The Getaway Groom (Emma & Megan) Read online

  About the Author

  Books by Molly Liholm

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 - Always a bridesmaid...

  Chapter 2 - Mr. Right

  Chapter 3 - The bachelor party

  Chapter 4 - You may kiss the bride....

  Chapter 5 - The best made plans...

  Chapter 6 - Kiss the bridesmaid...

  Chapter 7 - Something borrowed...

  Chapter 8 - The family of the bride invites you...

  Chapter 9 - One last fling...

  Chapter 10 - The morning after

  Chapter 11 - Girl’s night out

  Chapter 12 - For better or for worse

  Chapter 13 - The best man

  Chapter 14 - The mother-in-law?

  Chapter 15 - Another bride’s groom

  Chapter 16 - Get me to the chapel...

  Epilogue - They lived happily ever after...

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright

  “Your job is to plan my wedding!”

  Max insisted angrily, not wanting Emma exposed to any danger. His mention of the wedding stopped them both for a moment.

  Emma stared him down. “As I said earlier, Max, you don’t have any say in what I do. And I am not going to stand by as everyone accuses you of being a thief.”

  “I am a thief.”

  She whirled on him passionately, her face ablaze with anger. “Not anymore. You’ve changed. You said so yourself. You’re an honorable man. Even leaving me at the altar was, in your opinion, a noble action.”

  “An honorable man. Is that what I am? Then you don’t know me at all.” Max was furious. Angry at Emma for her pigheadedness. Angry at himself for feeling emotions for her that he didn’t feel for Meg.

  He grabbed Emma and pulled her body close to his. “Would an honorable man, one who’s getting married in less than two weeks, do this?”

  He crushed his lips against hers....

  Molly Liholm

  has an unusual hobby called “briding.” Once a year, she and a group of friends gather on a beautiful June day with picnic baskets in hand and travel to a local park to catch the brides and their flocks of bridesmaids. As Molly and her friends bride-watched and invented and then told imagined stories about the happy couples (and the in-laws and ushers and other wedding-party members), Molly was inspired to write the tale of Emma Delaney and how she handled her disasterous wedding. Thus THE GETAWAY GROOM was born.

  A Toronto native, Molly worked in publishing for years before starting to write romance fiction. She swears that the publishing characters in this book have absolutely no resemblance to anyone she has ever met in her sixteen-year publishing career!

  Books by Molly Liholm

  HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

  552—TEMPTING JAKE

  643—BOARDROOM BABY

  Don’t miss any of our special offers. Write to us at the following address for information on our newest releases.

  Harlequin Reader Service

  U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont L2A 5X3

  THE GETAWAY GROOM

  Molly Liholm

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN

  MADRID • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  For Erik Vallik

  with lots of thanks for all his help,

  especially when it comes to computers.

  Congratulations on deciding to become a groom!

  1

  Always a bridesmaid...

  “PACK YOUR WEDDING DRESS, I need help planning a wedding!” the familiar voice announced over the phone. Bridal consultant Emma Delaney tried to put a face to the voice, but it wouldn’t materialize. She received similar requests several times a month, but this wasn’t just a regular client playing with the name of Emma’s incredibly successful business, Have Wedding Dress, Will Travel. She and her two employees arranged weddings, although that was really an understatement. What Emma guaranteed was that she would take the headaches and worries off the bride’s shoulders, ensuring the star of the event basked in the glow of her special day.

  Emma knew from firsthand experience what it was like to have your wedding day turn into the worst day of your life.

  Suddenly an image of the face that went with the voice began to form in Emma’s mind. Thick brown hair, brown eyes hidden behind glasses, a pale face with no makeup. “Meg Cooper? Is that really you?”

  “It’s me.” Meg’s laugh held warm, honeyed tones. At college, that laugh had made men take more than a second look at Meg. “Don’t tell me you’d given up on me ever walking down the aisle, just like my family had?”

  “I never predict marriages anymore,” Emma said firmly. There had been a time when she had—and look at that disastrous result. But she did wince a little at Meg’s question. They were both thirty-two, an age that did seem to put a woman well past the blushing-bride stage. Moreover, Emma was surprised that Megan Cooper was concentrating on a man long enough to marry him! Throughout Meg’s life, at school and at work, her friend had lived in her world of books. She had always preferred fictional heroes to any of the real men she dated. Emma sighed. Who could blame her?

  Emma leaned back in her comfortable, green leather chair—it added just the right executive touch to a business that could seem too feminine—and continued her conversation with her old friend. Had it really been almost three years since she’d last seen her? “Now I only plan the most fantastic weddings.”

  “Can you put one together in two weeks?” Meg asked, sounding nervous.

  Emma had once organized a society wedding in twenty-four hours, but even so, two weeks was short. She liked to include extra time in every wedding schedule for the inevitable unexpected problems, but too frequently brides called her as the approaching nuptials loomed, panicking because too much was still left undone. Emma was known, after all, as the professional wedding saver. “Two weeks. It can be done. But is there some reason for the rush?” she asked, probing delicately.

  “Oh, not that,” Meg said quickly, obviously understanding that Emma wondered if she was facing a maternity deadline. “Frasier and I are planning an old-fashioned wedding night.”

  Emma was surprised, because she knew that beneath Meg’s scattered exterior lurked a very passionate woman. Why, one semester she’d decided she needed to improve her...romantic technique and her boyfriend had walked around with a silly grin on his face—when he wasn’t asleep in class. “Frasier must be a very special guy.”

  “Oh he is, Emma. I know you two are going to love each other. But it’s just that, well...” Megan stopped and Emma could imagine her playing with a pencil, tapping it against a desk, in the same nervous manner she’d had at school. Emma and she had both been English lit majors and had shared many classes, as well as being dorm mates in their freshman year. Sharing many of the same interests and ideas, they’d quickly become friends. But there were also fundamental differences between them. While Meg frequently lost herself in her books and her research, seeming the cliché of the absentminded bookworm, she was also very practical, even conservative in her goals and objectives. Emma, who from outward appearances seemed practical, was the dreamer, the real romantic. And look where it had gotten her. Planning other people’s weddings!

  Meg took a deep breath, then hurried on. “I sort of forgot to do anything about the wedding. I was so worried about the launch of D.C. Hatfield’s new book—and the whole fall list had problems—and then I found this great new writer who needed a lot of work and...”

  If it
had been anyone else but Megan Elizabeth Cooper, Emma would have known that this was a case of wedding denial—of a bride or groom completely unsure whether she or he was doing the right thing—and she would have packed her bags and arrived to help find a graceful way out of the wedding. That was the unique aspect of her business. She wanted happy endings for her clients and that sometimes meant canceling a doomed marriage.

  But Megan could very easily have forgotten about her own wedding if she was worried about her job as editorial director of Scorpion Books. Emma remembered how Meg had missed more than one essay deadline and exam because she’d been so involved in another project.

  “When Frasier and I decided to get married three months ago, the date seemed so far away,” Meg explained.

  “Have you done any of the preparations?”

  “My secretary seems to have sent out invitations, but he’s a man and doesn’t know much else about organizing a wedding. Oh, Emma, all these people have RSVP’d and I don’t even have a dress! Frasier is used to my...peculiarities, but I can’t tell him I forgot my own wedding date! Please, Emma, you have to help me. I don’t know what else to do.”

  “I’ll be on the first train out of Philadelphia in the morning.” A train meant she could bring a lot of supplies with her—fabric swatches, her files on New York caterers, photos of centerpieces and floral arrangements. “Where are you holding the reception?”

  “I don’t know,” Meg said miserably. “All we told the guests on the invitation was the date and the time, like celebrities do with their secret weddings. I thought I could work out all the details later.”

  “Well, this certainly is later,” Emma said with a note of amusement, aiming to calm her client and friend. “Don’t worry, I can arrange a lot in two weeks.” That, after all, was the reasoning behind the name Have Wedding Dress, Will Travel. An inveterate fan of television shows new and old, she had stolen from the classic TV Western Have Gun, Will Travel. Just as the cowboy hero had advertised his willingness to travel anywhere to help those in need, so Emma promised to help any bride in need. She certainly knew just how awful a wedding day could become if you didn’t have help.

  “Oh, thank you,” Meg said, and burst into tears.

  Emma let her cry for a few minutes while she tried to work out the train schedules. “I’m going to bring a lot of stuff with me, so can you meet me at your father’s house in Long Island at 11:30 tomorrow?”

  “Yes.” Meg sniffed and blew her nose. “Maybe we could have the wedding at Daddy’s place.”

  Daddy’s place was a mansion. Peter Cooper was a self-made millionaire. “See?” Emma said. “Things are coming together already. Are you still a size eight?”

  “Yes.”

  “Brown hair, brown eyes, glasses?”

  “Highlighted hair. Contacts. Horn-rimmed glasses only when I want to appear intellectual.” Meg giggled, probably in relief, because she’d never been much of a giggler. Serious and determined was how Emma had always thought of her.

  “You’d be surprised at how well a pair of glasses can fool a person,” Meg added.

  Emma wouldn’t be surprised at all. She knew only too well that people saw what they wanted to see. What their first impression told them. She’d never been able to learn much more about Maxwell Thorne, the man who had betrayed and humiliated her. Pulling her thoughts out of her annoying and foolish past, she said, “I’ll bring some dresses. I think I have something you may like.” Cradling the cellular phone against her shoulder and continuing their talk of preferred styles of wedding gowns, Emma left her small office for the showroom. She rented a large space in central Philadelphia so that she could offer full service to brides—including their choice of wedding and bridesmaid dresses, floral displays, invitations. Photos lined the walls, documenting the wide range of nuptials she had arranged, including formal society weddings, garden weddings, a theme wedding à la Anthony and Cleopatra and an adventure wedding on top of a mountain.

  Clients were impressed by the quantity and variety of merchandise in her store, but her secret was that her inventory cost her next to nothing. She was always on the search for young designers. In exchange for exhibiting their work, she got dresses, shoes, veils and hats on a consignment basis. She sent so much business to typographers, engravers and gift shops that they happily provided her with sample books of their work.

  As Emma crossed the showroom, she saw Beth in the sitting area—emerald green couches and a washed-pine coffee table—drinking tea and conferring with a client. Her other full-time employee, Susan, was at a wedding at the Plaza. It was the first wedding Susan had organized by herself and so far everything seemed to be going well—no panicked call-waiting beep interrupted Emma’s conversation with Meg.

  Emma strode over to the rack of gowns, thinking she had one that might be perfect for Meg. “You’re still tall, aren’t you?”

  Meg laughed. “The only thing about me that could make me a model is my height. Oh, thank you, Emma.”

  “Wait until you see what I’ve got. An ivory gown with a fitted bodice and lots of decolletage. You’ll look beautiful. And don’t worry, we can put on a fantastic wedding in two weeks.”

  “All I want is for it to not be an embarrassment. Dad’s got enough problems with the company to worry about.”

  Now Meg sounded very concerned, and Emma wasn’t surprised. Megan Elizabeth Cooper had always known that one day she would work at her father’s publishing company. In fact, Emma had always assumed that Meg would inherit the leadership of Scorpion Books. Meg passionately loved her family’s business. So much so that Emma was pleased a man had been able to inspire her to even greater passion. Frasier had to be a very special man. “Meg?” she murmured in concern, wanting her friend to feel free to unburden herself about the corporate problems, but not wanting to pry too much.

  Meg sighed. “It’s why we’ve all been so distracted, even Frasier. It’ll be good to talk to you, Emma. I think I could use your advice.”

  “If you’re getting cold feet about the marriage, honey...” Emma began, wondering if she’d read Meg wrong.

  “Agreeing to marry Frasier is the smartest thing I’ve ever done,” she announced, sounding much brighter, more confident. “It’s the company—”

  “Scorpion Books.”

  “Yes, there’s something wrong.” Emma could imagine Meg taking the ever-present pencil from behind her ear and turning it over and over again. “I don’t know the specifics, but Daddy is acting really weird. At first I thought it was because my father has finally met a really nice woman, but...something not right is happening at Scorpion. You know how much the company means to Daddy. To me.” She stopped, and Emma could imagine her strong friend pulling herself together. Then Meg began again much more brightly. “I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. And you can meet Frasier. I know you’re going to love him. Everyone does!”

  As EMMA MANEUVERED the rental van to a stop at the front door, she saw that the Cooper mansion was as wonderful as she’d remembered. Meg had invited her to visit once during a school break. Being a small-town girl, Emma had never seen a mansion before, much less slept in one. Since then, having planned several important society weddings every year, Emma had visited far grander houses, but she had warm memories of Meg’s home. She was glad that the Cooper house still looked magnificent.

  The Grecian style mansion with its Corinthian columns stood on a five-acre estate. Five acres of beautifully manicured lawn with trees planted at strategic points to provide shade and shelter from prying eyes on the road. Emma took a deep breath, cherishing the smell of flowers and fresh-cut grass. She sneezed and remembered one of the reasons why she liked living in the big city of Philadelphia. She’d deliberately left small-town life behind, but having a country home was a pleasant fantasy. She wondered if Phillip Jones was still the head gardener. She’d need his help with the flowers.

  The massive oak doors opened and Meg flew down the steps. She hugged Emma tightly, and suddenly Emma was despera
tely glad to see her friend again. When Emma had arrived at college, fresh from her teeny, tiny town in Kansas, school had frightened her. While she had a naturally gregarious personality, at first the sheer size of Philadelphia, the speed and the energy, how worldly the other students seemed, had overwhelmed her. Meg was the first good friend Emma had made. Quietly she had shown Emma how to fit in.

  Although they’d been good friends, their very different careers and the fact that Meg lived in New York while Emma stayed in Philadelphia meant that they’d seen little of each other since graduating. The last time they’d been together was at Emma’s grandmother’s funeral three years ago. She vowed to change the careless pattern they’d fallen into. Meg might soon become a married woman, but Philadelphia wasn’t all that far from New York.

  “I’m so glad you’re here.” Meg had the polished shine of a successful woman. In burnt orange suede pants and a chocolate brown cashmere sweater, she was bending the country-dressing rules just enough to please herself. She had always dressed for herself, but now the results had a lot more pizzazz.

  “Wow,” Emma exclaimed, surveying her shiny auburn hair, her bright eyes. “Being engaged sure does agree with you. You look fabulous.”

  “Maybe it’s my last few days of independence that are putting that extra bounce in my step.” Meg laughed, and Emma expected the entire male population of Long Island to suddenly materialize out of the trees, lured by the husky sound of that voice.

  “I still can’t believe you took your nose out of a book long enough to find a husband.” Emma unlocked the back door of the green van. The color, her favorite, perfectly matched her green chenille sweater and long flowered skirt. She loved fall dressing. Silly as she knew it was, she’d taken the color of the van to be a good omen. Sort of her own version of, Yes, this wedding can be saved. The inside of the vehicle was filled with files, boxes and garment bags. “I brought some dresses to show you—you’ll have to make a decision on those right away. Beth will arrive tomorrow with the rest.”