Naughty and Nice (Sunday Cove)

by Webb, Peggy

  NAUGHTY AND NICE

  (SUNDAY COVE SERIES)

  PEGGY WEBB

  A Westmoreland House Book

  Naughty and Nice (Sunday Cove Series) by Peggy Webb

  Published by Westmoreland House

  Smashwords Edition

  All characters and events in this book are fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

  Copyright @2014 by Peggy Webb

  Cover Design by Vicki Hinze

  Publishing History/ Naughty and Nice/ Bantam Loveswept, Copyright © 1996 by Peggy Webb

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or via any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or via any information storage and retrieval system without the express written permission of the copyright holder and publisher.

  Published in the United State by Westmoreland House, Mooreville, Mississippi

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to SUNDAY COVE! All the romantic comedies in this collection remind me of more innocent days. I’ve preserved that feeling so you can enjoy a peek back at carefree times. Too, I have four grandchildren who think of me as their Gigi, who has fairies in her garden and M&Ms in her purse. You’ll find the bedroom doors closed and the language tame in SUNDAY COVE.

  You’ll also find a romantic legend that will make you long to visit a citrus grove and bring some orange blossoms inside. And in this first book, you’ll discover a heroine who is less than perfect, who binges on chocolate and doughnuts. Much like me.

  If I could, I’d send you a box of chocolates to enjoy while you read NAUGHTY AND NICE. I hope you enjoy a few belly laughs – I did as I edited and revised. When you read the last page, I hope you’re still smiling.

  I plan to have eight books in SUNDAY COVE. Though each story is connected by a small Southern town by the sea and the lovable regulars who inhabit it, each book stands alone and can be read out of sequence.

  Look for BIRDS OF A FEATHER next…and soon! As always, I hope you enjoy every one of the stories in SUNDAY COVE.

  Peggy

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Books by the Author

  Prologue

  Sunday Cove, Mississippi

  December, 1985

  In Sunday Cove, there are certain things you can count on: Miss Emma Lumpkin, the postmistress, will put your mail in the wrong box; Hoot over at Hoot Sims Barbershop will cut your hair the way he wants it, no matter what you tell him; and Hoot’s wife Clara, down at Clara’s Café, will tell you all the latest gossip whether it’s a fact or not.

  You can also count on the Shrimp Festival over in Biloxi, an occasional hurricane whipping up the Mississippi Gulf, the flock of tourists that pour into Sunday Cove every summer to sunbathe on the longest man-made beach in the world, and Clara’s famous orange blossom pie.

  What you can’t depend on is the scent of orange blossoms. The fragrance can be so overwhelming you lose your breath. But will you find an orange tree in full bloom right around the corner, or will you find nothing more than an empty park bench that leaves you with the nagging feeling you’ve just missed something remarkable?

  The mystery of orange blossoms goes back to the Civil War and the very beginnings of this small seaside town. The founder of Sunday Cove, Colonel Joseph Lancaster, lost everything in the early days of war, including his wife and his sprawling estate, Camelot by the Sea. The only thing he didn’t lose was his daughter, a fair-haired, ethereal girl whose hopes of a lavish wedding to her beloved Rebel captain were now gone.

  Reduced to poverty, the bride-to-be sat in the charred remains of her father’s gardens and cried. But everywhere her tears fell, an orange tree sprang up, fully grown. And so, the bride married her true love in an orange grove under a shower of fragrant blossoms.

  According to the legend, you’ll know when you find your true love by the scent of orange blossoms. Even if you’re nowhere near an orange tree, the scent will be so strong you’ll feel as if your heart is beating right out of your chest.

  Holly Jones didn’t believe in the legend. Though she’d lived in Sunday Cove all her life, she’d yet to smell even a whiff of orange blossoms, even when she was standing two feet away from the orange tree Clara grew in a huge clay pot over at the café. Of course, the reason might have been that Holly was more interested in the smell of Clara’s pumpkin pie, or the doughnuts she cooked fresh every morning just in time for Holly to stop by on her way to her job as church hostess at Holy Trinity and have one or four.

  Church hostess sounded like some kind of exalted position that featured Holly in black patent heels and pearls, standing at the doorway smiling and saying, “Welcome.” Her job actually featured her in jogging shoes and jeans with elasticized waists, sweating over the stove as she supervised dinners for four hundred, most of them couples with children, people who had smelled orange blossoms and were now living happily ever after.

  Holly didn’t believe in happily ever after, either…unless Santa Claus planned to stuff her stocking with Mr. Right holding onto a bag of oranges.

  Chapter 1

  “Holly, can you come to the office, please?”

  Elbow-deep in muffin dough, Holly looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. It was already two in the afternoon. She had three hundred people coming for a benefit supper, and now she was being called to the office.

  “Who do they think I am? The miracle worker?”

  Although the question was purely rhetorical, Loweva, her sassy assistant, never let an opportunity pass to speak her mind.

  “That’s exactly who they think you are. If you ask me, this church is named wrong.” She paused dramatically and marinated the roast beef before continuing her tirade. “Holy Trinity, my foot. It ought to be called Holy Holly.”

  Holly laughed. “I thank you... and my grandmother thanks you.”

  “How is the old bird? Mean as ever?”

  “Feisty, Loweva. Feisty.”

  “Hmmph. I’ve said it a million times—”

  “—and I’m sure you’re going to say it again.”

  “—you’re too good for your own good.”

  “Keep that under your hat, and don’t forget the green bean casserole.” Holly finished washing her hands, then waved at the woman who was not only the best assistant she’d ever had, but also her good friend and surrogate mother. “Gotta go, Loweva. Keep the ball rolling.”

  “Hmmph. Without you, there wouldn’t be no balls in this church.”

  Holly was still laughing when she went into the associate pastor’s office. He was kicked back in his chair, a fifty-year-old, handsome man who looked thirty, his casual dress and casual attitude a stark contrast to the head minister, a rotund, waddling man, always dressed to the nines. Holly secretly thought of the head minister as a penguin.

  “What’s up, Jonathan?”

  “Gladys called in with the flu, and I need you to take her place.”

  Gladys Pipps was the Welcome Wagon lady who went out every Friday without fail, carrying fruit baskets from the church and warm greetings to all the newcomer
s in the area. Ordinarily Holly would have snapped up the chance to ride around greeting people, but not today, not with so much riding on the success of the supper.

  “Can’t you get somebody else? I’m knee deep in preparations for the benefit.”

  “There’s nobody else, Holly. The rest of the staff is either on sick calls, tied up in meetings or at the youth retreat.”

  “What about your secretary?”

  “I can’t spare her. We’ve got to get the bulletin out today.... You’re all I’ve got, Holly.”

  Sometimes Holly wished she were two people. It would help, though, if she didn’t look like two.

  “All right. Give me the list.”

  “There’s only one newcomer. That’s why I thought you could handle it with no trouble.”

  “Great.” Holly looked at the name. Benjamin G. Sullivan III. She was primed to say, wonder what the G stands for, when she saw the address. 2314 Mockingbird Lane. It was an address that she knew well. Holly used to go there in the evenings when her work was done and sit on the front porch to hear the night birds calling to each other through the dusk.

  “No way.” She slammed the list onto Jonathan’s desk. “There is no way I’m going out there and welcome the man who stole the Snipes farm. For goodness sake! That’s what the benefit is all about!”

  “Now, Holly... he didn’t steal it. He merely bought it.”

  “Yeah... for a song, and he’s singing it himself. I’m not going to do it, Jonathan.”

  Jonathan tapped his teeth with his pencil eraser, an act that boded ill for Holly. She knew even before he said anything that she had no choice.

  “I don’t want to go so far as to say that you have to, Holly.”

  “All right... all right.” She snatched up paper. Not that she needed it. The Snipes farm had been a second home to her. She could find her way there in the dark. “Where’s that blasted fruit basket?”

  “Right behind you, on that credenza... and, Holly, smile when you deliver it to Mr. Sullivan.”

  She stretched her mouth into a grimace that showed all her teeth. “I’m smiling. See?”

  Her ponytail looked like a Brillo pad sitting on the back of her head, and her sweatshirt had a stain on the front where juice from the roast beef had spattered, but she wasn’t about to spiffy up for the likes of Benjamin Sullivan. She didn’t cotton to thieves.

  As she stalked to the car the fruit basket banged against her thighs. Probably making black-and-blue marks.

  To top it all off, her car wouldn’t start. She stalked back to the kitchen.

  “Loweva, can I borrow your car?”

  “Lordy mercy! Who you fixing to kill?”

  “Do I look that bad?”

  “Worse. You look like you’ve already committed murder and are fixing to add mayhem to the list.”

  “That’s not such a bad idea. Hand me a bag, Loweva. If anybody deserves this fruit, it’s the Snipes family.” Holly dumped the contents of the fruit basket and rummaged in the bottom of the refrigerator for substitutes.

  “What you fixing to do with all them old oranges? They’ve already gone mushy.”

  “I’m hoping for worse.”

  Suddenly Loweva grinned. “Gladys is sick, and you’re taking rotten fruit on the Welcome Wagon. Lordy, I can’t wait to hear what all else you fixing to do.”

  Holly’s mind began to whirl with possibilities. Maybe this trip was going to be worthwhile after all. “Bye, Loweva. Wish me luck.”

  “I figure it’s whoever is getting that rotten fruit that needs all the luck.”

  If anybody had been riding along with Holly in Loweva’s ancient white Cadillac, they’d have seen a rather angelic-looking woman with a halo of curly red hair singing White Christmas right along with Bing Crosby on the radio. What they didn’t see was the wheels turning in her mind.

  Holly almost lost her resolve when she came to Mockingbird Lane, an exalted name for a lowly dirt road with ruts so deep that once she thought the big Cadillac was going to get stuck in a mud hole caused by recent downpours. Other parts of the world might be a winter wonderland in December, but Mississippi in the last month of the year is usually wet and soggy and too cold for a sweater but not quite cold enough for a winter coat.

  Holly’s tires spun in the ruts, slinging mud every which way. Now she would have to spend six dollars to have Loweva’s car washed.

  “You’ll pay for this, too, Mr. Benjamin Sullivan the Highfalutin’ Third.”

  Holly parked underneath a magnolia tree, and got mud all over her hands when she got out. She didn’t bother to wipe it off. Being covered with dirt seemed appropriate for the task at hand.

  She climbed the front-porch steps, being careful of the third one, which had cracked when little Timmy Snipes tried to sneak his pet donkey into the house. Now Timmy and his family were living in two cramped rooms with Michael Snipes’ sister, and the pet donkey was out in the pasture looking lost and forlorn.

  Ignoring the bell, which was still broken unless the thief had fixed it, Holly pounded on the front door. If the door hadn’t been so hard, she’d have banged louder. It was a good way to let off steam.

  The soon-to-be recipient of the rotten fruit was not home, but women bent on revenge don’t give up easily. Holly stalked around the house, looking for her target.

  There he was, sticking out from under Michael Snipes’ tractor. At least part of him was, a good- looking part—the finest pair of legs she’d ever seen outside slick magazine ads for suntan oil and fun in the Bahamas.

  She hoped and prayed that this was not Benjamin Sullivan, and that if it was, the hidden part of him didn’t look as good as the parts she could see.

  “Benjamin Sullivan?” she said.

  For a moment he was perfectly still, and then the legs began to move in her direction. They were followed by a torso that was the stuff of dreams—trim hips, flat belly, and a fine waist widening to a pair of shoulders that would have made her swoon if she hadn’t known they belonged to a scoundrel.

  “Oh, Lord,” she said, but she wasn’t praying, except maybe for herself.

  The face that emerged was smudged with grease, but it could have been covered with mud and still sent women fainting in the aisles. Dark hair tumbled toward a pair of eyes so black they looked like the jet beads in her grandmother’s jewelry box.

  He lay on the ground for a small eternity simply staring up at her.

  He couldn’t have put her more at a disadvantage if he had tried. Women over thirty should never be viewed upside down, especially women who carried a tad too much extra weight. Well, more than a tad, actually, but Holly had too much else on her mind to think about that right now. Upside down was an unflattering angle, guaranteed to make the bags under her eyes look like bulging suitcases, her thighs like tree trunks, and to uncover the multitude of sins the loose sweatshirt was meant to hide.

  With any other man she would have gotten through the embarrassment of this first meeting by pretending she was tall and skinny and had just won the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes. But this was not any other man.

  “You are Benjamin Sullivan, aren’t you?” she said, hoping—no, praying—that he was not.

  “Yes, I’m Ben Sullivan. Who wants to know?”

  It advanced her cause that he wasn’t polite. She stepped closer to him, close enough to tromp down on his hand. Hard.

  “Excuse me,” she said sweetly. “Sorry,” she added, not sorry at all. For once she was glad for the extra pounds. Under the guise of shifting her position, she bore down on his hand, all one hundred and sixty-five pounds of her.

  “Oh, dear me,” she said, “I do apologize. Did I hurt you?”

  “No,” he said. She tried not to show her disappointment. “Sorry,” he added.

  It was then that she knew she was dealing with a dangerous opponent.

  The way he moved was just like the rest of him, sexy and gorgeous. He towered over her, six-four if he was an inch, and every inch of him d
elicious looking.

  Run, her instincts screamed, but she wasn’t finished with him yet. Not by a long shot.

  “And you are...?” He left the question hanging.

  “The Welcome Wagon lady,” she said, momentarily distracted as the wind ruffled his dark hair. He looked like something you’d want to set up on a shelf and flank with lighted candles... if you didn’t know what a rotten skunk he was.

  “The Welcome Wagon lady?” Did he step in closer, or was it her imagination?

  “Well, not exactly. A substitute lady, actually.”

  “A substitute lady?” His black eyes gleamed with mischief, and he boldly stepped closer, this time leaving no doubt.

  Her heart was pounding as if she’d run all the way from Holy Trinity, and she was beginning to sweat. She wished he would move back a tad, say all the way into the next county.

  She drew a deep breath, sucked in her stomach, and tried to regain control of the situation.

  “Are you sure I didn’t hurt you?” she asked with such saccharine sweetness she nearly made her own self gag.

  “I’m immune,” he said.

  To hurt or to her? She didn’t know, and he wasn’t giving away a thing.

  It was not at all the kind of answer Holly wanted or expected. Besides that, he was so close she could feel his body heat. And what it made her want to do was definitely not what a woman in her right mind would ever do with an enemy.

  If she didn’t do something fast, she was in trouble. Holly did the first thing that came into her mind. Reaching up, she patted the front of his shirt.

  “Well, now, isn’t that—” She stopped dead in mid-sentence.

  Enough electricity to keep a good-size city up and running during a three-week, post-hurricane blackout jolted through her. What she had meant to say was nice. What she had meant to do was transfer the mud from her hands to his shirt. What she did was stand there like a fool, acutely aware of that she had her hand on his chest.

  He caught her wrists and held them for so long she actually shivered. Was it fear? Excitement? Rage?

  “I don’t know what your game plan is, but I’m already dirty,” he said. “Dirty and dangerous.”