The Duplicate Bride Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  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 Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Accidentally Family, by Sasha Summers

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Ginny Baird. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Preview of Accidentally Family Copyright

  © 2020 Sasha Summers

  Entangled Publishing, LLC

  10940 S Parker Road

  Suite 327

  Parker, CO 80134

  Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

  Amara is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

  Edited by Heather Howland

  Cover design by Bree Archer

  Cover art by KrisCole/GettyImages

  Interior design by Toni Kerr

  Print ISBN 978-1-68281-522-9

  ebook ISBN 978-1-68281-521-2

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition October 2020

  Also by Ginny Baird

  The Holiday Brides Series

  The Christmas Catch

  The Holiday Bride

  Mistletoe in Maine

  Beach Blanket Santa

  The Christmas Town Series

  The Christmas Cookie Shop

  A Mommy for Christmas

  Only You at Christmas

  The Doctor Orders Christmas

  A Glorious Christmas

  A Corner Church Christmas

  His Christmas Joy

  Noelle’s Best Christmas

  For John

  With many thanks to my publisher, Liz Pelletier,

  and editor, Heather Howland,

  for the support and opportunity!

  Chapter One

  Hope Webb turned the final page in her novel and sighed. Real love. The predestined kind.

  If only she could live it and not just read about it.

  Unfortunately, every time she thought she’d found her happily ever after, the relationship crashed and burned. Even if she was prone to making bad picks, as her neighbor, Iris, said, she’d learned from her mistakes. The next guy she fell for would be totally into her, so the situation would be mutual. No crashing and burning allowed.

  She cradled her open book against her chest, reclined in the frayed rope hammock, and let herself sink into a relaxed haze. Now wasn’t the time to think about her abysmal dating history. It was summer break. It had been months since she’d had time off work, and the peace was desperately needed.

  A warm breeze riffled the flouncy hem of her yellow sundress where it rested against her pale thighs. Her favorite surfboard-patterned traveler tumbler sat on the plastic table beside her, loaded with iced chai.

  Heaven.

  Apart from the yapping of her neighbors’ Chihuahua, who’d apparently set his sights on a squirrel, and the sound of Iris cheerfully singing “Age of Aquarius” while tending her adjoining garden, things were tranquil in her Durham neighborhood.

  Her cell phone buzzed.

  She tugged down the brim of her floppy sun hat, determined to ignore it. That had to be Principal Carson texting again. She’d already uploaded her grades. Check. Done the last-day walk-through of her classroom with the school VP. Check. And turned her laptop in to the district’s IT center for its annual refurbishing. Check.

  Check, check, check.

  School’s out for summer.

  Buzz-buzz, buzz-buzz, buzz-buzz.

  Hope set her jaw. This was probably about summer school. Principal Carson had tried to get her to teach again this year, but she’d turned him down. She’d never been good at saying no—to anyone, really—but she was frazzled. Burnt out. And she badly needed a break from unruly students, complaining parents, and mountains of paperwork. Her job had its positive aspects, obviously, and she loved her students. But they were much easier to appreciate in September than in June. Besides that, she had her sister’s wedding to attend in their old hometown of Blue Hill, Maine, and she was leaving for it next week.

  Jackie was marrying rich bachelor Brent Albright after a whirlwind courtship. Back when she and Hope were in high school and living in Blue Hill, the entire town had gone into a tizzy each time the Albright clan arrived for their annual summer stay.

  Everyone in their friend group had been dying to meet the gorgeous Albright boys—especially Jackie, who’d dreamt of getting swept away into a life of privilege and luxury.

  She met Brent face-to-face for the first time at a wedding she’d organized in Boston. It had, apparently, been love at first sight.

  Buzz-buzz, buzz-buzz, buzz-buzz.

  The vibrations escalated, causing Hope’s phone to dance on the flimsy plastic table.

  This was no longer texting territory; a call was coming through. Which made her wonder if it was Principal Carson after all. He had a strange aversion to phone calls—especially when he was begging favors.

  “I think that’s your phone, child,” Iris called helpfully from above her bright red begonia hedge, which in these postage-stamp-size yards stood only ten feet away.

  If Hope didn’t love the stocky older woman as much as she did, she might have scowled. “Do I have to answer it?”

  Iris laughed, her brown eyes sparkling with mischief. “They’re just going to keep calling if you don’t.”

  Iris was skilled at delivering unsolicited—and uncannily accurate—advice, as well as plates of calorie-rich cookies. The woman loved to bake, which would have been great if Hope had inherited her mom’s fast metabolism. But no. She gained weight just by reading high-fat recipes. Not that she’d ever turn down all the goodies Iris brought by.

  Hope lowered her sunglasses and peered at Iris, the warm afternoon light kissing the woman’s deep brown skin.

  Iris gave her a sunny grin, and Hope groaned.

  “Ugh, fine.”

  That’s when things became eerily quiet. So quiet she could no longer hear the breeze sifting through the trees overhead or the low droning of honeybees by the honeysuckle-laden back fence. Even the dog had stopped barking, having scampered around the side of the building. The only sound breaking the silence of the humid afternoon was the steady clip-clip-clipping of Iris’s garden shears.

  A really weird sense of foreboding blanketed Hope.

  She snatched up her phone and saw the missed call was from her twin sister, Jackie. Her heart lurched as she stared at the barrage of text messages her sister had sent before the call, each one more frantic tha
n the last.

  Please call me.

  Desperate emergency.

  SOS

  Where are you???

  Ahhhh. Is your phone on vibrate???

  She nearly dropped the phone as it buzzed again, then scrambled to answer it.

  “Jackie?” she asked in a near panic. “What’s wrong?”

  “OMG. Hope.” Jackie sounded on edge. “Where have you been?”

  “Um, busy.” Hope flipped her book shut and set it aside. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s the wedding!” Jackie wailed. “Such a disaster.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Oh, yes! The Martin wedding is totally falling—”

  “Wait.” The wedding her sister was working on? That’s what the crisis was about? Hope flopped back into the hammock. “I thought you were talking about your wedding.”

  “Huh?” She envisioned her sister’s brow creasing below her wispy dark bangs. “How can I possibly think about myself at a time like this? The Martins are counting on me!”

  Hope sucked air back into her lungs. Naturally, she’d assumed Jackie had been talking about her own wedding, and naturally, she’d been wrong. Her sister might be a phenomenal wedding planner, but she was terrible at making her own wedding a priority.

  “You scared me,” Hope said. “I thought there was something seriously wrong. Like you and Brent were having trouble or something.”

  “There is something seriously wrong. Mrs. Martin got into a fight with Emile Gastón.”

  Hope closed her eyes. “Who’s Emile Gastón?”

  “Only the most brilliant caterer in Boston, and Mrs. Martin had the gall to tell him his crème fraîche was a ‘flopé.’”

  “Maybe it was?”

  “That’s not the point. The point is I thought I had things all sewn up, but, now that the catering’s blown, I’m going to have to start over. And this is a double mess with the wedding going off in Nantucket. Do you know how hard it is to get anything done in Nantucket at the last minute?”

  No, but obviously her sister did. “I thought the Martin wedding was still a few weeks away?”

  “That’s why everything has to be set before my big day and the honeymoon. Brent and I will be in Bermuda right up until the Thursday before the Martin wedding. So I can’t just leave for Maine with the logistics dangling.”

  Any second now, she’d be subjected to another lecture from her sister on how hard weddings were to arrange.

  “You have no clue how challenging this is!” Jackie began, right on schedule. “Lining up the venue and the food and the band to show up at once. The invitations have already gone out, and the RSVPs are pouring in—”

  “What about your assistant? Can’t Rachel take things over for you?”

  “The stakes are too high. If I don’t handle this myself, it won’t get done. And anyway, Mrs. Martin is insisting that I fix this.”

  Hope rubbed her forehead. “I’m sure you’ll find a replacement,” she said, trying to soothe her. When there was silence at the other end of the line, she added, “For Emile. The caterer?”

  “Hopie…”

  A sinking feeling settled in her stomach. Jackie never called her Hopie unless she was asking for something huge.

  “I’m really in a bind here. I can’t possibly pull everything together by tomorrow.”

  As in, the day Jackie was scheduled to drive from Boston to Blue Hill to meet up with her fiancé and his parents and grandparents, as well as her and Hope’s mom. The rest of the wedding party was due to arrive Monday, which was when Hope had planned to show up.

  “I’m sorry, Jackie. I know you’re in a tough spot. I wish there was something I could do.”

  “Yeah,” she said slowly. “About that… Remember when we were kids and we pretended to be each other? No one could tell us apart, sometimes not even Mom…”

  Hope’s heart thumped, and alarm bells rang wildly in her head. “Uh-uh, no way,” she said, catching her sister’s drift. “That is not happening.”

  “I can pay for your new ticket and the rental car?”

  “No, Jackie, just no. You can forget about it!” She lowered her voice, remembering she was outdoors and that Iris was within earshot. “I am not playing you. Okay? Not during your own wedding week.”

  Iris looked up from trimming her begonia hedge. “Everything all right, child?”

  “Oh, yeah! Fine! It’s just my sister. Nervous bride.” She waved Iris’s concern aside and hissed quietly into the mouthpiece, “Are you out of your ever-lovin’ mind?”

  “No. I’m thinking plenty clearly. Thanks.”

  Hope tightened her grip on her phone, unable to believe what her twenty-eight-year-old twin was suggesting. Jackie had to have majorly lost it to suggest a plan like that. Hope had to find a way to talk her down from this ledge.

  “I’m sure if you explain things to Brent,” she said, “he’ll understand.”

  “It’s not Brent I’m worried about,” Jackie rasped quietly. “It’s his grandmother.” She dropped her voice a notch further. She was probably in a public place. “I didn’t tell you this before because it’s embarrassing, but I don’t think the woman likes me.”

  “You’ve met her?” Jackie hadn’t mentioned this. “When?”

  “She and her husband live in Boston. Brent and I had lunch with them, and well…she gave me the eye.”

  “Which eye?”

  “The eye. You know, where it looks like someone’s peering straight through you? She kind of squinted at me, appraising-like, and asked how long I’d been in love with her grandson.”

  Hope gasped. “What did you say?”

  “Forever. What else could I say? Brent took my hand and told his grandparents we’re a great match. I mean, we’ve talked it out and have plenty of good reasons for being together, so we are. His grandfather toasted us with his congratulations then, but Granny just dabbed her lips with her napkin and mumbled something about rushed nuptials and haste making waste.”

  “Well, that was unnecessary,” Hope snapped, affronted on her sister’s behalf. Even if the engagement had been short, Brent’s grandmother could have at least been gracious about it.

  “I know. The family’s already doubting me, and nobody’s giving me a fair chance. Here’s the thing—Brent’s grandma is like the queen in that family. So, if she doesn’t like me, then maybe the others won’t, either.”

  “I’m sure they’ll all love you once they get to know you,” Hope said. Jackie was so outgoing and fun. Meanwhile, Hope was on the quieter side—except for when she was commanding high-energy students. She was a rock star at getting preteens to behave in the classroom, which was one reason she loved her job. The other was summer vacations—when she wasn’t being coerced into teaching summer school.

  “If I arrive late to my own wedding week, Grandmother Margaret’s going to pounce,” Jackie persisted. “She already hinted that she thought I was unreliable and might not make it.” She adopted a high falsetto, imitating the older woman. “With your very busy schedule, are you sure you can squeeze in one more wedding?”

  “That’s awful! It’s almost like she was daring you not to come.”

  On the other side of the hedge, Iris huffed, and Hope suspected very strongly that she was listening.

  “Or warning me off, right?”

  “Totally. How did Brent react?”

  “He lowered his eyebrows and just said, ‘Grandmother.’ Grandpa Chad gave her the elbow. Brent apologized to me later, claiming his grandmother’s ‘so sweet’ deep down, but the jury’s still out on that one.” Jackie’s tone verged on desperation. “I wouldn’t even be asking if it weren’t so important,” she said. “Grandmother Margaret is out to sabotage this wedding. I can just feel it.”

  “So then, have Brent talk to her.”

  “He has!
”

  “And?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me what she said, so it must have been pretty horrible.”

  Hope’s protective instincts surged to the fore. Even though she and Jackie had been born only minutes apart, she took her role as the big sister seriously. “Brent’s family sounds awful.”

  “It’s just the grandmother, honestly. Grandpa Chad seems okay. I haven’t met Brent’s parents or siblings.” Jackie was silent for a moment, and then she sniffled. “I’m sorry…sorry I even suggested it. I was just thinking if it was only for one short day, it would be like old times. A little game, but for all the right reasons.”

  Hope rolled her eyes. She knew where this was going. “What about Brent?”

  “What about him?”

  “Uh, surely he’d know if it was me and not you.”

  “He’s the groom. I doubt he’d even notice.”

  Wait. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means he’ll be distracted. Wedding-week jitters and all that.”

  “Since when do guys get ‘wedding-week jitters’?”

  “Come on, Hopie. Don’t be sexist.”

  She suspected there was more to this story than wedding-week jitters, so she waited Jackie out, shooing away a honeybee that tried to settle on the lid of her tumbler of iced chai. The drink sat on a flimsy plastic table with one bent leg, purchased at a thrift shop, like just about everything else in her cozy duplex. Student loan payments still ate up most of her salary.

  After a long pause, Jackie finally caved. “All right, here’s the thing. Brent and I haven’t exactly spent a whole lot of time together. Especially lately. He’s had his travel, and I’ve had—”

  “Let me guess,” Hope said deadpan. “The Martin wedding?”

  “Yes!”

  Unbelievable. “Well, maybe you should have considered getting to know Brent better before committing!”

  “Please don’t yell at me. I feel a migraine coming on.”

  “You and me both.”

  Jackie groaned. “Okay, fine. I get it. It was a lame idea.” Next, she said wistfully, “But it kind of would have been like old times. Do you remember opening night of The Sound of Music?”

  The memories of being seventeen and in their junior year of high school flooded Hope. “You were cast as Maria,” she said. “But then you came down with that stomach flu.”