the sensitive curve of her ear in an endearingly sweet caress that had her nodding and going into his arms.

  Not gonna happen this time, she firmly reminded herself.

  Been there, done that.

  And yes, it had been an awesome night. The sex had been breathtaking. But the morning after had stunk.

  She’d opened her eyes to find the bed beside her empty. Ditto for the room. Her first love had taken off . . . again.

  Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, and I’ll have to shoot you.

  Not that Pam was normally a violent person. On the contrary. Ask anyone in Serenity Falls and they’d tell you that Pam Greenley, aka the Flower Girl, was cheerful and easygoing. That nothing got her down.

  That last one was a lie, of course. But she’d worked hard to present a positive outlook to the public.

  “Cat got your tongue?” Michael moved closer to touch her again.

  She slapped his hand away. “What do you want?”

  “Now that’s a loaded question.”

  Pam narrowed her eyes at him. Along with her perky disposition went a normally well-restrained Irish temper that could get intense if she allowed it to.

  “Why are you here?” she demanded.

  He blinked those gorgeous gray eyes at her with assumed male innocence. “I came for Pete’s wedding.”

  “You hate weddings.” He’d told her that much a month ago when she’d said that she’d branched out from the family nursery business into her own wedding floral shop. She’d shared her business dreams right before he’d removed her bra and kissed her left breast in his hotel room. After that, she’d shared other fantasies instead . . .

  “I do hate weddings and I’d hoped to avoid this one, but . . .” He shrugged.

  “And you know all about avoidance,” she muttered, angrily booting the seductive image of him in that hotel room out of her mind.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re as good at avoidance as I am,” Michael said.

  “Not even close.”

  “You’re too modest. You totally avoided my phone calls.”

  “What phone calls?”

  “The ones I made to you here.”

  “I never received any phone call from you.”

  “Your assistant said you were unavailable. She sounded like she was ninety and had a smoker’s voice.”

  Phoebe. Pam’s assistant before Jessica. Phoebe, who’d run off with the county coroner, nicknamed “Tiny” despite the fact that he resembled an ancient sumo wrestler. “She was not ninety.”

  “No? How old was she?”

  “Only eighty.”

  “Did she give you my message?”

  “What was your message?” she countered.

  “That you should give me a call sometime.”

  “Sometime? As in, before you die?”

  “That would be helpful, yes.”

  “How many times did you call?” Pam demanded.

  “I don’t know. Once or twice.”

  “Once or twice?” Her voice reflected the outrage she felt. She was worth more effort than that. Much more.

  “Now what’s wrong?” He said it in that tone of voice that men use when they were dealing with a totally unreasonable woman. She recognized it. Her brothers used it on her often enough.

  “Nothing.” She regained her control. “So how long are you in town?”

  “Just a few days.”

  “That’s good.”

  “It is?”

  “I mean you’ve got a busy life back in Chicago, right?”

  “Right.”

  “With a busy social life, right?”

  He raised a dark eyebrow. “Define busy?”

  “Never mind. I’m really busy myself.” She waved her hand around the cluttered workroom area. “I’ve got five weddings this weekend.”

  “Is that a lot?”

  She was tempted to dump a nearby batch of Shasta daisies—water and all—on his head. Which wasn’t like her. Was the Bridezilla syndrome contagious?

  “Yes, it’s a lot,” she replied between clenched teeth.

  “Doesn’t seem like a lot to me,” he drawled.

  Did the man have a death wish?

  Michael watched the color rise in Pam’s face. He was deliberately goading her because he hated the way she could just tune him out, as if he were a radio station she didn’t like.

  She must have learned that trick from her two brothers, because he’d never met another woman who could do that the way she did.

  But then Pam did a l
ot of things that no other woman had ever done. To him. To his mind.

  And that freaked him.

  And because he was freaked, he’d loved her and left her. Not once but twice.

  He hadn’t planned on coming back this time. Sure, he’d called her once, maybe twice. But he’d been relieved when her assistant had said she was busy. At first, it had reassured him that she wasn’t breaking her heart over him or anything.

  Then it bothered him.

  Which freaked him even more.

  Michael prided himself on being logical. That was one of the reasons why he was such a highly sought after corporate troubleshooter. Because of his logic.

  It was logical for his parents to move from the cold climate here in Pennsylvania to the more appropriate climate in Arizona ten years ago. It was logical for Michael to get his undergrad and business degrees from Northwestern University in Chicago because it was one of the top-rated schools in the country. It was logical that a long-distance relationship with high school sweetheart Pam wouldn’t work out—they never did.

  So he’d made a clean break of it.

  Pam had not taken it well at the time. She’d almost broken his nose again with the top of her head when she’d sat up in the backseat of his Camaro to yank her bra back on.

  Michael had continued to calmly list all the reasons it would be best for them both to start this new chapter in their life, the university years, with a clean slate.

  “You’re right!” she’d shouted at him. “A clean slate! To see other people! In fact, I plan on going to UPenn and having sex with as many guys as possible! It’s been at the top of my lifelong goals list. That and seeing the Eiffel Tower.”

  Looking at her now, he wondered if she had ever gotten to Paris. He didn’t want to know how many guys she’d seduced on campus. He’d often told himself that she was too sweet to really do what she’d threatened, but knew she had a stubborn streak a mile wide. Not that it came out that often . . . but when it did, you were in deep shit.