My Quickie Wedding (Heartbreak Hotel Book 3)

by Christie Ridgway

  “What are you doing here?” she said, when she could trust her voice.

  With his hands at her shoulders, he held her a tiny bit away from him. A couple of inches, max, as if he couldn’t bear to allow any more distance.

  “I forgot to say the most important thing, Jojo. To present my most persuasive argument.”

  The sun was dazzling her or maybe that was just the sensation of him being near her again, this beautiful man. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s your most persuasive argument?”

  “That I’m in love with you.”

  Oh, yes, she’d been such a fool. She smiled then, ignoring the sting of tears in her eyes. “I’m in love with you, too.”

  He stared down at her a moment, then he threw back his head and laughed, the sound of a man relieved and glad and looking forward to the kind of life that Jojo was silently promising her beloved big brother, wherever he was, she was going to embrace from this moment on.

  A life leading with the heart.

  Jessie Hathaway didn’t actually skip through the lobby of the Hathaway at Dragonfly Beach, but she wanted to. Her cousin Jojo Thatcher had stopped by her office a few minutes ago and dropped the little bombshell that she’d quickie-married Connor Montgomery. The man had been holding her hand and wearing an expression that testified he was very happy with the way his life was shaking out. Good for them both!

  But how had that romance developed beneath their noses without anyone suspecting?

  Jojo promised a girls’ night sometime soon during which she would spill all the deets. Jessie wouldn’t let her get away with anything less.

  On the path to the outdoor dining patio, she bent to pick up a slightly bruised plumeria blossom. Though less than perfect, its creamy petals still held a wonderful scent. Jessie tucked the flower behind her ear. She didn’t mind things that were a little tattered around the edges—she often preferred them, actually.

  Her brother Kane despaired that she’d fall for some guy who belonged to a motorcycle gang or had a felony criminal record or both. But Jessie wasn’t ready to fall for anyone. Right now she figured it was her sister Amber who was ripe to drop from the vine.

  Emerging onto the patio, she enjoyed the warm sun on her head and shoulders and for a moment closed her eyes. Then she opened them and directed her gaze to the corner, where, as she’d known he would be, sat their guest, Shaw Morgan, in a chair pulled up to a small table. A handsome dark-haired man in his early thirties, he wore his solitude like a suit of armor.

  Before him was his customary sparkling water and his customary fish tacos. His customary slice of pie waited precisely two inches beside his icy beverage. As always, he had a book open and he appeared—also as always—not to notice his beautiful surroundings.

  The man was much too habit bound, Jessie had decided a long while ago.

  Maybe this visit would be the one to shake him up.

  At that moment, Amber passed by on the other side of the patio. Moving fast, obviously on her way to accomplish some work-related task. Even from here, Jessie could hear Amber’s heels clip along the tile floor.

  Maybe Shaw heard the noise too, because he suddenly looked up from his book.

  And he didn’t look away from Jessie’s sister.

  Yes. Maybe this visit would be one to shake him up.

  # # #

  Dear Reader:

  Thank you! I hope you enjoyed the third book in the Heartbreak Hotel series. When I wrote the moment in ME AND MR. JONES where heroine Audra spotted a photo of her brother Con and Jojo getting married at the Vegas wedding chapel, I didn’t foresee how what I thought would be a fun (quickie) story would develop into an emotional love-at-first-sight romance.

  Curious about what might happen between Amber and widower Shaw Morgan? Look for the next book in the series coming soon.

  Interested in sharing your thoughts about Jojo and Con’s romance with other readers? I hope you’ll leave a review here and look for more of my books to enjoy.

  To not miss out on new Christie Ridgway releases and to get other information about upcoming books and specials, sign up for my newsletter. You can also follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or visit my website.

  I’ve also included here an excerpt of ALMOST WONDERFUL (Almost Book 1)—another one of my sunny, sexy romances.

  All the best!

  Christie Ridgway

  Excerpt – ALMOST WONDERFUL

  Almost Book 1

  © Copyright 2017 Christie Ridgway

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Chapter One

  Two miles of magic.

  Trudging through soft sand, Meg Alexander remembered that’s how she’d thought of her childhood Neverland, Southern California’s Crescent Cove. Even after ten years away, she recalled how lucky she’d felt growing up here.

  Meg’s great-great-grandfather had purchased the land as a location to make silent movies such as The Courageous Castaways and Sweet Safari, and the tropical vegetation he’d trucked in for authenticity in 1919 continued to thrive at the cove today. The buff-colored bluffs rising up from the beach were made more colorful by the bright green fronds of date palm trees and the salmon and scarlet flowers of bougainvillea that nestled beside the native sagebrush. Closer to shore, floppy-leaved banana plants, chunky Mexican fan palms and colorful hibiscus shrubs surrounded the fifty eclectic cottages, most of which had been built during the 1920s through 1950s.

  Each of the beach houses at Crescent Cove was different, their form-following whims now long forgotten. Their paint schemes were as varied as their shapes and sizes, though the colors selected blended well with the landscape of sand, earth and vivid flora. The single similarity was that in every one, windows peered oceanward.

  Meg didn’t dare look in that direction, herself.

  Growing up, her mother had told Meg and her little sister, Skye, that merfolk lived in those waters off shore, protecting the cove with their supernatural powers. Growing up, Meg had believed in that, just as she’d believed that sand dollars were the merpeople’s currency and sea glass the discarded pieces from some mysterious merchildren’s board game.

  But Meg didn’t believe in magic or mystery anymore.

  “Good morning,” an elderly male voice said.

  Startled, Meg looked up. “Hey, Rex. Good morning, yourself.” Rex Monroe, ninety-some years young, was the only full-time resident at the cove other than Skye, who had managed the property since their parents’ move to Provence, France. Yesterday, for the first time in a decade, Meg had met up with the nonagenarian as he walked along the sand. Like now, the clouds had been low and damp, the typical gloomy “May Gray” weather conditions. “Getting in your daily constitutional?” she asked.

  Rex patted his belly, covered in a flannel shirt tucked into soft chinos. “It’s not just you ladies who have to watch your figures. Are you settling in okay?”

  “Oh, sure,” Meg said, waving a hand. It was actually weird being back in her childhood bedroom, ten years after leaving the cove at nineteen, but her sister had been invited to the out-of-town wedding of a former college roommate. How could Meg have refused to step in? Memorial Day weekend was the kick-off of the Crescent Cove summer season. Someone had to be on hand to pass out keys to the bungalows and handle minor crises.

  Even if it was a major crisis, in Meg’s mind, to be back here.

  “I see you have a satchel of tools,” Rex said, pointing to the canvas bag she carried. “Something need fixing already?”

  “Not really. Just trying to keep busy.” Anything to prevent her from thinking of the last summer she’d spent at the cove. “I’m going to scrape the deck railing at Beach House No. 9. I understand that Griffin Lowell has been staying there the last couple of months, but since he’s away for a few days, Skye hired a contractor to take care of the blistering paint while he’s gone.”

  Rex gave Meg a piercing look that reminded her he was a former war correspondent, one who’d won a Pulitzer during World War 2. “What? The man
Skye hired doesn’t have some sort of electric paint-removing machine?”

  “Uh, well…” Meg glanced at the simple metal scraper at the bottom of her bag, sitting beside a few other basic tools and her bottle of water. “You know what they say about idle hands. I thought I’d do the work myself.” An idle mind was even more dangerous, Meg had decided. She had to stay busy to avoid thoughts of that last summer. Of Peter.

  Rex nodded as if he understood all she didn’t say aloud. “You come visit me if you’d like some company, all right?”

  “Thanks, I will,” Meg said with a bright smile, though she knew she wouldn’t. She didn’t want company. Company might bring up Peter. Company might ask her why she’d run away from her childhood home and never returned. Company might make her admit how much she’d lost, including the happy-go-lucky girl she’d once been.

  Meg was too smart to allow that to happen.

  “Enjoy your walk, Rex,” she said, and then continued down the beach.

  The south end of Crescent Cove was bounded by a sea cliff that pushed into the Pacific. Though the top of it was wide and flat, there were steep trails snaking up its side that led to various outcroppings from which, she remembered, daredevils used to launch ocean jumps. Skye had posted warning signs against the practice, but from the look of those clearly defined routes, it remained an enticement. The last cottage in the cove snuggled next to the bluff, a two-story, brown-shingled building with blue-green trim and a large deck extending over the sand.

  A driftwood sign was tacked to the outer railing, words painted in the same color as the trim. Beach House No. 9.

  Meg mounted the steps that led from the sand to the surface of the deck. She dropped her bag on the umbrella-topped table and took in the rest of the patio accessories: single chaises, a double lounger, a stack of extra chairs and a barbecue.

  Everything looked in order. Though the current resident was gone for a few days, he’d return for the month of June. After that, No. 9 would have different occupants in July and August. Skye had said almost all the cottages were booked up for summer. That was good, because those months were when Crescent Cove paid its way. It would quiet in the fall and the rentals would be mostly vacant throughout the winter and spring.

  Meg frowned at the peeling rails. Her sister was right to be annoyed that the paint hadn’t stayed tight to the wood. Maintenance was accomplished in the off-season and a company had been out in February to refurbish, but their efforts hadn’t lasted.

  On the plus side, it gave Meg something to do, besides think of—

  No one. No one was on her mind.

  Yanking a hair tie from her front pocket, she gave another frown at the blistered railing as she bound her mass of caramel-colored hair. Then she consciously relaxed her facial muscles. “Watch it,” she murmured to herself. “You don’t want to groove permanently grumpy lines.”

  Then again, she was a twenty-nine-year-old accountant. Grumpy might already be permanent.

  Ignoring that unpleasant thought, Meg tackled the task she’d assigned herself, starting at one end of the railing. Paint chips flew until they covered her feet in their rubber thongs and were scattered over her hands and forearms. They drifted onto her jeans and T-shirt, too, almost obscuring the word blazoned across her chest: Meh.

  Which kind of summed up how Meg had been feeling about herself and her life.

  Meh. Meg. Just one letter off.

  Contemplating that made her thirsty again. She’d nearly drained the puny little bottle of water she’d brought. The May Gray was locked in battle with the sun, and though right now gray was winning, it had definitely warmed up. With the last drop in her still-parched throat, Meg decided to dig through her bag for the cove’s master keys, and dash inside No. 9 to refill her water at the kitchen sink.

  Since No. 9’s occupant, Griffin Lowell, had summered in this very bungalow as a kid and they’d been friends back in the day, she didn’t think he’d object. Although according to Skye, Griffin barely resembled the devil-may-care boy who had vacationed with his family at the cove. Now a journalist, he’d spent a year embedded with the troops in Afghanistan and had come back to the beach a loner who wanted nothing more than to be left to himself. Meg hoped he’d find what he was looking for here, though her own return to Crescent Cove had yet to bring her peace.

  The sliding door leading from the deck to the living room was heavy, so she left it open as she hustled inside, leaving her paint-chipped footwear behind. It only took a moment or two to replenish her bottle and twist on the cap. As she hurried back out, her bare soles slid on the hardwood floor. She felt herself going down and dropped the container to catch her balance on a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. Steady again, she saw the plastic cylinder of water rolling toward the sliding glass door. Rolling toward shoes.

  Shoes?

  As she looked up, the sun won the war, breaking from behind the clouds. The light dazzled, and made the figure in the doorway a dark silhouette. A male silhouette, with a big, shaggy-haired dog at his side.

  Meg’s heart shot high, fueled by pure exhilaration as she recognized the masculine outline. Her fingers tightened on the bookshelf. Peter. Peter!

  In one single moment she experienced all the blazing joy of that summer ten years before when she’d met a twenty-two-year old recent college graduate. She’d fallen for him, fallen so deep that there’d been barely a splash, and he’d been equally smitten. The feeling had held all the thrills and enchantment her mother had promised about that thing called love, as happy-ever-after-ish as Meg had fantasized since she was a little girl swooning over the Disney version of The Little Mermaid. Peter Fleming had been her prince.

  That summer, she’d thought she’d met her future, and they could have fed the entire world’s energy grid from the unending pool of their mutual bliss.

  And here he was! Again! Her heart raced, thrumming against her ribs. Peter…

  Did she say it out loud? Because the dark figure shook his head, then stepped into the room. The dog followed, his nails clicking smartly against the floor. “I’m Caleb,” the man said. “Caleb McCall.”

  She stared at him blankly, her racing heart braking to a screeching halt, her brief joy subsumed by the grief she’d experienced that summer, too. Her body began to tremble, an aftereffect of shock.

  As she watched, the man swooped down for the bottle, then paced toward her, holding it out. “It looks as if you could use this,” he said.

  She released the bookshelf to take it from him, her senses still working at recovery. Of course this man wasn’t Peter. Peter had been gone for ten years, drowned by a rogue wave, it was presumed, when he’d gone out kayaking one afternoon at the end of August.

  The stranger might look a little like Peter had he lived, though. Same golden tan, same sandy brown hair—though cut short when Peter’s had been long. The man—Caleb, he’d said—was gazing at her with narrowed brown eyes, concern written across his handsome features.

  Now that she was breathing again, she felt a little visceral tug in her mid-section. Handsome? He was more than that. The way he held himself radiated a confident sexiness, as if he understood his place in the world and liked it as well as he liked himself.

  “Are you going to be okay?” he asked. His voice was low, a deep sound that suited him.

  “Sure. You just…startled me. I—” Tensing, Meg broke off, suddenly aware she was alone, at the nearly deserted cove, with a man—albeit a good-looking one—whom she’d never before met. Her sister had admonished her to take precautions with her personal safety. The water bottle was a crappy weapon, but she did have her cell phone in her pocket.

  “Rex told me where I could find you,” Caleb said.

  The tension in her shoulders eased. “You know Rex?”

  The handsome stranger shook his head. “I just met him on the beach. But when I told him I wanted to check into the cottage I rented, he said you’d be here.”

  “Oh. Sure. Right.” Though Meg had thought no one was
expected today.

  The dog chose that moment to whine. Meg glanced down, noting Caleb soothing him with long, masculine fingers, but when her gaze shifted from the man’s hand to the canine’s bicolored eyes, her heart took another jolt.

  She knew those eyes.

  She knew this dog.

  Her fingers tightened on the water bottle, causing the plastic to make a snapping sound. “Who…who are you?”

  “I said. Caleb McCall.” His eyes were serious and trained on her face. “I’m Peter’s cousin. Do you remember me, Starr?”

  * * *

  Starr.

  The name pierced her chest, triggering a sharp ache in its empty cavern. Starr was listed on her birth certificate; Starr was what she’d been called from infancy until nineteen, but nobody had used it in years. She’d made sure of that.

  Once she could breathe past the pain, she hastened to correct the man still staring at her with a steadfast gaze. “Call me Meg,” she said. “I’m Meg now.”

  The second thing she did was drop to her knees to pet the dog. Her palms stroked over his rough-soft fur. “Bitzer.” She glanced up, Caleb’s quick nod confirming it was Peter’s dog. He’d been a one-year-old when his master had gone missing, and now had a muzzle that was nearly gray.

  She pressed her cheek against it. “Bitzer,” she repeated. It was Aussie slang for a mixed-breed dog—”bits of this and bits of that”—and since he looked to be some bit Australian shepherd, Peter had thought the name fit. The animal wiggled his hindquarters and seemed a pleased recipient of her affection, though she didn’t expect he actually remembered her.

  With a last fond pat, she stood. Clearing her throat, she glanced at Caleb again. “If you’ll follow me back to the property management office, I’ll check you in.”