Cover Copy
Welcome to Storybook Lake, where dreams come true.
Not all fairy tales have a happy ending. Jocelyn learned that the hard way, when she married her high school sweetheart Keaton Shaw—only to have him break her heart.
But that was a long time ago. The papers were signed, the divorce finalized, and Jocelyn is no longer a little girl with her head in the clouds. That’s why no one in Storybook can believe it when Keaton, the All-American dream boy, walks into Jocelyn’s bakery, looking as sweet as one of her frosted cupcakes, and demanding a second chance with the woman he still calls his wife.
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Books by Melissa Shirley
Here He Comes Again
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
Here He Comes Again
Melissa Shirley
LYRICAL PRESS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
Copyright
Lyrical Press books are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2015 by Melissa Shirley
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First Electronic Edition: August 2015
eISBN-13: 978-1-61650-770-1
eISBN-10: 1-61650-769-1
First Print Edition: August 2015
ISBN-13: 978-1-60183-519-2
ISBN-10: 1-60183-519-1
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
For Gina and Kristin, the best critique partners and best friends I have ever had. You inspire me and keep me going.
For Megan, I miss you now and forever.
Mom
Author’s Foreword
Dear Reader:
Storybook Lake is one of my favorite places in the world – even though it only exists in my imagination and in the stories I create. I love the feeling of home that exists inside the quirky architecture and the way the character friendships bond them together through their dramas and tests life hands to them. This place and the community feel is very similar to the small town I live in, minus the quirky building designs, and I like to think the SBL residents are very happy with where I have created for them to live.
Jocelyn and Keaton were the first characters in the town who came to life and I hope you enjoy reading about them as much as I enjoyed creating their love story.
I hope you come back to SBL often and meet more of the townspeople and see how their lives and loves continue to blossom under the umbrella of a town where everyone knows everyone else – and their business.
Thanks for reading and I hope to hear from you soon.
Melissa Shirley
Chapter 1
Present July 12, 2009
Had I known the first person to wish me happy thirtieth birthday would be my ex-husband calling from the county jail, I wouldn’t have answered. However, anytime the phone rang after midnight, I didn’t so much as look at the caller ID as I did simply snap, “What?” into the speaker.
“Hey, Baby. Happy birthday.”
Oh, that voice. Once, it had given me chills to hear his soft, melodic tone, but at the moment, my precious sleep had been interrupted and it annoyed me. “Thanks, Keaton, but did you know it’s like…”--I glanced over at the digital green of the alarm clock--“three-thirty in the freaking morning?”
“Yeah. I kind of did.” He spoke without remorse. From experience, I didn’t believe he possessed the capability for such an emotion.
One deep calming breath followed another. His would probably be the only birthday call I would get. Except, maybe from my brother who would only remember because we shared the day. “Well, thanks, anyway.”
He sighed loudly, the whoosh of air practically parting my hair through the phone. “I need a favor, Joss.” I could hear his grin. The wattage glowed with enough power to overcome the miles between us, and I fought the urge to curl my toes into the memory foam of my mattress.
Of course, he needs a favor. This call hadn’t been about my birthday after all. Damn it. “By all means, Keats, what can I do for you?” His voice teased my senses. Despite my anger, his power over me still reigned supreme.
“Oh, so many things, sweetness.” His tone dropped to a deep, rich, eardrum-delighting hum. This time involuntary toe curling occurred. “But tonight, I need you to bail me out of jail.”
Jail? My toes straightened, and any residual Keaton weakness dissipated. “Why would I do that? And more important, why are you in jail?”
“I got into a fight.”
I sat, chewing my lip, almost hating myself for hanging on his every word, and for wanting to stay on the phone to hear his voice. Since already awake, I could wait all night for an explanation. I snuggled under my own blanket and not one borrowed from the county.
“At a bar.”
There had to be more to it than being at a bar. I picked at my nail polish, holding the phone with my shoulder.
“It wasn’t my fault, though. I swear.”
Keaton’s faults, the ones he admitted to, could be counted on one hand. “Over a girl?” I asked, old jealousy rearing its ugly, misshapen head as I bit the end of my thumbnail clear off.
“Kind of.” He laid the story out in a rush of words. “I was with Luke and Gatlin. This guy was fighting with his girl, and he smacked her. I grabbed him and hit him, then the bar got tore up a bit.”
He paused, and I considered my options. A night in jail would serve him right after breaking my heart. On the other hand, I’d been alone for a while. Keaton’s gratitude could be beneficial. I sat thinking and wishing, coming into the mindset that a little gratitude would help my mood in ways nothing else could.
“It would have been wrong to let him hit a girl, right?”
Keaton always had an excuse. I teetered on the brink of kindness and go-to-hell-ness. “Where are you?” He left town ages ago, moved away almost before our divorce hearing, and I couldn’t say I looked forward to a cross country drive, no matter how spectacular my rewards.
“In Storybook Lake.”
Hmm. Sometime around the early sixties, a city designer had come in with ideas of grandiose architecture and plans to take the town to new heights. Every building underwent a makeover the likes of which tourists found enchanting. The seventy-five hundred occupants in Storybook Lake cheered the changes, and took every opportunity to treat visitors to real down-home hospitality.
I’d lived there all my life, and to me, one of life’s great mysteries resonated with the fact that anyone left. But the bigger of the mysteries? Why anyone chose to co
me back. Just my damned luck; he'd been one of the ones who came back. “Can’t you call Simon?” My brother, Simon, happened to be the chief of police and Keaton’s best friend since middle school, and if anyone could spring the cell’s lock, it would be him.
Keaton chuckled. “He’s the one who arrested me.”
Those words made me wanna slap the family right out of him.
“He’s also the one who snuck me my phone so I could call you.”
“Oh, doesn’t that just figure?” Simon broke the final straw with that one. I would have to find myself a new brother. Someone normal who didn’t have a preference for my entanglement with my ex-husband. I wanted a brother whose solid grasp on the concept of familial loyalty meant I could say goodbye to Keaton once and for all. The only fights Simon and I ever had revolved around his meddling in my marriage, or rather, divorce.
“Come on. Please, Joss?”
I narrowed my eyes, knowing he purposely used his sex voice against me, and to my complete and utter horror it worked. I sighed and threw back the covers. Because of our long and tainted history, it shamed me to be ready and willing to jump up and help. After all, this man shredded my heart, but I said, “I’ll be there in a little bit.”
Without bothering to change out of my pajama pants, or fuzzy slippers, I drove across town. A knot formed in my stomach, irritation and exhilaration fueled me. The irritation I understood. After three years without a word, he only called in the hopes I would rush away from my nice quiet apartment to bail him out of jail. The racing heart, sweaty palms, and super speed of my car were more questionable. Wishing I had changed my clothes also flabbergasted me, and I punched the accelerator harder. Why should I care about Keaton Shaw or his opinion of my wardrobe? “Because he makes you pathetic. Fool.” Now he had me talking to myself. I almost turned the car around right then.
When I pulled up, I slammed the car in park and found Simon leaning against the outside of the building, a cigarette between his fingers. “I’m gonna tell Mom.”
Simon and I looked as different as any twins could, gender aside. He stood tall and blond, and if in Hollywood, would have been cast as a hard-bodied superhero. Oh, and he had a face that made women swoon. I, on the other hand, hunched two inches shorter than average height with dark hair and a body that could have doubled for a teenaged boy. My arms had never stopped growing, my legs had never grown enough, and my boobs simply failed to make an appearance. From my long and dull, dark hair to my plain, not amber, not gold, brown eyes, I was a walking billboard for ordinary. Simon had stolen all the good stuff in the womb--including our mother’s affection.
He crushed the cigarette because he’d finished, not because of my threat.
“She’ll never believe you. I’m the good son. You’re the evil twin, divorced and destined to become a slutty old maid.”
I rolled my eyes. He must have talked to our mother recently as he mimicked her patter down to the syllable. He led me into the building, stopped inside the hallway, then looked me up and down.
“Jeez, Jocelyn. You could have at least changed into real clothes. You haven’t seen him in how long? And you show up wearing pajamas?” He peered down at my shoes. “And bunny slippers?”
“Yes. I'm in my pajamas. This is what I wear at four AM. If he wanted to see me in something else, he should have gotten arrested at nine-thirty.” I surrendered my sexy lingerie to flannels long ago. Since I spent most of the last three years alone, I had no reason to waste money on teddies and nighties to dry rot in the underwear drawer.
He shook his head muttering something unintelligible, and led me down the hall to a steel barred holding cell at the center of the three hallways. I peeked around Simon to see Keaton standing at the door. He looked me up, then down, and back up again. His lingering gaze burned a trail up my body.
“Nice,” he said, chuckling. “I always loved those jammies.” He winked and grinned his come hither grin.
I couldn’t help but smile at the joy he still appeared to get from teasing me. One upon a time, it had been our foreplay. Well, a lot changed since then. Someone forgot to tell my girlie parts, which sprung to attention at seeing him, but I could give as well as I got these days. Despite the racing heart and sweaty palms, I patted my own back for coming up with, “Well, they did always look better on you.”
“Mmm. I love when you’re sassy.”
“And I love seeing you behind bars.” I also loved when he dropped his lids to half-mast and gave me the sleepy eyes when he flirted. Not that I planned to mention it to him.
He tilted his head. “Are you bailing me out? Or do you wanna come in?”
Those bedroom eyes did me in every time. And the body. And the smile. And knowing he could set my world on fire with one touch. Oh, stop it. He broke your heart.
I rolled my eyes and peeked over his shoulder. The sheets were dingy. The cell sat out in the open, connecting three hallways. Grime and graffiti littered the floor. “I’ll give Simon the money and be on my way.” I turned to my brother and asked, “Hey traitor, how much?” I paused when I noticed the birthday cake Simon held outstretched. I’d spent three hours decorating the monstrosity that morning. A two-tiered chocolate and butter-pecan adorned with intricately sculptured butterflies, which tested my absolute will to live. For my trouble, I’d put a ridiculous price tag on it, knowing I would end up taking it home and inviting Simon over to share.
As he held it out to me, Keaton opened the unlocked cell door and stepped out to hug me from behind. His hand slithered up my arm to my neck and brushed my hair aside, giving his lips open access to press a soft kiss onto my sensitive pulse-point. I resisted the urge to close my eyes as he whispered, “Surprise.”
It took me a full open-mouthed minute to figure out what exactly this meant. Keaton’s lips had been on my body, so conscious thought lived in the same realm as miracles and flying fish. When the entirety of their sham struck me, and the object of the game being played became clear to me, fire blazed in my veins, and not the good kind. I pushed the cake back at my brother. It crushed quite nicely into the chest of his turd-brown uniform. After turning on my heel, I stomped to the front door. They both chased after me. Keaton called out my name; my brother followed, licking buttercream icing from the front of his shirt.
“Please, Joss. Wait.”
Keaton caught my elbow as I pushed my way out the front door. The old familiar electricity zinged its way up my arm and straight to my heart.
“I wanted to see you for your birthday.”
I ignored the sincerity in his eyes. My anger at being duped, and oh yeah, cheated on, was bigger than my sense of nostalgia. “And there are twenty hours left in this day. You could have waited for daylight.” I didn’t hate Keaton. Instead, I hated my body for betraying the anger I fought hard to hold on to, and I despised my brother for taking Keaton’s side yet again. Looking at the ruination of my beautiful cake, crumbled to pieces of the ground, made me clench a fist, preparing to punch them both.
He put his hand on my waist and pulled me in close. For some reason, I allowed it.
“Baby, we always did better under the moonlight.”
My pulse thundered, and long ignored areas of my body sprang to life, begged me to jump on the man, and make his better parts mine once more. The begging turned to screaming, and as I stepped closer to surrender, he ruined it. He tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, pointed his sparkling eyes into mine, and asked, “Why did we break up again?”
He could have asked almost anything else and I would have still been ready to make a little peace with him, but once again, he’d overshot. Every part of me warming to him froze up. “Because you cheated on me with Danielle Ranier,” I said, the ice in my veins hardening my tone to vibrating anger. I pulled away with an unnecessary ferocity and fell backward out the door, landing square on my behind. “Shit.” My butt and my pride competed for which fared worse in the debacle. Needless to say, my hormones sprung to life, igno
red the I hate Keaton program, and groaned in disappointment for my less than accommodating behavior.
“I told you; I didn’t cheat on you.”
He reached a hand down to help me up. Slapping it away, I stood on my own and rubbed my sore bottom.
“Well, maybe you should have wiped her lipstick off your mouth before you said it. I might have believed you.” I marched down the steps to avoid throwing myself on top of my ultra-sexy ex.
He matched me step for step.
“She kissed me. I did not kiss her back.”
Same old story and it always ended the same way.
“I walked in and saw you. You weren’t exactly resisting.” Her legs, his waist, hands pawing, and breath mingling. I shook my head. Stop it. “Sell your fiction somewhere else, Keaton.”
“Joss.” In the strangled quiet of his voice, his feelings rang through, louder than his words.
This scene played out a thousand times before in memories I believed long forgotten. One of us stalked away, and the other chased after. The predictability of it tripped my guilt reflex.
I gazed up at him, tired of the old routine. “Keaton, I don’t want to fight. It happened a long time ago, and it doesn’t matter anymore.” I wished my words were true, but he didn’t have to know I still longed for his betrayal to be nothing more than a figment of my imagination. Or that I wanted my pillows to smell of his cologne. Needed his sweet good night kisses, and missed seeing his face first thing in the morning and last thing every night. None of these, however, placed in the running on my Keaton-needed-to-know-it list.
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