Hope Falls_Sweet Serendipity Read online

  Table of Contents

  About the Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Dear Reader

  More from Jamie Ferrell

  About the Author

  Sweet Serendipity

  Text copyright ©2017 by the Author.

  This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Melanie Shawn. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original Hope Falls remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Melanie Shawn, or their affiliates or licensors.

  For more information on Kindle Worlds: http://www.amazon.com/kindleworlds

  Sweet Serendipity

  A Hope Falls Kindle World Romance

  by Jamie Farrell

  Table of Contents

  About the Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Dear Reader

  More from Jamie Ferrell

  About the Author

  Sweet Serendipity

  Wyatt Owens has had a crush on his best friend’s little sister for as long as he can remember. So when he unexpectedly finds her at his buddy’s vacation home—naked, no less!—when he arrives for a week of hanging in Hope Falls, he can’t decide if this is his lucky day, or if he’s in for the longest week of his life.

  Skye Ryder has never much liked Wyatt. He’s bossy and disapproving and he never does anything wrong. But she’s also never been alone with him before. Nor has she ever noticed how sexy he can be, especially when he’s showing off his military-issue muscles and flashing those rare smiles. She’s not looking for love, but the man she hated is suddenly the man she can’t resist.

  Can they make it last forever, or does what happens in Hope Falls stay in Hope Falls?

  Chapter One

  After twelve years in the military, Wyatt Owens hadn’t expected his own childhood memories to be his biggest enemy.

  But today, both the good and the bad were teaming up on him.

  “When the creepers come, you have to use this special sword to beat them back.” Nicholas, his nine-year-old nephew, bounced on his toes up the steps to their home-away-from-home for the next week. “It’s like a megaweapon against zombies. And then we can build a fortress and toss sheep. I like the pink sheep. But they’re kinda dumb. Wow, this house is huge. Can we get pizza for dinner? I love pepperoni. Do you like pepperoni? Mom says you probably eat rocks these days, but pepperoni tastes better. Do you think there’s a TV here? And a PlayStation? If there’s a PlayStation, I can show you the pink sheep. Mom wouldn’t let me bring my iPad.”

  “Your mom’s right. Don’t need an iPad to go hiking and zip lining.”

  For the first time since they’d left Nicholas’s house in Sacramento, the kid fell silent.

  He shoved his glasses up his nose, touching the lenses with his fingers. His wavy brown hair fell over his forehead. While he’d obviously had about seven growth spurts since Christmas, the kid was still small.

  Too much like Wyatt himself had been at that age.

  Small, awkward, and an easy target.

  “Zip lining?” Nicholas said.

  “You ever been?”

  The boy shook his head, and a lock of hair fell over his glasses.

  Wyatt patted him on the back. Kid was scrawny. Pale, too, like he never got out in the sun. “Gonna have lots of fun this week. Try new things.”

  He twisted the key in the lock and pushed into the house, then hit the keypad to de-activate the alarm with the code his buddy, Beck, had sent when he’d offered use of his vacation house here in the mountains above Hope Falls.

  Beck, who had been the friend Wyatt had needed the most when he was Nicholas’s age.

  And whose little sister still haunted his dreams twenty years later.

  Nicholas’s backpack thunked to the ground behind him.

  Wyatt stifled a twitch. “Hey, bud, how about you pick a bedroom upstairs and put your bag away there instead.”

  He turned from the alarm system in the stone-floored entryway and swept a glance around the spacious, open living and dining area beyond the foyer.

  The brown suede furniture, wide-plank wood floor, central stone fireplace, and the view of the mountains and the town of Hope Falls in the valley below all made the house feel less like a bachelor vacation pad and more like home.

  So did the family pictures dotting the walls and end tables.

  Wyatt tried to ignore Skye’s smiling face, just as he had the other times he’d been here since Beck bought the house, usually for getaway weekends with all of his old childhood buddies. The pictures—and memories—notwithstanding, he was happy to be back in this little slice of heaven.

  “Wow,” Nicholas whispered.

  He was staring up at the massive chandelier hanging in the entryway, which sported not just dangly glass bobbles but also Mardi Gras beads and an errant sock.

  Wyatt swiped a hand over his mouth.

  That was pure Beck.

  But the paperback on the nearest teakwood end table—The Temptress of Pecan Lane by Mae Daniels—definitely wasn’t.

  Either Beck had been entertaining a woman last time he was here, or he was developing some interesting taste in books.

  The other reason for a romance novel—that Skye might’ve used the house at some time—wasn’t a thought Wyatt wanted to dwell on.

  He’d spent enough of his life dwelling on Beck’s sister.

  He nudged Nicholas toward the wooden staircase leading to the second floor. “Go on. Take your pick. I’ll be up in a minute.”

  While Nicholas climbed the stairs, Wyatt carried his own bag down the hall to the master bedroom.

  The spacious, richly-appointed room had a stone fireplace in one corner. There was a small sitting area with a carved wood table and two low-backed easy chairs before the bay windows. A fluffy ivory comforter patterned with gold thread covered the four-poster king-size bed. And the wide-plank maple floor gleamed in the low light.

  He tossed his bag on the bed and crossed to the windows. A faint scent of flowers tickled his nose. Dusk was falling on the mountains outside, and he could make out lamps twinkling to life in Hope Falls in the valley below.

  He turned back toward the door and almost tripped over his feet.

  The bathroom door was open, lights low, illuminating a woman’s thick, dark hair, porcelain skin, and the curve of her long, graceful neck. Her eyes were closed, head tipped back against the edge of the large whirlpool tub, earbuds in her ears.

  He sucked in a surprised breath.

  Skye was here.

  Skye Ryder was here.

  In this house.

  Naked.

  He couldn’t see her bare curves beneath the bubbles overflowing the tub, but he knew—his body knew, his brain knew, his groin knew—that she wasn’t wearing a single stitch of clothing in that tub. If she stood up right now, all he’d see would be miles and miles of skin.

  Smooth, silky Skye skin.

  He needed to leave.

  Walk out of this room, order Nicholas to stay upstairs, take a cold shower, and then find a new plan for wha
t to do with his nephew the rest of the week.

  Because staying here was suddenly out of the question.

  And he was going to get a new plan.

  Just as soon as his feet—

  One of her clear green eyes popped open.

  And her mouth followed. “AAAAaaahhh!”

  Water and bubbles sloshed out of the tub. She surged up, fear and fight slashing through her hot glare. The cord on her earbuds went tight, and her phone plopped from the side of the tub and into the bubble bath.

  “Get out!” she shrieked.

  She yanked out the earbuds and sunk back in the water, fumbling and coming up with her phone. She drew it back, threatening to fling it at him.

  “Get. Out!” she repeated.

  “Sorry. Didn’t know—sorry.” Wyatt made himself look at the ceiling and once again tried to tell himself to move. His feet didn’t heed the command, and he wasn’t actually seeing the ceiling.

  He was seeing the curve of Skye’s breasts, the tips of her rosy nipples, the bubbles caressing her chest and arms before she dropped back into the tub.

  “Sorry,” he said again. “I—sorry.” Walk away, his brain ordered.

  “Wyatt?” There was that shrieking again.

  “I, ah—sorry.” The woman had rendered him incapable of forming a coherent sentence.

  Just as she always had.

  He kept his gaze aloft. Catalogued the white paint. The crown molding. The blank canvas of the ceiling where his brain was super-imposing the image of naked Skye.

  “What are you doing here?” Oh, good. They’d moved on to hissing.

  He counted the light bulbs in the recessed lighting in the tray ceiling, but he still saw her.

  Skye was naked. Fifteen feet away. His brain was short-circuiting. “Babysitting.”

  “Beck sent you to freaking babysit me?”

  He winced. Not the shrieking again. “No. I—never mind. Sorry. We’ll go. You, ah…enjoy.”

  His feet finally engaged. Eyes still cast upward, he beat a path away from the naked woman who still, even after all these years, was the woman he measured all other women against.

  * * *

  Skye scrambled out of the tub, wary eyes on the doorway while she wrapped a thick white towel around herself. She scrubbed the surface of her phone.

  The screen went wavy. “Dammit.”

  Her brother was going to die.

  Maybe not die. Torture was so much more fun. Though torturing him had become remarkably harder since he’d gone from making millions in a boy band to making millions modeling underwear.

  She grunted.

  Beck had absolutely no shame left.

  Case in point—he’d sent Wyatt Owens to keep an eye on her.

  And Wyatt Owens had just seen her naked.

  His voice drifted into the room.

  Another voice answered.

  A woman? He’d brought a freaking woman with him to keep an eye on her?

  No, wait.

  That wasn’t a woman.

  It was kid.

  Wyatt had a kid?

  Her heart hiccupped.

  Death would be too good for Beck. No, torture was definitely the way to go.

  Sending Wyatt here—sending anyone here with a kid was cruel.

  She gritted her teeth while she locked the bedroom door. Assured of privacy, she scrubbed her body dry, then yanked on a soft, gray Giovanni & Valentino T-shirt and her favorite pink pajama pants.

  She would’ve preferred jeans and a light sweater—not to mention a bra—but when she’d come in here to take advantage of the only whirlpool tub in the house, to try to get her brain off work—the primary reason she’d come to Beck’s house in the first place—she’d been alone and had mistakenly thought she’d stay alone.

  “Will the hotel have a PlayStation?” the young voice was asking as Skye opened the bedroom door.

  “Probably not. But we won’t be there much anyway. We’re in the mountains. Lots to do here outside.”

  Skye pressed her fingers into her temples.

  Wyatt stood near the front door, eyes glued to his phone.

  “Oooh.” The boy stood in the foyer between the kitchen and the stairwell. He wasn’t little little, but he probably wasn’t into the double digits in age yet.

  Her heart twisted again, but less so.

  Because unlike the other child who hadn’t wanted her in his life, this little boy’s innocent brown eyes were big and warm and friendly behind his Harry Potter glasses.

  “Do you have a boyfriend?” the boy asked her.

  Wyatt’s gaze shot up from his phone. Color dotted his cheeks. “We’re going,” he said gruffly. “Found some rice in the kitchen. Put your phone in it overnight, and it’ll be fine. Laid out a bowl too.”

  Of course he had. Heaven forbid Skye be competent enough to know how to take care of her phone herself.

  “You don’t have to go.” She put her hands on her knees to bring her to the boy’s level. “Hi. I’m Skye. What’s your name?”

  “Nicholas Vincent Shemansky,” he said.

  Shemansky.

  Amelia’s son.

  Not Wyatt’s. His sister’s. She’d seen Amelia once or twice in Sacramento, but she’d managed to avoid talking about the boy.

  Kids had been a tender subject for Skye.

  She shot another look at Wyatt. His gaze dropped from her breasts to the floor, and he turned sideways, more ruddiness coloring his chiseled jaw and stubbled cheeks.

  An unexpected warmth swirled low in her belly. A man hadn’t looked at her with interest like that since—

  She swallowed hard and fisted her fingers. Of all the men in the world, he would be the last one she allowed to remind her that she was a woman.

  Knowing Wyatt, he’d probably tell her she was womaning wrong.

  “How old are you, Nicholas?” she asked.

  “Nine and three-quarters.”

  Given his glasses, she shouldn’t have been surprised at his exact answer, but an unexpected laugh slipped out her mouth anyway. “So you’re a Percy Jackson fan?”

  His nose wrinkled to the left. “I like Percy Jackson, but platform nine and three-quarters is in Harry Potter.”

  Skye tapped her chin and pretended to think hard. “Was Percy Jackson one of Phoebe Moon’s friends?”

  “Miss Skye, I think you need to take a trip to the library,” Nicholas said solemnly.

  Miss Skye.

  Oh, she could eat this boy up. Amelia had moved out West, but obviously she was still teaching her son good old-fashioned Southern manners. And the thought of home—and southern children—made Skye’s hidden heart whimper again.

  She ruffled Nicholas’s hair. “Just teasing you, bud. I love Harry Potter too.”

  “And Percy Jackson and Phoebe Moon?”

  “You know it. Who doesn’t?”

  “I don’t think Uncle Wyatt does.”

  Wyatt was staring at both of them as though they’d grown more heads than Cerberus.

  “Yeah, you probably have your work cut out for you,” Skye whispered.

  Wyatt’s shoulders went back.

  He seemed…taller.

  Broader.

  Harder.

  And just as uptight as ever.

  “How long are you boys hanging out?” she asked Nicholas.

  “Until Saturday. My mom and dad went to Hawaii. They needed grown-up time.” He said it so matter-of-factly, he could’ve been a grown-up himself instead of not quite ten.

  “There’s a B&B not far,” Wyatt said. “I’ll give them a quick call.”

  “Not necessary.” She winced at her grudging tone, which hadn’t come out at all when she was talking to Nicholas. Only to Wyatt. Did she want to share Beck’s house with Wyatt?

  No.

  But if he was here, with his nephew, then Beck had obviously invited him. She couldn’t send them away. A hotel or B&B wouldn’t have near as much space for Nicholas to run around. Or a game room, a massive flat-sc
reen TV equipped with satellite and every streaming service known to man, or a full kitchen stocked with frozen pizzas, Pop Tarts, and peanut butter and jelly.

  Wyatt studied her face, his scrutiny making her more uncomfortable than she’d been five minutes ago when she’d realized he was watching her in the bathtub.

  And they were still going to have a discussion about how long he was watching her in the bathtub.

  The fact that he’d seemed shocked to see her was the only reason she hadn’t snagged him by the ear and marched him downstairs for a lecture already.

  “Beck didn’t mention you’d be here,” he said finally.

  Wyatt might not have been her favorite person in the world, but he was one of Beck’s few normal friends. Not famous, not rich. No angles. Just a long-time childhood friend who kept her brother in touch with his roots.

  She forced a light, breezy, friendly tone that had never come easy when she was talking to Wyatt. “Beck’s in Milan. Or Paris. Somewhere he doesn’t have to keep track of a calendar. He’s probably double-booked his vacation houses in Bar Harbor and Destin too.”

  A hint of a smile played at the edges of his lips, highlighting his rugged jaw. “All that for modeling underwear.”

  “We don’t discuss his skivvies.”

  That hint turned into a full-blown smile. His eyes crinkled in the corners, and when he tucked his phone into his pocket, the corded muscles of his forearms flexed.

  Her nipples perked up and poked at the soft fabric of her T-shirt. She quickly crossed her arms over her chest.

  Wyatt had always been so scrawny.

  And serious.

  Who was this man?

  “I was planning on leaving in the morning,” she said quickly. “It doesn’t make sense for you to go somewhere else. The house is big. We’ll all fit for one night, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

  He didn’t answer, but instead inspected her as though he were a human lie detector and he was judging the truthfulness of her statement. As if he knew she’d promised her family she’d stay here at least five days. That she’d only check her email once a day. That she’d eat her favorite foods, go down to town and visit the friendly locals, hike around the mountains, and actually take a vacation.