Drop Dead Gorgeous Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  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

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Blair’s Krispy Kreme Doughnut Bread Pudding

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Linda Howard

  Copyright

  Chapter

  One

  My name is Blair Mallory, and I’m trying to get married, but the Fates are NOT cooperating…I hate the Fates, don’t you? Whoever the dumb bitches are.

  I sat at my dining table and stared at the calendar, checking open dates against the multitude of schedules spread across the table: my schedule, Wyatt’s schedule, Mom’s and Dad’s schedules, my sisters’ schedules, Wyatt’s mother’s schedule, Wyatt’s sister’s schedule, Wyatt’s sister’s kids’ and husbands’ schedules…it was never going to end. There was no good open date for everyone until the day after Christmas, which was so not going to be my wedding day. My anniversaries would forever suck, if we got married the day after Christmas, because Wyatt would already have given me all the good stuff he could think of. No way. I don’t sabotage myself.

  “You’re huffing and puffing,” Wyatt observed without looking up from the report he was reading. I assumed it was some sort of police report, since he’s a lieutenant on the local force, but I didn’t ask; I’d wait until he was out of the room to read it, just to see if it was about anyone I knew. You’d be amazed what some people will do, people you’d never in a million years think would get up to such hijinks; my eyes had certainly been opened since I’d been dating Wyatt—well, since I’d been reading his reports, which, come to think of it, actually preceded our dating, this time around, anyway. There are benefits to dating a cop, especially one who is fairly high up on the food chain. My gossip cup runneth over.

  “You’d be huffing and puffing, too, if you were trying to deal with all these schedules instead of sitting over there reading.”

  “I’m working,” he retorted, confirming that he was indeed reading some sort of report; I just hoped it was juicy, and that he’d leave it unattended while he went to the bathroom or something. “And you wouldn’t have any problems with schedules if you’d do what I suggested.”

  What he’d suggested was getting married in Gatlinburg, at some tacky wedding chapel and without all my stuff around me. I could deal with the wedding chapel, but having tried to pack for a special event before, I’ve learned a hard lesson: you always forget something. I didn’t want to spend my wedding day rushing around trying to find a replacement for what I’d forgotten.

  “Or we can get married at the courthouse here,” he pointed out.

  The man doesn’t have a romantic bone in his body, which is actually okay, because I’m not much of a romantic either, and too much mushiness would get on my nerves. On the other hand, I do know How Things Are Done, and I wanted pictures to prove it to our children.

  And that’s another thing that was stressing me out. My thirty-first birthday had come and gone, putting me that much closer to amniocentesis. Whatever children I was going to have, I wanted to have them before hitting the age where any obstetrician with an ounce of self-preservation and a healthy fear of lawsuits would automatically order the amnio. I don’t want to have a long needle stuck in my belly. What if it hits the baby in the eye, or something? What if that long sucker goes all the way through and punctures my spinal column? You know in Peter Pan, where the crocodile has swallowed a clock and you can tell the croc is getting closer because the ticking gets louder? My biological clock was ticking like that damn crocodile. Or maybe it was an alligator. Doesn’t matter. Instead of “tick tock” it was saying “Amnio” (the entire word wouldn’t fit the rhythm of tick-tock) and I was having nightmares about it.

  I had to get married, fast, so I could throw away my birth control pills.

  And Wyatt just sat there reading his damn report while I was stressed almost to the point of screaming. He wasn’t even trying to cheer me up by telling me what was in the report so I’d have a better idea if I needed to read it later to get all the details—not that he ever did. He was a positive hog when it came to police business, keeping it all to himself.

  “I’m beginning to think it’s never going to happen, we’re never going to get married,” I said glumly, tossing my pen onto the table.

  Without moving from his sprawled, relaxed position, he gave me a pointed look. “If it’s too much for you, I’ll handle the details,” he said. If there was a faint sharpness to his tone it was because he was becoming impatient with what seemed like an endless parade of delays and obstructions. He wanted to marry me; he didn’t like the inconvenience of sleeping over at my condo—not to mention that he saw no reason why I should still be living there, instead of with him—and he was ready for me to get on with all the girly stuff, which was how he regarded the details of the wedding, so he could get on with all the manly stuff. “You’ll be Blair Bloodsworth before the week is out.”

  “Since it’s Wednesday already, that’s—” I stopped, my brain literally frozen as his words sank in. No. No! I couldn’t have overlooked something that glaring, that in-your-face. It simply wasn’t possible, unless I’d been so crazed by lust I wasn’t thinking straight. As excuses go, that works for me. Deciding how my oversight had happened, however, didn’t make it go away. I grabbed the pen and scribbled down the offending words, then wrote them again just to make certain my synapses hadn’t short-circuited. No such luck.

  “Oh, no!” I stared in horror at what I’d written, which of course really got Wyatt’s attention, which of course was what I’d intended. Not that I plan these little episodes, but when the opportunity presents itself—I gave him a tragic look and pronounced, “I can’t marry you.”

  Wyatt Bloodsworth, police lieutenant, alpha male, all-around tough guy and the man I adored, bent down and slowly beat his head against the table. “Why me?” he groaned. Thunk. “Was it something I did in a past life?” Thunk. “How long do I have to pay?” Thunk.

  You’d think he’d ask why I couldn’t marry him, but no, he had to act like a smart-ass. Actually, I think he was trying to out-drama me, on the theory that the best way to fight fire was with fire. I couldn’t decide which I resented more, the idea that he thought I was a drama queen, or that he thought he could out-drama me. The man doesn’t exist who can—never mind. Some roads I just shouldn’t go down.

  I crossed my arms under my breasts and glared at him. It isn’t my fault that crossing my arms lifted my breasts and pushed them together, nor is it my fault that Wyatt is a breast man—and an ass man, and a leg man, and any other woman-part you want to name—so therefore it isn’t my fault that when he lifted his head to bang it again his gaze sort of snagged on my cleavage and he forgot what he’d been about to say. I had just taken a shower and was wearing only a robe and underpants, so it was also reasonable that the robe had done what robes do, which is