Beach Wedding (Eversea Book Three) (The Butler Cove Series 5)

by Natasha Boyd

  http://eepurl.com/JAXED

  If you’d like a text alert when I release a new book, you can text NATASHA BOYD to 31996

  Other books in the Butler Cove Series:

  Eversea (Eversea #1) (Butler Cove Series #1)

  Forever, Jack (Eversea #2) (Butler Cove Series #2)

  My Star, My Love (Eversea #2.5) (Butler Cove Series #3)

  All That Jazz (Butler Cove Series #4)

  Beach Wedding (Eversea #3) (Butler Cove Series #5)

  One Night (Butler Cove Series #6) Add to Goodreads

  Other Books:

  Deep Blue Eternity ~ Available Now

  The Indigo Girl (Historical Fiction publishing Oct 3 2017 from Blackstone Publishing)

  Swipe Right (A Romantic Comedy). Two strangers accidentally switch cell phones while passing through an airport. You’ve Got Mail for the digital Dating era! No Publication date yet.

  Special acknowledgments and thanks go to my husband and our two wonderful sons. Al Chaput and Dave Macdonald (critique partners extraordinaire), Judy Roth (my editor), Karina Asti, Lisa Wilhelm, Julianne Burke (for the friendship, the feedback and the beautiful cover), Brenna Aubrey, Natasha Tomic, Jenny Needham, Nicole Resciniti (my agent), my SPW Ladies for their advice and smarts, and my mom!

  I’m also very excited about my Historical Fiction coming out later this year in hard cover! Find out more here: http://bit.ly/IndigoGR

  Read on after the BEACH WEDDING play list for a short preview of SWIPE RIGHT

  Preorder available on iTunes

  Beach Wedding Playlist

  Seems So Long ~ The Last Royals

  Ocean ~ Andreas Moe

  Between Me and You ~ Brandon Flowers

  Take Yours, I’ll Take Mine ~ Matthew Mole

  Trouble I’m In ~ Twinbed

  Best Part of Me ~ St Leonards

  Halo ~ Lotte Kestner

  Into The Mystic ~ The Wallflowers

  Into The Wild ~ LP

  Listen here

  Continue for preview of Swipe Right …

  SWIPE RIGHT

  CHAPTER ONE

  “I’ll grind his fucking nuts,” the deep voice next to me growled.

  I flinched despite the noise of the busy airport terminal around me and surreptitiously glanced sideways to the figure sitting next to me at the high top work station. Seeing the phone cord plugged in, I realized he must be on the phone. Who spoke like that to people? And, loudly, in public, where kids could overhear you? And his cologne … I sniffed, we were close enough after all, … nice, spicy. It made me think of old leather and ruff hewn wood. The antithesis to his sharp, tailored suit. My nose tickled.

  His free hand, closest to me, poked out of a dark suit jacket and crisp white cuff and was curled in a fist. A stainless steel watch was barely visible. The skin was tanned, too tanned for a businessman, and lightly sprinkled with dark hair. My stomach did a little jig. A very little jig. It was a purely a Pavlovian response. See potentially sexy forearms, have physical reaction.

  Probably, a vain, stuck up, custom fancy suit-wearing, heavy cologne-wearing, Wall-street douche-wagon. With a micro penis.

  “Yeah. Tell him to shove his offer up his ar—” His head jerked toward me, and I looked up into sharp grey eyes set in tanned skin, dark hair with a few streaks of sun-bleached bronze. “His arse,” he finished, eyes pinning mine.

  Ah, so he was British. They always were a bit uncouth.

  My mouth dried out.

  I quickly turned my back.

  I had yet to be introduced to the legendary British charm. The only Brits I knew sang loud rugby songs at bars, got shit-faced and always overstayed last call. Though my college bartending days were far behind me. I’d slogged my way into my executive marketing position and wouldn’t pull another pint of Guinness if Jamie Fraser himself was lying naked on the bar in front of me with his mouth open.

  I wrinkled my nose and decided to remove myself from the suit monkey’s caustic aura. It reminded me I needed to go buy some earbuds for my flight, so I could drown out any other potential douche-wagons. Even if they were too handsome for their own good.

  Especially if they were.

  Debating for a minute whether to leave my phone unattended, I weighed the low battery life against the other people at the work station. Satisfied everyone was too involved in their own electronics to want mine, I left it plugged into the bar height worktop where it shared an outlet with the British invasion of peace. As soon as I slipped off the stool, the suit with his broad back seemed to spread out into my newly vacated space, not even noticing I’d left, just that he had more elbow room. Giving in to an eye-roll, I shifted my oversized beach bag I was using for a carry-on bag more securely on my shoulder, and headed toward the nearby newsstand.

  I browsed the books, picked up a Snickers and selected a bright pink pair of earbuds. My flight was about to be called. Finally. It had been delayed three hours, so I’d gone over and made myself comfortable at the gate opposite that didn’t have a flight leaving for a few hours—

  Oh, shit! It was past my boarding time. I’d completely lost track. I dumped the chocolate and the earbuds and dashed back the way I’d come. There was hardly anyone left at my gate, the attendant was talking into the speaker.

  “Last call for New York, La Guardia,” she intoned.

  “I’m here,” I screeched as I ran past her. “I’m just grabbing my phone. Please don’t close the doors.”

  Shit. I angled to the other gate, thankfully noting that arsehole was nowhere to be seen.

  “Ma’am,” the gate attendant called from behind me. “I’ll really need you to board now.”

  “I’m coming,” I yelled over my shoulder and grappled with my phone and the cord, yanking it out and wrapping it around my phone as I raced back across the wide concourse, dodging passengers and almost wiping out over a toddler in a push chair.

  “Jeez, watch it, lady,” the angry mom snapped at me.

  My bag slipped down my arm. Gah. “Sorry,” I yelped and made it toward the sour-faced woman at the door to the gangway. Great. Hours to relax, and now I was stressed and damp with sweat. Why was I always so bad with time? I just couldn’t figure it out like most people. Thank God for electronic calendars, alerts, and reminders nowadays. Siri literally knew when my period was due before I did. I often asked her if I could send her a thank you basket from Zabar’s. She was always surprised.

  “Thank you,” I gasped as I took back my ticket and hustled down to the plane. Unfortunately, my cheap airline didn’t have assigned seats so I was liable to be sandwiched into a middle seat at the back. And darn, now I needed to pee. Why hadn’t I peed during all that time I had?

  My cheeks burned as I entered and shouldered my way down the narrow aisle avoiding the passengers’ irritated glares at the latecomer. To top it off I was accidentally bumping people’s arms as I moved along with my unwieldy carry-on that for some reason now wouldn’t stay on my shoulder.

  “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry,” I mumbled as I headed toward the back of the plane looking about for a free seat. I finally spotted one in the second to last row between a large man who was already passed out and snoring loudly, and a skinny, teenaged boy on the aisle who was fidgeting nervously and glancing frantically between me and the seat next to him.

  As I approached, his face matched and surpassed mine in probable color. He looked like he was going to die of embarrassment if I sat next to him, but I had no other option. I glanced down to make sure my top wasn’t gaping and bra straps weren’t showing. No need to send this clearly hormonal teenager into an apoplexy.

  “Sorry,” I said again, for what felt like the millionth time and looked meaningfully at the seat next to him. The boy half grunted, half mumbled and leapt up out of his seat so I could squeeze past him.

  “Ma’am, I’ll need you to stow your carry on under the seat in front of you and fasten your seat belt. The aircraft is about to leave the gate.”

  I scowled at the flight attendan
t as I wedged myself into the seat and stuffed my bag down between my legs. What did she think I was trying to do, exactly? Her eyes widened under my glare. Oops. Probably not good to piss off the person who was in charge of your comfort for the next hour or so. Gah, I needed to pee so bad. There was no way to do that now.

  “I’ll need you to put your phone in airplane mode too,” she said looking down at where I still had my phone clutched in my hand. Oh yeah, I was still holding it, the white cord wrapped around it. I looked closer. I may have scratched the screen somehow. Or was that a crack? My stomach sank as I thought about the cost of having the screen replaced. About as much as this airline ticket had cost. Just what I didn’t need. Hopefully it was just a crack that wouldn’t get worse.

  I stuck the phone between my legs and fumbled for the seat belt, elbowing the large man next to me. “Sorry,” I said, yet again. He didn’t even move. Thank goodness for small mercies.

  Clipping the metal buckle together, I dug out the phone from between my legs. I wouldn’t have time to text David to let him know I was on the plane and about to be out of contact. Dammit. He would worry like crazy. His facility bills were the reason a cracked screen felt like such an enormous disaster.

  The plane shuddered, jerked, and began a slow roll away from the gate. Wow, I really did cut it fine. Didn’t they normally have ten minutes between closing the doors and leaving the gate? I must have really been late. Late and lucky. The flight attendant was still waiting, staring down pointedly at me.

  I depressed the home button and went to swipe up and select Airplane mode when everything in me simply froze in confusion. I stared down at the foreign picture in front of me.

  A screensaver of a bridge.

  A long, beautiful suspension bridge I’d never seen before.

  The sky was red behind it. There was a city, with a cathedral spire. Gorgeous. Had I accidentally saved a random picture as my screensaver? Maybe. I was a little distracted sometimes. And very under pressure at work.

  “Ma’am. Airplane mode.”

  “Got it.” I swiped up and hit the small airplane icon and then gave her a tight smile.

  She smiled back thinly. “Thank you.”

  My eyes went back to the phone in my hand as she moved off into the galley. The case, plain black, was mine. Right? The cord? The same. Standard. The crack: unfamiliar. With sinking dread, I pressed the home button again and then swiped right across the screen to open phone access.

  A keypad appeared.

  My heart pounded, and my stomach sank.

  I never used a code.

  Stupid, I know. But … oh shit.

  This was not my phone.

  Coming Summer 2017

  End of sample

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  THE INDIGO GIRL

  An incredible story of dangerous and hidden friendships, ambition, betrayal, and sacrifice.

  PROLOGUE

  When I look back upon my struggle with indigo, it appears in my consciousness as a dream.

  Impressions are all I am left with—impressions of hands dragging me down, squeezing my heart, keeping me under. Hands that want me to drown in my own creation. In my ambition.

  And drown I did.

  I sank into the opaque blue abyss.

  Yet even though indigo broke my heart, it saved my life.

  Indigo ran through my veins.

  Blue blood would pulse through my children’s veins.

  In my later years, when I knew about deep and abiding love and the pride of having sons who would be part of birthing a new nation, I’d look back on that time of my life and thank God for indigo.

  How was it that the deepest of blues—the color of the sky in the predawn hours before the warm sticky blanket of the day folded its weight over our shoulders, the hue that made me think of heaven and fine silk, kings and treasures beyond imagining, ancient and unfathomable history—could come from that awkward, dusty weed?

  I would thank God also for Essie, and for Quash, for Togo, and Sawney, and especially for Ben. For the ones who believed in me.

  And Charles, of course. Always, I’d thank Charles.