Engaged in Trouble
Jenny B. Jones
Sweet Pea Productions
Contents
Free Book
Engaged in Trouble
Dedication
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
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Reader Letter
Acknowledgments
About the Author
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Engaged in Trouble
by
Jenny B. Jones
* * *
Copyright ©2017 Jenny B. Jones
Sweet Pea Productions
Cover design by Seedlings Design Studio
All rights reserved. Without limited the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
This story is for anyone who hears a voice whispering, “It’s time for something new.” For the person who thinks about taking a chance, pursuing something a little scary, a little different.
Do it.
Take the risk.
Chapter One
They say home is where the heart is.
I say home is where my cheating ex-fiancé is, so I really hadn’t ever planned on making a move anywhere near the same time zone as Evan Holbrook.
But then that certified letter came and changed everything.
Sugar Creek, Arkansas, hadn’t been home to me since I’d left town just two weeks shy of high school graduation on a plane to Los Angeles, fueled by the promises of a talent agent and my own youthful arrogance. That had been ten years and many failures ago. And at some point, the failure gets so big, you can’t fit it all in a suitcase and bring it home. So you stay away, promising to return when the favorable winds shift your direction once again.
Sure, I’d been back to Sugar Creek a few times. Like when I let my fiancé talk me into holding our wedding here for some small-town charm and good press.
How was I to know he intended to practically light that press on fire, using my good name as kindling?
My green eyes now lingered on every familiar sight as I drove through this town I’d avoided. The elementary school where I broke my arm in the third grade, attempting a master-level double Dutch move. The two-story Victorian home with a manicured exterior as uptight as the owner, Mrs. Mary Lee Smith, whose claims to fame included being a descendant of Robert E. Lee and surviving five years of me in her cotillion classes. (She told my momma a Lee never had it so bad.) The vacant field near the VFW where they held the summer fair, and where I stood on a flatbed trailer at the age of ten and sang Beyoncé songs to a corndog-eating crowd and knew I’d found my life’s work. Then the Sugar Creek Chapel, a beautiful glass structure that had landed in every bridal magazine as an ideal, quaint wedding location. It had certainly been ideal to me once upon a time.
But then Evan decided to throw some drama into our wedding, leaving me at the altar and bringing shame down on my head, heavy as that ugly veil his momma talked me into wearing. Half the town had been invited to those nuptials. Evan and I had pretty much been the Will and Kate of Sugar Creek. But my prince stopped our ceremony mid-vow, let go of my hand, told me it was over before God and gape-mouthed man, and walked away. The only wedding gift I kept was a chrome toaster—with aspirations of tossing it into Evan’s bathwater.
Fed up with the Southern-drawled whispers and speculative looks, I’d hightailed it back to my beloved LA.
Two years later I found myself back in Sugar Creek. Desperation was the only thing that could slip its hold around my neck like a lasso and drag me back. And desperate I was.
Snap out of it and focus on where you’re going, I told myself, shoving aside memories and broken dreams, bitter as unripe berries. I sounded like the therapist I could no longer afford.
My car, named Shirley, was an old Camry that was a daily insult to the Mercedes convertible I’d had to surrender. Shirley was loud and sassy and liked to shimmy at inappropriate moments, but I guess she got me where I wanted to go. Or in this case, where I didn’t want to go.
The old car shook with a rusty palsy while I did a loop around the square. The heart beating beneath my cotton T-shirt warned me that Sugar Creek was where people dropped by for a visit and never left, buying themselves the corner lot and the picket-fence dream they hadn’t even known they’d wanted. Like many downtowns across this fine country, Sugar Creek had recently begun the process of a restoration, rejuvenating the ghostlike, boarded-up ruins of the past into a bustling community that looked like something straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. The square and its surrounding streets were dotted with small shops, a few bed-and-breakfasts, a bank that still passed out lollipops to your kids.
“Come on, Shirley. You can do it. Just a few streets more.” Perhaps it was my weary imagination, but the car seemed to rally.
A familiar house came into view, a marshmallow-white Queen Anne with a wraparound porch, and a smile lifted my lips.
I might not want to live in Sugar Creek forever, and I might be resentful of why I was there, but nothing compared to finally returning to the sweet, gentle embrace of your beloved grandmother.
Wondering at the cars lining the street, I parked in the driveway of 105 Davis Street, hopped out of Shirley, and ran to the door. Oh, grandmothers. They bake cookies. They play pretend. They tell bedtime stories and sing lullabies and slip you a five-dollar bill when nobody is looking.
And then there’s my grandma.
“State your business,” came a voice from the shrubs. “Or I activate the home security yard gnomes. They’ll shoot pepper spray from their hats and Taser darts straight outta their knickers.”
“Stand down, Agent Hot Stuff.” I grinned. “It’s your beloved granddaughter. I’ve returned to kiss your wrinkled brow and make your life complete in your golden ye
ars before we ship you off to Shady Acres.”
Sylvie Sutton, the woman who refused to let me call her grandma to her face, stepped from the shadows. “I’ve paid good money to make sure there are no wrinkles in this brow.” She held out her toned arms. “Come here and give us a kiss, Paisley.”
I ran into her embrace like our own reenactment of The Notebook: Grandparents’ Edition. “I’ve missed you,” I said.
“You, too, shug.” Sylvie stepped back and took a measured study. “Are you eating? Sleeping? You look a little peaked.”
“I look a little broke.” And brokenhearted.
“You’ve come to the right place.” Sylvie slipped her arm around my waist and drew me onto the porch. “Come on inside. You’re just in time for book club.”
Oh, no. The last thing I wanted was to see people and have to make small talk. “I’ve driven a really long way. I just wanted to see you, then grab the keys to the rent house and crash.”
“Uh-huh.” Sylvie held open the screen door. “About that rental . . .”
“Look who’s finally here!” My cousin Emma appeared in the foyer, her eyes bright, her hair perfect, and her hands making little claps of delight. She tackled me in an impressive bear hug. “Run,” she whispered in her ear. “Run while you can. Aunt Maxine’s visiting.”
“I heard that.” Sylvie escorted us past the formal living room and into what she liked to call her parlor. And if parlor meant a place where coasters weren’t required and folks gathered around the giant-screen TV, then parlor it was. “Nobody’s leaving. Paisley just got here.”
“Hello, sweet pea.” My grandmother’s sister, Maxine Simmons, scooped me into a hug, her hands patting all over me as if she were airport security. “Tanned and trim. Could you be any more of a Hollywood cliché?” My crazy great-aunt clucked her tongue. “Someone get this girl a burger. She’s OD’d on salads and tofu.”
“Quit hogging her, Maxine.” Frannie Nelson stood, her lips pulled into a smile that could power the streetlights. “Girl, you bring some of those hugs to me.”
“Hi, Aunt Frannie.”
“You been gone too long.” Frannie could speak five languages, but Southern was her dialect of choice. “It’s about time you got right with Jesus and came on home.”
Frannie and I didn’t share DNA, a last name, or even the same skin color. But she was as family as any blood relative of Sylvie’s. The two shared a unique bond, one that could be trying in the worst of times, entertaining in the best. The two had recently retired from the CIA, having devoted their entire adult lives to intrigue and espionage. To say retirement was going well was like saying World War II was a little historical hiccup. Both women had been mysteriously recruited into the bureau at the age of seventeen under a top-secret program when women were more likely to take care of a home than take a bullet for their country. Sylvie had married her high school sweetheart two weeks before graduation, given him five children by the age of twenty-five, then left most of the child-rearing to her husband. She knew more about bomb detonations than diapers and more about Middle Eastern spies than spaghetti dinners.
And, as Emma had warned me, Sylvie was spending her newfound free time on helping her grandchildren down the aisle. So far Emma had taken the bait, as she was now engaged to the handsome Sugar Creek mayor. But Sylvie would not get me. No, sirree. You could bet your nukes on that one.
“Welcome to Sexy Book Club,” Emma said. “Frannie and Sylvie already have a husband picked out for you.”
“I told Paisley all about him,” Sylvie said. “Have you given my plan any more thought?”
“No,” I said. “I’m still not up for an arranged marriage to an Israeli diplomat.”
Sylvie shared a look with Frannie and Maxine. “Some people just have no sense of romance and peacekeeping.”
The room held a handful of other women of various ages, each clutching tablets or paperbacks in their laps, and all greeting me with familiar warmth or unbridled curiosity.
“You look like you could use some punch and cookies.” Sylvie handed me a plate as I settled onto the couch.
“Thank you.” I blew my limp red hair out of my face. My long locks had started out beautifully straight this morning and were now a hot, humid disaster of curls and frizz. “I really can’t stay, though.”
“What’s brought you back home, toots?” Aunt Maxine asked.
“I’m just here for a little while,” I said. “Home is in Los Angeles.”
“She’s inherited her great-aunt’s wedding planning business,” Sylvie said.
My weird great-aunt Zelda, who’d had no children, had left me and my two siblings all she had. My brother had received money. My younger sister a bunch of stock held in a trust. Me? The woman had strongly disliked me and willed me her dying business. Such was my luck.
I caught my grandmother’s eye. “I’m dead on my feet. Can I just get the keys for the rental and—”
“Let’s talk about Cordero.” Sylvie held up her iPad like a chalice, her voice booming in the room. “Did everyone read the whole book this time?”
Every head nodded.
“You might as well settle in,” Emma said from her spot beside me. “Sylvie won’t let anything get in the way of book club night. Not even her exhausted granddaughter. I speak from experience.”
“What book are you discussing?” I asked.
Sylvie smiled. “The Cowboy Lassos a Peasant.”
I blinked.
“This is Sexy Book Club,” Sylvie said. “When we retired last year, Frannie and I decided we’d try out some hobbies. So far this is the only one that’s stuck.”
“We started with some classics,” Frannie said. “But we got bored.”
Sylvie nodded. “Lots of big words.”
“So we started reading some of those hot romance novels.” Frannie lifted her dark brows high. “Woooo-weee.”
“Romance novels?” I frowned.
“Or as we like to call them”—Sylvie patted her iPad—“the unsung classics.”
“Twenty-first century literature at its finest,” said Aunt Maxine.
I melted into the couch cushions and stuck a cookie in my mouth.
“Now, let’s begin.” Sylvie swiped at her tablet. “Does anyone have anything to say about the theme?”
Blank stares from every lady in the room.
“Any poignant symbolism?”
Total silence.
“Okay,” Sylvie said. “Any comments about our hero, Cordero?”
All hands shot toward the ceiling.
“Ooh, me!”
“I want to go first!”
“He was dreamy!”
“I’d like to visit his prairie!”
“He can rope my doggies anytime!”
As the chatter swelled about this fictional paragon of sexy, I leaned toward my grandma. “I’ve been driving for two days, and as much as I’d love to stay and hear more about the main character’s pecs and kissing techniques, I’m about to fall over from exhaustion. Could I please have the keys to the rent house?”
Sylvie poked an entire cookie in her mouth, eyes wide.
“What are you not telling me?” I asked.
My grandmother chewed thoughtfully, shouted out an amen to something dirty Frannie said, then finally looked at me, her face a little too innocent. “Nothing. Nothing at all. I was just hoping you’d stay a night or two with me. But I know you’re tired. You’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
That was an understatement. Tomorrow would change my life. Turn everything around.
“The garage code is the chest and waist measurements of Vladimir Putin’s body double.”
My head hurt. “Can I just get a key instead?”
“So change in plans. You’ll be staying at the house on Bowen Street. It’s a bit smaller and has some issues. When Emma gets married and moves out, you can have her rental. It’s a bit more deluxe.”
Emma chimed in. “We could bunk up. You can help me with wedding preparat
ions.”
I’d rather have a unity candle shoved up my nose. “That’s sweet, but I don’t mind being cramped.”
“The wedding’s not for another six weeks,” Sylvie said. “I told Emma to shack up with her sweetie and swing from the chandelier of sin, but they’re not having it.”
“How much is rent?” I lifted my cup to her lips.
“Minimal.”
“Okay.” I stood and stretched my aching back. “I’m waiting for the catch. There’s always a catch with you, Sylvie.”
“Uh-huh,” Frannie said. “That’s exactly what I told her when we got captured in Cairo in ‘82.”
Sylvie ignored this. “No catch. Goodnight, shug.” She kissed my cheek, then her lips curved into a curious smile. “Get some rest. You, my dear, are going to need it.”
Chapter Two
I pulled up to a darkened house and briefly rested my head on the steering wheel in the quiet of the night.
Two months.
I had to stay in this town two months.
There had to be a way around that. To get what I wanted and return to LA before my beloved city had forgotten me. But the terms of the will, something I’d read at least twenty times, stated that I had to keep my great-aunt’s business afloat for eight weeks, then I was welcome to sell. The business itself wouldn’t be worth a dime, but the old building in the growing downtown area would bring in some much-needed cash.
Yanking a suitcase from the backseat, I slammed the car door shut and heaved the best of my belongings toward a gray two-story with black shutters and enough Victorian personality to charm but not intimidate. Sylvie owned a handful of rent houses in Sugar Creek, and this one boasted two side-by-side front doors. I tried the key she’d finally given me in both doors, but to no avail. Seriously? I just wanted a bed, to slip beneath cool sheets and let my worry-ridden head fall into a fluffy pillow.
Engaged in Trouble (Enchanted Events Book 1) Page 1
