Dad's E-Mail Order Bride by Candy Halliday - Alaska Bound 01 - Dad's E-Mail Order Bride Page A

romance movies from before she was born, but she especially loved that one.
    Rachel was wearing a fancy red dress tonight, too—not as fancy as the one Julia wore in the movie—a dress her MiMi had sent her with a note that said:
    Even if you have no use for a fancy dress in dreadful Port Protection, darling, it’s your favorite color and I thought of you the second I saw it.
    Her dad had freaked over the note, saying with friends like MiMi he didn’t need any enemies. But her dad had never really gotten along with her mom’s mom anyway.
    Now they had just finished dinner and dessert and she could tell her dad had really enjoyed it. He’d even said the menu was worthy of being served at any classy restaurant in New York City, but he didn’t realize how true his statement was.
    She’d searched the Web sites of fancy New York restaurants for hours putting her menu together. The melt-in-your-mouth roasted salmon with a mustard, tarragon and chive sauce was compliments of a restaurant called L’Appétit. She’d chosen the fish because during salmon season they had the stuff practically coming out of their ears. The vegetable and rice medley—veggie ribbons on ice—had been on the menu of a restaurant named Wellington’s, and she’d chosen the dish first because she loved the cute name of it and second, because they had squash and zucchini from the garden and her dad had always preferred rice to potatoes.
    Her adopted grandmother Peg had made the apple cobbler for her, and Rachel was glad. Although the meal had been fairly easy to prepare with Courtney’s help, they never would have had time to make cobbler.
    Yes, her meal had been a great success.
    But right now Rachel was disappointed.
    She’d also searched the Internet for ways to make a table setting intimate—God, but she loved the word intimate. She’d kept the overhead lighting off, and to “set the mood” she’d placed candles on half of their long dining table so her dad and Courtney would be forced to sit at one end. Her dad was in his usual place at the head, and Courtney was sitting right beside him—so close they could have held hands, which was looking more doubtful with every minute.
    The mood she’d created wasn’t working.
    Sure, her dad and Courtney had been talking to each other all through dinner about different places they’d been in Europe, about books they’d read recently, and other boring adult blah, blah, blah. But at this rate, if Rachel didn’t do something quick, all of her romantic candlelight was going to be wasted.
    She had to get their focus back on each other—the way it had been when Courtney had first come downstairs for dinner. When her dad picked up his wineglass again and Courtney dabbed at the corner of her mouth with her napkin, Rachel saw her chance.
    “So?” Rachel said. “Do you think there’s a possibility you guys might hook up after all?”
    Courtney laughed.
    Her dad choked on his wine and sent her a stern look.
    “What?” Rachel said. “It’s a simple question.”

    T HERE WASN’T ANYTHING simple about Rachel’s question, and she knew it, but the question prompted Graham to tug at the collar of his tux shirt, suddenly needing a little more air. Probably all those damn candles taking up the oxygen in the room, he decided. They’d been driving him crazy all evening. All that flickering made it difficult to carry on an intelligent conversation—especially with the way Courtney looked in the soft light.
    He’d almost popped his cummerbund when she’d come downstairs with her hair up off her neck, her slender shoulders exposed, and that short dress showing him how long her fabulous legs really were. She’d looked so amazing all he could do was gulp.
    “Well?” Rachel said now. “Since neither of you is going to answer me, can I take that as a yes?”
    “It wasn’t an appropriate question to ask, and you know it,” Graham warned. “That’s why we didn’t bother to answer you.”
    She