The Supermodel's Best Friend
Page 30
The next book in this series is DIVING IN, available now. Although the primary romance is between two entirely new characters, Miles and Lucy make cameos as they enjoy their engagement and wedding. And Betty appears throughout.
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Also by Gretchen Galway
Next in this series:
DIVING IN
Oakland Hills series (in order):
LOVE HANDLES (Oakland Hills #1)
THIS TIME NEXT DOOR (Oakland Hills #2)
NOT QUITE PERFECT (Oakland Hills #3)
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For the most current list of available titles, please visit www.gretchengalway.com.
Preview of DIVING IN
by Gretchen Galway
For schoolteacher Nicki Fitch, a summer in Hawaii is the perfect opportunity to overcome a lifetime of phobias and heartbreak. But when she gets to Maui, she discovers the guy who broke her heart in college is living in her paradise. How can she tackle her fears when the biggest one of all is walking around shirtless—and refuses to leave her alone?
About to turn thirty, Ansel has never wasted his life of privilege—if only his father saw it that way. When Dad cuts him off financially, Ansel moves into his family’s vacation home to make his own fortune in real estate. The last thing he needs is his sister’s leggy, beautiful friend distracting him. Unfortunately, he’s had little practice resisting temptation.
As the days and nights unfold along the luxurious Maui shores, Nicki and Ansel find themselves sharing more and more… and more. But will either one of them have the courage to bring what they find together home with them when the summer’s over?
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Diving In
by Gretchen Galway
EXCERPT of Chapter 1
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AS SHE WATCHED THE LOVE of her life stick his tongue into another woman’s mouth, Nicki Fitch realized she’d made a terrible mistake.
She’d walked into her friend’s kitchen for coffee, not sexual humiliation.
“Oh, Lucy,” Miles moaned. Eyes closed, he leaned against the kitchen table, lifting a petite redhead off the floor to insert his tongue deeper into her mouth. The woman, engrossed with the oral probe, didn’t see Nicki either. “Lucy, Lucy, Lucy.”
This isn’t happening. Her chest tightening, Nicki stared at Miles’s handsome head under the ten delicate, womanly fingers clutching it.
Why was he in Betty’s apartment? They shouldn’t even know each other. And why was he kissing somebody? He’d just been through a serious breakup. Nicki had been working up the courage to—
“Oh, Miles,” the redhead gasped. The vintage table banged against the wall. The pair kissed for so long Nicki wondered if the woman had SCUBA tanks hidden under all that hair.
How could he? He should still be depressed from his last girlfriend throwing soda cans at his head when he asked her to marry him. She, Nicki—his friend—had comforted him. They’d talked late into the night over Panang beef. Joked about being hopeless with the opposite sex. Reaffirmed the importance of real, lasting friendship based on mutual respect, common interests, and laughing at the same jokes. Usually she had to rely on her seventh graders to appreciate—however reluctantly—her compulsive joke-telling, but Miles always appreciated her bad jokes, the badder the better.
“Oh, Lucy,” Miles repeated. Each of his massive hands spanned a well-rounded butt cheek to lift her higher.
I think I have the wrong idea of what badder and better is. Nicki sagged against the kitchen doorway.
When was the last time a guy kissed her like that? She was thirty, so—she counted back through the years—one, two, three…
Never. Yeah, never was about right.
“Oh my God, not again,” Betty said behind her. “If I want to see heterosexual courtship, I’ll watch a nature show on TV.”
Miles didn’t move, but the redhead broke the suction. “Sorry, Betty.” She patted him on the shoulder to release her, and when that had no effect, she pinched his nipple through his UC Berkeley T-shirt.
With a yelp, he loosened his grip and turned to the door. “Hey there, Betty.” Then he saw Nicki, and his smile fell.
This is it. A skateboarding thirteen-year-old did a back flip in her abdominal cavity. This is the moment he realizes he loves me, hopes I love him, that we’ve just needed to be mature enough to admit we’re both ready to get serious, settle down, give up on shallow, frivolous sexual relationships, and devote our lives to the deeper bond between us.
His face broke into a grin. “Hey, Nicki! What are you doing here?”
She couldn’t believe it. No sign of discomfort, guilt, or regret. Not even a tiny bit.
Still smiling, he moved away from the table, rising to his full six and a half feet. The woman in his arms plopped to the floor next to him, the top of her blazing copper head reaching only as high as his pinched nipple. Long strands of her red hair, still attached to Miles’s stubbly jaw, stretched between them like telephone wires spanning a mountainous countryside.
Since when did he like petite women? His previous girlfriend had been tall. Nicki had hoped that since she, too, was tall—and on the broad side—maybe… someday…
“I’m here to see Betty,” Nicki said, her tongue dry and clumsy. “She’s a friend of mine.”
“You guys know each other?” Betty asked, one black eyebrow arching into her green bangs.
Nicki taught history at a local junior high. “School connection,” she said, swallowing. “He runs the youth center. Some of my students go th—”
Miles put his index finger over her lips and turned back to the redhead.
“I’ve been meaning to introduce you.” He took Lucy’s hand and pulled her over, looking as excited as a talk show host reuniting two loving sisters tragically separated by decades of war. “Luce, this is a teacher friend of mine, Nicki Fitch. Nicki, this is my fiancée—I know, I know, don’t laugh, it’s true—Lucy Hathcoat.”
Nicki’s lungs deflated. Fiancée?
The redhead leaned in to offer her hand to Nicki, but her pretty green eyes were sharp, observant. “Nice to meet you. What do you teach?”
It took Nicki a second to look her over. Her black T-shirt hugged her small curves and her skinny black jeans were skin-tight. She had a vision of that old Grease movie where the goody-goody fifties girl shows up in skin-tight black leather.
If I dressed like that, would things be different? All those dinners, drinks, movies—and my plans for us in the future—but I never made a move.
Playing it safe.
Always so damn safe.
Find out how Nicki overcomes her fears in the best kind of way. DIVING IN is available now.
About the Author
GRETCHEN GALWAY is a USA Today bestselling author who writes romantic comedies because love is too painful to survive without laughing. Raised in the American Midwest, she now lives in California with her husband and two kids.
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