Love at First Laugh: Eight Romantic Novellas Filled with Love, Laughter, and Happily Ever After

by Krista Phillips

  An Informal Introduction

  An Informal Date

  Ladies of Larkspur (Inspirational Western Romance)

  Mail Order Man

  Just Dessert

  Redemption

  Regency Refuge (Inspirational Regency Romance)

  His Saving Grace

  Jackal

  Queen

  ©2017 by Heather Gray

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Heather Gray.

  Cover art images ©xy/fotolia, ©lightwavemedia/fotolia. Used with permission.

  Published in the United States of America by Heather Gray

  www.heathergraywriting.com

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A Heart Restored

  Elizabeth Maddrey

  She renovates old houses. Can he restore her heart?

  Deidre McIntyre didn’t exactly purchase the gorgeous old home in the Shenandoah Mountains on a whim. The building had seen better days, but she had the skills—and the time—to fix it up. And maybe it would provide the fresh start she was looking for.

  Local handyman Jeremiah Crawford has a soft spot for Peacock Hill. When someone from out of town purchases it, he swings by to offer to help fix it up…and investigate the new owner’s plans for the property. The pixie-like Deidre isn’t at all what he expects, but he’s happy to hang around and enjoy the view.

  When Deidre’s ex-boyfriend, a popular TV house flipper, shows up demanding a piece of the action, Jeremiah must decide if Deidre—and Peacock Hill—are worth fighting for. Falling in love wasn’t on the blueprints, but it might just be worth the change in plans.

  Chapter 1

  “You did what?”

  Deidre McIntyre held the phone away from her ear as her best friend, Lisette, screeched. “I bought it. You should see it, Lis. It’s amazing.”

  “I’ve seen it. Well, pictures of it. And ‘amazing’ leaves a lot open to interpretation. What on earth are you going to do with it?”

  “Fix it up. Then, I guess we’ll see.” She had ideas. Lots of them. The problem was going to be figuring out which one to go with. But, given the state of the house—mansion, really—she had plenty of time to choose.

  “You’ve lost your mind. What are you going to do out there in the mountains with no one nearby? What am I going to do without you?”

  Now came the tricky part. Deidre cleared her throat. “You could always come help.”

  “Oh sure. I’ll get right on that. Do you know me at all?”

  “It’ll be fun.” Deidre put as much wheedle into her voice as she could manage, even though picturing her friend doing anything handy made her cringe. Lisette defined girly.

  “Did you forget I hate dirt? No thanks. But if you actually get it renovated and want help with the interior design, I’m your girl.”

  That was the truth. No one did interiors like Lisette. “But just think…if you were here now, at the start of things, you could help define those interiors, as well as design them.”

  Lisette groaned. “You’re evil. You know that’s a dream of mine.”

  “And now it could come true. Come on, Lisette. You know you want to.”

  “I’ll think about it. I do have a business to run. Clients who have contracts. That sort of thing? Seems to me you might have a few of those of your own?”

  Deidre sighed. Business wasn’t anywhere as good as it had been a year ago. Thus having time to scout out old houses and dream new dreams. “A couple, but nothing my sister can’t handle.”

  “Claire’s not there with you?”

  “She didn’t want to come.” And she’d also been worried about their business. Since Deidre had taken over their dad’s handyman service, they’d expanded and grown. Claire was determined to keep it from collapsing. “I’ll get her here eventually.”

  “Uh huh. Look. Maybe I can swing down for the weekend. Maybe even make it a three or four day trip, but don’t count on me for this.”

  “You sound like Claire.” Deidre shook her head. “Neither of you think I’m going to finish this. I can hear it. Just you wait.”

  “You know we love you, right?” Lisette’s voice held the tiniest hint of apology.

  “Back atcha. So…this weekend?”

  “Can’t do it that fast. I’ll let you know. Hey, I gotta run, I’m getting another call. Keep me posted.”

  Deidre ended the call and slipped her phone into the pocket of her jeans before backing up to view the front of her new…well, it wasn’t a home yet. The house sat on fifty acres in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. Mountains rose in the distance to the west. Though she couldn’t see it, the tiny town of Butler’s End sat at the bottom of the hill the house perched on, and civilization wasn’t too much farther down the road in either direction. But from here, she could’ve been in the middle of nowhere. This place was going to be something amazing. It had been, once, and it could be again, with a little bit of love and a whole lot of know-how. She happened to have both.

  The front of the house needed to be cleaned. And several sections of the stone blocks that made up the facade repaired or replaced. She might have to hire that out. She dug out her phone and opened her note-taking app. She circled the house, tapping away as she saw things that needed attention. The landscaping, such as it was, would have to wait. The house was her first priority.

  She rounded the corner, returning to the front of the house, and scowled at the dinged red pickup parked in the circular drive. She snapped a photo of the sign on the truck’s door that featured an enormous cartoon frog wearing a straw hat and chewing on a piece of grass. There had to be someone who belonged to that heap.

  “Aha.” A man in jeans and a cream Henley that stretched over broad shoulders and well-defined arms jogged down her front steps and avoided the missing tread with ease that spoke of practice. “I heard someone bought the old girl. That you?”

  Deidre kept her phone in her left hand, her finger hovering over the emergency number speed dial, and nodded.

  “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am. I’m Jeremiah Crawford.” He gestured to the truck and extended his hand. “I own Bullfrog Home Services.”

  Deidre took his hand, remembering her father’s advice to have a firm grip and make eye contact. “Deidre McIntyre.”

  “Ms. McIntyre, I was just wondering what you planned to do with the place. She’s been a fixture ‘round here. A lot of the locals would be torn up if she got knocked down and turned into condos or something.” He flashed a bright, toothy smile.

  If the locals loved the place so much, why hadn’t anyone taken better care of it? Sure, the previous owner was old and in a nursing facility now, but she had family. Family who’d seemed well pleased to be rid of the thing. “I have no plans to tear it down.”

  He cocked his head to the side. “Then what will you do?”

  She crossed her arms. “I’m sorry, why do you care?”

  “Well now, ma’am. If you plan to fix her up, I thought I’d offer my services.” He dug in his pocket and produced a business card.

  Deidre took the card and offered a tight smile. “I think I’ll be fine. But thanks.”

  He nodded. “All right then. I’ll leave you with that, in case you change your mind.”

  Deidre tucked the card into her pocket. She wasn’t going to be
able to do everything herself, but she’d planned to bring down some of her contractors from D.C. “I don’t suppose you do stone work, Mr. Crawford?”

  “Jeremiah. And, as it happens, I do.”

  “Have any references?”

  “In the truck. Hang on a second.” He crossed quickly to the vehicle and pulled open the door. Deidre caught a glimpse of a passenger foot-well littered with food wrappers. He took a binder off the seat and brought it back. “Here you go.”

  Lips pursed, she flipped through the pages. The photos were good. But you could edit images. “Any way I could visit some of these sites? Check them out?”

  “Course. Why don’t you give me a call in the morning and I can take you around?”

  She opened her mouth to protest then shrugged. She’d find them faster if she was with him. And even if he was there glad-handing the client, she could see the work. It would speak for itself. “I’ll do that.”

  Deidre rolled her sleeping bag out on top of the air mattress she’d spent the last twenty minutes inflating. There was an electric pump somewhere in the boxes she’d hauled in, but she couldn’t find it. She’d unpack, in so far as that went, tomorrow. For now, her boxes were stacked against one wall in the room she’d chosen to be her bedroom-slash-office. She’d worry about furniture at some point. Maybe get Lisette to haul her desk and a real mattress down when she came. Or she could go up to D.C., raid the shed in her parents’ back yard. It wasn’t quite three hours up there, an easy enough day-trip if she needed it.

  She already missed it.

  Who knew there was no pizza delivery in the mountains? Didn’t everyone have pizza delivery? And Internet. She could make do for a while turning her cell into a hotspot for her laptop, but when she had to deal with vendors online, she was going to need a better connection. Was there any chance she could talk the cable company into running a line up to the house? Or, better yet, fiber optics. She made a note to investigate it. Maybe when she was in town tomorrow.

  Her cell rang and she grabbed for it, grinning when she saw her brother’s smiling face on the screen.

  “Hey, Duncan.”

  “Hey, yourself. How is it?”

  Deidre dragged the air mattress over so she could keep her phone plugged in and still lay down. She stretched out and tucked an arm under her head. “It’s a lot of work. But the house has so much potential. It’s going to be amazing when it’s done.”

  “Yeah?” There was a hint of skepticism in his voice. “And when’s that going to be?”

  She sighed, thinking through the list she’d made of what needed to be done. “There’s a lot. A year? Maybe more. It’ll depend on how much I do myself and how much I contract out.”

  He scoffed. “So we’re leaning toward the ‘maybe more’ area?”

  Her brother knew her too well. She hated to job stuff out. Especially work that mattered. And this place? It mattered. “You could come down and help. There’s plenty of space. Heck, you could have a whole floor to yourself if you wanted.”

  Duncan hummed.

  “Is that a yes?” There was no way. Duncan had his dream job as a landscape architect in downtown D.C. He’d worked years to get where he was.

  “It’s a maybe.”

  “What’s going on? You love it at Marshall Brothers.”

  “It…might be past tense. They just hired a new partner instead of promoting from within, and I’m pretty sure he has someone in mind for my job.”

  She bristled. “They can’t do that. You do amazing work. All your clients love you. They’d be fools—”

  “Calm down. They’re not going to fire me. But he’s already taken two of my accounts in for review. I’m fairly sure he’s going to decide I could have done something better and give them to someone else. Or put me on…I don’t know, probation? Whatever it is, we’re off to a rocky enough start that I’ve been brushing up my résumé.”

  “I’m sorry. That stinks.”

  She could almost hear him shrug. “I know God’s got me. Honestly, I was praying about this and you came to mind. So I called.”

  “Ah.”

  “Don’t give me that. I know you’re struggling in your faith right now, Dee, but you know God works in our lives, right?”

  She sighed. “Yeah, I do. I just…”

  “Hey, I get it. But if I end up leaving, you’d let me come work with you?”

  “Let you? Please. If you leave that job, you’d better get down here right away. I’ve got the fix-it skills, but when it comes to landscaping, I’ll be making it up as I go along.”

  “Um. Don’t do that. Just shoot me an email if you start thinking about tackling the gardens.”

  “Will do. Thanks, Duncan.”

  She hung up and rolled over.

  God.

  She and God hadn’t been on speaking terms for close to a year now. Not since Paul.

  With a mug of coffee in her hand, Deidre stepped into the observation tower and grinned. The view. There were no words. She could see all the way down to where the driveway met the main road that led into town. She turned and eyed the roof. That had to be one of the first jobs. It was between that and the windows. There was no point trying to renovate anything inside if every drop of spring rain worked its way into the house.

  She dragged her phone out of her pocket and made a note. Would the local hardware store have cedar shake shingles? It was going to be easier to remove the entire thing and start fresh. Should she switch to asphalt? They had some nice looking shingles these days. No. Stick with the original. The whole point was to bring this beautiful girl back to life, not change her into something she wasn’t.

  Movement on the driveway caught her eye. He was prompt, there was no question. She tucked her phone back in her pocket, drained the last swallow of coffee from her mug, and turned to the stairs. Better to meet him out front than to have him poking around inside.

  After a quick detour to the kitchen, such as it was, to set her mug in the sink, she grabbed her small purse and keys and was out the front doors, checking to make sure the latch caught, before he’d driven all the way up the hill.

  His truck rattled into the circular drive, protesting as it came to a stop. He cut the engine and stepped out. “Mornin’.”

  Deidre licked her lips. No matter what else, the man looked good. “That it is. I thought I’d follow you down, I have some errands to run in town, and, depending, I might have to venture farther.”

  His frown disappeared almost as quickly as it appeared. “All right. You ready?”

  She nodded and jingled her keys.

  He got back in his truck as she crossed to her own. Would he notice she had her own handyman advertising on the door? Not likely. Men like Jeremiah—or Paul—saw a petite woman and automatically figured she was helpless.

  Okay, so Jeremiah hadn’t given off that vibe yet. But the day was young. She started the engine and lowered her window, waving for him to go ahead.

  He was a courteous leader, she’d give him that. He hadn’t run any yellow lights and always used his turn signal. But he drove like a little old lady, scrupulously five miles under the speed limit. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. What red-blooded man drove like that? He probably had his hands at ten and two o’clock, too.

  Deidre eased up to the curb and parked behind Jeremiah’s truck. He waited for her at the walkway leading up to a large stone-front home. She raised her eyebrows. It was gorgeous.

  “Come on.” Jeremiah waved her closer. “They’re expecting us. We’re a few minutes late. But I didn’t want to go too fast.”

  She snorted. No chance of that.

  “Yeah, well, you didn’t get lost, did you?” He shook his head and turned, striding up the walkway.

  Deidre cringed. She’d said it out loud. She hurried after him. “Sorry. One of these days I’m going to remember which one is my inside voice.”

  He scoffed and pushed the doorbell.

  The door swung wide, revealing a distinguished olde
r woman. “There you are, hon, why’d you ring the bell?”

  “Mom, this is Deidre McIntyre. She bought Peacock Hill.”

  “Oh, it’s about time someone bought that lovely old girl. What will you do with her?”

  Deidre smiled. “Fix her up, to start. Then…we’ll see. I understand Jeremiah’s done some stonework for you? He said I could see it, as a reference?”

  “Of course, of course. Come on in. Out back is the best place to see his work. Though there’s pieces of him all throughout the house. He’s been tinkering and fixing since he was big enough to hold a saw and screwdriver.” Jeremiah’s mother led the way past a lovely formal living room and into a homey kitchen. “Just out through the French doors there, Jeremiah can show you.”

  Jeremiah paused to kiss his mother’s cheek before opening the door and gesturing for Deidre to go out. “The back of the house used to be all vinyl siding, but Mom and Dad wanted it to be consistent with the style of the house, so…”

  “Wow.” Deidre ran her fingers over the stone. It looked just like the front of the house. She studied Jeremiah. “You did this?”

  He nodded. “Do you want to see another reference? I’ve done a few more in this neighborhood. Once they saw Mom and Dad’s place, everyone decided the builders should have done it this way to start.”

  “No. This is…plenty.” She took a few steps back and examined the back of the house. It really was lovely work, and she’d worked with some amazing craftsmen in D.C. “How busy are you?”

  He shrugged. “I have enough work to make a living, but not so much I can’t take on a new project.”

  “Okay. I’ll be in touch when I figure out the reno schedule. If you’re available, I’d like you to do the stonework on the facade. I could probably handle it, or I’ve got guys in D.C. I could call down to help, but…”

  He cocked his head to the side. “You’re not doing the renovations yourself, are you? This isn’t something an amateur should take on.”

  “I agree. Which is why I’m handling it myself.” Deidre dug in her back pocket, pulled out a card, and offered it to him.

  His eyes widened. “I’ve heard of these guys. You work for them?”