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Katie Schmidt runs The Bowen Bride, a wedding dress shop in rural Bowen, Nebraska. It's well-known in the area because the local rumor is that no woman who buys a gown from The Bowen Bride ever gets divorced.
Katie plays into the rumor because it's good for business. However, when sexy single father Jared Porter enters the shop, looking for a wedding gown for his engaged—but far too young to be married—daughter, Katie decides a little rumor control might be in order.
Or will she and Jared give the residents of Bowen something to talk about?
The Bowen Bride
Silhouette Romance
November 2004
ISBN: 0373197446
Nicole's mother is from a small town in Nebraska, and she's always enjoyed hearing stories about her mom's upbringing. Though the town where Nicole's mother was raised is close to being swallowed up by Omaha, she wanted to write a story set in a fictional version of her mom's hometown of Elkhorn. She created Bowen to be much like Elkhorn, but moved it north, setting it between the real towns of Tekamah and Herman. Since Niki has relatives in Tekamah and even went to play bingo at the Herman VFW hall once, she also incorporated elements of those towns and their histories in writing The Bowen Bride.
"... a pleasant read with finely drawn characterizations and a warm, cozy feel."
—All About Romance
"Nicole Burnham pens a highly entertaining and heartwarming romance with The Bowen Bride. From the well-developed characters to the well-written and thought out plot, Ms. Burnham's The Bowen Bride is a wonderful book to curl up on the couch with."
—Writers Unlimited
"Nicole Burnham has created a character to love in dressmaker Katie... Burnham's charming and original plot is laced with extra touches. Four stars!"
—RomanticTimes Bookclub Magazine
The Bowen Bride was named a finalist for the RITA Award, the highest honor given to romance novels.
Chapter One
The last place Jared Porter wanted to be at nine a.m. on his thirty-sixth birthday was staring through a Main Street shop window at two mannequins wearing wedding gowns. He despised shopping, for one, and for two, flowing yards of silk and lace made his stomach pitch and roll.
Especially when the person needing—no, make that believing she needed—the gown was his seventeen-year-old daughter.
How could Mandy do this to him? Or worse, to herself? She was such an intelligent girl, with a promising future all mapped out. In all these years, she'd never argued with him—not about anything serious, at least. The fact she picked a fight on this topic...Hadn't she learned from his mistakes?
A warm breeze riffled Jared's black T-shirt, lifting it just far enough above the warm surface of his skin to make him aware of what a scorcher the day promised to be.
Better to get this over with so he could get back to work. He'd wasted enough time trying to talk himself around it, through it, and out of it already. And if he didn't get on site at the Klein's new house soon, Stewart would start asking questions Jared didn't want to answer.
And then Stewart—well meaning, but irritating in the extreme—would assume Jared was having problems at home and, of course, he'd want to step in to be sure Mandy was all right. He'd volunteer to help fill out her college applications, go over the quizzes in her SAT prep books—all the academic things he believed Jared didn't understand, though of course he'd never say as much. Things that weren't the problem in the first place.
Jared huffed out a breath, then slid his hand along his waistband to make certain his shirt was tucked into his jeans. Man, he hated working for his younger brother. But he'd brought the situation on himself, and it had taken him this long to position himself to get out. And now he'd have to figure out how to convince Mandy she could come to regret her teenage choices.
What happened to the days when a parent could lock a seventeen-year-old in their room and simply tell them no? Of course, that's what his parents had wanted to do with him, and the gulf it created between them still existed.
He wasn't about to do the same with Mandy, even if he could.
After taking a quick glance at the store hours posted in the front window, Jared jogged up the three brick steps, then pushed through the glass door, ignoring the overhead clatter of bells that announced customers.
For five minutes, all he needed was his American Express card and a smile, right? He just had to hold it together for five minutes. He could do that—as long as he could keep himself from picturing Mandy standing on the round platform in front of the shop's three way mirror, giggling about her so-called future with Kevin Durban while some ancient-looking dressmaker crouched beside her, straight pins held in her pinched mouth as she marked a seam.
Or worse, picturing Mandy actually walking down the aisle at Bowen Lutheran.
He turned back toward the front windows and, glancing his thirteen-year-old blue pickup parked at the curb with its rusted wheel wells and chipped windshield, he wondered if he was truly doing the right thing. Had all his hard work and sacrifice raising Mandy been for naught? All the careful saving he'd done for her college education a waste?
Don't be like your parents, Porter, he warned himself. That's the one thing that'll make her go through with it for certain.
"I'll be out in just a sec," a feminine voice called from the back room. He could hear the rat-a-tat of a sewing machine with its foot pedal pressed, then a rustle of fabric. "That you, Amy?"
"Um, no. Jared Porter."
The sewing machine abruptly cut out. "Oh, sorry. I was expecting Amy Cranders for a fitting."
He turned to see a striking blonde—in her late twenties or early thirties, if he had to guess—emerge from behind a thick blue curtain that functioned as a door to the rear of the shop. She raised a can of Black Cherry Diet Rite with beads of condensation clinging to the sides. "Can I get you one?"
If the woman was splashed across a billboard holding that can, not a man would continue down the highway without at least tapping the brakes for a second look. Definitely not the elderly woman he'd imagined would run a place like this.
He forced himself to look at the wall clock. "Um, no thanks. If this is a bad time—"
"No, it's fine. Amy's not due for another half hour." She set her drink on the shop's narrow Formica counter, and though her mouth formed a welcoming smile, her hazel eyes betrayed her curiosity. "I've seen you around town a few times, but I'm not sure we've ever formally met." She extended her hand, and he noticed as he took it that she didn't wear polish or rings. Probably part and parcel of her profession. "I'm Katie Schmidt. You're Stewart Porter's older brother, right? Stewart was in my high school class."
"Yeah, I'm Stewart's brother." Once again, identified by his younger brother—but when she mentioned school, he remembered what Stewart had said about 'that Katie girl.' Or, more accurately, 'that gorgeous Katie girl.'
Stewart had the gorgeous part right.
"I remember him mentioning you. You're the one who moved to Boston for college, right? Worked in the theatre?"
Her freckled cheeks flushed an attractive pink as she let go of his hand. "For a while."
He wondered, briefly, what could make a person living in Boston want to return from that life to run a dress shop in the rural Nebraska. Especially someone like her, who walked and looked as if she could slide right into city life. He'd never had the urge to leave Bowen, but in his experience, those who left didn't come back, no matter what—or who—might be waiting for them back home.
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