Twice Shy - Softcover

Hogle, Sarah

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593085531 ISBN 13: 9780593085530

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2021

Inhaltsangabe

Can you find real love when you've always got your head in the clouds?

Maybell Parish has always been a dreamer and a hopeless romantic. But living in her own world has long been preferable to dealing with the disappointments of real life. So when Maybell inherits a charming house in the Smokies from her Great-Aunt Violet, she seizes the opportunity to make a fresh start.

Yet when she arrives, it seems her troubles have only just begun. Not only is the house falling apart around her, but she isn't the only inheritor: she has to share everything with Wesley Koehler, the groundskeeper who's as grouchy as he is gorgeous--and it turns out he has a very different vision for the property's future.

Convincing the taciturn Wesley to stop avoiding her and compromise is a task more formidable than the other dying wishes Great-Aunt Violet left behind. But when Maybell uncovers something unexpectedly sweet beneath Wesley's scowls, and as the two slowly begin to let their guard down, they might learn that sometimes the smallest steps outside one's comfort zone can lead to the greatest rewards.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sarah Hogle is a mom of three who enjoys trashy TV and provoking her husband for attention. Her dream is to live in a falling-apart castle in a forest that is probably cursed. She is also the author of You Deserve Each Other.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1

 

I am up in the clouds now, drumming my fingernails on a countertop. Outside the window, in an ever-swirling fog, there's a pink neon sign that spins at an all-the-time-in-the-world tilt, which reads: maybell's coffee shop au. Beneath, with one of the letters blinking out: Open 24 hours.

 

My AU (alternate universe) cafŽ has taken years to build, the past three months being its busiest season yet. I've put up fairy lights and aqua tiles, floppy houseplants and red vinyl booths. A jukebox comes to life whenever I glance its way, spontaneously playing one of my favorite songs. Maybell's Coffee Shop AU is the most beautiful place I can imagine, and I've imagined lots of places.

 

The fog breaks on cue. I glance up, on high alert, knowing what happens next because it's happened before a hundred times. A story with a scripted beginning and boundless possibilities for how it might end.

 

The man who throws open the door is tall, broad shouldered, strong jawed, in a suit of blackest black. Dark blond hair falls in tousled wet waves that make me think of a fallen angel who almost drowned, thrust out of the sea by Poseidon and made alive again with a lightning strike. If he were in color, his eyes would be topaz-a glass of root beer held up to the light.

 

He's all edges and shadow, black and white. Raindrops sheeting off the windowpane behind him project onto the right half of his face like a monochrome film reel, and his gaze sweeps the cafŽ before settling on me. I suck in a deep breath, gripping the counter to stay tethered. This is the moment I've been waiting for all my life.

 

"I've been looking everywhere for you," he tells me. "Why haven't you returned my calls?"

 

My having seen all of this before does nothing to dull the elation of seeing it again. Joy bursts in my chest, no room for air. "Jack! What if someone sees you here?"

 

"I don't care anymore." He leaps over the counter to gather me up in a passionate embrace. "I'm not hiding us. Yes, you're a coffee shop girl and I'm the prince of Effluvia. What does it matter? I love you. That's all there is to it."

 

"You love me?"

 

This is my favorite part, the love-declaring. I rewind so that I can hear it again, and make some small adjustments for dramatic flair.

 

"Yes, you're a coffee shop girl and I'm the prince of Effluvia," he repeats, a bouquet of stargazer lilies materializing in his left hand. And in his right, a glittering engagement ring. I silently mouth the rest of his lines along with him. "What does it matter? I love you. That's all there is to it."

 

"But . . . the monarchy," I whisper against his shoulder. "They don't want us to be together."

 

"They can't stop us. Our love is a force too powerful to be defied."

 

"Maybell," I hear a faraway voice chirrup. I rearrange the sound into background noise, letters becoming rustling leaves.

 

Jack lowers to one knee. The stargazer lilies triple in size. A string quartet appears.

 

"My beloved . . . light of my life . . ." Jack clears his throat, but my gaze flits uneasily to reflections that don't belong here. They stir in the silver napkin dispenser, the coffeepot, the gleaming backsplash, like they're two-way mirrors. A tiny knob on the vintage rotary landline, boxy and beige, lights up red a half second before the phone's metallic ring interrupts Jack's proposal.

 

"You are the most special person I've ever met," Jack begins, totally oblivious, tears in his eyes. "Intelligent. Beautiful. Capable. Unparalleled. There's nobody else like Maybell Parrish." According to my schedule, we're going to kiss in thirteen seconds. The passionate kiss that follows the declaration of love is another very favorite part. It's the essential ingredient to every romance that ensures it bakes properly.

 

The red light is impossible to ignore now. A piece of masking tape at the knob's base glows with each flash, bringing my handwriting into sharp focus. irl calling.

 

I wave impatiently for Jack to speed it up, but before we can get to the Will you marry me and the inevitable Yes, a thousand times, yes, mainlining serotonin directly into my brain to get me through the next two hours of my shift, a disembodied hand touches my shoulder.

 

The proposal hits pause. I smile wistfully at this perfect man and his perfectly love-struck, adoring expression. He would move mountains for me. He would walk the earth for me. He would avenge and protect and come back from the dead for me. Really, the only bad thing about Jack McBride is that he doesn't exist.

 

A sidewinder of white light blows across the cafŽ, shattering windows. My ears are ringing, my vision patchy as it adjusts. I drop out of the clouds of my dissolving happy place and back into the here and now, which is the last place I want to be. And standing before me, with her unwelcome hand on my shoulder, is the last person I want to see.

 

Gemma Peterson doesn't realize that, of course. She thinks we're BFFs.

 

"Hello! Earth to Maybell!" She snaps her fingers in front of my face. "Someone threw up all over the second-floor ice machine. Projectile vomit."

 

I groan. The here and now is Around the Mountain Resort & Spa, a Southern charm-infused hotel and indoor water park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. All the appeal of an old-fashioned timber lodge, but with souvenir shops, HBO, and a lazy river.

 

When I'm not zoning out into imaginary worlds, I'm planning fun guest activities as the newly promoted event coordinator, and then getting my ideas shot down by my co-coordinator, Christine. Up until New Year's Day, I worked here as a housekeeper, so getting flagged down with reports of vomit on ice machines was par for the course. Unfortunately, it's now April first and people are still running to me with these issues. It's as if the promotion never happened.

 

"That's for housekeeping," I remind Gemma.

 

"Oh, you're right! I'm just used to . . ." She bestows a huge smile on me, hooking her arm in mine as I pick up my pace down the hallway. I check the time on my phone and internally despair. My detour into the coffee shop in the sky only burned through ten minutes? I just want to go home, throw all the memories of this place into an incinerator, and sleep facedown on the couch for twelve hours. "Wanna play hooky in the arcade?" Gemma asks. "The claw machine's actually grabbing prizes today."

 

"We'll get in trouble with Paul."

 

Paul's the Big Boss, and while it's true that I'd probably get chewed out for losing to rigged Skee-Ball on the clock, Gemma's his daughter and can do whatever she wants. She gets paid five dollars an hour more than I do to stand in the lobby wearing a cutesy train conductor's costume, informing guests in an exaggerated twang that RainForest Adventures Zoo is only five miles down the road, visit the customer service desk for coupons! Then she disappears to the pool for the rest of the afternoon.

 

It's hard to hate Gemma-she's fun and bubbly. What's not to like? After she was fired from a string of jobs, Paul got rid of seventy-four-year-old Dennis, a veteran, to make room for her at Around the Mountain. She latched on to me on day one. Gemma brings me banana nut bread samples from our resort's breakfast bar, Sunrise in the Smokies, and is enthusiastic about everything I say even if it's just chatting about needing to get groceries. Whenever I wear new jewelry, she zeroes right in on it with an ego-inflating compliment. The only bad thing about Gemma is...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2021
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593085531
• ISBN 13: 9780593085530
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 336
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland