Enticing Emily

by Gina Wilkins

  Praise for Gina Wilkins:

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright

  Praise for

  Gina Wilkins:

  Of A NIGHT TO REMEMBER:

  “Once again, favorite storyteller Gina Wilkins delights us with a heartwarming story of two people whose smoldering passion turns into abiding love.”

  —Romantic Times

  “It is a masterpiece!”

  —Rendezvous

  Of THE GETAWAY BRIDE:

  “Master storyteller Gina Wilkins skillfully beguiles us with this fast-paced, sizzling page-turner in the Brides on the Run miniseries.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Wilkins packs powerful drama into this high-tension plot!”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  “Ms. Wilkins hooks her audience at the start with a hero that cradles their heartstrings in his tender embrace. An unforgettable adventure.”

  —Rendezvous

  A small town in Georgia. A family with a past. A trilogy packed with sensual secrets and private scandals!

  Emily McBride, the “good girl” of the McBride clan, had always longed to be daring, reckless... free. But she never expected to end up on the wrong side of the law, even by mistake. Then she met Wade Davenport, the gorgeous new chief of police. And suddenly a life of crime didn’t seem so bad....

  Savannah, Tara and Emily—the McBride women. They’ve come home to put the past to rest. Little do they suspect what the future has in store for them!

  SEDUCING SAVANNAH— January 1998 TEMPTING TARA— March 1998 ENTICING EMILY— May 1998

  Dear Reader,

  It often seems that people lucky enough to have close families take them for granted. And yet, the lack of family can leave scars that never seem to fade. My heroine, Emily McBride, has more scars than most

  Ever since she was a little girl, Emily had longed for a real family. Her father was cold and distant, her mother long missing, and her beloved older brother had left town years ago. Now she’s all alone and planning to escape from the hometown that has begun to seem like a cage. She’s poised on the brink of a new life—and then Wade Davenport comes to town with his adorable eight-year-old son....

  I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Savannah, Tara and Emily McBride, and I’m lucky enough to be able to give them the happy ending each woman deserves. But there is still one McBride whose story has not been told. Lucas McBride, the true black sheep of the family, left Honoria under a cloud of suspicion and has been alone ever since. Being the matchmaker I am, I can’t simply leave him that way! So Lucas is coming back to Honoria, just in time for Christmas, to face the younger sister he abandoned, the townspeople who suspect him of murder...and to finally find the answers to the questions that have been haunting him.

  I hope you enjoy Enticing Emily. And be sure to watch for Lucas’s story in December 1998. And now, back to those scandalous McBrides....

  Enjoy,

  Gina Wilkins

  ENTICING EMILY

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN

  MADRID • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  For my guys—

  John, who takes me to all the classiest places.

  And David, who loves Star Wars and stuffed tigers.

  I love you both.

  Prologue

  OF THE THREE McBride cousins, twenty-six-year-old Emily was the only one who appeared to be enjoying their afternoon outing in the woods behind her house. Which might have seemed odd to some, considering that Emily had seen her father buried only hours earlier.

  It wasn’t that Emily was hard-hearted. But her father had been ill for a very long time, suffering in a way that made his death almost a relief. For five long years Emily had cared for him, nursed him, tried to comfort him. She needed this time for herself, even if it was only for a visit with Savannah and Tara in the Georgia woods where they’d spent so many pleasant hours as children.

  Fifteen years ago, as a lark to fill a lazy summer afternoon, the cousins had buried an old cypress chest containing individual plastic boxes filled with mementos of their childhood. A time capsule, they’d called it. They’d made a solemn vow to dig it up on Savannah’s thirtieth birthday. Though that occasion was still a few weeks away, Emily had talked the other two into unearthing it today, since they were all together.

  “I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” Savannah had protested, looking strangely reluctant.

  “It has only been fifteen years,” Tara agreed. “Timecapsule contents are much more interesting after more time has passed, don’t you think?”

  Emily firmly shook her head. “We’ve already trekked out here and dug it up. And we’re only a few weeks away from Savannah’s birthday, the date we originally agreed upon. We might as well open it.”

  For some reason, this was something Emily really wanted to do. Maybe she simply wanted to be reminded of happier times.

  Emily suspected that Savannah finally went along out of sympathy for her. Perhaps Savannah had suddenly decided that Emily needed a diversion from the sorrow of the past few days. But Savannah probably had no idea how badly Emily needed to be distracted from fretting about the future.

  Digging into the garbage bags, encrusted with dried mud that had protected the objects within the chest, Savannah extracted the three shoebox-sized plastic boxes. Each one had a name written on the top in permanent marker. Emily accepted hers with an eagerness that was notably lacking in her cousins.

  She didn’t know why they were so reluctant to indulge in a bit of nostalgia. Emily had very happy memories of the day they’d buried these boxes. She’d thought the whole thing a marvelous adventure, and she’d been thrilled that her cousins had included her. She’d idolized Savannah and Tara, who’d been fifteen and almost fourteen at the time, compared to Emily’s mere eleven. They’d been surprisingly patient with her, never seeming to mind when she tagged along on their afternoons spent giggling and gossiping in this clearing in the woods.

  Emily couldn’t help smiling as she pulled one item after another out of her box. A plastic clown figurine she’d won at the county fair. A perfect-attendance ribbon from school. A necklace she’d made with lacquered pasta shells. A Barbie dress...now why had she thought that would be significant fifteen years later?

  Her smile faded when she discovered a photograph of her family—herself as a baby, surrounded by her father, her mother and her half brother Lucas. Emily was the only one in the photograph who looked happy to be there.

  And then she found the letter she’d written to herself. Scanning the childish handwriting, she winced as she read her grandiose plans of seeing the world outside the limits of tiny Honoria, Georgia. She’d pictured a future life filled with family—her father and brother, her aunts, uncles, cousins, a husband and children.

  She had never imagined being so alone in this town that had once felt like home.

  She was just about to close the box when she felt something wrapped in tissue paper at the bottom. She didn’t remember putting anything else in, but it had been a long time. Mildly curious, she fumbled in the wrapping and pulled out something heavy and solid.

  It was a bracelet. Gold. Fashioned of heavy, carved links, with
an ornate, solid oval clasp. It looked very old—antique, maybe.

  Emily didn’t remember ever seeing this bracelet in her life.

  And then she frowned and looked again at that old family photograph. Her gaze focused on her mother, Nadine Peck McBride. Specifically, she studied Nadine’s right arm, which was wrapped protectively around the baby in her lap.

  Emily’s eyes widened, and her fingers clenched convulsively around the piece of jewelry.

  Her mother had been missing for a long time. How had Nadine’s bracelet gotten into this box when Emily knew for certain that she hadn’t put it there?

  1

  “SO I SAID to Arthur, ‘Why don’t we ask Emily? I’m sure she would be happy to help us out.’ And Arthur said, ‘Of course. Ask Emily.’” Martha Godwin rattled the ice in her tea glass and smiled in sheer delight at her own cleverness.

  Ask Emily. It seemed to be the unofficial motto of Honoria, Georgia, the little town in which Emily McBride had been born and raised. The town she’d rarely left in her entire twenty-six years.

  Need a baby-sitter? Ask Emily.

  Someone to pick up your mail and newspaper while you’re on vacation? Ask Emily.

  A ride to the doctor’s office or the grocery store? Ask Emily.

  Need a dress hemmed? A few dozen cookies for a bake sale? Someone to go door-to-door collecting charity donations? Someone to substitute in the three-year-olds’ Sunday-school class? Just ask Emily.

  With her fixed smile masking her rebellious thoughts—or so she hoped—Emily answered genially. “Of course, Martha. I’d be happy to take care of Oliver while you and Arthur are away on your cruise.”

  Martha nodded in satisfaction. “I knew you’d help us out. You’re such a sweet girl, Emily. I don’t know what we’d do without you around here.”

  Well, you’re going to find out, Emily thought. Three more months, and I’m leaving. Then you and the rest of Honoria will have to find someone else to do your “little favors.”

  But all she said was, “When did you say you’re leaving?”

  “Monday. And, gracious, I have so much to do in only three short days! You have no idea how much packing is involved for a week-long cruise.”

  Of course she didn’t. Emily had never taken a cruise. She’d never flown on an airplane or ridden a train or traveled outside the borders of her own country. But that was all going to change.

  Five months ago, Emily had buried her father, the last tie holding her to this town. And she’d given herself until the end of the year to settle his affairs. Then, finally, she was going to find a life for herself. Somewhere other than Honoria, preferably. She was going to find out once and for all who she was and what she wanted out of life. She was going to see all those places she’d only read about in books during those long nights sitting by her father’s sickbed.

  “Why don’t you bring Oliver over Sunday afternoon so you won’t have that to do Monday morning?” she suggested to the older woman, putting her lofty future plans aside for the moment.

  Martha patted her mouth with a paper napkin. “Would you mind too terribly coming to our house Sunday afternoon to pick him up? I’m afraid Arthur and I will be so very busy Sunday that we really won’t have time to drive all the way out here in the country.”

  Oh, now that was just too much. Not only did the Godwins want her to take care of their geriatric poodle for a week, they wanted her to come get the little mutt. And Martha didn’t even seem to have an inkling of how presumptuous she was being.

  “All right,” was all Emily said. “What time should I come by?”

  You’re such a doormat, Emily McBride. But that, too, was going to stop when she finally took off on her own, she promised herself.

  “Anytime between one and three will be fine. Oh, dear, look at the time. I really must go. I want to stop by the police station on my way home.”

  “The police station?” Emily repeated curiously.

  Martha nodded her carefully frosted head. “I want to remind Chief Davenport that I’ll be out of town next week. I’ve asked him to send extra patrols around our place several times a night, but I’m afraid he’ll forget. To be honest, Emily, there are times when I wonder if our new chief of police is very bright.”

  “I haven’t met him,” Emily admitted, “but I read in the Honoria Gazette that he came highly recommended from his last position. I understand he was the mayor’s first choice after Chief Powell resigned.”

  “That may be, but I certainly haven’t been very impressed so far. In the short time he’s been here, I’ve never seen him move any faster than a stroll, nor does he seem capable of standing without leaning against something. Arthur says you could set the man’s hair afire and it would take him an hour to get around to putting it out.”

  Emily chuckled. “Still, he must be good at his job or Mayor McQuade would never have appointed him.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Martha smiled. “It isn’t as if there’s ever any real crime in Honoria. Teenagers getting out of hand, Joe Wimble getting drunk and making noise every Saturday night, the occasional petty theft. There hasn’t been a serious crime here since...since...”

  Since Roger Jennings was murdered fifteen years ago. Martha didn’t have to finish the sentence. Emily knew exactly what crime the other woman had been about to mention. After all, it had been Emily’s brother who’d unfairly taken the blame for it.

  Martha didn’t stay much longer. She’d gotten what she wanted, and was in a hurry to be off so she could impose on others.

  Emily closed the door behind her visitor, sighed, and ran a hand through her blond curls. She turned away from the door and spotted the corner of a glossy, brightly colored travel brochure sticking out from beneath a stack of bills on the antique desk. She smiled.

  Three more months, and she would be free. The idea was as exhilarating as it was terrifying.

  “EMILY, ARE YOU absolutely sure you want to do this?” Mary Kay Evans asked solemnly, extending a pen in Emily’s direction.

  Emily took the pen firmly in her hand and carefully signed her name at the bottom of the contract in front of her. Only then did she look up at the woman across the desk. “I’m sure, Mary Kay. This is something I’ve been planning for a very long time.”

  “But your home...you’ve lived there all your life. It’s all you have left of your family. You really want to sell it?”

  Emily’s smile felt strained. “Mary Kay, why are you suddenly trying to talk me out of this? You’ve already told me you expect to get a nice commission from selling my place. Do you want the listing or not?”

  “I want it. If, that is, you’re absolutely certain you’re doing the right thing.”

  Trying to look as confident as she sounded, Emily replied, “I’m absolutely certain. A four-bedroom house on twenty acres of land is more than I need. And there’s nothing holding me here now that Dad’s gone, so I’ll have a chance to do some traveling. Do you really blame me?”

  “I guess not,” Mary Kay replied. She had spent four years at a college in the east before returning to Honoria to marry her high-school sweetheart. “It’s just that...well, I never thought you would leave,” she admitted. “I know all your cousins have moved away, but I thought your roots were deeper. I thought you would always stay in Honoria.”

  Had Mary Kay honestly believed that Emily would be content to live the rest of her life alone in the house that every member of her dysfunctional family had abandoned one by one—either by choice or, in her father’s case, by death? Maybe the other woman thought Emily would marry eventually. But even if Emily hadn’t been so restless and ready to leave, the prospects in Honoria were decidedly limited.

  Emily reached for her purse. “It’s not as if I’ll never come back to visit. My aunt and uncle still live here, and always will, I suppose. And I’ll want to see all my old friends again. But this is what I want to do now. What I need to do.”

  Mary Kay nodded briskly. “In that case,” she said, s
tacking the paperwork neatly in front of her, “you’ve come to the right place. As a matter of fact, I have someone in mind already who just might be interested in your house.”

  Emily felt a sudden hollowness somewhere deep inside her. “Already?” she asked in surprise.

  “Yes. He came in yesterday and I mentioned that I might have a place coming available today. He’s a widower with a young son, and your house is very much like what he’s looking for. I wouldn’t be surprised if he makes an offer as soon as he sees it.”

  “Oh.” Emily moistened her lips, which suddenly felt dry. “Well, that would be...great,” she said rather lamely.

  “Maybe you know him. He’s the new—Oh, here he is now.”

  Hearing the door to the real-estate office open behind her, Emily turned. The man who strolled in was not overly tall, maybe five foot ten. Through his chambray shirt and close-fitting jeans, she could tell that he was solidly built, with strong arms, broad shoulders and lean hips. He walked with the confidence of a man who was accustomed to being in charge. His hair was brown, shot with red, conservatively cut, a bit disheveled by the autumn breeze. His eyes were brown. Rich, warm brown, but sharp enough that Emily suspected there was very little he missed.

  She wouldn’t have called him classically handsome, but that didn’t seem to matter. He had an attraction all his own, and Emily imagined that most women would agree with her.

  “Hello, Chief Davenport. I was just talking about you,” Mary Kay said with a flirtatiousness that confirmed Emily’s theory. Mary Kay was happily married, but obviously not immune to a good-looking man.