A FAIRY TALE BRIDE
Chapel of Love #0.5
Hope Ramsay
Released June 7th, 2016
Forever Yours
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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.
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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