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A FAIRY TALE BRIDE
Chapel of Love #0.5
Hope Ramsay
Released June 7th, 2016
Forever Yours
A CHAPEL OF LOVE SHORT STORY
After a very public career disaster,
journalist Jeff Talbert-Lyndon wants to escape from the world. Picturesque
Shenadoah Falls, Virginia, seems like the perfect place to relax and regroup
before heading back to real life. But when he discovers the charming bookstore
Secondhand Prose - and its lovely, slightly overwhelmed owner- he finds a
part-time job and a very tempting reason to stay...
Melissa
Portman is fighting a losing battle when it comes to saving her grandmother's
store - and selling the historic building may be her only option. Yet when a
handsome stranger wanders in one day, she wonders if her very own fairytale is
just beginning...
Excerpt
Melissa Portman almost laughed in
the man’s face. He was most definitely not the teenager Grammy had
been searching for when she’d put the “Help Wanted” sign in the
window three months ago.
He was a grown man, probably her age
or a little older, in his late twenties or early thirties. He wore
clothes that branded him as someone who came from way, way out of
town: a brown tweed jacket with elbow patches, a striped button-down
shirt, and a pair of skinny jeans that showed off his muscular
thighs. All in all, he gave the impression of a hot college
professor.
He also had dark, soulful brown
eyes, too-long black hair that curled over his forehead like a
sensitive poet’s, and a well-groomed scruff of beard that Melissa
found way too attractive for her own good. To top it all off, he
held Hugo in his arms like a man who knew something about cats. In
fact, just watching his long fingers stroke the cat was vaguely
erotic.
No question about it. He was
delicious eye-candy. And she wasn’t stupid enough to believe that
he needed a job. The guy was flirting.
Wow, that hadn’t happened in,
like, forever.
She arched her eyebrow the way
Grammy used to when faced with the utterly absurd and said, “You
want to work here? Really?” She invested her voice with just the
right tone of skepticism.
His mouth quirked and exposed
adorable laugh lines that peeked through his GQ-style stubble.
“Really,” he said. “I appreciate literature.”
His voice was low, deep, and had
just the right hint of tease in it — like he might be calling her
out for the book she’d hidden beneath the counter. Had he seen the
title? She hoped not.
“Seriously,” he said, “I’m
interested in the job.”
“It’s minimum wage,” she said.
“How much is that? I’m new
around here.”
No kidding. “$7.25 an hour.”
She managed to say this with a straight face.
The professor’s eyebrows lowered.
“That’s not very much, is it?”
Obviously Mr. Professor had been
spending all his time in ivory towers or something. “Right,” she
said, nodding. “And that’s why we only hire high school
students. You’re a little old for that.”
He continued to stroke Hugo as he
gazed at her out of those impossibly hot brown eyes. “I know, but
I need the work. I recently lost my job.”
Something in the set of his broad
shoulders suggested that he was telling the truth, even if he was
also flirting at the same time. A momentary pang of sympathy swelled
inside Melissa. She was in the same boat. She’d given up a good
job with the Fairfax County Public Schools in order to take care of
Grammy, and now she’d be out of a full-time teaching job until next
September. She didn’t know how she’d pay her bills.
Unless she sold the historic
building that housed Secondhand Prose. The Lyndons were willing to
pay a fortune for it—enough to pay all of Melissa’s bills, cover
the property taxes, and give her something left over to invest. But
selling out to the Lyndons was the last thing Melissa wanted to do.
In her heart of hearts, she wanted to keep Secondhand Prose’s doors
open. But that was just silly, wishful thinking.
“I could be very helpful,” Mr.
Professor said, breaking through Melissa’s financial worries. “I’m
good at organizing things, and I have other experience and
qualifications that could be valuable to you.”
She eyed the cat and then his
handsome face. “Aside from charming killer cats?”
His mouth twitched again. “I’m
an avid reader.”
She rolled her eyes. “Aren’t we
all? But really, there is no job.”
“But the sign. And you’re
clearly short—”
“The sign has been there for a
while. My grandmother put it up before she died. I’m sorry, but
there’s no job available here.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry about your
grandmother.”
For an uncomfortable moment, their
gazes caught, and the kindness and concern in his eyes surprised her.
“Grammy was pretty old,” Melissa said, her voice barely hiding
the sorrow that had hollowed out her insides. “So let me ring
these books up for you, okay?”
Melissa picked up the books he’d
laid on the counter while Mr. Hottie Professor continued to lean his
hip into the counter, his mere presence disturbing the atmosphere and
making Melissa adolescently self-conscious.
“That’ll be $25.00 for the
books,” she said in her best customer-service voice. She expected
him to hand over a credit card, but instead the guy pulled out a
money clip that held a big wad of bills. He sure wasn’t a
professor, not carrying cash like that. He had to thumb through
several hundred-dollar bills to find a five and a twenty. So who was
he? She was suddenly dying to know.
He put Hugo down, but the damn cat
continued to circle his legs. “Nice cat,” he said.
“His name is Hugo — well, his
full name is Victor Hugo — and he’s not friendly.”
“Could have fooled me.”
The cat meowed as if he knew they
were talking about him. What was Hugo up to? He never made friends
with strangers.
She handed the guy his bag. “So,
where are you staying?” she asked, hoping she might prolong this
conversation and get his name, email address, or even his profile on
Match.com.
He took his bag and broke
eye-contact. “I love your store. Next time I’m going to make
friends with the cat in the window.”
“Ha, I don’t think so. Dickens
is half-wild.”
“I already figured that out. Have
a nice day.”
And with that, the guy turned and
strolled down the aisle toward the door, looking amazingly like the
hero in the romance novel she’d been reading when he’d first
arrived.
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Hope
Ramsay is a USA Today bestselling
author of heartwarming contemporary romances. Her books have won critical
acclaim and publishing awards. She is married to a good ol' Georgia boy who
resembles every single one of her Southern heroes. She has two grown children
and a couple of demanding lap cats. She lives in Virginia where, when she's not
writing, she's knitting or playing her forty-year-old Martin guitar.
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