The Bride PlanThe Hometown Hero Returns by Kasey Michaels

Author:Kasey Michaels
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mills & Boon Blush Duo
Published: 2011-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Mari stood next to Eric on the curb of Main Street. A boisterous crowd of locals, vacationers and day-trippers surrounded them. A trombone blared off-key, startling her. She glanced up at Eric, and they shared a smile.

A huge sailboat float, surrounded by the smiling, waving men and women of the Arab-American Business Council, followed the marching band. Harbor Town was one of many quaint Michigan towns that lined the lakeshore, drawing vacationers from Detroit and Chicago and everywhere in between. A small population of Arab-Americans had settled in many lakeside communities over the past several decades. Harbor Town was often held up as a banner example of how a minority group could not only blend with a community, but enrich and improve it. Her parents had belonged to a Lebanese faction of eastern orthodox Christianity—the Maronites. Despite the minority status of their religion among Arab-Americans, Kassim and Shada Itani had taken comfort in having others around who shared so many common cultural elements.

“Oh, look! It’s Alex Kouri,” Mari exclaimed as a distinguished man in his sixties marched past. His eyes widened incredulously as his gaze landed on her, and he waved and mouthed her name.

Mr. Kouri had been one of her father’s closest friends. Both of them had been Detroit-based businessmen who had brought their families to Harbor Town for summer vacations. Mr. Kouri and her father would frequently drive back and forth together from Harbor Town to Dearborn, Michigan, on Friday and Sunday evenings, leaving their families to idle away the hot, summer weekdays while they worked at their corporate jobs.

Mari noticed how gray Mr. Kouri’s hair had become. That’s how her father would have looked, had he lived.

She saw a woman standing at the curb, her rapt attention on Mari and Eric, not on the parade. Still as nosey as ever, Mari thought with a flash of irritation, recognizing Esther Fontel, the old neighbor from Sycamore Avenue. The woman had once ratted her out to her parents when she observed Mari sneaking out her bedroom window and down the trusty old elm tree to join Marc on his motorcycle one hot summer night. Mari still recalled how angry her father had been, the hurt and the disappointment on her mother’s face.

Until she’d turned fifteen, Mari hadn’t fully understood the impact that her parents’ ethnicity and religious views would have on her. Her brother had dated and enjoyed any number of summertime, teenage dalliances in Harbor Town. When Mari became a young woman, however, she’d learned firsthand that Ryan and she would not be treated the same when it came to dating. Especially when it came to Marc Kavanaugh.

Marc and Ryan had been close friends since they were both ten years old. Her parents had actually both been very fond of Marc, and he was a regular visitor in the Itani vacation home.

But the summer Mari had turned fifteen, everything had changed—and Marc Kavanaugh had quickly moved to the top of her parents’ list of undesirable dating partners for Mari.

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