“You lied to me, Byron!”

      “I couldn’t think of any decent way to tell you.”

      “Of course not. Decency isn’t your style.” She tilted her chin up, hanging on to the last shreds of her dignity. “Does Cliff know about us?”

      “He knows you don’t like me.”

      “But I never indicated…”

      Byron grinned. “You aren’t as good at hiding your emotions as you think, Miss Gates. But you can relax. He doesn’t know why you dislike me so much. I haven’t told him anything.”

      Nora exhaled at the blue autumn sky. “I could strangle you, Byron.” She looked back at him. “And that’s only the half of it.”

      “I’m sure,” he said. His tone was neutral, but she saw the lust—the damned amusement—in his eyes.

      “Don’t you get any ideas, Byron Sanders Whoever. You don’t mean any more to me than a bag of dried beans.”

      “Remember your fairy tales, Nora.” Byron smiled. “Jack’s beans turned out to be magic.”

Dear Reader,

      Welcome to Mills & Boon’s Tyler, a small Wisconsin town whose citizens we hope you’ll soon come to know and love. Like many of the innovative publishing concepts Mills & Boon has launched over the years, the idea for the Tyler series originated in response to our readers’ preferences. Your enthusiasm for sequels and continuing characters within many of the Mills & Boon lines has prompted us to create a twelve-book series of individual romances whose characters’ lives inevitably intertwine.

      Tyler faces many challenges typical of small towns, but the fabric of this fictional community will be torn by the revelation of a long-ago murder, the details of which will evolve right through the series. This intriguing crime will profoundly affect the lives of the Ingallses, the Barons, the Forresters and the Wochecks.

      Renovations have begun on the old Timberlake resort lodge as the series opens, and the lodge will also attract the attention of a prominent Chicago hotelier, a man with a personal interest in showing Tyler folks his financial clout.

      Marge is waiting with some home-baked pie at her diner, and policeman Brick Bauer might direct you down Elm Street if it’s patriarch Judson Ingalls you’re after. Nora Gates will make sure you find everything you need at Gates Department Store. She’s helping Liza Baron prepare for her wedding, but is having great difficulty handling the unexpected arrival of the groom’s brother! So join us in Tyler, once a month for the next ten months, for a slice of small-town life that’s not as innocent or as quiet as you might expect, and for a sense of community that will capture your mind and your heart.

      Marsha Zinberg

      Editorial Coordinator, Tyler

      Wisconsin Wedding

       Carla Neggers

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

       CONTENTS

       Cover

       Back Cover Text

       Introduction

Dear Reader

       Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

       CHAPTER FOUR

       CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

       CHAPTER TWELVE

       EPILOGUE

       Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

      WITHIN THE SEDATE, mahogany-paneled president’s office of Pierce & Rothchilde, Publishers, Byron Forrester pitched a sharp-pointed dart at the arrogant face of his latest traitorous author. The dart nailed Henry V. Murrow smack in the middle of his neatly clipped beard. Byron grinned. He was getting pretty good at this! Now if Henry had been in the office in person instead of in the form of an eight-by-ten glossy publicity photo, Byron would have been a happy man. Only that morning Henry had called to notify him that he’d just signed a mega-deal with a big New York publisher.

      “For what?” Byron had demanded.

      “A technothriller.”

      “What, do you have a dastardly villain threatening to blow up the world with a toaster? You don’t know anything about advanced technology. Henry, for God’s sake, you haven’t even figured out the telegraph yet.”

      “Research, my boy. Research.”

      Pierce & Rothchilde didn’t publish technothrillers. Its specialties were expensive-to-produce coffee-table books, mostly about art, geography and history, and so-called literary fiction. Some of the latter

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