Bella: Oh no!
Lacy: That bites.
Grace: Wait. Did you say something?
Maggie continued. “Long story, but it’s all working out now.” She slid a glance to Jake. “Lost my job and apartment in the same month, but Jake came to my rescue. He’s taking good care of Eva and me.”
“Aw, Jakey, you’re such a sweetheart,” Bella said.
Lacy swigged her drink and said, “You sure are, ya big lug.”
Grace looked up. “What did you say?
Maggie’s brow furrowed. “Grace Ryan, are you working while on this call? I don’t care what big case is going on—this is family time. We need you to pay attention. What’s so important that you can’t give us one hour of your time on a Sunday night?”
Grace grinned. “Well, if you must know”—she lifted her laptop and turned it toward them all. “I wanted you all to see your new niece or nephew!”
Silence. Maggie, Jake, and Daisy all lurched forward and stared at the sketchy black and white photo on her screen. “Oh my gosh, Grace,” Maggie said. “Are you pregnant?”
Grace nodded, all sign of stress gone from her face. “Yes! The baby’s only the size of a sweetpea so far.”
Lacy drawled, “I was going to say something about him having a big head.”
Bella sighed. “This is the best news, Grace!”
“Tell Chase good job,” Jake quipped.
“Aw, that’s so sweet, Grace,” Daisy said.
“But why the ultrasound so early?” Maggie asked. “Everything okay?”
Grace nodded, still grinning. “We did it to confirm the due date. We have several cases going to trial right around the time the baby’s due so—”
“Tell me you did not plan the birth of your baby around a trial date,” Maggie said.
“Not exactly.” Grace laughed. “But it’s helpful to know. That’s all.”
The room roared with laughter and congratulations.
Maggie waved them all quiet. “Okay, okay. Great news. Let’s get caught up on the house now. First, I have to say that the kitchen is absolutely gorgeous. And oh those counters! Jake does amazing work, though he’d never tell you himself.”
“Good job, Jake,” Bella said.
Maggie continued, “I just filled up the fridge because I’ll be cooking all month long. No need to eat out with such a beautiful space to work in. You’re all gonna flip when you see it.”
“And,” she continued, “he updated the master bath quite a bit too.”
“But Maggie will have to paint it,” Jake said. “I ran out of time for that.”
“So how is Colibri Beach so far, Maggie?” Lacy said, cutting in. “Hope you haven’t seen No-good Hunter around there.”
Jake snorted, remembering the name his sisters had for a guy they all grew up with. Grace mentioned to him that she had run into Luke Hunter when she stayed her month at the house, but he hadn’t seen him. Admittedly, Jake doubted if he would have recognized the guy anyway.
Maggie didn’t reply, so Jake cut back into the conversation. “I have just one question for you ladies. What did all the hotties call me back then?”
Lacy threw back her head, laughing at that. Bella smiled, and Grace tapped her chin with a pencil. “I believe it was something like Jake the Snake!”
Daisy giggled at this. No doubt she’d had a nickname for him back then, too. He’d have to ask her about that later, when they were alone …
“Seriously, though, Maggie, how is Eva doing?” Grace asked. “Does she love being at the beach?”
Maggie nodded. “She loves your old room, Grace. Having some trouble getting her out of there, actually, like right now. She wants to lay around all day inside.”
“Just like Grace!” Lacy quipped.
Grace rolled her eyes. “Ha ha.”
“It’s really good to be back, though.” Maggie sat back and pulled her legs beneath her on the couch. “I’d forgotten how quirky this old place was. The whole house creaks at night when the wind’s roaring, and yet I feel safe here.”
They all murmured their agreement.
She turned to Jake. “I do have one question for our brother here, though.”
He pursed his lips before saying, “What’s that?”
“You guys, this man has so many shoes, more shoes than I’ve ever seen a guy have. And they’re leather and suede. So expensive looking!” She slapped him on the shoulder. “Why all the shoes, dude?”
Bella piped up. “A shoe fetish!”
The rest of the women cracked up, including Daisy, who had seen his penchant for high-end footwear up close and personal.
“Hey,” he said, unflustered. “You have your clothes and makeup, and I have my shoes. Leave me alone!”
Maggie laughed heartily at that. “Fine, fine. We all have our weaknesses.”
“I hate to be the Scrooge of our happy little family here,” Grace said, “but Jake, what’s happening with the legal troubles?”
“They’re going away. Soon.”
“Great. How?”
“The foreman on the project came out of hiding and confessed.” He grinned. “They can’t pin anything on me now.”
A whoop went up, each of his sisters offering congrats and virtual hugs. Lacy leaned in closer to the screen. “Good job, bro.”
Now that the call seemed to be winding down with nothing too serious to deal with, Jake figured it was the right time to come clean about something else. “Okay, my turn. I have something to tell you all.”
Both of Lacy’s brows lifted, her lips puckered. “Wow, again? The guy who hardly says two words on these calls?” She took a sip of her cocktail and settled back against her chair. “This I have to hear.”
“I wanted you to know that I’ll be featured in a magazine soon. Now you know me, I’m a private guy. This is not something I sought out.”
Grace frowned. “But you let them interview you?”
“Yes, but only because they were going to include me in the story whether I wanted them to or not.”
Bella, the bookworm of the group, perked up. “What kind of story are they doing, Jake?”
He looked into the screen. “Something about hunks, I believe.”
“Oh my gosh.” Maggie shook her head, cracking up. “Idiot.”
Lacy and Grace laughed, while Bella appeared a bit confused.
“Just kidding.” He cracked a smile and slid a quick glance to Daisy. “It’s about billionaires under thirty-five.”
Lacy dropped her cocktail, the sound of breaking glass reverberating on the call. She didn’t flinch. “You know, big brother, they don’t put guys into billionaire articles who are not actually, you know, billionaires.”
“I know.”
The call went quiet, as if they were all processing. He continued, “Look, my company is doing very well.”
“Obviously,” Lacy said, dryly.
“But my investments put me over the top. I don’t expect you to read the article, but I wanted to alert you that it would be out in a couple of months. I wanted you to hear it from me first.”
“Wow, Jake,” Bella said, finally. “That is a lot of zeroes to process.”
Lacy continued to watch him with some suspicion. That bothered him—he would probably have some explaining to do to her. But they had been close in the past, so he felt hopeful she would come around.
Grace cut in to his thoughts. “So Jake, is this one of those bachelor billionaire articles? You aren’t planning to go on any dating shows to announce your single status, I hope.”
He grinned, widely. “Not a chance. If it was an article like that, I wouldn’t have been able to participate.”
“Wait a second,” Bella said. “You’re not single?”
He sent Daisy a wink. “Not anymore.”
Amidst all the gasps, Jake turned to Maggie and handed her the key to the house. It was a symbolic gesture, as he had already made her a copy this week. Still, it meant something to publicly pass the baton to t
he next sibling who would be fulfilling their part of the family bargain.
“Maggie,” he said. “I formally pass the Morelli family beach house to you.” He cinched Daisy close to him, guaranteeing that all of his sisters could see her on the screen. “Because this billionaire bachelor has a wedding to plan.”
Daisy squealed and lifted her left hand, showing off the diamond that Jake had bought her when he’d disappeared last week. Maggie lunged forward and grabbed Daisy’s hand, screaming like a crazy woman. “That is the biggest rock I’ve ever seen!”
The other siblings laughed, calling out their congratulations along with myriad questions, such as:
“Where will you live?”
“When’s the big day?”
“Will you be building a mansion somewhere?”
Too many questions to answer at the moment, but he didn’t care. The old living room sounding like one big, happy, and loud party.
While his sisters continued to converse, and question, and carry on with each other, Jake pulled Daisy into his arms. “I can’t wait to start something brand new with you, Daisy Mcafee,” he whispered. “Keeping the good things from the past and putting the not-so-right behind us.”
Daisy gazed up at him, her hands entwined in his. “You’re the best thing to ever happen to me, Jake. I mean that.”
Jake grinned and sealed their future with a kiss so soft, so wild, that he thought he might not survive it. As his sisters made disgusting kissing noises in the background, he pulled Daisy closer, realizing that he no longer cared to live his life in … secret.
Sneak Peek of Luke’s Second Chance Family
Chapter One, Scene One
Luke froze, aware that the woman he had been avoiding for days—for years, really—was about to cross his path. He continued to trudge along the sidewalk toward his surf shop, drinking the coffee he’d just picked up from the new bakery in town, his baseball cap pulled snugly down on his head. When he reached her, he would look into her eyes, say hello, and get the whole thing over with as fast as possible.
Maggie hadn’t changed much at all—still beautiful, curvy, and walked like she owned—or could buy—the entire block. He noted, with startling recall, that she still held her purse the way she had as a teen: arm bent at the elbow in a forty-five degree angle, the handbag dangling from her forearm, a slight shimmy in her gait. Heat crept into his face. How had something like that stuck in his head all this time?
He braced for impact, but the woman’s gaze was somewhere else. “Eva?” she was saying, her eyes focused on a young girl in front of her with long, dark hair. “Wait for me, hon.”
The girl, slightly taller than his own daughter, skipped on ahead. Luke had heard Maggie had a daughter, and for a moment, his brain wandered to what might have been. And yet, he had no regret. Well, technically, he regretted his behavior, but that was something he could never take back. In the end, he did not regret how it all turned out. He couldn’t.
The little girl went inside the bakery that he had just left, the one that sat like a cream puff in the middle of the block. The new place in Colibri Beach had filled a need in this tired old town, providing a spot to gather that wasn’t strewn with old wallpaper and folding chairs. He still wasn’t sure about all that pink on the walls, though …
As the woman passed him by, he glanced up, the coffee cup to his lips, his gaze over the top of it. She didn’t notice him, though, which caused him to feel something unexpected. What he expected he would feel was relief, the kind of relief a person encountered when they had been holding their breath under water for too long and finally surfaced and let it out. Instead, the sense that rose in his gut reminded him of something wholly different, and as he considered it, he realized what it was. When Maggie Morelli failed to notice him standing feet away from her, Luke felt deep and utter … disappointment.
He twisted his lips. Served him right. Luke may have been avoiding Maggie for the past decade or so, but when she passed him by with zero recognition on her face, he realized he had received a comeuppance of sorts, the long-time-coming kind. He shook his head slowly. At least she hadn’t sneered at him, though he couldn’t deny that he probably deserved that too.
Luke watched the doorway of that bakery for a moment after the girl, followed by Maggie, slipped inside, blissfully unaware of his scrutiny. He sighed, threw back the rest of his coffee, then crushed his cup and tossed it into the garbage can on the sidewalk.
Quickly, he hopped off the curb and crossed the street, unlocking the storefront he’d acquired nearly five years before. In a relatively short time, he had made great strides with his surfboard shop. Inside, his footfalls echoed through the space. He flipped a few switches until the place came to life, the smells of wax and sand and salt water burning his nostrils. His eyes scanned the walls of the shop. In the front, finished boards in varying sizes hung on racks, waiting for buyers to snap them up. But it was the back of the shop that called to him, ever since that summer that Maggie had challenged him to face his fear and dive into that wide and chilly ocean.
What happened in the ensuing years was less easy to recall. The early morning rides, the contests, the girls—lots and lots of girls. And the fear he kept in check—until he no longer could. He shut his eyes, remembering.
“You all right?”
Luke spun around. When had Zack come in? He released a breath and waved the teen inside. “Sorry, dude. Was thinking.”
Zack laughed. “My dad does that all the time.”
He faltered. “Thinks?”
The kid cracked up. “Stares into space like he can’t find his glasses or something.”
Luke’s smile fell. “Ah.” He cleared his throat, not sure how his thirty-year-old self felt to be compared to someone’s much-older dad. “So. What can I help you with today?”
Zack handed him a flyer. “I gotta job handing out these flyers for the Ringer Surf Classic. I get extra if I can get stores to tape a flyer to the window. You in?”
Luke ran his eyes over the announcement about the first-time, amateur competition in their small beach town. He grimaced. Not too many decent hotels around here, so he guessed the vacation rentals would be going for a premium. This kind of thing was great for business, but not without its problems. His eyes caught on the list of prizes.
He looked up. “Two-thousand-dollar prize in each category? And all the rest of the prize money to charity? Really?”
Zack whistled. “Yup. Even old timers like you can win a bunch of cash.”
“No, thanks.”
“What are you … chicken?” Zack cackled like an old man, rather than a fifteen-year-old with a smart mouth.
Luke focused a mock glare on the kid. “Want my help or not?”
“Sorry.”
Luke loved the sport—the smells, the tricks, those serendipitous rides that took a person by surprise. Only he loved them from the sidelines now. Though he owned this shop and had become one of the best shapers in the area, Luke had not surfed in years. Nor did he intend to start.
“Hey, you could enter and win money for your shop.” He looked around. “This place needs some stuff.”
“Yeah? Like what kind of stuff?”
“Candy machines, free ice cream, a skate ramp out back …”
Luke gave Zack another bogus frown. “Not happening.”
He’d bought the building that housed his shop long before he knew much about handling finances. Shoot, he’d practically been a kid when he bought it. One thing was for sure: Luke hadn’t planned on the high number of repairs he would have to make, the cost of which had shocked him with each invoice. Still, he’d managed quite well.
Luke took a second glance at the flyer in his hands. That prize money would sure come in handy for somebody, though. He perused the list of charities on the flyer. In addition to the usual ocean-centered ones, a charity that helped foster kids had made the cut.
“Then again,” he said, “this is pretty rad.”
“Epic. So
you’ll put it on your window?” Zack said.
Luke screwed up his mouth. “Yeah. Get outta here.”
Zack called out “Awesome!” and tore out of the shop, hopped into the street, and zig-zagged his way toward the bakery. Luke shook his head, slight laughter coming from him. The kid was probably off to find himself more sugar since he so obviously lacked energy today.
Luke grabbed a roll of clear tape from a drawer, found an empty spot on the shop’s window, and put the competition flyer at teen eye-level. He caught sight of the bakery across the street, the one currently holding a piece of his past, and pulled his gaze back to the task in front of him. No doubt the surf kids around here would be gawking at that flyer in no time, stirring up all kinds of excitement in Colibri. He stood back and idly rubbed the scar above his lip, grateful for the much-needed distraction.
Find Luke’s Second Chance Family here.
Also by Francesca Lane
Hi ~
Thank you for reading Jake’s story. I hope you enjoyed it! If you did, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. I’d be so grateful!
I believe in quiet, barefoot days, aimless musings, and falling in love with sweet, romantic stories. If you do too, please watch for the rest of the Beach House Memories Series—coming soon.
Thanks for reading!
Beach House Memories series
Grace’s Fake Groom #1
Daisy’s Secret Billionaire #2
Luke’s Second Chance Family #3
Lacy’s Billionaire Boss #4
Bella’s Reluctant Cowboy #5
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