Keep reading for an excerpt from SECOND CHANCE GIRL, the next great read in the HAPPILY INC series by #1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Mallery!
Look for the next book in #1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Mallery’s newest series Happily Inc.
SECOND CHANCE GIRL
A touching modern fairy tale that won’t let go of your heart, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Fool’s Gold romances!
Mathias Mitchell’s easy smile hides a world of hurt. After the worst kind of family betrayal, he moves to Happily Inc, California—the wedding destination town supplies a steady stream of bridesmaids, perfect for his “no promises, no pain” lifestyle. Yet he can’t stop watching for his beautiful, elusive neighbor on the animal preserve behind their homes.
Gamekeeper Carol Lund knows she’s not special enough to attract an alpha male like Mathias, so his offer to help her adopt a herd for her lonely giraffe is surprising—and his determined seduction, even more so. But just as she finally welcomes him into her bed, his careless actions crush her heart. Will she give him a second chance to prove she’ll always come first in his heart?
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“Susan Mallery is one of my favorites.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber
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#1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Mallery delivers a captivating new novel about the problem with secrets, the power of love and the unbreakable bond between sisters. Watch for
Secrets of the Tulip Sisters
Available now!
One of today’s most beloved authors, Susan Mallery mixes her signature cocktail of love, laughter and family drama in this must-read novel of the year. For anyone who has survived the wedding of a sister, mother, friend or daughter, don’t miss
Daughters of the Bride
Get your copy today!
“Heartfelt, funny, and utterly charming all the way through!”
—Susan Elizabeth Phillips on Daughters of the Bride
Experience the best in contemporary romance with the charming Fool’s Gold series by Susan Mallery. Be sure to get all of the titles in this captivating series full of hope, laughter and love to last a lifetime.
A Kiss in the Snow (novella)
Best of My Love
Marry Me at Christmas
Thrill Me
Kiss Me
Hold Me
Yours for Christmas (novella)
Until We Touch
Before We Kiss
When We Met
Christmas on 4th Street
Three Little Words
Two of a Kind
Just One Kiss
Halfway There (novella)
A Fool’s Gold Christmas
All Summer Long
Summer Nights
Summer Days
Almost Summer (novella)
A Christmas Bride
Only Us: A Fool’s Gold Holiday (novella)
Only His
Only Yours
Only Mine
Sister of the Bride (novella)
Finding Perfect
Almost Perfect
Chasing Perfect
Love. Laughter. Happily-Ever-After.
Complete your collection!
For more enchanting romance, revisit the delightful little town of Los Lobos, California, with
Someone Like You
Falling For Gracie
Pick up your copies now!
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Second Chance Girl
by Susan Mallery
CHAPTER ONE
GETTING KICKED IN the stomach by a gazelle was never pleasant, but at one thirty in the morning, it was especially hard to take. Carol Lund glared at Bronwen and the gazelle glared right back.
“You don’t get to have attitude, young lady,” Carol told her. “I’m not the one who insisted on going out by the rocks. I’m not the one who got scraped up, yet here I am, in the middle of the night, checking on your leg to make sure you don’t have an infection.”
Bronwen was notably unimpressed by Carol’s presence and dedication. She stomped her front hooves and turned away.
“You say that now,” Carol grumbled. “But just wait until feeding time. Suddenly I’m your best friend. You’re incredibly fickle.”
Carol packed up her supplies. Bronwen’s leg seemed to be healing nicely. With luck she wouldn’t require a second night’s visit tomorrow and Carol could catch up on the sleep she was missing.
She left the gazelle barn and started for her Jeep. The night was clear and cool and there were a million stars in the sky. While Carol would have preferred that Bronwen hadn’t been injured and that they’d both been able to sleep through the night, she had to admit that staring at the perfect sky was a very cool compensation. If she didn’t look at the horizon, or try to pick out individual constellations, she could be anywhere in the world—literally. Because the night sky was a constant.
Oh, sure, there were differences between the hemispheres and at certain times of the year, but still...stars!
She climbed in her Jeep and drove toward her small bungalow, then pulled onto the shoulder before she got there and cut the engine and lights. She got out of the Jeep, sank down onto the ground and gave herself over to the nighttime view.
It was October in the desert, which meant warm days and pleasant nights. Rain was an unlikely possibility—that was more a spring-summer thing. The closest town was Happily Inc and it wasn’t all that huge, so it wasn’t hard to get away from the streetlights and into true darkness. Here, on the road, she was flanked by the mountains and the golf course, with the rolling hills of the Happily Inc Animal Preserve just behind her. And the stars.
She draped her jacket on the ground so she could lie down and get the best view of the wonder overhead. She had no idea how long she’d been lying there when a pair of headlights cut through the darkness and briefly illuminated her.
Carol sat up as a swoopy midnight blue Mercedes sedan pulled in behind her Jeep.
Of all the gin joints in all the world, she thought. She watched a tall, dark-haired man step out of his car and walk toward her. It had to be after two in the morning, yet Mathias Mitchell looked more alert than sleepy. No doubt the lingering effects of the hunt, takedown and getting laid.
He stopped a few feet from her. It was too dark for her to read his expression, but if she had to guess, she would say he was amused. Mathias seemed to find the world a delightful place. She supposed given who he was, with his combination of good looks, easy charm and career success, there was no reason he sh
ould think otherwise. To mix metaphors and clichés, the world was his oyster and Mathias dined well.
She, on the other hand, was simply a woman with looks and a personality as ordinary as her name.
“Lose a contact lens?” he asked drily.
“Bronwen hurt herself, so I had to go check on her. On my way back, I stopped to look at the stars.”
He sank down next to her and raised his gaze to the sky. “Why not wait until you got home?”
“This is the best view in the area.”
“Because you’ve tried them all?” He sighed. “You’re an odd woman, Carol Lund. Who’s Bronwen? One of the zebras?”
“Gazelle.”
“Fancy name for a cow.”
Carol felt her lips twitch and was grateful he couldn’t see her trying not to smile. The conversation was familiar. Unlike most of the citizens of Happily Inc, Mathias had no romantic notions about the animals grazing just outside of town. “Gazelles aren’t cows.”
“They’re close. Oh, I’ll give you that they’re more elegant, probably faster, too, but still, under their pretty outsides, they’re cows. Just like your precious Millie.”
Carol glared at him. “Don’t you say that. Millie’s wonderful.”
“I’m not saying anything about her character, just pointing out that despite her being adorable and very tall, she is, in fact, a ruminant.” He leaned close enough for her to smell the perfume clinging to his body. “Which makes her just like a cow,” he added in a stage whisper.
She waved her hand in front of her face. “There’s a smell.”
Mathias nodded. “Yeah, she did get a little heavy with the scent.”
“Did the big boobs compensate?”
“I’m not actually a breast man. My requirements are more about general appeal.”
“If she’s slutty, you’re in?” She cleared her throat. “So to speak?”
“You wound me. There’s a process.”
“Not a very good one. You really need to shower before you go to bed tonight or your sheets are going to reek.”
“Excellent advice. Thank you.”
“My neighbor, the man whore.”
She made the statement without a whole lot of energy—mostly because there was no point. Almost nothing ruffled him. Despite what he did for a living, he was the opposite of a brooding artist. Except for his questionable taste in sexual partners, there was little not to like about Mathias and she had to admit that in her heart of hearts, she was a fan.
“Have you considered that nearly all the derogatory terms about a person being promiscuous are directed at women?” He glanced at her. “Slut, whore. We have to modify them to make them apply to a man.”
“What about a player or a sugar daddy?”
“No guy minds being called a player and I’m not sure any human has used the term ‘sugar daddy’ since 1979.”
She chuckled. “That’s not true. People say it all the time.”
He looked at her, but didn’t speak.
“Okay, maybe not all the time, but lots.”
“Carol, Carol, Carol, you are such an innocent.”
“That must be refreshing after a night with one of your women.”
“It is, although I have to say, I don’t understand your dislike of bridesmaids.”
“I don’t dislike them. I simply don’t understand what you see in them. Or what they see in you.”
The last was a lie. Mathias was funny enough to be charming and sexy enough to be irresistible. She would admit that even she had had the odd fantasy or two about him. Not that she would ever bother to act—she knew her place in the world. She was the plain peahen, while Mathias was the classic peacock. There was no reason for him to notice her and even if he somehow did, he only did one-night stands and that had never been her thing. She was much more a fall in love first kind of girl.
“What I see in them is that they’ll be gone in the morning,” he said as he stood. “As for what they see in me, isn’t that obvious?”
He held out his hand. She reached for it and he pulled her to her feet. As soon as she found her balance, he released her, then reached down and grabbed her jacket. He put it around her shoulders.
“Come on, my little animal warden friend. We need to get you into bed. Morning comes early and cows expect to be fed.”
“I should slug you really hard in the stomach,” she grumbled as they walked to her Jeep.
“Such violence. You’re not embracing the cow mantra of being one with nature.”
“If you say cow one more time, I swear I’m going to—”
He held open the driver’s door and she slid onto the seat. They were nearly at eye level.
“You’re going to what?” he asked.
The dome light illuminated his features. His eyes were dark and his smile nearly blinded her with its brightness. He had broad shoulders and the honed body of a man who used muscles every day in his work.
As happened every now and then around him, she remembered that she was a healthy woman in her twenties who hadn’t been with someone in way too long. Mathias had to know what he was doing—he certainly had enough practice.
Not that he would be interested in her. Not only didn’t she fit his “You must be leaving town” criteria, she wasn’t, you know, special. Or at least not special enough to tempt the likes of him.
“I’m going to start training the zebras to poop in your yard. Have you smelled zebra poo? It’s going to make that perfume seem like nothing.”
He flashed her a smile. “Time to say good-night, Carol.”
“Good night, Carol.”
He closed the door and walked to his sedan. She started down the road, the Mercedes following closely. A couple of miles later, she pulled into her driveway. Mathias flashed his lights, then kept going. For a second, his car disappeared as he rounded a small hill, then she saw him as he came out the other side. The lights turned as he drove onto his property, flashed twice again before disappearing into his garage.
She continued to stand in the darkness until more lights appeared, this time in his massive house on the edge of the animal preserve. There was humor in the fact that her twelve-hundred-square-foot bungalow could fit comfortably in his five-car garage with room to spare, yet he was her closest neighbor. There she was—living on the edge of the world of the “haves” and more than happy to stay on her side.
Carol unlocked her front door and went inside. She toed off her boots, then went directly to her bedroom and barely pulled off her jeans before sinking onto the mattress and sighing.
Morning would come way too early, thanks to Bronwen. Unlike some people who lived in big mansions with views, she had to get up with the sun. Her herd didn’t like to wait for breakfast.
Carol quickly fell asleep only to find herself tangled in a strange dream of flying cows and Mathias begging her to kiss him. She woke to the insistent sound of her alarm and the knowledge that of the two scenarios, flying cows were by far the more likely to happen.
* * *
MATHIAS WALKED BAREFOOT across his patio. It was still early and a light mist clung to the ground—no doubt the result of early-morning watering, but he preferred a more romantic explanation. It was the artist in him.
He took his favorite chair, set his coffee and sketch pad on the table beside him, then prepared to wait.
He wasn’t sure how long ago the ritual had started. Shortly after Millie had arrived, maybe. He didn’t know why she got to him more than the others. She was just a giraffe. Shouldn’t he find beauty in the swift-footed gazelles or majesty in the water buffalo?
While he’d been aware of the animals when he’d purchased the house, he hadn’t really noticed them for the first few months. He supposed they’d crept into his consciousness after he’d met Car
ol.
Most towns hid their dumps behind gates or far away from any suburban sprawl. Happily Inc had planned differently, putting it just southwest of the population center, carefully downwind.
In addition to running a recycling and reclamation program that was one of the best in the nation, the two men who owned and ran the dump had also purchased hundreds of acres around the landfill. Grasses and trees had been brought in. Once they’d taken root, the animals had appeared. The gazelles had been first, then the zebras. There were a few wading birds, the water buffalo and lastly, Millie.
Mathias knew the basics—the two men who had created a unique African savanna on the edge of the California desert were Carol’s father and uncle. When she’d completed her degree, she’d come to work at the preserve. A year ago, the old man in charge of the animals had retired, leaving Carol to take over. A few months after that, Millie had arrived.
Mathias didn’t know why the giraffe and the woman were so closely linked in his mind, but they were. Now, as he watched the morning fog slowly dissipate, he saw Millie stroll into view.
She was a reticulated or Somali giraffe, nearly fifteen feet tall, with traditional markings. Her face was almost heart shaped, with widely spaced eyes and an inquisitive gaze.
Mathias sipped his coffee before reaching for his sketch pad. He already had hundreds of drawings of Millie and Carol, but he hadn’t yet found the one. He would know it when he saw it, so every morning he waited.
Carol appeared when they cleared the trees. She barely came to partway up Millie’s shoulder. In the morning light, her short red hair seemed almost blond. She was strong and wholly herself—a contrast to his usual type of woman, so he shouldn’t have found her appealing...only he did. There was something about her lack of artifice, something about the way she was so comfortable in her own skin that made him pay attention.
Carol and the giraffe strolled together like this most mornings, after the other animals had been fed. At first he’d thought this was Carol’s way of making Millie more comfortable with her surroundings. But the walks had continued long after Millie had settled in to her new home. When the small donation jars had started popping up all over town, he’d realized Carol was attempting to fulfill Millie’s need for companionship.
You Say It First--A Small-Town Wedding Romance Page 28
