“Soul mate? Ha.” Conor scoffed.
“Destiny brought them together just like she did with us,” Giorgia said, squeezing his arm. “You convinced me Destiny never failed with her matchmaking, now you can’t say she’s made a mistake with your sister.”
Conor rolled his eyes but didn’t retort. Kyla chuckled.
“If I ever hurt her, you have my permission to use your fists on me.” Caleb looked straight into Kyla’s eyes and held her gaze. “I’d rather cut my hands off than make her cry. I love her more than life.”
“Aww.” Giorgia brought a hand to her heart, while Conor rolled his eyes again. “You’re handsome, talented, and romantic. You’re a lucky woman, Kyla.”
“I am.” Kyla nodded, her eyes glistening as they veiled with tears. She blinked a couple of times, then threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “And I’m so happy Destiny O’Hara decided to use her matchmaking skills on us,” she whispered against his neck, her warm breath making his skin tingle and his body fill with need.
He chuckled. “Me too.”
He took her face in his hands, briefly glanced at Conor, then brushed Kyla’s lips in a sweet kiss. He thought he heard Conor mumble something and Giorgia scold him, but all he cared about was the feel of Kyla’s lips, the sweet taste of the red velvet cupcake from Sweet Destiny Bakery she’d been munching on earlier. For once in his life he finally felt complete, even without a brush in his hand or a white canvas waiting for him to unleash his creativity. Only a couple of months ago he’d thought he’d had a brief brush with love and he’d lost it before he could get used to the feeling.
Now he knew their relationship would last forever, just like the best paintings that had lasted throughout the centuries.
Afterword
Thank you for reading this book! I hope you enjoyed Kyla and Caleb’s story. If you did, please take a moment to leave a review to help other readers discover it. If you haven’t read Giorgia and Conor’s story, you can grab your copy here: getbook.at/DestinysCove1
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Read on for an excerpt from A Trip With Destiny, Giorgia and Conor’s book.
A Trip With Destiny (Destiny’s Cove, #1)
She’s ready to take a chance on a new life. He’s ready for true love to find him. Good thing Destiny is at hand, ready to shake things up.
Giorgia Di Maggio has left Italy to spend a sabbatical in California with her friend, hoping three months will be enough to clear her mind and reinvent herself. But when her friend surprises her with an adventurous one-week vacation in a small Florida town, she finds herself yearning for her safe, monotonous life.
After breaking up with his girlfriend, Conor Callaghan hasn’t felt the need for a relationship, least of all a fling. He’s content with managing his Irish pub in Destiny’s Cove and going out on his friend’s boat. Until the day they rescue two stranded tourists, and an unexpected instant attraction ignites a spark in him.
Though Giorgia tries to stay away from Conor, a series of odd coincidences keeps bringing them together. And as her stay draws closer to the end and she’s faced with a life-changing decision, they’ll both realize this adventurous week has in fact been a trip with Destiny.
A Trip With Destiny - Chapter 1
Some people lived for the thrill of new experiences and adventures. Giorgia Di Maggio wasn’t one of them. She’d never done anything irresponsible or reckless in her whole life. She was an ultra-responsible twenty-nine-year-old with her head screwed securely on her shoulders and her feet well planted on the ground. Though she wasn’t exactly living her dream, she’d been perfectly okay living her monotonous but safe life in an inconspicuous town in the northwest of Italy. Or so she’d thought, until Stephanie, her bubbly Californian friend, convinced her she had to live a little before she turned thirty. In a moment of pure craziness, Giorgia quit her job as an accountant in a big company, packed a couple of suitcases, and applied for a three-month tourist visa that would allow her to live in California with Stephanie until she figured out what she was going to do with her life. Or why she’d done such a crazy thing, which was totally unlike her. Whatever happened first.
When her friend surprised her at Miami International Airport on December 5th with the news they were going to spend a week in a town called Destiny’s Cove, in the southwest of Florida, before moving to California, Giorgia found herself wondering if she should spin on the heels of her sneakers and get on the first plane headed back to Italy.
“This is so exciting,” Stephanie squealed, as they drove past the “Welcome to Destiny’s Cove” sign two hours after Giorgia’s plane had landed.
Giorgia stared out the window at the clear waters of the Gulf and the palm trees swaying in the breeze that didn’t exactly create the Christmassy atmosphere she had hoped for. But perhaps a little sun and some relaxing days by the beach would help her feel better about what she’d done. And who knew, maybe this year Santa would bring her the answers she’d been looking for and tell her how to make her life more exciting. Maybe she’d even manage to find a house by the beach, just like she used to dream as a child.
But the following day, as she sat on the sand on a tiny island off the coast and watched the dolphin that had caused them to be stranded on that beach swim happily in the clear waters of the Gulf of Mexico, she wished she hadn’t let Stephanie talk her into this crazy adventure—and into turning her life upside down.
Giorgia hugged her knees and closed her eyes, wishing it were all just a bad dream. Whatever had possessed her to let Stephanie persuade her into renting a kayak to reach one of the small islands off the coast? When the B&B owner informed them the previous night that a good number of birds could be found on Seagull Island, Stephanie had jumped at the chance. She had a photography blog and was always looking for opportunities to add more images to her portfolio. So Giorgia had had to suck it up and follow her. She hadn’t considered the possibility she might end up dying on a beach.
And now they were stranded on a deserted island. They’d nearly reached the beach when a dolphin had swum by and jumped out of the water and over their heads. The combination of Stephanie’s excitement and Giorgia’s fright had overturned the kayak within seconds. The only good thing about it was that they were in shallow waters and could walk to the shore without needing to swim, but Stephanie had been too focused on keeping her backpack from getting drenched and saving her precious camera stored inside to care about their kayak. By the time Giorgia recovered from the shock and turned around to grab it and pull it to dry land with her, the wind had unexpectedly picked up. What only minutes before had been flat waters had now turned rougher, and in a matter of seconds big swells had washed the kayak away. Giorgia shrieked, holding one of the paddles to her chest as she stared teary-eyed at their only means of transportation being carried away, farther offshore. She wasn’t enough of a good swimmer to go after it and her legs were shaking too much for her to be able to move anyway. She’d spun around to talk to Stephanie, only to find she’d already reached the shore and was busy taking pictures, as if nothing had happened. Giorgia had picked up the other paddle and walked toward the beach with a sense of dread weighing her down.
While she dropped down on the sand and stared at the rolling waves, Stephanie didn’t stop taking pictures. She’d barely let out an uh-oh when Giorgia had reached the shore and told her the kayak had been washed away, then she’d gone after the next bird she wanted to capture on camera.
“I knew it was a bad idea. I knew I shouldn’t hav
e listened to you. Maledizione!” She cursed in frustration, tossing a shell into the surf with as much force as she had left in her tired arms after all the rowing they’d done to get there. The click-click-click of the camera’s shutter continued as if Giorgia hadn’t even spoken. As if they weren’t stuck on an island with no way of going back to dry land other than swimming—and possibly ending up on the lunch menu of a shark. Fantastico.
“Are you even aware of the mess we’re in?”
Stephanie’s camera came up as she stared at Giorgia through the lens. Click. Click. Click-click. Frustration flared and Giorgia picked up a big pebble that was half hidden in the sand. “Stop taking pictures or I swear I’ll hit you on the head with this.”
Stephanie lowered her camera and let it hang on the strap around her neck. She raised her eyes to the sky and let out an audible sigh. “You’re overreacting, Gio.”
“I’m overreacting? Seriously, Steph? Our kayak got washed away and I’m pretty sure that dolphin deliberately tipped us over because it wanted to eat us. And now we’re stranded on this island with no cell coverage, no food, and no water.” She tossed the pebble into the surf and groaned. “We don’t even have a volleyball named Wilson we can talk to. We’re going to die, and by the time they find us, seagulls will have eaten our flesh and they won’t be able to recognize us, and they’ll bury us in a nameless grave with a Jane Doe headstone, and—”
“Okay, enough.” Stephanie shook Giorgia by the shoulders, and she blinked the gory scenario away. “We’re not going to die. We’re only twenty minutes away from the mainland, and this is on the tourist route of the boat tours. Someone is bound to come by, some fishermen or tourists. We’ll be fine.”
“I shouldn’t have listened to you. I shouldn’t have let you convince me to turn my life upside down, to leave everything and everyone I know just to follow some crazy dream.” Giorgia ignored her friend’s words of reassurance and let out a sob, dropping her forehead on her knees. “I should’ve stayed where I was, crunching numbers, safe in my office.”
“Just keeping your nose to the grindstone, right? Because that was totally making you happy.” Stephanie plopped down beside her and poked her shoulder. Giorgia swatted her hand away. “Gio, I promised this sabbatical would help you figure out your life, and I meant it. We’re not going to die. In fact, in a few hours we’ll be laughing about this, while sipping a Guinness at the Irish pub, like the good ol’ days in Dublin.”
Giorgia shook her head. She didn’t want a Guinness. She just wanted to go home, back to her routine. “My life was dull and boring, but at least it was safe.”
“There, you see? Your life was boring. You’re only twenty-nine; you can’t think of your life as anything but exciting, thrilling, adventurous—”
“You know I don’t like being adventurous,” Giorgia said from under her crossed arms.
“Don’t I know it.”
Giorgia looked up and glared at her friend. “I’m not like you, okay? I can’t be like you, no matter how hard you try to change me. I’m boring, and unexciting, and unadventurous, and un-everything else you are.”
They really were polar opposites. Not just in the looks department—Giorgia’s brown hair and eyes contrasted with Stephanie’s dark blonde hair and blue eyes—but most of all in their temperament and outlook on life in general. Whereas Stephanie always saw the glass half full, Giorgia saw it completely empty. Stephanie looked at life through rainbow-tinted lenses, while Giorgia’s lenses only showed dull shades of gray. She still couldn’t understand how they could possibly be friends at all.
“What happened to the girl I met in Dublin?” Stephanie asked. “The one who slept on a bunk bed in a cheap hostel and watched a rugby match with me in a crowded pub full of drunken fans? The girl who was determined to move to Dublin and marry an Irish guy? Because, I gotta tell you, she looked very much like you.”
The memory of the twenty-year-old who went to Ireland on a totally spontaneous trip, thinking she could conquer the world and make her dreams come true, now felt foreign to Giorgia. She was no longer that girl. After she’d come home and got sucked into adult life, she’d soon lost heart, focusing on always doing the right thing and staying on the safe path, until she’d forgotten that girl with dreams of a bright future. Now she was a responsible woman, perhaps a little dull if she had to be honest with herself, but maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing, after all. Dull equaled safe.
She sighed and dropped her head between her knees, trying to take deep breaths but feeling her lungs constrict with every intake. Panic-control technique one: failed. What was the next one on her list? Oh, yeah. Perhaps someone coming to save them would help.
“Giorgia, you’ve got to stop worrying about everything. Life happens, whether you live it or you don’t. Might as well live it to the fullest, don’t you think?” Stephanie stood up and stretched her arms over her head. “Enjoy life or die trying, sistah.”
Yeah, well. They were going to die all right—but without trying to enjoy life. She groaned.
I should’ve stayed at the B&B.
Buy the book
Also by Grace Roberts
Titles in Kindle Unlimited
A Love Melody (Melody, #1)
A Christmas Melody (Melody, #2)
Healing Our Hearts (Irish Hearts, #1)
Finding Our Hearts (Irish Hearts, #2)
Hold On To Love (standalone country romance)
A Trip With Destiny (Destiny’s Cove, #1)
Love In Spring series:
No End To Love (Love in Spring, #1)
Unplanned Love (Love in Spring, #2)
Find the full list on my website:
authorgraceroberts.com/books
Acknowledgments
Writing the acknowledgments is always a little tricky, since I’m worried about forgetting someone important who made it possible for the book to see the light of day.
As for the previous book in the series, I want to thank the other authors, a.k.a. the Friends of Fortune, who shared the fun journey of the Fortune’s Bay series, from which the Destiny’s Cove series eventually originated.
Thanks to my author besties, Joslyn and Julie, for being there for me through thick and thin, for making me laugh when I wanted to cry, and for making me change my mind when I wanted to smash my laptop against the wall and give up. I’m so happy our paths have crossed, even if only virtually.
Thanks to Kathy at Indie Chick Editing for your fast turnaround and for helping me make the book better.
Finally, thanks to all my readers, old and new, who give me the opportunity to keep writing the stories playing in my head. If I can keep living my dream it’s only thanks to you.
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