Dear Reader,
Like my heroine—Hannah Ross—I’m a city girl, but I grew up in a small town that was like Timber Bay, Michigan, the fictitious setting for Finding Mr. Perfect. As I’ve changed over the years, so has my hometown. For instance, the drugstore, with its funky lunch counter, is now a sub-sandwich shop, but the glittering white band shell still graces the park on the bay and the library, where I spent so many hours as a kid, still stands. As does the opera house, sadly with no irreverent local hottie like Danny Walker to restore it—yet. And the tunnel that runs beneath the streets really does exist. Was it ever known as the Tunnel of Love? Hmm, maybe not. But as modern, practical Hannah finds out, a girl has got to believe in something.
I hope you enjoy spending the Fourth of July in Timber Bay with Danny and Hannah, and please come back soon to find out what happens when another big-city girl invades Timber Bay—and the heart of Danny’s best friend, Lukas McCoy.
Best wishes,
Nikki Rivers
“I do not hawk cereal,” insisted Hannah
“I am a research sociologist, working as an independent consultant.” It wasn’t her style to sound so haughty, but Danny Walker brought it out in her.
“What’s a consultant?” Uncle Tuffy asked.
Danny replied before Hannah could open her mouth. “That’s what a person does when she can’t find a real job.”
Kate, Danny’s mother, looked up from her lunch plate. “Oh, you poor dear. Have you been out of work long?”
Hannah gave Danny a look she hoped would freeze his mouth shut. “I am not out of work, Kate. I feel very privileged to be with a company modern enough to hire a sociologist for this project. Your family was chosen, Mr. Walker, because they embody standards and values that Granny’s Grains wants to promote. This contest, I mean project, was conducted in the same manner a scientific study would be.”
Danny gave a short laugh. “Well then that explains it, Professor. I always knew these studies weren’t accurate because if you think you’re going to find normal around here, you’ve definitely taken another wrong turn!”
Finding Mr. Perfect
Nikki Rivers
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nikki Rivers loves writing romantic comedy because she believes that laughter is just as necessary to life as love is. She also gets a kick out of creating quirky characters, having come from a long line of them herself. Nikki lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with her very own Mr. Right. She loves to hear from readers. E-mail her at [email protected].
Books by Nikki Rivers
HARLEQUIN DUETS
66—A Snowball’s Chance
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE
550—Seducing Spencer
592—Daddy’s Little Matchmaker
664—Romancing Annie
723—Her Prince Charming
764—For Better, For Bachelor
To my editor, Kathryn Lye, for the encouragement and the laughs—and for always making me work harder. Many thanks for helping give birth to my babies.
Contents
1
HANNAH ROSS HAD NEVER SEEN such a long table in all her life. At the head of its glassy expanse sat Randall Pollard, the jowly and robust CEO of Granny’s Grains Cereal, Inc. On one side sat the CFO, a thin fierce-looking man, and on the other the impeccably dressed, bored-looking brand-new head of the marketing department. Hannah, in a tailored pantsuit that had cost more than she could afford even though it was on clearance, had the other end of the table all to herself. Plenty of room. But under her new suit jacket she was sweating as though she was in the middle of a crowded elevator stuck between floors.
Pollard had been on his cell phone ever since they’d sat down in the fifth-floor boardroom of the home office on Chicago’s south side. The wait was making Hannah more nervous by the minute. She focused her attention on the banner behind Pollard’s head. Printed in a font that mimicked cross-stitch, on paper that tried to look gingham, was Granny’s Grains new slogan: Granny is bringing America’s families back to the breakfast table.
A good slogan, but definitely problematic, thought Hannah. Chiefly because it was just as faux as the cross-stitch and gingham. The last three business quarters had been so dismal that Granny was in real danger of losing her ruffled apron.
It had been decided that the company’s flagship product, Super Korny Krunchies, needed a new image. Unfortunately, the advertising firm that had been hired to provide it had determined that Granny’s squeaky-clean image was at fault. They were sure the numbers would improve considerably if the box was adorned with a girl barely into puberty wearing a push-up bra and a shrunken T-shirt. The ensuing ad campaign, pushed through when Pollard was in Europe tracking dead ancestors so he could join some posh country club in the suburbs, had gotten Krunchies kicked off the shelves of several Midwest grocery chains and had yielded bags of mail from scandalized customers. Nobody wanted to buy cereal that had to be wrapped in a plain brown wrapper before they could bring it home to the kids.
When Pollard returned from Europe, the old box quickly replaced the new one on store shelves across America. Along with a few department heads, the advertising firm had gotten the ax and Hannah, a research sociologist, had been brought on board to help marketing find a new direction. Trying to figure out what kind of image would put Super Korny Krunchies on top once again wasn’t exactly what Hannah had planned to do with her master’s degree.