Free The Substitute Bride (The Great Wedding Giveaway Series Book 7) by Kathleen O`Brien

Commerce would bite at this free PR like a fish going after a fat, juicy worm. 
    Robin had chosen to be taped standing by a paddock on someone’s spacious ranch, with horses frolicking behind her, one wing of a log cabin off to the side, and the majesty of Copper Mountain framing the whole thing. 
    “And my fiancé is from Marietta, too.  He loves it just as much as I do.  Drake’s family owns a ranch.  Three Horses, it’s called.  He’s worked on it all his life.”
    Marly jerked up, ramrod straight in an instant.  She stared at the pretty, perky face on her small screen. 
    “In fact, that’s how we met,” Robin was still babbling.  “The Everetts sold some land to my dad, and Drake came over to sign some papers.  I think maybe it was just meant to be, so—“
    Marly dragged the status bar back, and listened a second time.  She must have misheard.
    “Drake’s family owns a ranch.  Three Horses—”
    It wasn’t possible.  This woman was calling her fiancé Drake . 
    Marly opened the application files again, wondering if she could have read them wrong.  But no, Robin Armstrong’s application clearly stated that she was to marry I. B. Coole.
    Marly’s heart raced in place.  What on earth was going on here?  Was someone playing a trick on her?  Someone who knew that Marly had once nursed a hopeless crush on Drake Everett?
    But that was ridiculous.  No one knew, and, even if they did, no one cared.  Something else was happening here...
    She sat there a long time, studying and re-studying the applications, the videos, the emails between Marly and the Chamber, the official contest webpage, the clips...everything she could find.
    She kept at it for nearly an hour before she found even a single, trivial clue.  But there it was...the anomaly...the thing that didn’t fit. 
    Robin Armstrong’s typed application was dated March thirty-first, which had been the very last day a contestant was allowed to enter.  Her video, on the other hand, was date-stamped February sixteenth, just two days after the contest had been launched at the Valentine’s Ball at the Graff.
    The most logical inference was that, somewhere between February sixteenth and March thirty-first, Robin had submitted a new application, and probably a new video, as well.  She had probably asked that her old application be withdrawn, and replaced with the new set. 
    The contest hadn’t closed until April first.  If Robin’s request came within the time window, why would anyone have refused?  Or...Robin might have had an ally in the Chamber who’d helped her make the substitution on the sly.  Or she might just have openly explained that her first attempt was inferior and the new version was more polished.
    Marly swallowed, her heart still beating fast.  Finally, a hint that there was an interesting story lurking somewhere below all the frothy gowns, hyperbolic romances and model-perfect couples.
    Finally an angle. 
    So why didn’t she feel excited?  Why, instead, did she feel this odd, unformed dread?
    Maybe she just disliked that the ‘angle’ involved Drake Everett.  Not because she gave a darn who he might have been dating...
    No, it was just that Marly preferred not to follow a lead that led to someone she knew—however superficially.  It was messy, and the resulting story wouldn’t be as crisp or convincing.
    But...what the heck had happened here?  Why did this woman have one fiancé, one touching love story in February, and a totally different man just six weeks later? 
    Why did she have a substitute groom?
    Marly’s head ached in hot beats at the temples.  And finally she realized why.  Her head was hurting from the effort of not seeing the obvious.
    Robin had been engaged to Drake first—but he must have jilted her.  The redhead had found a new man, quickly.  And why so quickly?  Perhaps just to save her pride, but maybe....
    Oh, God . 
    Maybe she needed a husband rather urgently.  Maybe she needed a