Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80562 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80562 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Pickle number one: I'm unexpectedly pregnant by an NHL star, who just so happens to be my big brother's best friend—and no, we weren't exactly dating. For reasons that totally make sense (trust me for now), I never told him about the baby.
Pickle number two: I'm about to lose my family's charming bed and breakfast unless I can get hitched within six months, thanks to an ancient deed and a ridiculous family feud.
So I made a deal with the baby's dad, Jake Summers—the dashing captain of the Vermont Vandals hockey team.
Our plan? Fake an engagement, have a showy wedding, solve our little problems, then amicably split. It’s simple: I keep my B&B, and he shows his team he’s serious about cleaning up his act. Perfect, right?
But Jake doesn’t know how to do things by halves. Before I know it, I'm in Manhattan picking out lavish engagement rings and getting swept off my feet. I’m being paraded around charity galas like a princess and becoming the envy of every woman in the country. All this while he’s diving headfirst into being a dad—without knowing he actually is one.
It’s practically foolproof, with hardly any room for this to spectacularly blow up in our faces. So, save the date for our big, fake wedding! What could possibly go wrong?
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1
CAROLINE
“No offense,” Cade says. “But you look like someone just served you a shit sandwich and asked for a tip, Miss Prince.”
“Thank you for that, Cade,” I say with forced sweetness. “That’s really helpful to hear.”
He’s on a ladder in the middle of the bed and breakfast’s kitchen. He ducks his head out from the hole in the ceiling, which is currently dripping water from a toilet upstairs. Cade gives me a crooked, youthful smile. He’s fourteen, a troublemaker, and cocky. But he’s also handy and much cheaper than his dad, the town’s local mechanic. He rests his forearms on the top of the ladder, looking down at me. I’m pretty sure the water dripping from his chin is toilet water.
Ick.
“So?” he says. “What’s got you so blue?”
I fold my arms and stare up at him. “Other than the toilet water dripping all over my kitchen right now, you mean?”
“Right,” Cade says.
“I’ve got a pair of elderly troublemakers masquerading as employees out in the lobby trying to rip off my guests in a rigged game of bingo,” I say, holding up my thumb. I raise a forefinger. “I’m blessed with a regular guest who can’t seem to stay with us for more than two days before he violently clogs a toilet,” I add, nodding to the leak. “Oh, and I just let a young couple sneak a dog into their room this morning because they put it in a stroller and hoped I wouldn’t notice. I’ll probably be cleaning up pee from the carpets in a few days.”
“That’s it?” Cade asks.
“Oh, no,” I say calmly. “I was just catching my breath. I also have a two-month-old baby sleeping in my room right now who could wake up at any moment screaming for my boobs. And let me tell you something, Cade. My boobs hurt. You know those guys at the end of marathons with bloody stains from chafed nipples? That’s how it feels. Except they don’t have to wake up in the middle of the night and have those bloody, chafed nipples sucked on.”
Cade is grinning wide. “Boobs,” he says. “Nice.”
I glare. This is what happens when you vent to teenagers. “Really?”
“Hey, I’m practically a child, Miss P.” He says with a shrug. Then he looks around, leaning in a little and lowering his voice. “Speaking of which, I’m pretty sure you paying me for all this stuff is some kind of herpes violation or whatever. But it’s cool. I know how to keep things on the down-low. Like your bloody nipples? Won’t tell a soul.”
I shake my head. “It’s HIPAA. And that’s not… just, no.”
He shrugs, then gestures to the ceiling. “You need new pipes, by the way. Badly.”
Now, I’m the one who feels like a child because his reference to my rusty, desperately in need of attention “pipes” feels like an all-too-accurate innuendo.
He gestures to the ceiling. “Yep,” he says, nodding to himself. “Rusted and old. Really it’s kinda sad. You see it a lot in these old buildings. The pipes just get forgotten about for years. ‘Course, the old stuff they made them from isn’t like that new stuff. Everybody wants the new stuff, so you get people just wanting to knock down the whole damn building and put up something fresh and less old.”
I’m staring at him now. Is he talking about the bed and breakfast or me?
“I’d suggest the new PEX stuff.”
“Right,” I say, feeling half-dazed. Things aren’t that bad with me, right? “That’s sounds expensive.”
Cade nods, eyebrows raised. “Oh, yes, ma’am. Definitely. Job like that is beyond my pay grade, too. I can get the leak stopped up. But you’re gonna want to get the pipes changed out soon. Could pretty much go to shit any day now.”
“Great. Thanks, Cade.”
“Yup. Hey, can you give me like sixty bucks for this? I’ve got a date tonight, and I’m strapped.”
“Yeah,” I say with a sigh. “Give me a few minutes.”
I glance down at the baby monitor in my hand. Walker is asleep in his crib with his dinosaur lovie draped over his arm. He sleeps like he just landed from an explosion–limbs sprawled and legs splayed. It never fails to make me grin.
Even with everything on my mind this morning, I still get that earth-shattering flutter of emotions when I realize for the thousandth time that it’s real. I’m actually a mother. That little guy on the baby monitor is my little guy. Even if things with Walker’s dad didn’t go how I would’ve hoped, I still wouldn’t change a thing–not if it meant losing Walker. He’s everything to me. I wouldn’t have believed you could love someone or something so much until I had him. Honestly, I’m practically convinced he’s all I need. Why even bother with big, frustrating, full-sized men? Why can’t I just love my baby and call it a day?