Fool for Love: Fooling Around\Nobody's Fool\Fools Rush In Read online

  They never dreamed that one little

  April Fool’s prank could

  change their lives forever…

  Lena Walsh was just FOOLING AROUND

  when she asked Andre Dumont out on a date

  from hell. She never guessed the joke

  would be on her….

  Kate Randall is NOBODY’S FOOL. But even

  she is intrigued when she learns she has a secret

  admirer. Too bad it’s not the one she wants….

  Everyone knows that FOOLS RUSH IN—

  and Mark Lavin and Claire O’Connor are

  anything but fools. But when they find

  themselves victims of a radio hoax, they

  can’t help rushing…right to the altar!

  Sometimes love gets the last laugh…

  Vicki Lewis Thompson has been a Fool for Love—Harlequin-style—since she published her first book in 1984. The roof blew off her career in June 2003, when her first mainstream novel, Nerd in Shining Armor, became a Reading with Ripa Book Club pick and she hit all the major lists—New York Times, USA TODAY, Publishers Weekly and Waldenbooks. Although bestsellerdom is sweet, it hasn’t changed Vicki’s basic recipe for happiness—living in Arizona with her hubby, writing hot romance and drinking coffee from her own pot. In other words, just Fooling Around…

  Stephanie Bond fell in love with a man who was willing to make a fool of himself to get her attention: After declining offers to go out because she was seeing someone else, she returned from a trip to discover the determined man had driven to the airport to leave a card on the windshield of her car. Intrigued, Stephanie agreed to go out with him, and four months later he proposed. As of this printing, they’ve been married for fourteen years! Stephanie lives with her persistent and loving husband in Atlanta, Georgia. Visit Stephanie at www.stephaniebond.com.

  According to Judith Arnold, April isn’t the cruelest month—it’s the coolest month! In April springtime sweeps into New England, along with Judith’s birthday, and of course April Fool’s Day is always a hoot. The author of eighty books, Judith writes for Harlequin and MIRA. She has been a RITA® Award finalist several times, and has won numerous awards from Romantic Times magazine. Her novel Love in Bloom’s was named one of the eight best paperbacks of the year by Publishers Weekly. Judith lives in Massachusetts with her husband and two sons.

  Vicki Lewis Thompson

  Stephanie Bond

  Judith Arnold

  Fool for Lve

  CONTENTS

  FOOLING AROUND

  Vicki Lewis Thompson

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  EPILOGUE

  NOBODY’S FOOL

  Stephanie Bond

  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

  EPILOGUE

  FOOLS RUSH IN

  Judith Arnold

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  EPILOGUE

  FOOLING AROUND

  Vicki Lewis Thompson

  For Lauri Thompson,

  who loyally reads all my books and advised me

  on this concept. Thanks, Lauri!

  PROLOGUE

  LENA WAS STILL chicken. Damn. She’d hoped the yearly ritual would get easier, but this March fifteenth was as scary as the others. Despite the butterflies, she walked through the door of the cozy Italian restaurant in north Scottsdale.

  Tonight marked the annual gathering of the April Fools. Lena, Brandy and Meg had bonded at a weekend motivational seminar, dished over sour apple martinis at the bar and vowed to accept the main speaker’s challenge to blast through their comfort zones on a regular basis.

  Lena’s comfort zone was the size of a postage stamp. Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Overly Cautious, had warned her from an early age that the world was a dangerous place, and she’d believed them. Reprogramming herself into a risk-taker was a huge job. She desperately needed the prodding of the April Fools.

  Every year during the ten-day period surrounding April first, each one of the trio deliberately made a fool of herself. To guarantee squirm-worthiness, the women dreamed up stunts for each other. Lena had spent her lunch hour last April first on a busy corner in downtown Phoenix reciting the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.

  The year before that had been a little easier—going to a Suns basketball game wearing an evening gown and carrying opera glasses. She thought of her first task with nostalgia now—race-walking through a neighborhood park wearing a beanie with a propeller on top. Each year the assignments got tougher, which was why she was sweating tonight’s meeting.

  Still, she couldn’t argue with the results. Each time, she’d sworn she would die of embarrassment. And, obviously, she hadn’t. Even better, she was on the fast track for promotions and pay raises at Thunderbird Savings. Brandy and Meg had leaped ahead in their careers, too—Brandy in PR and Meg in accounting. Their strategy had definitely affected the way they projected themselves.

  Inside the restaurant, Lena confirmed with the hostess that her friends had already arrived. Then she straightened her spine and walked through an archway into the dining room, passing hand-painted murals of Roman temples and Mediterranean seascapes. Since the April Fools had chosen the Ides of March as the day for assigning tasks, an Italian restaurant named Caesar’s had seemed like a no-brainer. As a bonus, the food was great.

  Both Meg and Brandy were drinking Chianti, and a glass of it sat at her place, waiting for her. Both women looked great. Since the club’s founding, Meg had lost the extra thirty pounds that had plagued her, and she wore her red hair in a short and sassy style way different from the pageboy she’d started with. Brandy had ditched her frumpy suits in favor of flowing silks, and she’d colored her hair blond.

  Lena hadn’t changed much on the outside, maybe because her parents lived in Phoenix and she didn’t want to make them anxious. Her rebellious younger brother who’d pierced various body parts, moved to L.A. and formed a rock band gave her parents plenty to angst about. She couldn’t bear to add to their agitation herself, so she still dressed conservatively, and her brunette bob was shoulder-length, as always.

  Then again, she couldn’t totally blame her parents for the way she presented herself. She skittered away from flamboyance, even now. Manicures and pedicures were about as exciting as it got with her.

  And although she’d become more assertive professionally, when it came to her social life…forget about it. The same was true of Meg and Brandy, which was why they’d bonded in the first place—three cowardly lions. They’d decided to target their lack of a social life this year. If Lena’s assignment was anything like what she’d helped write for both Meg and Brandy, she was in for a wild ride.

  Meg glanced up as Lena approached. “You look petrified.”

  “I just need wine.” Lena sat down and took a hefty swallow. “Okay, Meg’s first, right?” She pulled Meg’s envelope from her purse and handed it over.

  “On an anxiety level of one-to-ten, this is a fifty.” Meg stuck her table knife under the sealed flap of the envelope, pulled out the note and groaned. “Just shoot me now.”

  “Go on,” Lena said. “Read it out loud. Brandy and I want to enjoy the moment.”

  “Okay.” Meg sighed and held the paper up to the light of the candle flickering on the table. “I, Meg Burney, promise that within five days before or after April first, I will ask Devon from accounting to go sailing on Tempe Town Lake with me. I will wear an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny yellow polka-dot bikini, and before the sail is over I will sing the entire theme song from Titanic.” She gave a little whimper. “I have to lose another three pounds! Plus I don’t know all the words to that damned song, and I can’t sing!”

  “You have time to learn the words,” Lena said, “and voice quality doesn’t count. Besides, Devon will be too busy looking at all that bare flesh to care if you’re on key or not. And you do not need to lose another three pounds.”

  “I’m a redhead. I’ll get sunburned.”

  Brandy snorted. “Use sunscreen, Einstein.”

  “I don’t have an itsy—”

  “Oh, yes, you do.” Brandy produced a bag from under the table and drew out the contents, which she dangled in front of Meg.

  Meg wailed again and snatched the bikini. “I’ll freeze my ass off!”

  “This is Phoenix,” Brandy said. “It won’t be that cold.”

  “I don’t want to think about it anymore.” Meg handed an envelope to Brandy. “I want to inflict pain on you, instead.”

  Brandy’s smile faded. “Oh, goody.” With a look of resignation she took her
envelope, opened it and quickly scanned the contents. “No way!”

  “Read it,” Meg said.

  “I, Brandy Larson, within five days before or after April first, will kidnap Eric from the office and take him to my apartment where I will play the CD of Bolero while I perform the Dance of the Seven Veils.” She threw up both hands. “I can’t dance! And my hair color’s wrong. It should be dark, like Lena’s, to pull off that kind of stunt.”

  “Wear a wig,” Meg said. “Besides, do you think if you’re weaving around in some skimpy outfit that he’ll care if your hair is right or you can dance a lick? You’ve been saying for weeks that you think he’s interested.”

  “Yeah, but couldn’t I start with going for coffee?”

  “Nope.” Lena shook her head. “Not unless it’s Turkish coffee served after the dancing. I have a feeling you’ll both be feeling a little too hot for coffee anyway.”

  Brandy turned bright red. “This is going to be so bad. You have no idea.” She gulped the rest of her wine and put down the glass. “At least there’s pay-back time.” She took an envelope from her briefcase and handed it to Lena. “Now we get to watch you hyperventilate.”

  Lena opened the envelope, her tummy churning. “At least you can’t order me to snag a certain guy. I’ve never mentioned anyone specific.” On purpose. Her crush on Andre Dumont, a top loan salesman at Thunderbird, was her little secret. Socially he seemed to be everything she was not—suave, self-assured, sexually magnetic. Maybe that came from his French background.

  Brandy looked smug. “Meg and I worked around that detail.”

  And so they had. Lena stared at her assignment. “I, Lena Walsh, promise that within five days before or after April first, I will ask the cutest single guy I know for a date. I will tell him it’s for dinner, some light entertainment followed by dancing and to dress accordingly. Then I will take him for fast food, to a…belly dancing lesson and goofy golf?”

  Brandy and Meg started laughing.

  “Guys! You’ve got to be kidding, especially about the belly dancing. The other two things are bad enough, especially if he’s all dressed up, but a belly dancing lesson?”

  Meg seemed delighted with herself. “That was my idea, inspired by your plan for Brandy’s Dance of the Seven Veils. All you have to do is find a class and ask the teacher beforehand about bringing a guy.”

  “But…but I don’t know what guy to ask.”

  Brandy laughed. “From the look of terror on your face, I think you know exactly what guy. So that’s it, then. We all have our assignments.” She poured them more wine and raised her glass. “To the April Fools.”

  “Who are going to ruin my life.” Lena touched her glass to Meg’s and Brandy’s.

  Meg winked at her. “We haven’t yet.”

  Maybe not, Lena thought as she took a hefty swig of rich red wine. But making a fool of herself in front of Andre Dumont was so far outside her comfort zone she might never find her way back.

  CHAPTER ONE

  OTHER THAN HIS NAME, there was nothing French about Andre Dumont. His mother and father had named him Andre because they’d been drinking Andre champagne the night he’d been conceived. Oh, sure, if some genealogy nut wanted to trace his roots, they’d probably end up at Versailles or Bordeaux. And he’d been told he looked French, all dark and brooding.

  Perhaps if he’d learned French, he could have acted French. Women seemed to think a guy with French blood would automatically be great in bed, and that certainly couldn’t hurt a man’s image, he supposed.

  Andre figured he was just as good in the sack as the average guy—and who could tell these things, anyway? But at least he’d finally figured out that when a woman asked about his French background he should simply smile and shrug, as if he took it for granted.

  He’d picked up a few other tricks along the way. He actually did like to cook, which helped his worldly image, so when he invited a date for dinner, he served French wine and played French music on his CD player. He’d also tried to play up the dark and brooding thing, but other than letting his hair grow a little longer, driving a sports car and wearing Euro-styled shades, he didn’t really know what to do.

  He’d had a fair share of success with women, because he had a knack for selling anything, including himself. But he had yet to find the one lady he’d give up the single life for. However, there might be that kind of potential with Lena Walsh, a hot woman at Thunderbird Savings. She was on the management track and he was in sales, naturally, so they didn’t see a lot of each other. Yet whenever they met, vava-voom, his sensors went on red alert.

  Unfortunately, Lena had never given him the slightest indication that he meant any more to her than the office furniture. He didn’t take that personally because she didn’t seem to give any guy encouragement. She didn’t have some long-distance relationship going, either. He’d asked around.

  Maybe she didn’t like guys at all, which would be a crying shame considering her top-of-the-line packaging. Or maybe she was determined to make her first million before she turned thirty and didn’t have time for silly things like dating and sex. Either way, she seemed immune to both his French charm and his salesmanship. He, on the other hand, was becoming obsessed with her.

  He hadn’t been out with any other woman in the six months he’d been at Thunderbird because he kept thinking he’d work up the courage to ask Lena for a date and he wanted his calendar to be clear. Then she’d bustle through with some management memo, efficiency and professionalism rolling off her in waves, and he’d lose his nerve.

  Late on a Tuesday afternoon at the end of March, she walked straight into his little cubby, giving him the perfect opportunity to ask her out. He kept his attention on her face and pretended not to notice the curve of her breasts under her pinstriped suit jacket. That was especially difficult because she was breathing fast, as if she’d taken the stairs instead of the elevator.

  Be suave, Dumont. “Hi, Lena.” He got up from his desk and tried to look as French as possible.

  “What’s up?”

  “I…um…” She paused and cleared her throat.

  He stared at her. Never in the time they’d worked together had he seen her at a loss for words. Her blue eyes were filled with hesitation and uncertainty. He had a horrible thought. “I screwed up with one of my clients.”

  “No, no! Nothing like that.”

  “You screwed up with one of my clients?” He found the idea inconceivable, but something had rattled her. He noticed another strange thing—a fresh coat of lipstick on her gorgeous mouth. Normally by this time of day she’d be minus the lipstick and have a cute little shine to her nose. Not today. Surely she hadn’t fixed her makeup for him.

  “This isn’t about clients.” She fidgeted with the button on her suit jacket. “Or anything to do with the office.”

  He closed his mouth, embarrassed to discover it was open. Suave French guys didn’t stand around with their mouths hanging open. They acted bored, as if they always knew the score. But he didn’t have the foggiest idea who the players were, let alone the score. He couldn’t imagine what was coming next.

  She twisted the suit button some more. “Are you…is there any chance you’re…free on Friday night? I know it’s short notice, so you probably have plans, which is fine, but I just thought if you didn’t that—”

  “You’re asking me out?” He couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d come to a company function in a negligee. “Why?”

  She blushed. “Never mind. You probably have no interest in seeing me socially. It was just an idea. Forget it.” She started to leave.

  “Wait! I have lots of interest in seeing you socially. I didn’t think you had any interest in me.”