Once Bitten, Twice Shy [antikvár]

CHAPTER ONEApart from herself, two distant cousins and the maid hired for the occasion, everyone else at the bridal tea was gathered in the reception rooms of the Dunns' gracious house. Busy admiring the latest wedding gifts, they didn't hear the hiss of the door swinging open, and remained blissfully ignorant of Sharon's return from the kitchen, cake tray of petits fours balanced on one hand. Which was probably why Miss Jubilee Bodine felt at liberty to give voice to words never intended for Sharon's ears.'How long do you suppose we can keep the news from her that Our Boy is back in town?'The meaning of her question was as unmistakable as the resonant whisper she'd developed since her hearing had started to fail. As far as the Bodine sisters were concerned, there was only one person on the face of the earth whom they referred to as 'Our Boy', and the fact that he must be thirty-eight by now didn't hinder them a bit.He was the sun, moon and stars in their heaven, all rolled up into one. He was Clinton Bodine, their great-nephew, their adopted child, the light and life of their declining years. And he was Sharon's ex-husband, whom she'd hoped never to see again, least of all here in a town she'd thought he despised almost as much as he despised her.7