by V. K. Sykes
“Amen to that. Anyway, unless business somehow picks up, it looks like we could wind up in the red for the summer. And I think you remember how dead the rest of the year is for tourism in Seashell Bay.”
The B&B’s bread and butter had always been the summer vacation crowd. While most of that revenue came from tourists, a lot of island residents didn’t have room in their homes and cottages for all the family and friends that descended on them in the summer, so those folks often ended up at Golden Sunset. That kind of business would continue at various levels all year, but only during Christmas was the inn ever close to full during the off-season. If Morgan didn’t manage to pull in some good summer business, her father’s B&B was headed for disaster.
Ryan glanced at another ferry, the Maquoit, as it passed them to starboard on its way back to Portland. At least a dozen people waved at them, as always happened when boats passed each other. She forced a little smile and waved back.
“Have you given any thought to selling?” Ryan said. “Or will you be able to ride it out?”
Oh, I think about selling every freaking day.
“I’m not sure anybody would buy the place at this point. Everything was up in the air even before Dad died. Aiden and Lily and their partners are building that new resort… and, well, who really knows how it’ll impact our little place?” Morgan was, of course, happy that Aiden Flynn had returned to the island for good. But she had some worries about the effect of his upscale ecoresort on her small business.
“Most of your regulars should stay loyal,” Ryan said. “A lot of people prefer the atmosphere of smaller inns. From what I hear, Aiden’s place is going to cater to a different crowd.”
Morgan gave him a wry smile. “Yes, a crowd that likes lots of comforts and the latest in modern conveniences. Our place is short on both, I’m afraid. Heck, Dad even hemmed and hawed before finally putting in Wi-Fi last year. And our rooms are pretty… well, basic.”
She almost said run-down, but that felt disloyal. Facing an increasingly tight financial squeeze, her father had let things slide over the past couple of years, and now the place needed a lot of work, both structural and cosmetic. “Anyway, I have to try to make a go of it for my sister’s sake. She’d fall apart without the B&B.”
Though he’d been mostly away from the island for more than a dozen years, Ryan would know Sabrina well enough to understand. When she was a preteen, she’d been diagnosed with a learning disability. While she was a hard worker at the B&B, cooking and cleaning and doing other chores that were familiar territory for her, there was no way she could manage the operation. Most normal administrative tasks were simply beyond her, which meant they all fell on Morgan.
“So it sounds like you’re putting your teaching career on hold for the foreseeable future,” Ryan said.
Whenever Morgan thought about that, it felt like someone had punched her in the gut. Though she’d told her principal that she intended to be back in her grade five classroom in September, the low number of confirmed reservations at the inn had made that an increasingly remote possibility.
“I’ve been hoping I could get the place operating efficiently enough this summer to let me hire a part-time manager to run it with Sabrina after I leave, but that seems more like a wish at this point than a plan. So I’m just taking it one day at a time and trying to figure things out.” Morgan didn’t want to surrender to pessimism, but she refused to bury her head in the sand either. The stakes for both Sabrina and herself were too high to engage in self-delusion.
“One day at a time is never a bad idea.” Ryan leaned back on the bench and stretched out his long legs. His feet reached all the way to the opposite bench. “I guess I’m going to be doing something like that myself for a while.”
Morgan welcomed the shift in conversation. “So, what are you going to do with yourself on the island? Kayak all over the place and drink beer? Or will your dad need a sternman this summer?” Like a lot of people on the island, Ryan’s dad was a lobster fisherman.
“Actually, I was thinking that if I end up spending the whole season here, I’d try to kayak to every one of the Calendar Islands. Give myself a little challenge to pass the time.”
The islands of Casco Bay were sometimes called the Calendar Islands, a reference to the fact that there were supposedly 365 of them. Some, however, were barely big enough to stand on.
“Well, that’ll be a heck of a workout.” Morgan’s brain, which refused to behave itself, easily conjured up the image of Ryan’s half-naked, ripped form gleaming in the sun as he paddled through the chop of the bay.
“Just a walk in the park if I stick around for a couple of months. As for helping Dad out, yeah, if he needs me to sub while his sternman takes some time off, I’ll be on the boat.”
“That’s nice of you, since you hate lobster fishing,” she said, scrunching her nose in sympathy. Like Ryan, many of Seashell Bay’s younger generation had no desire to follow in their fathers’ footsteps when it came to the hard slog of hauling traps from sunrise to sunset.
Ryan shrugged. “I don’t much like a lot of things I have to do. Doesn’t mean I won’t answer the call.”
She smiled at the typically cryptic Ryan Butler statement. “Your parents will be happy to finally have you at home for more than a few days.”
“Yeah, but I’m not going to stay with them. I want a place of my own, a place to…” He paused for a couple of moments, his gaze distracted. “Anyway, I’m going to rent a cottage or a house, hopefully one on the water.”
Morgan raised an eyebrow. “Renting isn’t going to be easy. Almost everything is booked by this time of the season.”
“I know, but it can’t be helped. I only made the decision to do this a few days ago. I figure there should be something out here, even if it’s a bit of a dump. I don’t need anything fancy. As long as it’s got indoor plumbing, I’m good to go.”
Dump. On some of her worst days, Morgan had silently used that harsh word to describe the current state of the B&B. But on his lips, the word had sparked a pretty interesting, though kind of crazy, idea. She toyed with it for a few moments, testing it out in her head. Sure it might be dangerous, at least for her, but it seemed worth a try.
As the ferry made the turn toward its next stop at Diamond Cove, Morgan mentally put on her big-girl panties and got ready to proposition the sexiest man to ever come out of Seashell Bay.
Fall in Love with Forever Romance
SOULBOUND
by Kristen Callihan
After centuries of searching, Adam finally found his soul mate, only to be rejected when she desires her freedom. But when Eliza discovers she’s being hunted by someone far more dangerous, she turns to the one man who can keep her safe—even if he endangers her heart…
WHAT A DEVILISH DUKE DESIRES
by Vicky Dreiling
Fans of New York Times bestselling authors Julia Quinn, Sarah MacLean, and Madeline Hunter will love the third book in Vicky Dreiling’s charming, sexy, and utterly irresistible Sinful Scoundrels trilogy about a highborn man who never wanted to inherit his uncle’s title or settle down… until a beautiful, brilliant, delightfully tempting maid makes him rethink his position.
SECRET HARBOR
by Anna Sullivan
Fans of New York Times bestselling authors JoAnn Ross, Jill Shalvis, and Bella Andre will love the last book in Anna Sullivan’s witty contemporary romance trilogy about a young woman who left her beloved home in Maine to become an actress in Hollywood. Now a star, and beset by scandal, she wants nothing more than to surround herself with old friends… until she meets an infuriating—and sexy—stranger.
MEET ME AT THE BEACH
by V. K. Sykes
Gorgeous Lily Doyle was the only thing Aiden Flynn missed after he escaped from Seashell Bay to play pro baseball. Now that he’s back on the island, memories rush in about the night of passion they shared long ago, and everything else washes right out to sea—everything except the desire that still burns b
etween them.
HOT
by Elizabeth Hoyt
writing as Julia Harper
For Turner Hastings, being held at gunpoint during a back robbery is an opportunity in disguise. After seeing her little heist on tape, FBI Special Agent John MacKinnon knows it’s going to be an interesting case. But he doesn’t expect to develop feelings for Turner, and when bullets start flying in her direction, John finds he’ll do anything to save her.
FOR THE LOVE OF PETE
by Elizabeth Hoyt
writing as Julia Harper
Dodging bullets with a loopy redhead in the passenger seat is not how Special Agent Dante Torelli imagined his day going. But Zoey Addler is determined to get her baby niece back, and no one—not even a henpecked hit man, cooking-obsessed matrons, or a relentless killer—will stand in her way.
ONCE AND ALWAYS
by Elizabeth Hoyt writing as Julia Harper
The newest contemporary from New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Hoyt writing as Julia Harper! Small-town cop Sam West certainly doesn’t mind a routine traffic stop. But Maisa Bradley is like nothing he has ever seen, and she’s about to take Sam on the ride of his life!
Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Hachette Digital.
To receive special offers, bonus content, and news about our latest ebooks and apps, sign up for our newsletters.
Sign Up
Or visit us at hachettebookgroup.com/newsletters
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Acknowledgments
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
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
A Preview of Summer at the Shore
Fall in Love with Forever Romance
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Vanessa Kelly and Randall Sykes
Excerpt from Summer at the Shore copyright © 2015 by Vanessa Kelly and Randall Sykes
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Forever
Hachette Book Group
1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104
hachettebookgroup.com
twitter.com/foreverromance
First ebook edition: February 2015
Forever is an imprint of Grand Central Publishing.
The Forever name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
ISBN 978-1-4555-5253-5
E3