Stephanie Bond - My Favorite Mistake

Dear Reader,

An Evening To Remember Those words evoke all kinds of emotions and memories. How do you plan a romantic evening with your guy that will help you get in touch with each other on every level?

Start with a great dinner that you cook together. Be sure to light several candles and put fresh flowers on the table. Enjoy a few glasses of wine and pick out your favorite music to set the mood. After dinner take the time to really talk to each other. Hold hands and snuggle on the sofa in front of the fireplace. And maybe take a few minutes to read aloud selected sexy scenes from your favorite Harlequin Blaze novel. After that, anything can happen.

Thats just one way to have an evening to remember. There are so many more. Write and tell us how you keep the spark in your relationship. And dont forget to check out our Web site at www.eHarlequin.com.

Sincerely,

Birgit Davis-Todd

Executive Editor

T HIS IS A MISTAKE , I said, suddenly panicked by the horde of women pushing at me from all sides. In the minutes just prior to Filenes Basement running of the brides, the crowd was getting hostile, all elbows and bared teeth.

Next to me, my friend Cindy turned her head and scowled. Denise Cooke, you cant back out nowIm counting on you! The normally demure Cindy Hamilton shoved a woman standing next to her to make room to reach into her shoulder bag. Here, put on this headband so we can spot each other once we get in there.

I sighed and reached for the neon pink headband. It wasnt as if I could look more ridiculousI was already freezing and humiliated standing there in my yoga leotard (the Web-site-recommended uniform for trying on bridal gowns in the aisles). February in New York did not lend itself to leotardsI was numb from my V-neck down. This is a lot of trouble for a discounted wedding gown when youre not even engaged, I grumbled.

This was your idea, Miss Penny Pincher, Cindy reminded me.

That was true. I was helping Cindy with her Positive Thinking 101 class, and her assignment was to prepare for an event with the idea being that it would then become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Since Cindy wanted to be married more than anything else in the world, shed decided to buy a wedding gown. Cheapskate that I am (an investment broker-slash-financial planner, actually), I had suggested Filenes biannual bridal event for a good deal.

So here we were at seven-thirty on a cold Saturday morning, poised with oh, about eight or nine hundred other freezing leotard-clad women, waiting for the doors of Filenes to be hurled open. There were a few identifiable teams with members wearing identical hats or T-shirts. Like me, they were friends who had been commandeered to grab as many dresses as possible from the clearance racks, thereby increasing the odds of the bride-to-be getting a gown she wanted.

Remember, Cindy said, her eyes as serious as an NFL coach dispensing plays, strapless or spaghetti straps, with a princess waistlinewhite is my first choice, but Im willing to go as far left as light taupe. I need a size ten, but I can work with a twelve.

I nodded curtly. Got it.

If you find a gown that might work, put it on so no one can grab it out of your hands.

I swallowed and nodded again, suddenly apprehensive.

And who knows, Cindy added with a grin. You might find a dress that youll want to keep for yourself.

I frowned. Barry and I havent even talked about getting married.

Good grief, youve been dating for two yearshes going to propose someday, and then youll already have a dress. Its practical .

I started to say it was presumptuous, then remembered why Cindy was there and clamped my mouth shut. Barry wasgreat, but I couldnt see myself getting marriedagain.

Like every time I remembered my last-minute and short-lived Las Vegas marriage to Sergeant Redford DeMoss, I got a sick feeling in my stomach. My first marriage was one of those events in my life that I wanted to expunge from my memory, like a stupid teenage stuntexcept I hadnt been a stupid teenagerI had been a stupid adult. In the three years since my marriage to and subsequent annulment from Redford, I had managed to block the incident from my mind for the most part. But since two of my best friends, Jacki and Kenzie, had recently gotten married and my last single friend, Cindy, seemed hell-bent on doing the same, the memories of my incredible wedding night had been popping into my head at the strangest momentsI couldnt seem to outrun them.

Someone behind me stepped on my heel, scraping it raw. I winced, not sure how I was going to outrun this dogged bunch, either.