The Third Mrs. Mitchell

A vision of Pete naked, with warm water glazing his skin, flashed into her mind.

Mary Rose shook her head hard and sat down on the sofa, sifting through the magazines on Pete’s coffee table, mostly law enforcement publications and racing rags. The summer they were together, she recalled, he’d read all the golf journals…and the racing rags. Some things never changed.

But some things did. Ten years ago—July 7, to be exact—she’d married Pete Mitchell. They’d lived together for a little over a month in the one-room apartment he’d rented, sharing the cheap furniture that came with the place, subsistence groceries and the red Mustang her parents had given her as a graduation present. Not to mention the fantastic sex.

After ten years they were obviously different people, at different points in their lives, not the kids they’d been long ago. Mary Rose didn’t act on impulse anymore. She considered options, made plans, evaluated results. Yet after ten years, here she was again…in Pete Mitchell’s place.

The Third Mrs. Mitchell

Lynnette Kent

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Kathy, Barbara and Julie, my sisters…in law and so much more.

Dear Reader,

As a navy wife, I appreciated the opportunity to travel across the United States and see firsthand the amazing diversity and beauty of this country. When the time came for my husband to retire, however, the choice of where to go was never in doubt…we couldn’t imagine settling down outside the South. Neighborhoods where all the children play together and treat each other’s houses, and parents, as their own, backyard vegetable gardens and lazy, sun-soaked summers, honeysuckle vines and moss-draped live oak trees—these are our childhood memories, this the lifestyle we wanted our daughters to experience. We’ve come close to our ideal in North Carolina, although the bustle of the modern world now penetrates all but the remotest country retreats. These days, even rural backwaters have their Internet cafés, rush-hour traffic and crime statistics.

Still, I have a deep affection for the real South and the people who live here. And so I’m offering Superromance readers a series of books set in a small Southern town, stories about folks who stayed nearby after high school or who have come back to make a home in the place where they were born. There’s plenty of material to draw from, since life gets complicated when you know everybody and they all know you, when your smallest transgression is the main topic of conversation the next morning over breakfast at the local diner!

Sometimes, though, the place that’s all too familiar is the best place to make a brand-new start. In The Third Mrs. Mitchell, Mary Rose Bowdrey discovers that coming home means dealing with the mistakes and misjudgments of the past…not to mention Pete Mitchell, the man she’s never quite managed to forget. Pete’s got his life all planned out; after two failed marriages, he’s taken himself out of the relationship game permanently. But when these ex-lovers keep running into each other, their best intentions aren’t enough to keep love from having its own way.

I hope you enjoy the first book in my AT THE CAROLINA DINER series. I love to hear from readers—feel free to write me at my new address: PMB 304, Westwood Shopping Center, Fayetteville, NC 28314.

All the best,

Lynnette Kent

Books by Lynnette Kent

HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE

765—ONE MORE RODEO

793—WHEN SPARKS FLY

824—WHAT A MAN’S GOT TO DO

868—EXPECTING THE BEST

901—LUKE’S DAUGHTERS

938—MATT’S FAMILY

988—NOW THAT YOU’RE HERE

1002—MARRIED IN MONTANA

1024—SHENANDOAH CHRISTMAS

1080—THE THIRD MRS. MITCHELL

CONTENTS

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 ONE

THE RED PORSCHE flashed by at an impressive 84.7 miles per hour.

Parked within the deep shade of the pine trees in the median, Pete Mitchell sighed, pushed his shades up on his nose, then flipped the switch for the siren and the lights and eased his patrol car into the northbound lane of Interstate 95. Another day, another speeder, another hundred dollars for the county.

Traffic was light at 3:00 p.m. on a Thursday and he caught up with the Porsche before five miles had passed, noting the South Carolina license plate. The driver glanced in the rearview mirror as he moved over behind her in the right lane. Her fist hit the steering wheel in frustration.

“Gotcha,” Pete told her with a grin, staying close as she slowed to a stop on the shoulder of the highway. After checking for oncoming traffic, he eased out of the car and set his hat straight on his head, then took his time getting to the driver’s window.

The windowpane slid down as he came close. A long slender arm stretched out with a driver’s license and registration sheet clipped between two pink-frosted fingertips. The diamond tennis bracelet weighing down that elegant left hand could easily have doubled as a handcuff.

“Trying out for a NASCAR berth, ma’am?” Pete slid the papers free. “I think you’ve confused Interstate 95 with Darlington Speedway.” He turned on his toe to head back to the cruiser, but one glance at the license stopped him cold. Taking off his shades, he checked out the name again. Looked at the face in the picture. Swore under his breath.

Mary Rose Bowdrey. Born May 1, 1974. Height, five-eight; weight, one-thirty. That hadn’t changed in ten years. Eyes, blue—the color, as he remembered, of the Atlantic Ocean at noon on a sunny day. Hair, blond—a rich gold shot through with streaks of silver which didn’t show up in the lousy license photo. Pete hadn’t known her long enough or well enough to be sure whether all that color was natural or not.

After all, they’d only been married thirty-six days.

He pivoted back to the window, automatically taking off his hat. “Mary Rose?”

The red door swung open. The best legs on Hilton Head Island during the summer of 1992—and probably every year since—unfolded into the sunlight. In one smooth move, Ms. Bowdrey stood up out of the car and faced him, pushing up the sleeves of her navy-blue sweater, tucking strands of shiny, shoulder-length hair behind her ears. “I don’t believe this. Pete?”

“That’s right.” He needed a second to remember the next line. “Uh…how are you?” His mama always said good manners could salvage even the most bizarre situations. “It’s been a long time.” Not that he could tell by looking at the woman in front of him. Still sleek as a cat, this Mary Rose could be the eighteen-year-old girl he’d spent that summer with. Married.

Worked so damn hard to forget.

His first ex-wife gave him a beauty-queen smile. “That it has. I’m fine. How about you?” With a faint clink of diamonds and gold, her hands slipped into the pockets of her short white skirt, heading off any impulse he might have felt to give her a hug. She kept her dark sunglasses on, so he couldn’t read the expression in those marine-blue eyes.

Pete didn’t need an interpreter for this message: Keep your distance was as clear as the nearby billboard for fast food and gas. “I’m good. Where’re you headed?”

“New Skye. I’ll be visiting my sister for a little while.”

“That so?” He’d have felt better if she’d said the sky was falling. The possibility of Mary Rose spending more than an afternoon in the same county he lived in, let alone the same town, was big-time bad news.

Why couldn’t he have been asleep when the Porsche passed through?

Pete shook off the feeling of dread creeping up his spine. “Well, it looks to me like you’re in kind of a hurry to get there. Speed limit’s sixty on this stretch of road, you know.”

Mary Rose bit her bottom lip, which was frosted with the same pink as her fingernails. “I guess I wasn’t watching the speedometer. I’ll slow down from now on. I promise.”

“I hope so.” Pete turned toward the cruiser again. “You get back in the car. I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes.”

Standard procedure didn’t use up much brain space, which was good because Pete registered a definite lack of available cells at the moment. Working on autopilot, he wrote up the ticket, logged in the information and ran a check on Mary Rose’s license. There were no outstanding violations on her record, which probably meant she’d talked the other suckers who pulled her over out of writing her up. Maybe she took off her sunglasses for them.

When he handed the citation through the Porsche’s window, Mary Rose gazed up at him, her mouth open in surprise. “You’re giving me a ticket?”

“You can contest the charge in court. There’s a trial date on the sheet. If you fail to appear, your plea of guilty will be assumed and you’ll be expected to pay the full fine.”

“But…” She pressed her lips together for a second, then relaxed them into a sweet, coaxing curve he remembered all too well. “Come on, Pete. There’s no traffic. I wasn’t hurting anybody. Can’t you let this one go?”

He wasn’t even tempted. “Sorry. You keep it under the speed limit from now on, all right?” Tipping his hat, he stepped back, needing to get away. Fast. “Good seeing you again, Mary Rose. Take care.”

Mary Rose watched through the rearview mirror as Pete Mitchell returned to his car. The man was still seriously gorgeous, being possessed of wide shoulders, narrow hips and a tight butt, plus those light gray, dark lashed eyes gleaming like polished pewter in his tanned face. When they were together all those years ago, he’d worn his black hair pulled back in a short ponytail, but the regulation highway-patrol buzz cut wasn’t bad at all. A little austere, maybe, but Pete had always been a straight-arrow kind of guy at heart.

That was why he’d married her in the first place, right? You got a girl in trouble, you took responsibility. If you were lucky, she lost the baby and set you free.

Her ex-husband had been nothing but lucky.

Blowing an irritated breath off her lower lip, Mary Rose put the car in gear, checked for traffic and eased into the sparse flow. Pete followed in his cruiser; while she kept the needle carefully set at sixty, he breezed past her with a wave.

“Oh, of course.” She hit the heel of her hand on the steering wheel. “Mr. Big Shot doesn’t have to obey the speed limit.” She threw him a furious glance as he took the next exit, once again vanishing from her life.

Or maybe not. He had grown up in New Skye, graduated in the same class with her older sister, Kate. Did he still live there? What were the chances she might see him again while she was in town?

Mary Rose shuddered at the thought, tempted to turn around and head straight back to Charleston, damn the speed limit.

But running away was not an option. Kate was in deep trouble. She sounded more desperate with every phone call.

And not even the possibility of another encounter with the man she’d never quite managed to forget was going to keep Mary Rose from standing by her sister during the worst days of her life.

Fifteen minutes after leaving her ex-husband behind, Mary Rose took the interstate exit for the town of New Skye, North Carolina. She hadn’t been home for at least six years; her final Christmas in college had been her last visit, despite her parents’ repeated invitations. Nobody climbed the ladder of success in the business world by indulging themselves with extended vacations. This was the first time since graduate school she’d taken off more than five business days in a row.

Anyway, it wasn’t as if she never saw her family. They all spent a week together in the condo at the beach every summer and a week skiing in Colorado every January. She talked to her parents once a week and chatted with Kate and her kids whenever either of them had a spare hour or so. That was as much family togetherness as Mary Rose, personally, could stand.

So now she studied her hometown with interest as she drove through. The outskirts of New Skye—with its service stations and fast-food restaurants, the water-treatment plant, the police academy, the firefighters’ training tower—could have been any small town in the Southeast. Plenty of asphalt, few trees and the flat Sand-hills landscape did little to invite a traveler to linger longer than it took to get a tank of gas.

But then she turned off the commercial strip to drive slowly along Main Street, toward Courthouse Circle. This wasn’t the dead downtown scene she remembered from her high-school years. On each side of the newly bricked street, antique shops, coffee bars and cafés inhabited what had once been empty storefronts, or worse, bars and pickup joints. The old movie house had been renovated and was showing an art film she’d seen advertised recently in New York. Huge pots of pansies and daffodils punctuated the sidewalks underneath newly-leafing pear trees.

Mary Rose clicked her tongue in amazement. New Skye had certainly changed for the better in her absence.

She was glad to see that some things remained the same, like the Victorian elegance of the county courthouse, standing tall on its island of bright green grass. Traffic circled around the red brick, white-columned building, one of the oldest in town—the fire of 1876 had destroyed all of the business district except the Presbyterian and Methodist churches, the courthouse and the Velvet Rose Tavern. Thankfully, the Velvet Rose had succumbed to its own fire only a couple of decades later. The downtown branch of the public library—still functioning, still imposing with its white marble—had been built in its place.

On the far side of Courthouse Circle, Main Street followed a single hill rising up out of the flat terrain. On top were some of New Skye’s finest residences, built mostly in the early 1900s, though a few dated back to before “The War.” Mary Rose doubted that the folks in Charleston, where an old building might claim construction in 1725, would be terribly impressed with New Skye’s “historic district.” Looking at the area with a fresh perspective, though, she thought the wide porches, fancy columns and wrought-iron fences were charming.

Kate’s home was one of the largest and grandest on The Hill. A semicircular porch graced the front of the three-story white house; the magnolias flanking either side of the brick walk must have been fifty feet tall and a hundred years old. Thankful to be done with driving, Mary Rose parked at the curb and got out, stretching her arms above her head.

As she started across the grass, the front door opened and her sister stepped onto the porch, looking for all the world like a Southern belle from the distant past. A cloud of soft dark curls framed her oval face and graceful neck. She was tall and slender…alarmingly so.

“Have you forgotten how to fry chicken and cook gravy?” Mary Rose took hold of her sister with a tight hug. “You’re skinny as a rail.”

Kate pulled back to laugh at her. “Says the woman who weighs all of a hundred pounds.”

“One thirty-five, as a matter of fact. I’ve developed a passion for frappuccino with my morning bagel.”

“Then it’s a good thing we’ve got a café here on The Hill that makes them perfectly. Come into the house.” They stepped out of warm spring sunlight into the cool, gleaming perfection of Kate’s home.

“This is beautiful.” Mary Rose surveyed the parlor’s rich combination of purple and gold fabric with mahogany antiques. “You do know how to dress a room.”

Kate waved her into a chair on one side of the fireplace. “How was your drive? You must have left early to be here so soon.”

“I drive fast,” Mary Rose said, and then frowned as she remembered.

“What’s wrong?”

“I, um, got stopped by a state trooper just a little ways south of town.”

“Did he give you a ticket?” Mary Rose nodded soberly, but her sister just smiled. “Don’t worry, honey. The D.A.’s wife is a member of my Sunday-school class at church. I’ll get her to talk to him about dismissing the fine.”

“That’s not the worst part.” She took a deep breath. “The trooper was Pete Mitchell.”

Kate gave her a blank stare. “Mitchell? Who…? Oh.” She pressed her fingertips against her lips. “That Pete Mitchell? Did he remember you?”

“He definitely remembered.” And the distance in those cool gray eyes had warned her that the memory wasn’t a pleasant one. “It’s kind of hard to forget being married, even for only a month.”

Kate shook her head. “I haven’t seen him in years. I guess I thought he’d moved away.” She faced the mantel and made unnecessary adjustments to the perfect placement of the Wedgwood teacups arranged there. “Do you suppose you’ll run into him again? I’d hate to have you uncomfortable while you’re here, worrying about meeting up with your ex-husband. That’s so…difficult.” The last word trembled with despair.

Mary Rose came up behind her sister, putting her arms around the thin shoulders. “I’m not worried about it one way or the other. It’s not like I’ve been moping over him for ten years.”

Kate’s head rested heavily on her shoulder. “And then there’s your job. I can’t believe you just up and left, during tax season, no less. Are you sure they’ll let you go back? What about all your clients?”

“All my clients got their taxes filed before the first of April because I pushed and prodded and nagged them to. I filed mine in February. And if the bank doesn’t want me back…well, too bad. I’ve accrued enough leave that I’d have to be here a couple of months before they could legitimately fire me. And they won’t. I make them too much money. So stop worrying about that.” She turned Kate around to face her. “What I’m worried about is you. You look so tired.”

Kate’s smile failed to dispel her very real air of exhaustion. “There’s a lot of yard work to be done, now that it’s spring. Plus the auction at the children’s school, which we just finished up, and the Azalea Festival, not to mention all the usual driving to lessons and practices and such. I’ve been…busy.”

She obviously didn’t want to go into any more detail right this minute, or explain why her husband, even after moving out of the house, couldn’t assume some responsibility for his children.

Mary Rose tapped the pads of her fingers gently on her sister’s pale cheeks. “That’s why I’m here, to take over some of the routine stuff. I can handle the driving, and help you with the garden, and do some cooking, too, though you might be sorry you let me in the kitchen. Just tell me what’s on the list.”

“Well…” Kate bit her lip, hesitating.

“Seriously. What can I do for you right this minute?”

With a sigh, her sister gave in. “If you brought Kelsey and Trace home from the soccer game at school, I could get the laundry caught up. Mama and Daddy are coming for dinner for your first night here and I need to put the roast in—”

“Consider it done. Just give me your keys. I can’t fit two other people in the Porsche.” Jingling Kate’s key chain, Mary Rose headed for the front door. “New Skye High, right? They haven’t moved it or anything?”

“You could drive there blindfolded,” Kate called across the front lawn. “Nothing has changed out that way in the last twenty years!”

“MY TURN.” Kelsey held out her hand for the soda can. Beside her, Lisa took a quick slurp before passing the drink.

“No fair! I bought it, didn’t I? You didn’t even leave me half.” Tipping her head back, Kelsey chugged the rest of the contents, feeling the whiskey burn as it slid down her throat.

“You got the first drink. Anyway, there’s more soda in the machine.” Her friend leaned close, lowered her voice. “And half a bottle of Jack Black in the car.”

“True.” The smoky liquor swirled in her head, and Kelsey smiled. “What’s the score now, anyway?” Out on the soccer field, red and gold New Skye jerseys chased across the grass, blurred into green Clinton High uniforms, separated out again. She couldn’t see clearly enough to make out the numbers.

Lisa squinted into the distance. “Score’s tied one to one.” She hiccuped loudly and then started to laugh. Helplessly, Kelsey laughed with her, leaning against Lisa’s shoulder until they both tilted back on the bleacher bench into the knees of the girls behind them.

“Kelsey? Is that you?”

Oh shit. A teacher. Kelsey straightened up and tried to stop giggling as she turned toward the person standing on the ground, staring up. She blinked hard, bringing the face into focus. It wasn’t a teacher. For a second, she didn’t recognize the woman at all. Blond and thin and tan and…

“Aunt M!” She never knew how she made it to the ground, just that she was there with her arms thrown around her favorite relative in the world. “I didn’t realize you were coming today.”

“Obviously.” Pulling back, Mary Rose looked her sternly in the eye. “Are you all right?”

“Sure. Of course.” Kelsey smoothed her hair back, wished she’d had time to pop a piece of gum. “What are you doing here?”

“Your mother asked me to pick you and Trace up after the game. It looks like that will be a while yet.”

“Um…” Gazing toward the scoreboard, Kelsey couldn’t read the numbers. The ground tilted under her feet and she put a hand on the nearby bleacher support to stay steady. “A few minutes, anyway.”

When she looked at Mary Rose, her aunt’s soft, pretty mouth had tightened and her eyes had narrowed. In that second, Kelsey knew she was doomed.

“What are you—”

“Mary Rose Bowdrey!” Mrs. Gates, the chemistry teacher, sailed toward them. “I don’t believe my eyes. When did you get into town?” Very tall and very pregnant, Mrs. Gates took Mary Rose in a hug that all but swallowed her whole.

Kelsey closed her eyes. Shit. Mrs. Gates had graduated in the same class with Aunt Mary Rose. Judging by their enthusiasm, they must still be pretty good friends. As soon as they came up for air, they’d be sniffing her breath and treating her like a delinquent.

“Uh…Aunt Mary Rose?” She tugged at the sleeve of a gorgeous navy sweater that had to have come from New York. “I promised my friend Lisa we’d go to the diner for a few minutes. The team always gets a milk shake after a home game.” Like she didn’t know that, like the kids at this school hadn’t been doing the same thing for nearly forever. “Can you pick me and Trace up there?” She tried on a suck-up smile. “Would that be okay?”

Mary Rose looked as if she wanted to say no, but then she glanced at Mrs. Gates, still holding her arm. “Sure, Kelsey. That’ll be fine. I’ll meet you at the diner about thirty minutes after the game ends.” Her expression promised there would be hell to pay afterward.

But for the time being, Kelsey was free. “Thanks!” She didn’t lean in for another hug. “See ya!” Grabbing Lisa by the hand, she scurried and stumbled to the other side of the bleachers, out of the line of sight of any nosy adults.

“Here.” She dug in her purse, brought up a dollar and thrust it at Lisa. “Go get two more ginger ales and meet me by your car.”

But Lisa shook her head. “Game’s almost over, Kelse, and I can’t go home smelling like whiskey. One whiff and my mom would take away the car and the license and ground me for the rest of my life. We need to sober up.”

“Screw sober.” Kelsey started for the drink machine.