It Happened on Love Street Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Lia Riley

  Preview of The Corner of Forever and Always copyright © 2017 by Lia Riley

  Cover design by Elizabeth Turner. Cover photography © Shutterstock. Cover copyright © 2017 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First ebook edition: April 2017

  Forever is an imprint of Grand Central Publishing. The Forever name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  ISBN: 978-1-4555-4212-3 (ebook)

  E3-02172017-DA-NF

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Excerpt from The Back Fence

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Also by Lia Riley

  Acclaim for Lia Riley's Novels

  A Preview of “The Corner of Forever and Always”

  About the Author

  Fall in Love with Forever Romance

  Newsletters

  To Poppy Mae, who sat on my lap while I wrote 98.9 percent of this book. You’re my sweetest potato. PS: Please stay out of the garbage and toilet. Thanks.

  Acknowledgments

  No book is ever made in isolation, and I’ve been blessed to have amazing help along the way. First, a thank you to my new Grand Central editor, Michele Bidelspach, whose gentle challenges and whip-smart insights pushed me in all the best ways. Also, my agent, Emily Sylvan Kim, having you in my corner as a friend and trusted advisor makes me one lucky lady. To my critique partners on this, Jennifer Ryan, Amy Pine, Jennifer Blackwood, and Jules Barnard, thanks for the reads and valuable two cents. To Chanel Cleeton, Megan Erickson, Kennedy Ryan, Natalie Blitt, and everyone at NA Hideaway for having my back. To my family, it’s not easy (or particularly clean) living with a working writer, but you are my people and I’m so grateful. Nick, thanks for continuing to teach me what it means to be in an enduring marriage (compromise, family dinners, occasional adventures, Netflix, lol), and for taking me to visit Scotland. There. I wrote it. No takebacks. Packing my bags. Lastly to my readers—yes, you. Thanks for spending time visiting my world and characters. Reading romance is an exercise in hope, an optimistic gesture in a difficult world. Y’all are my tribe.

  Excerpt from The Back Fence:

  Everland News That You

  Actually Care About

  Classifieds:

  Need a Dog Walker? Got a bored pooch sitting around the house full of energy? Let Ruff Love Pet Walkers throw you a bone. One hour, fast-paced (no jogging) outdoor adventures. Call Norma at 912-555-9867. Discounts available for daily clients.

  Snug Cottage for Rent: Sunny, furnished one bedroom, one bathroom bungalow available on Love Street. Quiet neighborhood. Contact Doris Carmichael at 912-555-1700—no texting. Please respond with why this ad sounds attractive to you, and when you’ll be able to move in. Do NOT contact me with unsolicited services or offers.

  Free Lazy-Boy: Earl don’t need two and I want room for my sewing table. It’s sitting on the curb. 208 Kissing Ct.

  Chapter One

  One week later…

  Pepper glanced around the cul-de-sac, another bead of sweat trickling down her brow. Sun charred the silvery Spanish moss draping the live oaks while the high-waisted Spanx beneath her pencil skirt compressed her organs into diamonds. Good thing she didn’t believe in signs from the universe because this shortcut through Hopes and Dreams Way had turned out to be a dead end. Moisture prickled behind her knees, under her boobs, and between her thighs.

  Please, Universe. Don’t be a sign.

  Her judicial clerkship offer had hinged on an immediate start date. The last week was a blur, packing her Manhattan life into three suitcases. She’d stepped off the Greyhound yesterday afternoon with barely enough time to pick up the keys for her new rental house and visit the local Piggly Wiggly, never mind getting oriented.

  The absence of a city skyline or a street grid left her sense of direction as broken as the GPS navigation on her smart phone. She huffed a small sigh, blowing up her bangs. Everland, Georgia, appeared to be block after block of grandly renovated antebellum homes, all with jasmine-smothered wrought iron fences, rocking chair–lined verandas, and names like Love Street, Forever Boulevard, Hopes and Dreams Way, and Kissing Court.

  Better find a dentist. A year surrounded by this much sugary sweetness put her at risk of a cavity (or five).

  A glance at her wristwatch revealed that her Human Resources appointment wasn’t for another forty-five minutes. Her shoulders relaxed. It paid to be prepared. Dead end or no, she’d left herself ample time to fire Siri and navigate her own route to the courthouse.

  The lace curtains in the gingerbread Queen Anne across the street twitched and a blue-rinsed older woman peered through the slit with a frown. Pepper adjusted the strap on her leather computer bag and bit down on the inside of her cheek. First impressions were everything, and a Yankee fish out of water marinating in a pool of her own perspiration wasn’t a great one.

  Head down, she quickly backtracked, retracing her steps. Homesickness nipped at her heels. Or more accurately…sister-sickness. Tonight there’d be no cuddle fest over Chinese takeout in Tuesday’s Hell’s Kitchen walkup, no debriefing about her day before her sister performed—in side-splitting detail—impersonations from her latest Broadway casting call. There wasn’t time for a c
heck-in, but she could fire off the next entry of their ongoing Ugly Selfie Challenge and let Tuesday know she was in her thoughts.

  Pepper paused beneath the Forever Boulevard street sign, stuck out her iPhone, and contorted her face into a hideous, triple-chinned expression.

  And that’s when it happened.

  The menacing growl sluiced icy dread through her insides, numbing her core. She didn’t have to turn her head to confirm what her body reacted to on instinct.

  Dog, two o’clock.

  Collapsing her shoulders in a protective cringe, arms shielding her face, she recoiled in jerky steps as fast as her tight skirt allowed. A white ball of fluff with matching organza ear ribbons sat on a red-bricked walkway in the shade of palmetto fronds—devil’s spawn in a lap dog disguise. It curled back its lips to reveal razor sharp fangs.

  Pug or Pit Bull, it didn’t matter. Man’s best friend was her worst nightmare.

  The tiny tail twitched. She swallowed a whimper. Easy, easy now. The fence separating them was five feet high. Fluffy wasn’t going to spring through the air, latch on to her throat, and gnaw her jugular like a corn cob. Dogs were statistically more likely to lick a person to death.

  By a lot.

  By a lot, a lot.

  But try telling that to her dry mouth and trembling hands.

  The growls crescendoed into shrill yaps. Fluffy reared on hind legs, an eight-pound demon cavorting in the seventh circle of hell.

  Pepper’s stomach responded with a queasy burble. More yowling rose ahead, a Boxer-looking hellbeast tried cramming its fat head through its white picket prison. Nope. She veered around a parked minivan and crossed the street, pulse leaping with panic.

  “They don’t want to hurt me. They don’t want to hurt me,” she chanted a mantra from Canine Calm, a weekend cognitive therapy clinic she’d shelled out three hundred bucks on after a close encounter with a Shih Tzu in SoHo last summer left her, well, shit-tzuing her pants.

  Blink and breathe. Unravel the negative feelings within before they unravel you. Observe fearful emotions and give them space as they arise, watching them float away like soap bubbles. Blink without judgment. Remember, there is no right way or wrong way to blink. Simply be the blink.

  Blink that. She’d dropped out an hour into the nonrefundable session. But now her ears were hot and her jaw tight, all the hallmarks of spiking blood pressure.

  She could chant “They don’t want to hurt me” all day, but the faint white scars on her cheek, one below her eye, and the other to the side of her nose, the exact match to a Doberman pinscher’s mouth, begged to differ. Her nervous system issued a warning: Imminent threat to life and limb. Take cover.

  Two Corgis joined the din, followed by a baritone bow-wow-wow from another backyard.

  Which way to go? No direction was safe.

  “Is that lady dancing?” a high-pitched voice asked behind her.

  “Dunno,” another answered.

  Pepper turned, and two kids, the girl in a full-skirted pirate getup, the boy in artfully ragged breeches, froze on identical scooters. Their chubby pink-tinged cheeks offset tawny skin, and matching skull-and-crossbones hats perched on top of their thick, black curls.

  “Ahoy there, mateys.” It sounded like she’d been sucking helium. She cleared her throat, striving for a more natural tone. “Don’t you two look cute.”

  The little girl scratched the side of her nose. “Mama’s using us as models—”

  “For the Village Pillage ad.” The boy fiddled with his eye patch. “She works for Mayor Marino’s office, and we gotta beat Hogg Jaw—”

  “Village Pillage?” Any distraction from the canine chorus was welcome. Even if it meant hanging out with kindergarteners.

  “Memerating Cap’n Redbeard—”

  “And Everland’s true claim to the lost treasure.”

  Deciphering hieroglyphics might be easier than understanding those last sentences. Pepper frowned. “You mean commemorating?”

  “And Mama promised us ice cream afterward if we smile real good.” The girl bared her teeth in an overwide grin or grimace, hard to say which. “Two scoops of Superman flavor for me and mint chip for Will. Daddy said it was bribery, but Mama calls it in-cent-i-vi-zing.” She pronounced the last word with careful enunciation.

  “Mint chip is one of my favorites, too.” Thank God, her ploy worked. The dogs were losing interest the longer they chatted.

  “Why do you talk funny?” Caution crept into the little boy’s voice, presumably William.

  “You mean my accent? Well, see, I’m from Manhattan.” A five-year-old had burned her, but who cares? The longer she rambled in the street, the better the chance that awful barking might eventually stop. “Lower East Side. At least that’s where I feel that I’m from. I was born in Moose Bottom, Maine, a place even smaller than here, if you can believe that. Located between Podunk and Boondock. No joke. And that’s not taking into account Boonie to the south or Timbuktu to the west.”

  The children’s mouths hung open.

  Had she spoken too loudly? Too friendly? Too weird? She had no experience chatting up small people. Kids might as well be aliens from the planet Crayon Gobbler, but these two saved her from a public panic attack. She’d had to suck it up and owe them one.

  “William John! Katydid!” An elegant black woman appeared on the top step of an ivy-covered house on the corner. Her tailored fuchsia wrap dress popped against her skin’s rich bronze, and her long dark hair was pulled into a sleek ponytail. “Get your scrawny behinds back here and brush your teeth. Ah, ah, ah!” She held up a hand, a diamond catching the sunlight. “Don’t go telling me that you already did because your toothbrushes aren’t wet. Let’s go, let’s go, we’re not going to be late, I’ll tell you that much for free.”

  “Aw, man!”

  “Coming, Mama!” The siblings shot Pepper a last lingering look before pushing off on their scooters, whispering as they powered toward the crosswalk.

  She gave the woman a just passing by, I’m a friendly new-in-town stranger who is not trying to kidnap your sweet children wave. The tentative gesture was met with a distracted smile.

  Pepper tucked the corner of her shirt back into her skirt, swallowing an envious lump as the woman reset her Bluetooth earpiece and disappeared inside the magnificent home. Fat chance she ate a Pop-Tart for dinner. Imagine having a big house. Cute kids. Effortless fashion sense. The total package.

  Must be nice.

  Someday she’d meet Mr. Right. One teeny tiny clerkship in Georgia and she’d be off to bigger and better things back in New York. At this very moment, her true love might be staring out his corner office with sweeping views of the East River as inexplicable longing compresses his chest. “You’re out there,” he’d mutter, slamming a fist against his open palm. “Out there somewhere. And I shall find you, my dearest darling.”

  Sooner or later, their gazes would connect in a crowded intersection and boom, a part of her soul would lock into his and that would be it. Cue the balloon drop. Blazing meteoroids. Unicorns dancing the fox trot. Rainbows—make that double rainbows—bursting over the cityscape. She’d plan a wedding in the Hamptons, stop hitting snooze on her biological clock, and have her own perfect life.

  Yeah.

  Someday…

  But on the bright side, right now she was finally heading in the right direction. A statue of Lady Justice rose from the end of the street, keeping watch over the Scooter B. Merriweather Courthouse, armed with a sword, balance scales, and a fierce resting bitch face. Pepper flashed her a thumbs-up. Ahead, her reflection beamed off the courthouse’s glass front door, projecting the image of—

  Oh. Schnikey.

  Desperate times called for a discreet bang fluff. Taming these frizzy, more-brown-than-blond locks into an A-line bob was a battle at the best of times. Georgia humidity required full-scale war with a leave-in conditioner offensive followed by a barrage of mousse, a wide-toothed comb, professional-grade blow dryer, and straighten
er.

  God as her witness, she refused to sport flyaways on her first day. She smoothed her part, shifting left and right, checking for VSL—visible Spanx lines—a real and present danger as her skirt warped and wrinkled.

  Wrenching the door open, she stumbled beneath the rotunda, stifling a relieved moan. Got to credit the South’s mastery of the fine art of air-conditioning. The wall directory listed Human Resources on the second floor, down the hall from her new boss, the Honorable Aloysius P. Hogg. Judge Hogg maintained a notorious reputation on the law clerk circuit. Whispers hinted that he didn’t interview for a Monday-through-Friday job, but expected seven-day-a-week indentured servitude, including all public holidays.

  On her way upstairs, the brass handrail cooled her damp palm. This wasn’t a dream job, but no one hired professional cupcake testers. And this year of dues paying in Nowheresville, USA, would land her back in Manhattan with a real shot at making junior partner with Kendall & Kline Associates, an elite corporate law firm with an impressive starting salary and more impressive annual bonus.

  Her phone buzzed with a text. Tuesday’s image flashed on the screen, her sister’s full lips pressed in the ultimate duck face as she did that unsettling trick where she crossed only one eye. The message read: Good luck today! You’ve come a long way, baby.

  Pepper grinned. Her sister was right. This courthouse was a far cry from her family’s sugar bush farm in Maine’s North Woods.

  The sticky truth about the maple syrup business was that people didn’t get into it to increase their bank account balance. Yes, there’d always been food on the table (provided coupons were cut), (hand-me-down) clothes on her back, and a (sometimes leaky) roof overhead—although prohibitive heating oil costs meant huddling around a cast-iron stove during the winter months.

  Dad boasted they were rich in love, but Mom’s parting words before leaving them behind for New Hampshire were tattooed on Pepper’s brain. “Whoever said money can’t buy happiness must have been poor, honey. Never ever forget that.”

  And she never ever did.

  Dad tried to put a positive spin on the situation: “From now on, girls, we’re a trio. Good thing three is my lucky number.” But there was no glossing over the fact that Mom had reinvented herself into a far-off Bedford suburb, remarrying a banker and becoming more invested in his stock portfolio than her two girls.