by Piper Rayne
“Bullshit,” he says. “I’m not asking for specifics, but a ‘I banged her over the kitchen table’ would suffice.”
“Jesus, Lunchbox, one day you’re gonna meet a woman who will make you second-guess sharing all the details,” Greasy says, shaking his head from the seat beside us.
Lunchbox is Lou’s nickname because the man eats all the shit out of the fridge. Lou’s the one always asking if he can have one fry or if you’re going to eat all that. He’s lucky his side job of carpentry helps him keep the weight off.
Lou flips off Greasy. “We’re not all married with fifty kids.”
“That’s offensive,” I say with a grin.
Greasy only has five kids, though they’re all under six, so when they visit the fire station, it’s like a daycare—but the sappy love look on his face when his exhausted wife walks through the garage doors is pretty awesome. I guess he won his battle.
Lou waves off my comment. “Your parents had nine kids, not you.” We sit in silence for maybe one minute because Lou hates quiet. “Aren’t you gonna ask me?”
“Ask you what?”
Now he’s the one sporting the insulted look. “The girl from speed dating. Your sister didn’t tell you?”
“No, she lives with Colton now. She’s moved out.”
He nods as though he didn’t remember.
“So she’s amazing,” he says without me asking for more information or really paying attention.
I love the guy, but this is same old same old for him. This girl will have morphed into a blood-seeking piranha by next week. As much as I don’t do relationships, Lou thinks he wants one. He doesn’t. He just wants regular sex.
“Okay, boys, hate to interrupt the locker room talk, but we have a fire to fight,” Chief says from up front as we pull up to a burning apartment building. The fire isn’t out of control yet by the looks of it, but it will be if we don’t get in there. “We’re first on the scene. Since you’re so chatty, Lunchbox, you get to go in first with Romeo behind you. Greasy, you get the hose connected…” The Chief continues to rattle off responsibilities, and we file out of the fire truck.
After getting our gear on and pulling out our axes, Lou and I head in to investigate the fire. My adrenaline kicks into overdrive the closer we get to the building.
Once we’re inside the smoke-filled stairway, Lou talks again. “So this girl, she’s like no other girl I’ve ever met. She’s smart and gorgeous. She thinks I’m funny.”
“Then she must be a keeper,” Chief says over the radio. “Concentrate on the fire.”
Lou kicks in the door of the first apartment, and we walk through, scouring the rooms for people who might be trapped or too afraid to run.
“Tank is coming in now with Greasy,” Chief tells us.
I press the button for my radio. “Apartment one is clear. Filled with smoke, no flame.”
“We went to the bar for drinks afterward. Turns out she was there once before when I was, but we must not have written each other down because we didn’t connect,” Lou says, as we walk up the stairs to the second floor.
“Cool.”
“I’m thinking of taking her to your brother’s restaurant,” he says.
“Why would you come to Lake Starlight?” I ask.
“This is the type of woman you wine and dine, not take to Tipsy Turvy to play darts and drink beer.”
“I’m not sure any woman is the kind who’d prefer to be taken to Tipsy Turvy on a first date. That’s more of a ‘we’ve been dating for a while and there’s a big game on, want to go for wings and a beer’ kind of thing.” I head to the stairs to climb up another floor.
“Are you dissing my game? I’ve got better game than you.”
“Chief, I’m not sure this building is occupied. Every apartment is bare of furniture,” Tank says over the radio.
“Hold on. I’ve got Sergeant Blecker,” Chief says.
I stop on the stairwell in case our instructions change.
“You’re right, the place is empty. Shift our search for source at this point.”
Tank and Greasy follow us up the stairs. “We’ll go to three,” they say, walking by us as we stop on second floor to check behind the doors.
“I’m telling you. This girl is a game-changer,” Lou says.
Tank and Greasy laugh.
“You guys wait and see. You’ll be getting wedding invitations in the mail within a year. I promise.”
“You know all this from one night?” I ask.
“When you know, you know.”
I kick open a door and a cloud of smoke billows out into the hallway, making me unable to see an inch in front of me. I can’t deny I too believe you just know when you know. I felt a pull in my heart the moment Stella Harrison walked into my classroom in the fourth grade. My crush continued for years until she and Owen started to date. Then I tried to ignore that pull—which is when everything crumbled around me.
“Nothing on level two, we’re going to four,” I say in the radio.
We bypass Tank and Greasy on the third, where they’re outwardly laughing at Lou.
“I’m going to prove you all wrong,” Lou says, and there’s a conviction in his tone that makes me believe that this mystery girl could be a game-changer for him.
I mean, doesn’t that happen to everyone at some point if they’re lucky? A man finds a woman who makes him believe in marriage and makes him ready to push away the possibilities of all other women?
“Does this woman have a name?” I ask as we finish climbing from the third to fourth floor.
“Stella.”
I turn back to face him. A two-by-four crashes down between us with flames across the length of it. I step back and my head hits something hard and unforgiving and I crash to the floor.
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Cockamamie Unicorn Ramblings
We have a confession, neither one of are huge fans of the friends-to-lovers storyline. Which is probably why you don’t see a lot of them from us. But Juno and Colton were a little different for us. We’ve spent so much time with the Baileys that we were rooting for them to find their HEA and excited to write this book! We had to dig deep to know why they never found their way to one another and if they had (which now you know they had) what continued to keep them apart.
* * *
We’re going to share a secret with you. Juno was going to be pregnant and it was going to have happened the night of the baby shower. We planned that out back while writing Confessions but then when it came time to write the storyline, and we had made him engaged at the end of the book, we didn’t think Colton is the type of guy to cheat no matter how long he’s loved Juno or how fake his engagement was. And we didn’t think that spoke to Juno either. So, then we were going to make her pregnant later in the book, but it all just seemed wrong. We scraped the entire thing. BUT she was never the unknown female in Operation Bailey Babies. I guess now you know who was. ;)
* * *
We opted for the a less angsty storyline because we felt it was realistic for the characters we created and you’ve read about since the beginning of the series—real life best friends who turned into lovers after years of resisting fate. Either the timing was wrong, or they’re dating other people at different times, or they’re just petrified of losing that other person in their life if things go south. But in the end love made it impossible for them to be apart!
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SUPER HUGE THANKS to our team who if not for them, we’d never be able to finish these books!
* * *
Danielle Sanchez and the entire Wildfire Marketing Solutions!
Cassie from Joy Editing for line edits.
Ellie from My Brother’s Editor for line edits.
Shawna from Behind the Writer for proofreading.
Sarah from Okay Creations for the cover and branding for the entire series.
Sara from Sara Eirew Photography for the super sexy picture of Juno and Colton.
Bloggers who consisten
tly carve out time to read, review and/or promote us.
Our Piper Rayne Unicorns who champion this series to others with their whole hearts.
You the reader who took a chance on our book with so many choices out there.
* * *
You finally met Stella! What did you think? Is she what you expected? Just like Juno and Colton, there’s a lot you don’t know about Kingston and Stella’s story. We have some twists coming. Ones we thought of while writing Secrets of the World’s Worst Matchmaker and we can’t wait for you to read their story. Who doesn’t love a hero who knows what he wants? And Kingston wants Stella whether he admits it to her or not.
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XO,
Piper & Rayne
About the Author
Piper Rayne, or Piper and Rayne, whichever you prefer because we’re not one author, we’re two. Yep, you get two USA Today Bestselling authors for the price of one. Our goal is to bring you romance stories that have "Heartwarming Humor With a Side of Sizzle" (okay...you caught us, that's our tagline). A little about us... We both have kindle’s full of one-clickable books. We're both married to husbands who drive us to drink. We're both chauffeurs to our kids. Most of all, we love hot heroes and quirky heroines that make us laugh, and we hope you do, too.
www.piperrayne.com
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Also by Piper Rayne
The Baileys
Lessons from a One-Night Stand
Advice from a Jilted Bride
Birth of a Baby Daddy
Operation Bailey Wedding (Novella)
Falling for My Brother’s Best Friend
Demise of a Self-Centered Playboy
Confessions of a Naughty Nanny
Operation Bailey Babies (Novella)
Secrets of the World’s Worst Matchmaker
Winning My Best Friend’s Girl
Rules for Dating your Ex
* * *
The Modern Love World
Charmed by the Bartender
Hooked by the Boxer
Mad about the Banker
* * *
The Single Dad’s Club
Real Deal
Dirty Talker
Sexy Beast
* * *
Hollywood Hearts
Mister Mom
Animal Attraction
Domestic Bliss
* * *
Bedroom Games
Cold as Ice
On Thin Ice
Break the Ice
Box Set
* * *
Charity Case
Manic Monday
Afternoon Delight
Happy Hour
* * *
Blue Collar Brothers
Flirting with Fire
Crushing on the Cop
Engaged to the EMT
* * *
White Collar Brothers
Sexy Filthy Boss
Dirty Flirty Enemy
Wild Steamy Hook-up
* * *
The Rooftop Crew
My Bestie’s Ex
A Royal Mistake
The Rival Roomies
Our Star-Crossed Kiss
The Do-Over
A Co-Workers Crush
