Good news. My newest book is almost done and I wanted to share the first chapter with you. I don't even have a title yet, but it's the 1st book in my Love and Flowers Trilogy and it's all about Garrett. You'll remember him as Jane Kendall's ex-boyfriend and the man who helped Taryn push Brogan over the edge. He's had his issues, (who doesn't?), but I've always had a soft spot for this guy.
Oh and before I forget, just to celebrate the fact that Summer is just around the corner and I'm in a really good mood, my book You Belong with Me is Free on Kindle for 5 days, so tell you friends! Here's the link.
Chapter 1 – Pansies
Rayne
stared out her window down at the landscapers and sighed. Pansies. Flats and
flats of pansies. She bit her lip and glanced around the yard and remembered
what it had looked like ten years ago when she’d come here with her
grandmother. There had been zinnias and
ice plant and gladiolus and hostas and bright orange poppies. Now she was going to be surrounded by pansies.
Rayne
shook her head. No she wasn’t. She ran out of her bedroom and past her
sister, Ivy who was coming out of the bathroom with a towel around her head and
rushed down the stairs and out into the gentle sunlight. She was used to San Diego and this pale light
was a welcome change. She put her hands
on her hips and glanced around at the men unloading the flats and narrowed her
eyes. There had to be someone in
charge. She watched the men for a moment
and then zeroed in on the tall man with his back to her standing by the door of
a large truck. He had a phone to his ear
as he ran his hand through his medium brown hair, cut brutally short.
Rayne
cleared her throat lightly and clasped her hands. She wasn’t used to dealing with landscapers
or men who looked like this guy. His
gray t-shirt was straining over his shoulders and arms and she looked away as
she realized she was checking out her landscaper. She closed her eyes briefly and smiled at
herself. Who would have ever thought
Rayne Nyman would be checking out her landscaper? Certainly none of her friends.
Rayne
cleared her throat again as she leaned up against the truck and waited for the
man to finish is conversation. She
inched forward, listening in curiously.
“I
don’t care how good looking she is, no more blind dates… forget it Rob, you and
Wren will have to go to the concert Saturday without me . . . Uh uh. Besides, I don’t even know much
about classical music. I’d be sitting there looking like an idiot. . . Yeah,
yeah, I know I owe you. . . Ha! Yeah,
I’ll talk to you later, bye.”
Rayne
smiled politely as she waited for the man to turn around and notice her. He mumbled a few words and then shoved his
phone in his pocket before pulling on gloves.
He turned around and Rayne’s mouth fell open, her eyes going wide and
her mouth going dry.
He. Was.
Beautiful. She’d never in her life seen cheekbones like his. And his eyes were
such a light shade of blue they were almost silver. Forget landscaping, this
guy should be modeling.
“Hi
there, what can I do for you?” he asked with a polite smile as he glanced over
her head as if he was distracted.
Rayne
let out a breath and stared at her feet for a moment before looking up
again. She could do this.
“I’m
Rayne Nyman the new owner of this home.
It passed to me from my grandmother Marion Stewart when she died a year
ago. I was upstairs and I noticed that
you were getting ready to plant all of these um, pansies. I’d
rather you didn’t,” she said and then watched as his blue eyes focused
completely on her.
Wow.
“It’s
nice to meet you Rayne. My name is Garrett Murphy and I’m the owner of Murphy
Landscaping. I’m sorry for your loss. So
you don’t like flowers huh?” he said and then crossed his arms over his chest as
he put all of his weight on one hip.
Rayne
tried to drag her eyes away from the man’s muscular arms and decided to focus
on his face. She was immediately draw to
his cheek bones and his full mouth and was horrified to find that she was
turning into a boy crazy airhead. She’d
skipped that faze when she’d been a teenager, but none of the boys at her
private school had looked like this either.
She’d better play it safe and just look somewhere else.
Rayne
turned her body around and looked at the handful of workers who were still
gathering their shovels and bags of mulch.
“I do.
I love flowers which is why I’d rather you didn’t plant these.”
Garrett
glanced at the flats of marigolds and frowned.
“Your property manager put in the order for flowers last month and with
your budget which includes lawn care and weeding and trimming, these pansies are
what you can afford.”
Rayne bit
her lip, thinking of the millions of dollars that now sat in her bank account
and sighed.
“Mr. Murphy,
let me assure you I can afford something better. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d appreciate it if
you packed up the pansies and returned them.”
Garrett
frowned and stared at her, his eyes going hard and she shivered before
remembering to turn away. Much safer to stare at the bushes than her
landscaper.
“Just
pack them up and return them huh? So what would you like put in their place
then?” he asked softly stepping closer to her.
Rayne
could feel him move closer and gulped. He had so much energy she could feel it
coming off of him in waves. She pushed
her long brown hair over her shoulder nervously and straightened her
shoulders. She was twenty-six years
old. She was a mature, intelligent woman
and she could have a basic conversation with a good looking man. She glanced at him quickly over her shoulder
and felt the slam of attraction hit her again.
Maybe.
“Since
I was unaware that you were coming today I’d like the chance to work up some
ideas tonight and then I could run them past you tomorrow or Wednesday. Would that be okay?”
She
waited breathlessly for him to answer and felt a strange tension in her
back. He was staring at her, she could
feel it. She turned slowly and looked up
at him as she bit her lip. His face
slowly softened and he nodded his head.
“That
sounds fine. What time tomorrow would
you like to get together?” he asked taking out his phone and scrolling down to
his calendar.
Rayne
stepped closer. “I’m pretty open to be
honest. My sister and I just moved in a
few days ago and we’re still getting our bearings here.”
Garrett
looked up and put his phone in his pocket.
“Let’s meet for lunch then at The Iron Skillet and we could go over your
ideas then.”
Rayne
blinked in surprise and stared at the man.
A lunch meeting? She narrowed her eyes at him and stepped back. “Don’t you have an office Mr. Murphy where we
could meet at instead?”
Garrett
shrugged and put his hands on his hips.
“Ms. Nyman, I’m a busy man but if you’d like to wait until Thursday we
can set up an appointment for ten in the morning if you’d feel more comfortable
with that,” he said, his voice sounding stiff.
Rayne
glanced at the empty flower beds and the wash of pale pastels from the flats of
pansies and shook her head. “No, no, that’s fine. I’ll meet you tomorrow, where did you say?”
Garrett
nodded his head. “The Iron Skillet. A
buddy of mine owns it and they serve good food there. If you give me your phone
number I can text you the address.”
Rayne
told him her number and watched as he added it to his contacts. He looked up and smiled at her. “Okay then, I’ll see you tomorrow at one,
Rayne. I’m curious about your ideas,” he said and then walked toward his men.
“Okay guys, change of plans. Let’s pack
up the flowers. We’re heading back to the nursery.”
Rayne
walked slowly back to the house and stood in the shade of the porch as she
watched the men repack the truck and drive away. As the truck turned the corner and
disappeared from sight she let out the breath she’d been holding and shook her
head as if to clear it. She’d never in her life been affected by a man as she
had been by Garrett Murphy. She was used
to musicians and businessmen and quiet, cool cerebral men whose clothes fell
elegantly against their trim pale bodies.
Garrett Murphy was a completely different kind of man than she was used
to and she wasn’t sure how to react.
She
grinned and walked back into her house.
Throwing herself at him was probably a huge no-no. She thought of her ex-boyfriend, Liam
Michaels and smiled. She had been
friends with Liam most of her life since he was the son of her parents’ best
friends. It was only natural that they dated on and off throughout school. Their families vacationed together and they
were constantly thrown together. There
had been other boys who had asked her out of course, but Liam had been
safe. Too safe.
She
frowned as she walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Last year Liam had asked her to marry him and
she had said no. For no other reason
than she hadn’t been in love with him. Her parents had been horrified that
she’d turned Liam down. But it was her
life and her heart and she wouldn’t marry a man just because it would be easy.
She
wanted more. She wanted love. Her
decision to break things off with Liam had hurt her relationship with her
parents though. And it still tortured
her that the last conversation they’d had before their car accident had been a
fight over Liam. Her father had accused
her of being shallow and uncaring and her mother had accused her of being
selfish. She’d in turn accused them of
caring more for Liam than they had for her and her feelings and it had gone
downhill after that. She’d slammed out
of the house and had gotten on a plane for New York. A month later, she’d been informed that her
parents had died in a car accident on Pacific Highway. A car going over a hundred miles an hour had
sideswiped them sending their car rolling.
That
had been three months ago. She and her sister Ivy had been struggling ever
since. With the death of her grandmother
and now her parents, she had a completely different life than the carefree one
she’d been enjoying so much. As a
concert pianist with her parent’s backing and the acclaim of critics, she could
play wherever and whenever she wanted to.
She could travel through Europe which she’d done for the last few years
or she could stay in the states. But she had Ivy to think of now. And her sister would come first. Always. Which is why she’d hired her friend Cleo to
watch out for her.
She
grabbed the carton of orange juice out of the fridge and poured herself a
glass.
“Why’d
you get rid of the lawn crew? I was looking forward to seeing some of the male
species.”
Rayne
smiled and turned around to see Cleo flop down on a chair, looking at her
glumly. “Never fear, they’ll be
back. They were getting ready to plant
pansies and so I had to stop them. I’m
meeting tomorrow with the owner to go over what I want.”
Cleo
looked glum and rested her chin on her hands.
“Knowing you, it’ll take a month to pick the best flowers. I was already
planning on bringing out pitchers of lemonade and glasses. They’d all be so grateful they’d invite me to
go dancing.”
Rayne
raised an eyebrow and sat down across from her.
“Dancing? With strange men? Come on Cleo, you’re
smarter than that.”
Cleo
glared at her and sat up. “No I’m
not. It’s been months since I’ve gone
dancing.”
Rayne’s
smile slipped and she looked away. It
had been three months. Ever since she’d
gotten the police report from her parent’s car accident. There were witnesses who had sworn that the
car who had rammed her parent’s Mercedes had done it on purpose.
“Hey, sorry. Look, forget it. No dancing. Just stop looking like I kicked a
little puppy.”
Rayne
shook her head and smiled. “No, it’s
okay. Look, I’m sorry you’re bored Cleo,
but this is serious to me. That’s why
we’re here. I just lost my parents. I’m not about to let anyone take my sister
from me.”
Cleo
stared at her sadly and crossed her tanned, toned arms. “Or kill you.”
Rayne
nodded and stared at her friend. “Or
kill me. Which is something you won’t
let happen.”
Cleo
nodded her head solemnly. “I wish you’d
hire a real body guard. I’m just a
glorified yoga teacher and I can’t be two places at once anyways. If you’d hire that guy I was telling you
about, I’d feel a lot better about you meeting up with your landscaper.”
Rayne
frowned and studied her short nails.
“You are a real body guard
Cleo and you don’t just teach yoga.
You’re the one who taught me everything I know about self-defense and you have a license to carry a gun.”
Cleo
snorted and stood up to walk over to the fridge. “That’s not the real reason.”
Rayne
shrugged and took a sip of her juice.
“Ivy relaxes around you. You can
protect us and help my sister too.”
Cleo
shook her head and took out the pizza box from last night. “You should tell her Rayne.”
Rayne
glared at Cleo and shook her head.
“Absolutely not. She’s been
through enough. She barely has her
anxiety under control as it is. What
would knowing there could possibly be someone trying to kill us do to her
mental well-being?”
Cleo
sighed and took a bite of the cold pepperoni pizza. “She’s tougher than she looks Rayne. Ever since you found out she has OCD and have
her on the right medication, she’s been doing a lot better.”
Rayne
groaned and leaned her head in her hands as she thought of last night as they
stood in the bathroom and she’d watched as Ivy had died strands of her hair
near her neck bright pink from a box she’d picked up at the drug store.
“She’s
twenty-three and she looks like a drummer for a rock band,” she complained just
as Ivy walked in the kitchen. Ivy narrowed her eyes at Rayne and walked over to
the fridge.
“I look
like a drummer? Exactly what I was going for since I’ve been thinking about
starting a rock band.”
Rayne
closed her eyes and massaged her temples.
“Of course you were. So what are
your plans for the day?” she asked politely.
Ivy
shrugged and grabbed a jar of Nutella out of the cupboard and began smearing a
large amount on the left over brioche Cleo had picked up at the local bakery
yesterday.
“Cleo
and I are going to rent some jet skis and head out on the water. You should come with us. You know, live a little.”
Rayne’s
eyes drifted to the red lines on Ivy’s arm where she’s cut herself and wondered
how a girl who had tried so hard to hurt herself was far better at living than
she was.
“Next
time,” she promised and watched as her little sister rolled her eyes.
“It’s
always next time with you. What are you
going to do here? Walk around the yard?
Read? Seriously Rayne, come with us or
Cleo and I are going to start thinking you’re completely dead inside.”
Rayne
swallowed and looked away from her sister’s taunting eyes and out the window at
the yard that was begging for color and life.
She had been feeling dead
inside. Completely gray and
lifeless.
“Actually
I’m going to be planning out the flower arrangements because I have a meeting
with our landscaper tomorrow afternoon.
You two go on without me. We can
catch a movie tonight when you guys get back, okay?”
Ivy
frowned but nodded her head and left the kitchen. Cleo walked over and touched her arm. “Don’t forget the alarm system and always
have your mace nearby.”
Rayne
nodded her head and smiled. “Of course.
Which reminds me, sometime this week I want to go pick out a guard dog. It will be an added protection and it’ll be
good for Ivy.”
Cleo
nodded and tilted her head. “It’s okay sometimes to think about what would be
good for you too you know.”
Rayne
blushed and looked away as Cleo walked out of the kitchen. There was too much guilt to think about what
would be good for her. Because the
majority of the people she loved had died she was now a millionaire and the
owner of a successful shipping business.
It was such a horrible thing to think that because the people she loved
had died, she profited. How could she enjoy
that?
She
stood up and walked over to the window and leaned her forehead against the cool
glass. And to think that there was
someone out there who very much wanted her and Ivy out of the way so that he
could profit now. She thought of Graham
Mitchell and shivered. Her half cousin
from her grandmother’s first marriage had been very vocal about his fury at
being cut out of their grandmother’s will.
He had a posse of lawyers who had tried to contest her grandmother’s
will but they’d failed. A month after
learning the verdict, her parent’s had died.
Graham Mitchell was determined to have his share one way or
another.
She
listened to her sister and Cleo laugh as they walked out the front door and
knew she’d do anything to protect her sister from him. Even if it meant hiding
out in Fircrest Washington while her private investigators worked to find
evidence to prove that he had killed her parents.
** Copyrighted Material
