by Lia Riley
“I understand,” Jan said, struggling to remain polite. Hearing the same excuse three times didn’t make it easier to swallow. “How about a sister hotel?”
“We’re independently owned. Paradise Inn is the oldest hotel on the island—”
Jan held up a hand. She knew the spiel. The large, rambling guesthouse was unique, and very Old Key West. Which was exactly why she’d booked it.
“Can you at least help me find a room somewhere else?”
“It’s spring break. I’ll make some calls, but . . .” A discouraging shrug and a gesture toward the coffeepot.
The girl didn’t seem very concerned, but Jan smiled at her anyway. “Thanks, I appreciate you trying.”
Parking her suitcase beside the coffee table, she surveyed the lobby wistfully. The windows and doors stood open, the wicker furniture and abundant potted plants blurring the line between indoors and out. The warm, humid breeze drifted through the airy space. Her parched Boston skin soaked it up like a sponge.
To a woman who’d never left New England before, it spelled tropical vacation. And it was slipping through her fingers like sand.
Growing ever gloomier, she wandered out through a side door and into a lush tropical garden—palm trees, hibiscus, a babbling waterfall.
Paradise.
And at its heart, a glittering pool, where six gorgeous feet of lean muscle and tanned skin drifted lazily on a float.
Ignoring everything else, Jan studied the man. Thick black hair, chiseled jaw, half smile curving full lips. And arms, perfect arms, draped over the sides, fingers trailing in the water.
He seemed utterly relaxed, the image of sensual decadence. Put him in an ad for Paradise Inn, and women would flock. Gay men would swarm.
As if sensing her attention, the hunk lifted his head and broke into a smile. “Hey Jan, getcha ass in the water!”
Mick McKenna. Her best and oldest friend.
He rolled off the float and jacked himself out of the pool. Water streamed from gray board shorts as he crossed the flagstones.
Stopping in front of her, he shook his hair like a Labrador.
“Geez! Don’t you ever get tired of that?” She brushed droplets off her white cotton blouse.
He laughed his big, happy laugh. “Never have, never will. Get your suit on. The water’s a perfect eighty-six degrees.”
“I can’t. They don’t have a room for me.”
The grin fell off his face. “What the hell?”
“Water damage.” She shrugged like it wasn’t tragic. Like she hadn’t been anticipating this weekend for months.
“They must have another room.” Mick started to go around her, no doubt to raise hell at the desk, McKenna-style.
She stopped him with a hand on his arm. “I tried everything. They’re digging up a room for me somewhere else on the island.”
He tunneled long fingers through his hair. “Take my room,” he said.
An Excerpt from
WHEN LOVE HAPPENS
Ribbon Ridge Book Three
by Darcy Burke
In the third Ribbon Ridge novel from USA Today bestseller Darcy Burke, Tori Archer is about to discover that even the best kept secrets don’t stay buried for long . . .
Tori Archer sipped her Nocktoberfest, Dad’s signature beer for the annual Ribbon Ridge Oktoberfest, which was currently in full swing. She clung to the corner of the huge tent, defensively watching for her “date” or one of her annoying siblings that had forced her to go on this “date.”
It wasn’t really a date. He was a professional colleague, and the Archers had invited him to their signature event. For nine years, the family had sponsored the town’s Oktoberfest. It featured Archer beer and this year, for the first time, a German feast overseen by her brother Kyle, who was an even more amazing chef than they’d all realized. Today was day three of the festival and she still wasn’t tired of the fondue. But really, could one ever tire of cheese?
“Boo!”
Tori jumped, splashing a few drops of beer from her plastic mug onto her fingers. She turned her head and glared at Kyle. “Did you sneak through the flap in the corner behind me?”
“Guilty.” He wore an apron tied around his waist and a custom Archer shirt, which read CHEF below the bow and arrow A-shaped logo. “How else was I supposed to talk to you? You’ve been avoiding everyone for the past hour and a half. Where’s Cade?” He scanned the crowd looking for her not-date, the engineer they’d hired to work on The Alex, the hotel and restaurant venue they’d been renovating since last spring. With a special events space already completed, they’d turned their focus to the restaurant and would tackle the hotel next.
Tori took a drink of the dark amber Nocktoberfest and relished the hoppy flavor. “Don’t know.”
Kyle gave her a sidelong glance. “Didn’t you come together?”
“No. Though it wasn’t for your lack of trying. I met him here. We chatted. He saw someone he knew. I excused myself to get a beer.” An hour ago.
Kyle turned toward her and frowned. “I don’t get it. Lurking in corners isn’t your style. You’re typically the life of the party. You work a room better than anyone I know, except maybe Liam.”
Tori narrowed her eyes. “I’m better at it than he is.” Their brother Liam, a successful real estate magnate in Denver, possessed many of the same qualities she did: ambition, drive, and an absolute hatred of failure. Then again, who wanted to fail? But it was more than that for them. Failure was never an option.
Which didn’t mean that it didn’t occasionally come up and take a piece out of you when you were already down for the count.
Kyle snorted. “Yeah, whatever. You two can duke it out at Christmas or whenever Liam decides to deign us with his presence.”
Tori touched his arm. “Hey, don’t take his absence personally. He keeps his visits pretty few and far between, even before you moved back home. Which is more than I can say for you when you were in Florida.”
Kyle’s eyes clouded briefly with regret and he looked away. “Yeah, I know. And hopefully someday you’ll stop giving me shit about it.”
She laughed. “Too soon? I’m not mad at you for leaving anymore. I get why you had to go, but I’m your sister. I will always flip you shit about stuff like that. It’s my job.”
He returned his attention to her, his blue-green eyes—nearly identical to her own—narrowing. “Then it’s my duty to harass you about Cade. He’s totally into you. Why are you dogging him?”
It seemed that since Kyle and their sister Sara had both found their soul mates this year, they expected everyone else to do the same. Granted, their adopted brother Derek had also found his true love, and they’d gotten married in August. What none of them knew, however, was that Tori was already spoken for—at least on paper.
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from Right Wrong Guy copyright © 2015 by Lia Riley.
Excerpt from Heart’s Desire copyright © 2015 by Tina Klinesmith.
Excerpt from Desire Me Now copyright © 2015 by Tiffany Clare.
Excerpt from The Wedding Gift copyright © 2015 by Lisa Connelly.
Excerpt from When Love Happens copyright © 2015 by Darcy Burke.
LAST FIRST KISS. Copyright © 2015 by Lia Riley. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information sto
rage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition JUNE 2015 ISBN: 9780062403773
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062403766
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