by Sophie Gunn
CHAPTER
59
Lizzie’s three worst enemies, also her three best friends, sat across the diner counter. Jill, the princess. Nina, the oddball. And Georgia, the brain. They perched in a line on their red vinyl stools just as they did every Wednesday morning, each one more joltingly out of place in the run-down greasy spoon than the next.
The Enemy Club.
Lizzie was the cofounder and, as waitress at the Last Chance diner, the host. She had been the high school bad girl, the one voted most likely to fail. Funny how back in high school, they had all assumed they would know who had failed and who had succeeded. But fifteen years after graduation, Lizzie still wasn’t sure who to put her money on.
Jill the ex-cheerleader with her teenage looks, high-powered real estate job, and freezer full of Lean Cuisine that she ate every night, alone, in front of CSI reruns?
Or was it Nina, the oddball, with her toxin-free body, string of beautiful free-love boyfriends, and mysterious illnesses that no amount of herbal remedies seemed able to cure?
Or maybe it was Georgia, still the brainiac, with her medical degree, weekly baroque string quartet performing on period instruments, and her town-famous Deluxe Brinks Home Security monitoring system that was so sensitive it had become a tradition for the Galton U. undergrads to set it off with beer bottles tossed into her bushes?
But maybe, just maybe, Lizzie was the success story. Sure, she’d had the same job, same house—the same enemies—for her entire life. But at least she had a beautiful daughter to show for it. Lizzie was proud of Paige, proud of what she’d sacrificed for her. When all else was low, there was Paige. There was always Paige.
Until now.
“I can’t believe you bankrolled Paige and Ethan Pondscum on the world’s best ski trip for spring break,” Jill said. “I’m your best friend. I so could have taken her.”
“Yeah, well, I think she and her father needed some time together.” Lizzie shrugged.
“I think that you and your fix-it man just want more naked time together,” Georgia suggested.
Lizzie blushed and shrugged.
“So they’re starting in Europe?” Nina asked.
“A week in Europe, then a week in the American West. Two weeks of bonding and skiing and boarding.”
“And you’re here, serving coffee while they traipse around the world,” Nina said.
“This is where I want to be with exactly whom I want to be with,” Lizzie explained, smiling at them all. “I hate skiing. I hate the cold.”
“You are such a loser,” Georgia said, blushing slightly.
“I know. But that’s why you guys love me, right?”
“Best enemies forever,” Nina said.
Mr. Zinelli slid onto a stool at the far end of the counter. Lizzie plated his chocolate doughnut and brought it to him.
“How’s your young man?” Mr. Zinelli asked.
“He asked me to marry him,” Lizzie said as casually as she could. But loudly, so everyone could hear.
They were all silent for a split second, till they all squealed at once.
Lizzie came back down the counter. She pulled the tiniest diamond ring any of them had ever seen out of her apron and slipped it on her finger. “So I expect you all to be my maids of honor.”
“We’d be honored,” Jill said.
And they all agreed.
Two strangers.
One powerful romance.
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Sweet Kiss
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Available July 2011.
CHAPTER
1
My Dearest Sis,
You don’t recognize this handwriting because a beautiful nurse named Sally is writing this letter for me. I don’t think I’m going to make it, Nins. That’s okay. Hell, if I don’t pull through, I died fighting the good fight and I’m damned proud. You should be, too. So no moping around and getting sad. If I don’t make it home, remember I died doing what I love for the country I love.
But Nins, you know I’m going to milk this.
Here goes: There’s two things you’ve gotta do for me.
First, remember how after Mom and Dad passed, we promised each other we’d move on and not let them being gone stop us? So, here we go again, huh? You gotta move on. Find a good guy. Start a family. And name your first son after me. Promise me that. Little Walt, NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU HATE THE NAME. (Ha! See, I still get to be the boss even after I’m gone.) I want a little Walter in five years. Ready—GO!
Second, I wanna do something for a buddy. His name is Mick Rivers. Listen, I want him to have my house back in Galton when he gets out of here. He says I should go *#$% myself, but Nins, can you make it happen? It’s all I’ve got to give besides the insurance and whatever else the army gives (which is all yours, buddy—promise me you’ll do something fun).
Nins, this is important. I don’t want to get all mushy on you, but listen: If there’s one thing I learned in this mess over here, it’s that people can surprise you if you let them. Let them.
Thanks, sis. I’ll see you on the other side, baby. I miss you already.
Tell Sylvie and Roe I’ll see them on the other side, too.
Wish I had eight more lives like them, huh?
Private Walton Stokes, U.S. Army
CHAPTER
2
Five years later
Nina Stokes was in her garden searching her tomato cages for the perfect beefsteak when a red car roared into her driveway. No one in his right mind would drive such a low-to-the-ground sporty contraption in hilly Galton, New York, where the snow started in October and lasted until April. Now it was mid-August, the season of gorgeous tomatoes and rich Galton University students getting lost in their hopped-up city cars on their way to their dorms. The kid in the car was surely using her drive as a turnaround. Happened all the time, since her house was the first drive on the first road that was clearly marked as leading out of town.
Nina went back to her quest, ripping out the hairy galinsoga that was creeping into the cages. She was illustrating a cookbook, The Vegetable Virgin, and the right tomato to nestle next to the green beans for the Italian casserole was essential.
But the car didn’t turn around. It pulled all the way to the top of the long drive, went an extra two feet onto the grass, and stopped.
The crazy-loud engine revved a few times, then cut.
The driver’s door of the car opened.
A man unfolded from the front seat, a flash from his sunglasses blinding her.
He stretched his arms above his head as if just waking up from a truly excellent dream.
Nina put a hand on a tomato cage to steady herself. Talk about beefsteak.
She swallowed. Adjusted the straw sunhat on her head. When had it gotten so hot out here?
He pulled his T-shirt over his head in a swift, one-armed movement.
She dropped her trowel.
Yes. Sure. Now? Why not? In the garden? Hell, let me just pull out these pesky tomatoes to make more room…
Then he turned to lean into the open driver’s window of his car and she saw the tattoo on his shoulder. A downward-pointing Bowie knife with a flowing white ribbon wrapped around it. She couldn’t read the words on the ribbon from this distance, but she knew them by heart. They had been etched into her brother’s arm, too.
Judge a man by the company he keeps.
Nina’s body went cold with dread.
He could be anyone.
He might not be Mick Rivers. Sure, she’d seen the guy’s picture a million times. But military men all looked alike from a distance. The close-cropped hair, the square jaws, the perfect bodies. He could be anyone from Walt’s unit who just happened to be passing through and remembered this was Walt’s hometown. It had happened before. This guy probably had stopped in at the diner and asked Lizzie if she knew whether a Nina Stokes was still living nearby because he wanted to
drop off a memento of Walt he had saved all these years. A picture, a letter, a cigarette lighter. Lizzie would have given him her address in a heartbeat. She was a sucker for military men. When Nina went inside, there’d be five messages on the machine with Lizzie’s hysterical warnings that a man was coming and Nina’d better put on some lipstick because oh what a man…
Anyway, Mick Rivers wouldn’t dare drive up her driveway after five years of silence without a phone call or letter first. Not after she’d done so much to try to contact him.
The man dug around in his car, then came up with another T-shirt slightly less rumpled than the first.
If there’s one thing I learned in this mess over here, it’s that people can surprise you if you let them.
Surprise!
The man looked around, but his eyes glazed right over the garden. Nina had that power, to be invisible to men. It was like a superpower, Nina Stokes, Invisible Woman. Too bad she couldn’t harness it to save the world.
Or even save herself.
Because if this guy was Mick Rivers and he had come for Walt’s house, where she’d been living for the last four years, there wasn’t a thing Nina would do to try to stop him.
Acknowledgments
Thank you endlessly to my first readers, Ellen Hartman and Leslie Daniels; to the unbelievably patient and supportive folks at Grand Central Publishing, especially Michele, who is, as usual, right again (darn it!); to my agent, Natasha; and especially, to my family for eating so much cold pizza while I worked on this manuscript. I owe you all my undying gratitude.
THE DISH
Where authors give you the inside scoop!
From the desk of Vicky Dreiling
Dear Reader,
The idea for HOW TO MARRY A DUKE came about purely by chance. One fateful evening while surfing 800+ channels on TV, I happened upon a reality show featuring a hunky bachelor and twenty-five beauties competing for his heart. As I watched the antics, a story idea popped into my head: the bachelor in Regency England (minus the hot tub and camera crew). The call to this writing adventure proved too irresistible to ignore.
During the planning stages of the book, I encountered numerous obstacles. Even the language presented challenges that meant creating substitutes such as bridal candidates for bachelorettes. Obviously, I needed to concoct alternatives to steamy smooching in the hot tub and overnight dates. But regardless of the century, some things never change. I figured catfights were fair game.
Before I could plunge into the writing, I had to figure out who the hero and heroine were. I picked up my imaginary remote control and surfed until I found Miss Tessa Mansfield, a wealthy, independent young woman with a penchant for matchmaking. In the short preview, she revealed that she only made love matches for all the ignored wallflowers. She, however, had no intention of ever marrying. By now I was on the edge of my seat. “Why?” I asked.
The preview ended, leaving me desperate to find out more. So I changed the metaphorical channel and nearly swooned at my first glimpse of Tristan Gatewick, the Duke of Shelbourne. England’s Most Eligible Bachelor turned out to be the yummiest man I’d ever beheld. Evidently I wasn’t alone in my ardent appreciation. Every eligible belle in the Beau Monde was vying to win his heart.
To my utter astonishment, Tristan slapped a newspaper on his desk and addressed me. “Madam, I am not amused with your ridiculous plot. Duty is the only reason I seek a wife, but you have made me the subject du jour in the scandal sheets. How the devil can I find a sensible bride when every witless female in Britain is chasing me?”
I smiled at him. “Actually, I know someone who can help you.”
He scoffed.
I thought better of telling him he was about to meet his match.
Cheers!
www.vickydreiling.net
From the desk of Carolyn Jewel
Dear Reader,
Revenge, as they say, is a dish best served cold. If you wait a bit before getting your payback, if you’re calm and rational, you’ll be in a better position to enjoy that sweet revenge. The downside, of course, is what can happen to you while you spend all this time plotting and planning. Some emotions shouldn’t be left to fester in your soul.
Gray Spencer is a woman looking to serve up revenge while the embers are still glowing. She has reason. She does. Her normal, everyday life got derailed by a mage—a human who can do magic. Christophe dit Menart is a powerful mage with a few hundred years of living on her. Because of him, her life has been destroyed. Not just her life, but also the lives of her sister and parents.
After she gets her freedom at a terrible cost, the only thing Gray wants is Christophe dit Menart dead for what he did—before he does the same horrific thing to someone else that he did to her.
I know what you’re thinking and you’re right. A normal, nonmagical human like Gray can’t hope to go up against someone like Christophe. But Gray’s not normal—not anymore. She escaped because a demon gave his life for her and in the process transferred his magic to her. If she had any idea how to use that magic, she might have a chance against Christophe. Maybe.
The demon warlord Nikodemus has negotiated a shaky peace agreement between the magekind and the demonkind. (Did I mention them? They are fiends, a kind of demon. And they don’t take kindly to the mages who kill them in order to extend their miserable magic-using human lives by stealing a demon’s life force.) Because of the peace, demons in Nikodemus’s territory have agreed not to harm the magekind. In return, the magekind aren’t supposed to kill any more demons.
Basically the problem is this: Gray intends to kill Christophe, and the demon warlord’s most feared assassin has to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Uh-oh.
After all that, I have what may seem like a strange confession to make about my assassin hero who is, after all, a wee bit scary at times. He’s been alive for a long, long time, and for much of that time, women lived very restricted lives. Sometimes he is completely flummoxed by these modern women. It was a lot of fun writing a hero like that, and I hope you enjoy reading about how Christophe learns to deal with Gray as much as I enjoyed writing about it.
Yours Sincerely,
http://www.carolynjewel.com
From the desk of Sophie Gunn
Dear Reader,
After years of living in upstate New York, my husband got a new job and we moved back to my small hometown outside Philadelphia. I was thrilled to be near my parents, brothers, aunts, uncles, and cousins. (Hi, Aunt Lillian!) But I didn’t anticipate how close I would be to quite a few of my former high school classmates. Didn’t anyone ever leave this town? My life had turned into a nonstop high school reunion.
And I was definitely still wearing the wrong dress.
One by one, I encountered my former “enemies” from high school. They were at the gym, the grocery store, and the elementary school bake sale. It didn’t take long to realize two things. First, we had a blast rehashing the past. What had really happened at that eleventh-grade dance? What had become of Joey, the handsome captain of the football team? (Surprise, there he is now. Yes, he’s the one walking that tiny toy poodle on a pink, blinged-up leash!) Second, we were still terrifically different people, and it didn’t matter. We were grown-ups, and what someone wore or whom they dated didn’t feel so crucial anymore.
Cups of coffee led to glasses of wine, which led to true friendship. But friendship that was different from any I’d ever known, because while we shared a past, our presents were still radically different. My husband started to jokingly call us the Enemy Club, and it stuck.
That was what we writers call an aha moment.
The Enemy Club would make a great book. Actually, a great series…
The rest, as they say, is history. Each book of the Enemy Club series is set in small-town Galton, New York. Four friends who had been the worst of enemies are now the best of friends, struggling to help one another juggle jobs, kids, love, heartbreak, and triumph as seen from their very (very!) diffe
rent points of view.
HOW SWEET IT IS is the first book in the series. It focuses on Lizzie, the good girl gone bad. She made one mistake her senior year of high school that changed her life forever. Now she and her teenage daughter get by just fine, thank you very much, with a little help from the Enemy Club. But then Lizzie’s first love, the father who abandoned her daughter fourteen years before, decides to come back to town on Christmas Day. Lizzie imagines her life as seen through his eyes—and she doesn’t like what she sees. She has the same job, same house, same everything as when he left fourteen years earlier. She vows to make a change. But how much is she willing to risk? And does the mysterious stranger, who shows up in town promising to grant her every wish, have the answers? Or is he just another of life’s sweet, sweet mistakes?
I’m really excited about these books, because they’re so close to my heart. Come visit me at www.sophiegunn.com to read an excerpt of HOW SWEET IT IS, to find out more about the Enemy Club, to see pictures of my cats, and to keep in touch. I’d love to hear from you!
Yours,
From the desk of Sue-Ellen Welfonder
Dear Reader,
Wild, heather-clad hills, empty glens, and the skirl of pipes stir the hearts of many. Female hearts beat fast at the flash of plaid. Yet I’ve seen grown men shed tears at the beauty of a Highland sunset. So many people love Scotland, and those of us who do know that our passion is a double-edged sword. We live with a constant ache to be there. It’s a soul-deep yearning known as “the pull.”
In SINS OF A HIGHLAND DEVIL, the first book in my new Highland Warriors trilogy, I wanted to explore the fierce attachment Highlanders feel for their home glen. Love that burns so hotly, they’ll even lay down their lives to hold on to the hills so dear to them.