The Wedding Dress
Texas
Hearts, #7
The
Inheritance Collection
by Lisa
Mondello
Publisher: Lisa Mondello
Date of Publication: May 17th 2016
Cover Artist: Purple Girl Design
Genre: Contemporary Romance
BLURB
Ten years ago, Hannah Ward thought
she’d found the perfect wedding dress to wear when she and her childhood
sweetheart, Dane Bancroft, decided to elope right after graduation.
But instead of walking down the aisle
like she dreamed of, she was not only outbid on the wedding dress at the
auction by an old billionaire who didn’t need the wedding dress like she did,
but she never ended up getting married. Needing to escape Dane after the
break-up, she enlisted in the military and left Liberty, Texas behind.
But now she’s back, and not only does
she have to face Dane, the deputy sheriff in town, but she’s just been willed
the very wedding dress that was supposed to be the beginning of her and Dane’s
happy life together.
Can they both get a second chance so
she can finally wear the wedding dress of her dreams and marry the only man
she’s ever really loved?
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It was just a box
with fabric inside.
Hannah gazed at the
white box that had come with the letter with longing for time that has long
since passed her by. Although she’d
stared at the dress in the auction catalogue for hours before deciding to drive
to San Antonio more than ten years ago, she’d only seen that wedding dress up
close for just a few minutes before it had been snatched away from her by the
higher bidder.
She was a smart
women. She didn’t need the dress. Or the memories that were now tumbling
through her mind. Good and bad, they
were all there together. The wedding
dress had been the start of it all. And
the end.
Sighing, she got up
from the bed and walked over to the box that sat like a tangled blanket at the
foot of the bed after a rough night of sleep.
The wide white organza ribbon was tied tightly around the box to keep it
secure and then knotted into a pretty bow on top. With a quick tug of the organza, the ribbon
untied and fell to each side of the box.
Her heart pounded as
her fingers felt for the edges of the box.
She didn’t want to see the dress.
Not really. Why was she doing
this? She should just put it in her car
and drive right over to the consignment shop in the next town and let someone
else buy the dress for their wedding.
Get rid of it. Get rid of the
memory.
She lifted the top of
the box off and placed it carefully on the bed next to the box. Pink and white tissue paper covered the
contents, keeping her from seeing inside.
“Ugh. For an army soldier who has spent the last
eight years in combat boots and fatigues, you’re being a wimp, Hannah.”
She reached for the
tissue paper, then quickly stopped and looked at her hands, turning them
over. Most days her hands were covered
with grease and oil from working on a plane engine. Today her hands were clean. Even her fingernails showed the white
half-moon nails that were clean.
Hannah held her
breath as she pushed aside the tissue paper and had her first glimpse of the
dress. A lump lodged in her throat as
she thought of the day of the auction.
This was supposed to be her wedding dress. If she’d married Dane all those years ago,
she would have worn this dress. Who knew
what their lives would be like now.
Taking a deep breath,
she slipped out of her T-shirt, unbuttoned her cut off shorts and let them drop
to the floor. She carefully lifted the
sleeveless dress out of the box, holding it by the shoulders and let the fabric
drop to the floor. There were a million
buttons in the back and she knew she’d have a hard time fastening them
all. But she had to see what she looked
like in the dress. It took a while, but when
the last button was fastened, she walked across the room to the mirror and
looked at her reflection.
“This never would
have fit me like this ten years ago,” Hannah said, staring at herself in the
standing mirror. But now, it fit
perfect. It was as if she needed to grow
out of the young girl’s body and become the woman she was now in order for it
to fit.
Tears filled her eyes
but she refused to let them fall.
Reaching behind her to undo the first button, she muttered, “It would
have been nice.”
A gust of breeze came
in through the open window. Along with
it, Hannah heard the sound of male voices talking. Jackson had gone out for a ride earlier with
Cole. There were other ranch hands here
now.
Her stomach
dropped. It wasn’t just Cole or Jackson. If she lived a thousand years, Hannah would
always recognize the deep timber of Dane Bancroft’s voice.
Still wearing the
dress, Hannah rushed to the window and pulled back the curtain just enough to
see outside. She groaned.
“You would have to
show up today. Of all days,” Hannah
muttered to herself as her heart pounded in her chest. She gazed down from the window to the dirt
driveway below. Dane Bancroft stood next
to Jackson, talking about something interesting that made them both laugh.
He was as tall as
Jackson, but he wasn’t the straight up and down young man she remembered. His police uniform did little to show off the
muscles she knew were under his shirt.
Just when she thought
she couldn’t take anymore, Dane lifted his face up in the direction of the
window. Their eyes locked for a brief
moment. It took a few seconds, but then
he smiled, making Hannah’s heart remember what it was like to be close to him. She actually sighed.
Damn him.
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Author
Info
New York Times and USA TODAY Bestselling
Author, Lisa Mondello, has held many jobs in her life but being a published
author is the last job she'll ever have. She's not retiring! She blames the
creation of the personal computer for her leap into writing novels. Otherwise,
she'd still be penning stories with paper and pen. Her book The Knight and
Maggie's Baby is a New York Times Bestseller. Her popular series includes TEXAS
HEARTS, DAKOTA HEARTS, Fate with a Helping Hand and the new SUMMER HOUSE
series. Writing as LA Mondello, her romantic suspense, MATERIAL WITNESS, book 1
of her Heroes of Providence series made the USA TODAY Bestsellers List and was
named one of Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2012. You can find more information
about Lisa Mondello at lisamondello.blogspot.com and sign up for her newsletter
to receive new release information at http://eepurl.com/xhxO5
Author Links:
How would you describe your
style of writing to someone that has never read your work?
I
write emotional stories about real people dealing with real life situations and
I always guarantee a happy ending.
What mindset or routine do you
feel the need to set when preparing to write (in general whether you are
working on a project or just free writing)?
I can
write anywhere. And I have. I’ve written in the car on my Alphasmart
while waiting for my then teenage kids to get off work. I’ve written in the Laundromat, the airport,
on the plane, in a hotel, in Dunkin Donuts, in a school classroom, in a break
room at work and oh, yeah, in my home office. The only think I really need is
some space from noise. By that I mean, noise
I own. At home, I own all that noise
whether it be the animals or my family.
I can’t ignore it. When I’m
somewhere else, I can block out all the noise because it’s not my noise. I think it can be a little dangerous because
I forget where I am sometimes.
Do you take your character prep
to heart? Do you nurture the growth of each character all the way through to
the page? Do you people watch to help with development? Or do you build upon
your character during story creation?
I have
a little idea of my character and what’s going on in his or her life when I
start a story. But what really starts
the engine is a scene. I’ll see a scene
in my head like a movie clip and then it goes from there. I get to know my characters as I go
along. I write out of order so sometimes
it’s a bit weird because I don’t know enough about someone when I write a scene
initially. But that is what revisions
are for. When I get to revisions, I can
really shape the character and add depth that wasn’t there in a first draft.
Have you found yourself bonding
with any particular character? If so which one(s)?
Oh,
gosh, I love them all for different reasons.
I had a review from a reader once who said, “If there really is a Logan
McKinnon in the world, may he kindly step forward.” Logan McKinnon is the hero is Her Dakota Man,
book 1 of the Dakota Hearts series, currently free for download. I loved Logan because he was loyal to a
fault. His loyalty had been his
undoing. So bringing him through the
tangled mess of his life and getting him to the happy ending was tough. But he’s worth it! I love the heroes of the Texas Hearts series
and all for different reasons. I do fall
in love with my heroes. They’re all a
bit alpha with that marshmallow heart that the heroine brings out.
Do you have a character that
you have been working on that you can't wait to put to paper?
I get
like that with a lot of books. Sometimes
I bring in a secondary character who I don’t think will be that big a deal and
ends up melting my heart. It was like
that with Ian McKinnon, a wounded war hero who was the cousin in the Dakota
Hearts series. I had originally only
planned on writing about the 5 brothers.
But Ian stole my heart and readers were writing me about when they were
going to get Ian’s story. So I had to
write Dakota Wedding, which is one of my favorite books. We got to see Logan and his lady love get
married in that book as well. When I
wrote Leaving Liberty, a particularly emotional story, I’d introduced a ranch
hand named Cole Rivers. When I was done
writing Leaving Liberty, I knew I couldn’t just let Cole fade away. I had to write his story, which ended up
being His Texas Heart, the story before The Wedding Dress. I get surprised by that sometimes. But readers seem to love it.
Have you ever felt that there
was something inside of you that you couldn't control? If so what? If no what
spurs you to reach for the unexperienced?
Like
many writers, I have a very overactive imagination. I wonder about all kinds of things. So it’s just my curiosity that makes me
research. That’s good and bad, by the
way. I can be working on some research
for a book and see something that looks interesting and go and read that and
then find something else that is interesting and so on and pretty soon I’ve
spent hours and hours researching…stuff. My brain is filled with random useless
stuff that sometimes shows up in a book.
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