The Marriage Rescue

by Shirley Jump

  Can a lost puppy lead to a place to belong?

  He didn’t want to fall in love.

  But he might have met the perfect wife!

  When a lost pup reunites Grady Jackson with his high school crush, he doesn’t expect to become engaged! Marriage wasn’t in dog groomer Beth Cooper’s immediate plans, either. But if showing off her brand-new fiancé makes her seriously ill father happy, how can she say, “I don’t”? Until Grady, a leap-before-he-looks kind of guy, proposes a more permanent temporary arrangement—one that could give them both a place to call home.

  New York Times Bestselling Author Shirley Jump

  “You are something I never counted on.”

  Grady’s face clouded. “This, well, this thing with us is a little out of my wheelhouse.”

  “Mine, too.” Beth glanced at the diamond, so gorgeous it easily passed for real. “I’ll wear the ring for a while, then quietly tell everyone the distance between us was too hard to overcome...and with time, we’ll all forget about this.”

  That was what she wanted. No entanglements, nothing beyond this short-lived charade. There wouldn’t be any date nights and kisses under the stars...

  What was wrong with her? Since when did she want that kind of thing? She was practical, levelheaded. Not some silly romantic who dreamed of a knight on a white horse. She had a business to run, a fake fiancé to pass off and a father who was gravely ill. Foolish romantic clichés didn’t fit on that list.

  Like Grady, she hadn’t thought of all the contingencies, as in the way he kissed her and made her melt. The touch of his hand against her face almost heartbreakingly tender. How much she missed him when he wasn’t here.

  * * *

  THE STONE GAP INN... Where love comes home.

  Dear Reader,

  I love, love, love marriage of convenience stories. The very first romance I read was a marriage of convenience, and maybe that’s why they’ve remained one of my favorite tropes ever. In the modern day, it’s a harder story line to pull off, because women and men are rarely forced into a lifetime commitment nowadays.

  So when I came up with the idea for The Marriage Rescue, I was really excited to have a unique spin on a familiar plot. This one has all my other much-loved elements—a dog (if you’ve seen the pictures of my Cavalier King Charles puppy online, you’ll know how much I adore dogs!), a quirky small town and a close but imperfect family. I wanted to tell the story of a risk-taking hero who had become paralyzed with fear after realizing his risks had hurt people he cared about, and a heroine who has to make an impossible choice between the life she has and the family she has left.

  This entire Stone Gap series has been an absolute joy to write. From the first book set in this fictional town, The Homecoming Queen Gets Her Man, to this one, I have loved every visit. In my heart, the Barlow family is alive and well, and the quaint Stone Gap Inn is ushering in lots of happily-ever-afters.

  Feel free to drop me a line if you love Stone Gap, too, and we can talk about icy lemonade on hot summer days and small-town living at its best. Thank you for coming along on this journey with me once again!

  Happy reading!

  Shirley Jump

  The Marriage Rescue

  Shirley Jump

  New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Shirley Jump spends her days writing romance so she can avoid the towering stack of dirty dishes, eat copious amounts of chocolate and reward herself with trips to the mall. Visit her website at shirleyjump.com for author news and a book list, and follow her at Facebook.com/shirleyjump.author for giveaways and deep discussions about important things like chocolate and shoes.

  Books by Shirley Jump

  Harlequin Special Edition

  The Stone Gap Inn

  Their Last Second Chance

  The Family He Didn’t Expect

  The Barlow Brothers

  The Firefighter’s Family Secret

  The Tycoon’s Proposal

  The Instant Family Man

  The Homecoming Queen Gets Her Man

  Harlequin Romance

  Return of the Last McKenna

  How the Playboy Got Serious

  One Day to Find a Husband

  Family Christmas in Riverbend

  The Princess Test

  How to Lasso a Cowboy

  Midnight Kiss, New Year Wish

  If the Red Slipper Fits...

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  To Joe—may every day going forward be as happy and wonderful as our first date and that moonlight stroll through town. You’re my forever.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from A Baby Affair by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Excerpt from The Magnolia Sisters by Michelle Major

  Chapter One

  At five years old, Grady Jackson had climbed up the makeshift diving platform that reached out like a hand over Stone Gap Lake, damned near giving his mother a heart attack. She’d yanked him back, then she’d sat him down on a wooden picnic bench and lectured him long and hard about not being a foolish, headstrong boy. As soon as her back was turned, Grady had scrambled up the ladder a second time and jumped. When he hit the cool, deep, dark water, he’d spent a long moment submerged, so deep he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get back to the surface. He had kicked and flailed and clawed his way to the top, and when he took that desperate breath of warm summer air, he’d learned his first life lesson—that taking risks was the adrenaline that fired his brain. Until it wasn’t, and everything went sideways.

  Now here he was in North Carolina with his tail between his legs. He’d been asked—ordered—by his COO to “take a break from the stress,” as Dan Samuels had put it. His COO’s loyalty almost cost the man everything, and yet he’d stayed, like a sentry who couldn’t leave his post. Of all the people in Grady’s employ, Dan should have hated him, told him off, stormed out of the office. In a way, it stung more that Dan had stayed to the bitter almost end.

  He’d even taken the task of gently telling Grady the company had lost faith in him.

  Hell, he’d lost faith in himself. Grady had ruined everything.

  The resources he had left were going to pay Dan’s salary and keep the health insurance current. Grady had sublet his apartment, liquidated what he could, and poured everything into Jackson Properties. That money would last another month, maybe two, if nothing changed. If he cashed in the rest of his retirement assets, Grady could buy a couple more months.

  A far cry from nine months ago. Once upon a time, Grady Jackson had made the pages of Forbes magazine as an upstart who was heading straight to the top.

  What did being at the top mean, anyway? That he got to stand on a towering pile of regrets and look down at the lives he’d ruined?

  Grady pulled into Stone Gap a little after three in the afternoon, not in the Maserati he had given back to the bank two months ago, or in the Mercedes convertible he’d bought for fun and sold to keep the lights on at the office, but in a two-door economy rental that shuddered whenever he pushed the accelerator past fifty. The downtown area had barely changed in the past fifteen or so years, as if time had decided to stand still right there on Main Street. The
same shops with the same cutesy names sat in the same spots, and the same neighbors strolled along the sidewalks, some now with grandkids in tow. Grady could still see shadows of memories of times with his brothers in the ice-cream shop they’d frequented, the Catholic church basketball court where they’d spent hundreds of afternoons, and the rolling green grass of the park that had been like a second home.

  It was all so charming and quaint, a small town filled with families and hopes and dreams. The kind of world that would relax anyone other than Grady. The closer he got to his destination, the faster his heart hammered and the shorter his breaths became. His vision narrowed, and his chest began to ache.

  It’s your fault... If you’d only thought before you leaped into that deal... They were counting on you...

  He cursed and pulled at the neck of his shirt. There was not enough air in this damned car. Grady pulled under the wide branches of a shady oak tree and parked. He opened all four windows, and for a split second he couldn’t feel any air at all. There was nothing to breathe, nothing...

  A whispering breeze tickled his face, then picked up steam and whooshed through the car. Grady closed his eyes and concentrated. Inhale. One long, deep breath in. Exhale. Let the air go gradually, a degree at a time. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. Until the vise on his chest loosened.

  This was a temporary setback. He needed just a couple weeks, maybe three at most. He was going to fix this.

  He had to fix this.

  Yet the doubts lingered in the thudding of his pulse. Was this decision, like so many others in the weeks since he’d lost that government contract, just another mistake waiting to happen?

  Grady put the car in gear and kept going, until Main Street yielded to trees and space, and brought him to the T junction with Oak. He turned right, then took a left and another right, and finally pulled into a driveway as familiar as the back of his hand. For a second, he was five again, and bursting through the front door and into a world unlike any he had known.

  The tar surface had rippled and cracked over the years, and weeds had seized the opportunity to sprout from the crevices. The yard was less overgrown than he’d expected, considering Grady had had to cancel the lawn service last month, which meant some neighbor was probably running his John Deere over the grass a few times a month, just to keep the neighborhood looking nice. That was the kind of place Stone Gap was—do unto others, regardless of whether they do unto you in return.

  He got out of the cramped rental and inhaled again, drawing in the scents of fall. Grady stood there, inhaling, exhaling, focusing on the ground, until his heart slowed its frantic hammer.

  The two-story house, flanked by a detached one-car garage on one side and a flower garden on the other, cast a long shadow over the driveway. He’d spent many a summer afternoon here, running in and out of the kitchen, hearing the screen door slam behind him and his grandmother’s voice reminding him to be careful. The smell of fresh-baked bread, or of warm chocolate chip cookies, would bring him back for a few minutes of stillness in the kitchen before he was off again, exploring the woods behind Grandma’s house and the creek that wound its way through the trees like a trail for Hansel and Gretel.

  Finally, he was here. He’d come back. To what, he wasn’t sure. Amends, at the very least.

  He was reaching for his bag when a movement caught his attention. A flash of beige fur, a rustle in the shrubs, then the flick of a tail. Grady dropped the bag on the driveway and crossed to the bushes—overgrown and thick and apparently not on the do-gooder neighbor’s list of things to do—and bent down. “Hey, you.”

  Another flash of fur, a couple feet high, then two big brown eyes peered through the twined branches. A yip, then the eyes were gone, the shrubs trembling. Little guy was terrified. Grady could relate to that.

  “Hey, buddy, don’t worry. I won’t hurt you.” He straightened, then slipped through a break in the bushes and into a small bare area too heavily shaded by trees for anything to grow. Just on the other side of a massive oak that must have been a hundred years old stood a yellow Lab puppy.

  Grady approached slowly, his hand out, talking in soft tones. “What are you doing here? You lost?”

  The puppy nudged forward, cautiously sniffing the space between him and this unfamiliar human. He didn’t have a collar, and his ribs rippled beneath his fur. If this dog was someone’s pet, they were doing a crappy job taking care of him.

  “I have half a sandwich left in the car,” Grady said to the animal. “Ham and cheese, nothing fancy, but I bet you don’t care. Want some?”

  The puppy kept on wagging and approaching. Grady bent down, keeping his hand extended, letting the dog sniff and make an assessment. Whatever he smelled, he approved of, because the next thing Grady knew, the puppy was pouncing on his knee and licking his face. Grady had never had a dog as a kid, and never had time for one as an adult, but this pup apparently didn’t care about a human’s pet-care résumé.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” Grady scooped the dog under his arm like a football—thing probably didn’t weigh more than fifteen pounds—then cut back through the shrubs and over to his car. The puppy squirmed and twisted, trying to lick Grady’s face every step of the way. Grady retrieved the sandwich, unfurled the paper wrapper, then stood back and watched the puppy gobble it in a few bites.

  “That your dog?”

  Grady turned. A hunched, elderly man with a Charlotte Hornets cap pulled low on his forehead waved at the puppy. The man had sharp blue eyes, and a scruff of white beard on his chin. He was carrying a copy of the Stone Gap Gazette in one hand, and a coffee mug in the other.

  “No. I just found him in the yard,” Grady said.

  “Thing’s been wandering around here for weeks. Every time I tried to catch him, he took off. Called the dogcatcher, but that guy’s about as useful as a rhinoceros in a swimming pool.”

  Grady chuckled. He extended a hand toward the man. “Grady Jackson. I’m one of Ida Mae’s grandsons.”

  The man had a firm grip, and his blue eyes brightened at the mention of Ida Mae. He leaned in closer, studied Grady for a moment. “You’re that little wild child who was here every summer, tearing up the woods.”

  “That’d be me.” His two younger brothers had both been studious and quiet, the kind who preferred books to dirt bikes, almost as if they’d had different parents, except when they were at Ida Mae’s, and the tight hold they held on their lives loosened. Even today, Grady had little in common with Nick and Ryder, who’d settled into IT careers, until Nick moved down here last year. The brothers had been close at one time, but as they got older and the two-year-plus age difference had made more of an impact, the three of them drifted apart. Nick and Ryder had stayed close, while Grady had fallen into the new role of loner—and it had stuck.

  Nick lived a couple miles away now with his new wife. Grady couldn’t even remember her name or when they got married. Showed what kind of brother he was. He hadn’t even told Nick he was coming to Stone Gap.

  He wasn’t so sure Nick would care. All their communications for the last few years had been via text. Maybe Grady could remedy that. Maybe not.

  “Pleased to see you again. I’m Cutler Shay.” The old man studied Grady some more. “You might not remember me, but I’m the one who fixed the flat tire on your bike that time.”

  Grady had been seven, maybe eight, when he’d gotten that flat. He remembered standing there in the middle of the road, stumped. His father had never been the kind to show his boys how to do much of anything, and certainly not how to change a bike tire. He had exacting expectations for grades and decorum, which didn’t include skinned knees or broken bikes. Cutler—he’d been heavier, darker haired and taller then—had given Grady a mini tire-changing clinic on the sidewalk in front of his house.

  “I remember that. You taught me more about that bike in one afternoon than I learned the rest of my life.”
>
  “Well, that’s probably because I’ve got a head full of useless facts and I’m known for talking the ear off an elephant.” Cutler chuckled. “So...now that Ida Mae, God rest her soul, has passed on, are you here to stay or sell? Saw your brother living here for a month or so, with that pretty lady he married. Nice couple.”

  At Christmas, Nick had asked if he could use the house for a few weeks. Grady had said yes, figuring it couldn’t hurt, and would keep the place from falling apart during the winter. He’d worried about damage and decay with each passing week of Atlantic winds and North Carolina sun. And yet, even though the pale yellow paint had faded and one of the dark green shutters was hanging askew, overall, the house didn’t seem to need a major facelift. Ida Mae had been fastidious about her home, and that attention to care and maintenance probably meant what was inside was in equally good shape.

  “Sell,” Grady said. Ida Mae had left the house to him and divided her life insurance between his brothers. Leaving him the place had been some act of sentimentality, he was sure, but in all honesty, he’d rather have gotten full right to the insurance, which, as cash in hand, would have been a hell of a lot handier and wouldn’t have required a real estate sign, sale and deed signing. Still, the house was what he’d gotten, and now he hoped it held the key to a financial reboot and a second chance.

  Cutler shook his head. “That’s a shame. That house has been in your family for three generations. Ida Mae sure would have wanted it to stay that way.”

  Yeah, well, unlike him, Ida Mae wasn’t broke and out of options. Grady loved his grandmother dearly, and had loved the time he had spent here with her, but that didn’t mean he was sappy enough to hold on to the house out of sentiment. Not when he needed the money so desperately. “Well, nice talking to you, Cutler. If you find out who owns this dog, let me know.”

  “You should take it to Beth Cooper. That girl knows about every dog in this town, and if someone lost that little guy, she’d be the one to hear about it.”

 
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