Barking Up the Wrong Tree (A Bluff Point Romance, Band 2) - Softcover

McKinlay, Jenn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0399584749 ISBN 13: 9780399584749

Verlag: Berkley, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

New York Times bestselling author Jenn McKinlay returns to Bluff Point, Maine, where one woman finds love with the help of an adorable golden retriever.

LOVE IS A FOUR-LEGGED WORD.

Carly DeCusati returned home to Bluff Point, Maine, with her tail between her legs. But she’s determined to get her life back on track—and that means finding new homes for the elderly golden retriever and overly talkative parrot she inherited before her old life fell apart.

Enter physical therapist and hot one-night stand James Sinclair. James doesn’t care that Carly doesn’t do relationships. He is determined to win her heart, promising to help her with the pets if she’ll just give him the time of day. 

Carly agrees to date the irresistible James, and, for the first time in years, she’s dreaming of a happily ever after. But James has secrets, and if he can’t open up to Carly, their future could go to the dogs...

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Former librarian and New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jenn McKinlay is the author of the Bluff Point Romances, including Barking Up the Wrong Tree and About a Dog, as well as the Library Lover’s Mysteries, the Cupcake Bakery Mysteries, and the Hat Shop Mysteries. Jenn lives in sunny Arizona in a house that is overrun with kids, pets, and her husband’s guitars.

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Chapter 1

"I bet it's a stash of yarn or maybe a collection of troll dolls and bingo daubers," Carly DeCusati said.

"Really? Your elderly neighbor leaves you something in her will and that's what you think it might be?" Jillian Braedon, Carly's best friend for life, asked her.

More accurately, Jillian asked Carly's curvy backside as Carly was half wedged in the narrow closet in her bedroom with her trusty handheld vacuum, attempting to suck up the dust bunnies that had set up a warren in there.

"No, not really. I have no idea what she might have left me," Carly said. "I mean Mrs. Genaro was my neighbor and I looked in on her and watched some television with her, but I didn't really know her, you know? Honestly, I can't believe she left me anything at all."

"Maybe it's diamonds, a priceless piece of art, or-"

"Her tea cozy collection," Mackenzie Harris interrupted Jillian.

She was standing beside Jilly as they folded the mountain of clothes on Carly's bed in an effort to fit them into the stack of empty moving boxes they had gathered.

"She didn't-" Emma Jameson protested but Carly interrupted.

"Collect tea cozies? Not that I'm aware of, but I think that's a safer bet than diamonds or art."

"Bummer," Jillian said.

"Agreed," Carly said. She wiggled backwards, just enough to poke her head out from around the doorjamb, and turned to face her three childhood friends. She gave them a rueful glance and added, "That did not stop me, however, from spending a significant amount of time praying to the big guy that it would be enough cash to pay my rent so I can halt my move back to Bluff Point."

"Is coming home to Maine really that bad?" Jillian asked. "You've been in Brooklyn for a long time, maybe now you'll be happier at home like Mac."

"Mac's happy because she found a hot young veterinarian to warm up those frigid Maine winters," Carly said.

Mackenzie turned a bright shade of red. Her summer romance with Gavin Tolliver had been the stuff of legends, or at least really good chick flicks.

"Please, he's still my baby brother," Emma said with a frown. "Can we not use the word 'hot' when describing him?"

"Sorry," Carly said.

"But he is," Mac said, giving Emma side eye. "Totally hot."

Emma rolled her eyes but she was grinning. As the only happily married one of their group, she had the matchmaker bug going big time.

"See? You have us there, your Maine crew," Jillian said. "Coming home won't be so bad."

Carly looked at Jillian in confusion. "I'm sorry. You've met my family, right?"

"Yes, but-"

"No buts, I love them dearly, but they suck the soul right out of me," Carly said. "You try being the fourth sister in a brat pack of five. It'd make the sanest person cray cray."

"I'm an only child, so I can't really wrap my head around that. But you need to look at the bigger picture," Jilly argued. "Your company downsized and you lost your job. You can't pay your rent and all of your best friends are in Bluff Point, Maine. Clearly the universe is telling you it's time to come home. Besides, don't you want to spend more time with us?"

Jillian tipped her head to the side in a look meant to charm and disarm. Emma and Mac stepped up beside her and mimicked her pose. They were like a trifecta of pretty, exotic, and lovely. Carly sighed. There was no way she could tell her friends the truth-that while she loved each one of them dearly, when she was with them she felt as if she should be carrying a bucket and mop.

The progeny of a black mom and a white dad, Jillian was tall and lithe with brown skin that glowed, big dark eyes, full lips, and a head of enviable dark curls. If she hadn't been Carly's best friend since childhood, Carly would have avoided Jillian like the plague of good-looking that she was. Truly, no woman should ever have to stand next to a woman as exotically beautiful as Jillian.

Then there was Emma. Petite, blonde, blue-eyed, she looked like someone who was enchanted to life from an old Disney animated film. If that weren't bad enough, she had a huge heart and a contagious laugh and made sure she milked every bit of awesome out of every single day. In other words, she was impossible not to love.

"If I can go home, so can you," Mac said.

Carly frowned. Mackenzie was actually the worst of the three. Medium in height and build with thick, wavy brown hair that hung just past her shoulders and an ability to do mental math that left Carly dazzled, Mac was the sort of hot girl who had no idea she was hot, which was the absolute worst kind because Carly couldn't even be mad at her for being hot since Mac didn't know it herself.

Mac had a smile that lit up rooms and stopped men's hearts. At least, it had pretty much stopped Gavin Tolliver's heart. The man had been in love with her since he was ten years old and Mac had never caught on until just recently-yeah, because she was thick like that.

Being unfashionably short and voluptuous, with a hot temper that frequently beat out her common sense, Carly had always felt like the ugly stepsister when she was with her friends. She had never told any of them, of course, but going home and being with all of them again? Yeah, it wasn't really rocking her self-esteem.

A belch sounded and they all looked at one another. No one asked to be excused so it was pretty clear it wasn't one of them, which left . . .

"Tulip!" Mac cried her dog's name. "Tulip, what have you gotten into?"

The retching noise started shortly after that.

"Oh, no! That's her about-to-hork noise," Mac said. She dashed from the bedroom out to the living room. "Tulip!"

"I'll help!" Emma cried. She glanced at Carly, noting the alarmed expression on her face. "We'll take her for a walk until it passes. We got this."

Carly glanced at Jillian, who was obviously trying not to laugh.

"Can't wait to see them with babies," Carly said.

Jillian lost the battle and cracked up. When she was composed again, she looked at Carly and said, "And there's that. You don't want to miss any of the big life events, do you? It'll be great being together again, I promise."

"Hanging out with you will be a bright spot," Carly said. "But the newly married Emma and the newly-shacked-up Mac are not going to be nearly as entertaining. Why is everyone suddenly hooking up? Don't they know that these are the best years of our lives?"

"We're thirty-two," Jillian said. "I think it's the natural order that we start pairing off and settling down."

Carly fell backwards out of the closet. "Are you trying to tell me something? Oh, no, are you and Sam Kennedy a thing now?"

"What? No!" Jilly protested. "He was just my partner for Emma's wedding. We've become friends-good friends-that's it."

Carly narrowed one eye at her as if trying to determine whether Jillian was telling her the truth.

"I swear." Jillian raised her right hand, forgetting that she was holding a pair of Carly's pink underpants.

"Does holding a thong make it more binding?" Carly asked with a laugh. Jillian dropped the panties and frowned at her. "All right, but if I find out there's been any hanky-panky and you didn't tell me . . ."

The buzzer on Carly's intercom interrupted her. She glanced at the clock.

"Oh, that'll be Mrs. G's lawyer," she said. "He's...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Berkley
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0399584749
• ISBN 13: 9780399584749
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 336
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar