PAR FOR CINDERELLA
Page 1
Table of Contents
PAR FOR CINDERELLA
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
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
PAR FOR CINDERELLA
The Cinderella Romances
PETIE MCCARTY
SOUL MATE PUBLISHING
New York
PAR FOR CINDERELLA
Copyright©2018
PETIE MCCARTY
Cover Design by Melody A. Pond
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.
Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Published in the United States of America by
Soul Mate Publishing
P.O. Box 24
Macedon, New York, 14502
ISBN: 978-1-68291-726-8
www.SoulMatePublishing.com
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Par for Cinderella is dedicated
to my spectacular editor and publisher,
Debby Gilbert,
without whom there would have been no sequels
to Cinderella Busted.
When she finished the edits on our first book
in the Cinderella Romances series,
she emailed me and said,
“I sure hope you’re writing Garrett’s and Aidan’s stories.”
So I did.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Greg Wyatt, the awesome PGA Pro at the Golf Capital Learning Center in Crossville, Tennessee, for his invaluable assistance with Par for Cinderella. Greg didn’t bat an eye when I showed up at the Center and asked for his help in sabotaging a golf club I desperately needed for my story. He helped me select the appropriate club for my planned treachery and explained how I could accomplish my goal without the damage being noticeable, thus perfecting the pivotal golf match scene between the villain and the hero.
I also have to thank my sweetheart and one-time-golf-course-superintendent, Patrick, for his long-suffering patience in answering at least a hundred questions about golf course operation, maintenance and play, and not complaining about the dozens of every-man-for-himself dinners in the last couple months before my deadline.
Any and all golfing and editing mistakes made in the course of my story are mine alone.
☺
Chapter 1
“What do you mean the motor won’t start?” Aidan Cross glowered at his captain in the galley on the lower deck. “This is a yacht. It has to start.”
“I’ve been in the engine room for the last half-hour,” Joe said glumly. “It’s the ignition controller system.” He held the recalcitrant part aloft and glared at the box.
“I noticed we didna troll for a while,” Ian pointed out.
“I didn’t. I was here in the galley making us sandwiches.” Aidan frowned at Joe. “We carry replacement parts for everything on this yacht. Just put in the spare.”
Joe held out the part again. “This is the spare. The original crapped out during the night around Mobile. We replaced it while you were sleeping, so you never knew.”
Aidan had coerced his Princeton roommate to take a Gulf Coast cruise with him. The yacht belonged to Aidan. The roommate was Ian MacVicar, a big Scottish Highlander as famous for his family’s brand of scotch whiskey and a string of hugely popular pubs strung across the British Isles as Aidan Cross was for his five-star golf resorts scattered worldwide.
The two friends had been tarpon fishing since early that morning. Ian had hooked a big one around noon that had kept the two friends busy for almost two hours. After they released the powerful fifty-pounder, Aidan had gone inside to make them club sandwiches, the only thing he could create in a kitchen. His yacht chef, who always worked his cruises, was absent with a family emergency, and Aidan hadn’t wanted to hire a last-minute stranger.
Though he could make his club sandwiches, it was Ian who fed the two friends, the captain, and the three crewmen nightly. Ian made what he called his pub grub, and all had eaten rather well. Aidan’s pantry and freezer always left port filled, so Ian had plenty to work with.
“Where are we?” Aidan groused. “The middle of nowhere in the Gulf of Mexico?”
Joe swallowed. “Not exactly. We made good time last night. Before the engine quit on me, we made it to Cypress Key. We’re four or five miles offshore. You were so busy with your tarpon, I didn’t tell you we’d reached your destination. I’ll take the part ashore and get it fixed. If there’s no marina repair service or they can’t fix it, I’ll have a new part overnighted.”
“No, you stay with the ship,” Aidan ordered. “I’ll take it inshore after we eat our sandwiches. Write down what you think the ignition controller problem is. I want to get the correct repair.”
Joe left the galley to prepare the work order, and Aidan placed their plates of sandwiches on the table in the galley.
“What destination was Joe talking about?” Ian wanted to know.
“The site of my new golf resort. Stole the parcel right out from under BDC.” Aidan grinned.
“I imagine Rhett fashed over that.”
His grin swiftly faded. “I gave a half-partnership in the project back to Rhett as my penance for that mess over the sale of Lily’s property.”
“Garrett mentioned that mess when we were back in Biloxi. Rhett’s attorney tried to steal the property for himself and sell it back to ye.”
Aidan groaned. “Don’t remind me. That was too close for comfort.”
“Aye, but ye fixed it in time, like ye do everything else.”
“You’re right, and I fixed some awesome turkey club sandwiches for us. Sit down and eat, so I can head to shore with the controller.”
“I’ll go with ye,” Ian volunteered.
“Nah, you never get a chance to fish in Scotland. Stay here and catch another big one.”
“Och! We got fish in the lochs back home.”
“Ye dinna have any the size of the braw tarpon ye caught today,” Aidan mimicked and clapped Ian on the back. “Heck of a catch.”
“Worth my trip across the pond.” The six-foot-five Highlander grinned and bit into his sandwich. “That and seeing our friend Garrett and his new bride, Andi. Did I hear Garrett right the other day? Ye had something to do with Andi’s stepmother and stepsister going to jail?”
Aidan sighed. “Just tried to fix an old mess. Turns out the forgery of Andi’s father’s will may have been her stepmother’s idea, but the actual forger was Andi’s stepsister. Had my investigator dig up the goods on the two.”
“Holy saints above.”
“I still can’t believe Garrett eloped to Vegas,” Aidan grumbled. “I should have been a groomsman for the big party.” He was glad he’d taken the yacht to Biloxi to see for himself how happy their friend was with his new wife.
“Not like they planned to elope. Garrett and Andi only went back to Vegas so her godmother could get married. They didn’t decide to make it a double wedding until they got there.” Ian grinned. “Though I believe the lad might have been in a wee bit of a hurry.”
Apparently, the happy couple didn’t need the furor of a big wedding. They only needed each other. Aidan felt more envy for Garrett than he cared to admit. He wanted that joy for himself.
“I think you might be right. But I was out of the country and missed the whole thing.” He scowled. “Hell, I helped get them together. Sort of.”
Ian laughed. “Yeah, Garrett told me how you helped. Had yer big Mick do a background check on the lass. You’re lucky Garrett didn’t take a swing at ye for it.”
“Well, I was worried about him.” Aidan got up and pulled two beers from the refrigerator and handed one to Ian.
“Ye were worried the lass was after Garrett’s money, ye were.”
“Of course I was. Don’t you ever worry about women chasing you for your money? Now that you’ve made your millions?”
“Och, I dinna have to worry about lasses chasing after me. They couldn’t catch me.” The big Scot grinned. “I’m too busy running all over Scotland to have a serious relationship with a lass or anything more than a weekend here or there. Keeping watch on the ruffians is a full-time job.”
“I’d forgotten you called your nephews the ruffians. How many are there again?”
When Ian grimaced, he looked fearsome. Ian MacVicar, laird of his Scottish clan, stood six foot five—even taller than Aidan’s friend Rhett Buchanan—and looked like a throwback from the Vikings of old with his longish hair and curls the color of Williamsburg bricks. Packaged with a frame that made men wince and women stare. Shoulders wide enough to fill a doorway.
“Och, between my three older sisters, there’s six nephews plus the demon twins. Enough to oversee most of my pubs.” Ian took a long pull on his beer.
“I’ve been meaning to go visit those world-famous pubs of yours. Saw an advertisement in an airplane magazine on a flight back from Italy.”
“Aye, ye’ve been promising for a decade to come to Scotland for a rematch of that whupping I gave ye on the Bunker Hill golf course.” Ian’s big laugh again filled the room.
Aidan closed his eyes. “Not that again. You beat me once in college, and you’ve never let me forget it.”
Oddly, Ian sobered. “O’course not. Ye were the best. None could beat ye. That’s why I’ll never let ye forget it. Only Rhett could beat ye, and that was usually when ye were hung over.”
“I beat him once,” Aidan reminded him.
Ian only laughed. “Ye should have gone on the tour.”
He sighed and bit into his sandwich. No way would he go there. Not today, not when he could be happy today and enjoy being with his friend. Pain and regret were for times when he was alone.
“Life had other plans for me, Ian.”
“Life and yer da. I understand, lad. I do. My own da had other plans too. Insisted I come back from college and go right to running the distillery.”
“Did you ever want to do something else?”
“Aye. Build pubs.”
Aidan laughed.
“So, I have a good reason for still being single. Ye don’t.”
“Sure I do. In fact, there was a time, Rhett, Garrett, and I were all on the same page. Marriage was not in our particular stars.”
Ian frowned. “Ye lads didna want lasses of yer own and some bairns?”
“We did, but the execution of the task seemed impossible. Finding women not after us for our money seemed a herculean feat. Women were always after our money.”
“I’m finding out what that is all aboot.”
Aidan nodded. “Those pubs made you a millionaire.”
“Many times over,” Ian grumbled. “That’s when the lassies started showing up. Some I knew, but they hadn’t expressed a prior interest until word of my scotch and pub franchises were bandied aboot.”
“We just stuck with actresses and models who were up front about their gold digging.”
Joe appeared in the galley with a handwritten work order he set on the table next to Aidan along with the part.
“Will you lower the runabout? I’m about finished,” Aidan asked and popped the last bite of sandwich into his mouth.
“Aye, sir.”
“There’s a dearth of actresses and models in the Highlands,” Ian continued when Joe headed up on deck. “I’ve had to make do.”
“What? You didn’t pull out your shamrock and make a wish for a babe who didn’t want your money?”
“Och, ye wanker! Now yer confusing me with your investigator, the big Mick. He doesn’t even have a proper accent.”
“Maybe because he was born in New Jersey.”
“Whatever. I’m leaving.”
They heard the runabout hit the water, and Aidan grabbed Ian’s arm as he made for the stairs.
“No, you’re not leaving. You’re coming back down to the fishing platform, and you’re going to catch fish until I get back. Try for something small enough we can eat, like a grouper or a mahi.”
“I should go with ye.”
“Why should both of us get screwed out of the good fishing in these parts? Cypress Key’s a sleepy little tourist town. Nothing exciting every happens there. That’s why I bought the parcel here for my next resort. It will be an immediate hit in these parts.”
“Which is why I have to go and see this fabulous parcel.”
“It won’t be fabulous for at least eighteen months. Right now, it’s an abandoned airstrip bordered by scrubland.”
Ian frowned. “Maybe I will stay and fish.”
Aidan grinned. “I’ll check out the parcel, while I’m waiting for the part to be fixed, and be back by sunset. Have the fish grilled when I get back.”
Ian saluted and Aidan hopped aboard the twenty-eight-foot ski boat they used for a runabout and cranked the motor.
~ ~ ~
Casey Stuart’s two o’clock boat tour to the island had turned out far better than she had hoped. The boat’s ten bench seats—five on either side of the center aisle—had been almost full, and everyone had asked questions and laughed at her jokes. The two-hour tour took her guests past the white pelican rookery on a small sandbar and then to the real Cypress Key—a small island offshore, for which the adjacent mainland town was named.
The tour disembarked guests at the key for a walk-on-your-own tour of the island’s history and artifacts—a graveyard of original settlers, foundations from the first eighteenth-century homes, and native birds and wildlife—all laid out in a map Casey handed them when they departed the boat.
Her guests had returned laughing and in good cheer, which increased the tips she got at the finish of the tour. Groceries, she thought as the last guest stepped off the boat and headed up the
dock toward the town marina parking lot.
Casey rented two slips on the only dock on the north side of the public double boat ramp. The remaining docks and slips all lay south of the ramp. Unfortunately, the two sets of tie-up cleats on the opposite side of her dock belonged to Mayor Bartow. The mayor stored his personal craft in the boat house at his mansion on the Gulf. His only son, PJ, used the rented spot on the other side of Casey’s dock for his speedboat.
She’d heard a boat engine throttle down for the marina no-wake zone as she said goodbye to her tour guests and dreaded the possibility of PJ’s arrival and subsequent harassment or flirtation, depending on which of them made the call. She refused to look back and felt rather than saw the boat tie to dock cleats directly behind her tour boat.
No way would PJ be that brazen when he had cleats on the other side of the same dock, though his penchant for buttheadedness knew no bounds. Anything was possible.
The space behind hers belonged to her Uncle Frank’s second tour boat, now in dry dock for hull repairs, and she was too happy with her present tour to chastise the errant boat driver, PJ or whoever had mistakenly used the cleats. Especially since Frank’s second boat would be quarantined until they could pay the exorbitant bill they had not expected or planned for.
“Just a few barnacles ate into the paint,” Frank had said. “Nothing to worry about.”
Nothing to worry about. Right. Frank’s favorite saying.
Turned out the boat had dry rot. Expensive dry rot. Major hull-replacement dry rot.
With the last guest safely off and headed for the parking lot, Casey turned to face the trespasser.
She stopped.
Swallowed hard.
Swallowed again, but her dry throat persisted.
The boater was drop-dead gorgeous. Light-brown hair with sun-blond streaks, long enough to thread fingers through along his collar, and chocolate-brown eyes that trapped and held you, like puppy-dog-cuddlable brown one minute and sensuous, you’re-not-safe-from-me hazelish the next.