Nikki Rivers - Random Acts Of Fashion

Dear Reader,

I’ve always loved the craziness of fashion, where the absurd often hangs right next to the sublime. Hmmm—kind of sounds like romantic comedy, doesn’t it? Well, how could I resist? I just had to create Gillian Caine, a fashion designer from New York City who has just been dumped and swindled by a definite Mr. Wrong. Gillian was a delight to write. She’s strong-willed, creative, independent. She’s a girl who intends to stand on her own two feet—even when they’re stuffed into a pair of pumps with five-inch heels. To add to the fun, I transplanted Gillian to Timber Bay, Michigan—the small town I first introduced in my June, 2004, Flipside, Finding Mr. Perfect. Timber Bay is the kind of place where buying a new flannel shirt every winter is considered keeping up with the latest trends—until Gillian hits town, that is!

Gillian Caine is one of my favorite creations. A real Flipside kind of girl! I hope you have fun getting to know her as she commits Random Acts of Fashion on the eccentric citizens of Timber Bay.

May the fashion be with you,

Nikki Rivers

“I want you to decorate the tree with these,” Gillian ordered

Lukas nudged the box beside him, then looked at the suspended branches in the shop window. Opening the carton, he sputtered, “These are…um—”

“Lingerie, McCoy. Now get to work!”

“Yes, warden,” he grumbled, picking up a violet camisole. He continued arranging the garments as Gillian came over to inspect his work. Not used to her closeness, Lukas tripped over the stool, lunging toward her, crashing through the tree. Bras and panties took flight like a colorful flock of frightened birds.

“Lukas?” Gillian tossed underwear aside until she found a nose sticking out of the leg of a French-cut panty.

“Are you all right?” she asked as she lifted the lingerie. “Not exactly the way it’s worn, McCoy,” she said, grinning down at him.

“Maybe you’d like to demonstrate the right way to wear it then, warden,” he replied, his mouth holding back a wicked grin.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Nikki Rivers loves writing romantic comedy because she believes that laughter is just as necessary to life as love is. She also gets a kick out of creating quirky characters, having come from a long line of them, herself. Nikki lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with her very own Mr. Right. She loves to hear from readers. E-mail her at RiversWrites@aol.com.

HARLEQUIN FLIPSIDE

17—FINDING MR. PERFECT

HARLEQUIN DUETS

66—A SNOWBALL’S CHANCE

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

550—SEDUCING SPENCER

592—DADDY’S LITTLE MATCHMAKER

664—ROMANCING ANNIE

723—HER PRINCE CHARMING

764—FOR BETTER, FOR BACHELOR

To my sisters, Bobbi, Pat, and Judy. Thanks for the laughter, the strength, and the love—and for all those bizarre weekends at the bazaar. Yes! An ant can move a rubber tree plant!

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

THE BLACK PICKUP TRUCK with Timber Bay Building and Restoration painted on its side in old-fashioned gold script pulled up to the curb in front of the Sheridan Hotel. Lukas McCoy got out of the driver’s seat and slammed the door behind him.

“I should have known,” he grumbled, scowling at the workmen installing a sign on one of the storefronts across the street. “Tigers never change their stripes.”

His partner and best friend, Danny Walker, got out the passenger side. “Lukas, pal, I never noticed how fond you are of non sequiturs.”

Lukas gave Danny a look. “Hannah teach you a new word this morning over toast and coffee?”

Danny grinned. “We skipped breakfast, pal. We’re still on our honeymoon.”

Danny had married Hannah Ross at the end of the summer. Everyone said it was the most beautiful wedding that Timber Bay had ever seen. And they were thrilled that Hannah, a research sociologist who’d come to Timber Bay on a misguided mission to find the perfect American family for an ad campaign, had stayed to become one of them. But it was still a little weird for Lukas to think of Danny as being married. He’d always figured that Danny would be a lifetime Lothario. Lukas had been the one most likely of the two to settle down with a wife. Danny had been his best friend since grade school and Lukas begrudged him nothing. But damned if he wasn’t just a little jealous of Danny’s happiness. Facing that satisfied grin of his partner’s every morning was starting to get mighty old.

And now this, Lukas thought sourly as he watched the neon sign being put into place in the window of the long-empty shop that used to be known as Clemintine’s Frocks.

“The big-city princess should have known to hire a local company, at least. Haven’t they ever heard of such a thing as goodwill in New York City? Don’t they know that it’s important to do business with somebody local? And just look at that. Neon.” Lukas spat out the word in disgust. “There isn’t one other neon sign on Sheridan Road.”

It wasn’t as if Timber Bay, Michigan, didn’t have its share of neon. Ludington Avenue was dotted with it. But the Avenue had always been faster than the Road. Always. The merchants on Sheridan Road tended to keep things just as they always had been. Simple redbrick storefronts marched alongside an old-fashioned theater marquee, a Greek Revival town library and an old wooden band shell that was perched in the park along the bay.

And then there was the Sheridan Hotel. Reclusive town matriarch Agnes Sheridan had hired Danny and Lukas to renovate it. The old lady wanted it restored as closely as possible to its original glory, right down to the intricate wood carvings that Lukas was duplicating to replace sections that had rotted.

Danny slapped him on the back. “A little neon isn’t exactly going to ruin the town, pal. Why get all worked up about it?”

It was true that Lukas rarely got all worked up about anything. But this was riling him to no end. “The big-city princess finally claims her inheritance and the first thing she does is plaster neon all over Sheridan Road—and brings in outsiders to do it, besides!”

“They’re from Green Bay, Wisconsin, Lukas, not Pluto,” Danny said as he went around to the back of the truck and let down the gate. “It’s sixty miles away.”

“Still, what’s wrong with hiring somebody local? She’s gotta mar the landscape and insult the citizens all in one day? And how come you aren’t upset, Danny? You’re so all-fired excited about preserving stuff. Clemintine’s Frocks is nearly as much a fixture on Sheridan Road as the hotel is. We don’t need some spoiled city girl coming into town and changing everything around.”

“Women have a way of doing that, pal. And it’s usually for the better.”

Lukas watched the neon being fitted into place and shook his head. “Nothing good is going to come from Gillian Caine coming back to Timber Bay.”

GILLIAN SUCKED IN HER TUMMY and eased the side zipper up on her latest creation—a pair of ultraslim cosmic gray satin pants. She sighed with satisfaction. Living on liquid diet shakes for the past week had paid off. She’d lost five of the ten break-up and go broke pounds she’d gained back in New York. She lifted the filmy ruffled shirt laid out on the bed and slithered into it. Looking in the full-length mirror in the tiny bedroom of her tiny apartment above Clemintine’s Frocks, she was almost satisfied with what she saw.

Of course, it wasn’t Clemintine’s Frocks any longer, Gillian reminded herself. Along with the five pounds, she’d also shed the wooden sign that had hung over the door for the forty years her Aunt Clemintine had been sole proprietor of the dress shop on Sheridan Road. Glad Rags. That’s what Gillian’s shop was going to be called. In bright, bold pink neon. There were two workmen out front right at that very moment hanging the sign. Which was why Gillian just had to look her very best today. Her most chic. She intended to be as bright an advertisement for Glad Rags as the neon was.

She’d purposely kept a low profile since she’d arrived in Timber Bay less than two weeks ago. Behind the yellowing newspapers that covered the display window, she’d toiled day and night, wallpapering, painting and staining until even the rubber gloves she wore couldn’t protect her neglected fingernails. She looked at her hands in disgust.

“Hold on, babies,” she cooed to her chipped and ragged nails. “Once we’ve made our debut, we will find the best manicurist in town and make you all shiny and new again.” Nothing wrong that a good nail wrap couldn’t cure. But at least the rest of her was looking good.

When she’d arrived in Timber Bay she had still been a mess from the crisis in New York. A girl’s world tumbling to pieces around her tended to make for dull hair and muddy-looking skin. So while she’d subsisted on diet shakes, she’d moisturized, exfoliated, mud-packed and conditioned. She leaned in closer to the mirror, scanning her complexion with a critical eye. “Progress,” she pronounced with a smile. There were still five pounds to lose but she was looking a whole lot better than when she’d slunk out of NYC on a one-way ticket on Amtrak.

Gillian slipped an ankle-length duster that matched the pants off its hanger and put it on, drawing the deeply ruffled cuffs of the pink georgette shirt out to flounce over her hands. She struggled into the pink crocodile boots filched from what was until only recently her very own—okay, her co-owned—boutique in lower Manhattan. They were expensive enough to give Ryan, ex-partner, ex-boyfriend, and ex-decent human being, acid reflux when he realized they were missing. But Gillian had no qualms. In fact, she hoped he’d just downed a double espresso when he discovered the boots were gone and that there wasn’t an ant-acid to be had in all of Manhattan. After what that pseudo-designer and society wannabe had done to her, he was lucky she hadn’t taken him to court.

“Enough about him,” she said, turning to check out her completed look in the mirror. She smiled hugely at what she saw. There wasn’t a woman in Timber Bay under thirty-five who wouldn’t be drooling to get inside Glad Rags by the time the grand opening rolled around.

Suddenly her smile faltered, then fell into an outright frown. She had been wrong about Timber Bay in the past. What if—?

Gillian determinedly shook off the thought and the frown. Frowns turned into wrinkles. Besides, she wasn’t going to be wrong this time. This time the town was going to want what she had to offer.

They had to. Didn’t they? she silently asked her reflection. She’d win them over this time. Wouldn’t she?

“Oh, why are you starting with this old insecurity stuff now?” she impatiently asked her reflection. “It is time to exude confidence, Gillian! You are no longer a little girl needing acceptance but a businesswoman who will be fulfilling a need in the community.” And boy, if they were anything like they used to be, the women of Timber Bay had a really big need for what she had to offer. How could she miss?

Her reflection seemed to be listening to her self-inflicted pep talk. Her shoulders straightened, her chin lifted, and her mouth curved into a smile. “That’s more like it.” She tucked the large silver clutch bag she’d designed to go with the outfit under her arm and headed down the stairs and out the door.