Breathless (The ABCs of Love Book 2) Read online

  Breathless

  The ABCs of Love - Book 2

  Clover Hart

  Contents

  Can You Keep a Secret?

  The ABCs of Cherry Valley

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  The ABCs of Love

  Climax

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  About the Author

  Books by Clover Hart

  Can You Keep a Secret?

  Barry Aaronson hates Cherry Valley. This town can’t even make a decent deli sandwich much less serve the same kind of top-shelf liquor he used to get in the city. Ever since he was dragged here to establish a tech start-up, he’s been stuck in a land of cowpatties, yee-haws, and scuffed boots.

  Dammit, he misses dating women in heels.

  But Penny Burnett just happens to be one of the only heel-wearing hotties in this small town, and when she and Barry meet … Bam — instant chemistry! And why shouldn’t she hook up with this cocky yet irresistible nerd since she’s about to leave Cherry Valley for a new job? She’ll never have to see him again, and thank goodness for that, because his business partner is engaged to her sister and neither of them wants two disasters like Barry and Penny anywhere near each other.

  Then Penny’s plans don’t quite come through and she finds herself in a rather … ahem … compromising position with her new boss. Barry. Can they keep their lips sealed and their libidos cool? Chances sure don’t look good with these two constantly getting so breathless whenever they’re close …

  The ABCs of Cherry Valley

  According to Abigail Peters

  Hey, I’m Abby, and this blog’s all about my beloved hometown (Hint, hint: amazing cherries, wine, and beautiful sunrises over farmland and ranches)! Everyone says I’ve always been precocious and have never been able to keep my opinions to myself. Now that I’m 21, I’m even worse.

  Hell Hath Frozen Over

  Newsflash! The thing we never thought we’d see in our slowly awakening small town of Cherry Valley has finally skated its way in. A sushi restaurant will soon be opening!

  You heard me right. Our modest, homespun taste buds are about to be exposed to raw fish, seaweed, and fish eggs. Here. In Cherry Valley. And why not? During the past few years, we’ve seen a fancy cocktail bar, coffeehouses, and even a new yoga studio move in. It’s almost as if all these more urban experiences are coming down the mountain in a lazy trickle of new and fun things to try. Consequently, these influences are coating the valley and seeping right through to the farmland on the other side of town. More wineries are popping up there. More strangers are moving into our midst. And there’s a lot of hope coming in with this trickle, which means that, slowly but surely, our collective tide is rising.

  But who knew that sushi would appear right along with something like, oh, let’s say Full Circle Technologies, which is still building its work campus on the outskirts of Cherry Valley? Hmm … do you think one has to do with the other?

  I haven’t yet uncovered just who or what has made Hana Sushi spring up right under our noses, but something tells me that those wily techies at Full Circle might’ve had something to do with it. Barry Aaronson and Zach Hamilton promised positive changes in CV when they set up shop here, so could this be their wasabi-spiked effort at citifying our town?

  Now, folks, as you leave your comments below, remember that we can’t be too hard on FCT. They’re in the process of bringing in a lot of revenue and new jobs to Cherry Valley — and, boy, does our economy need it. Also, thanks to their contributions, Main Street and the downtown area have gotten those new light fixtures as well as a parking structure that erased the sad parking situation.

  Whether you farm or ranch, live in the mountains or in town, what’s your take on sushi in CV? Is it a game-changer that spells pretentious doom for our way of life, or is it just a trendy flash in the pan?

  No matter what your opinion is, here’s to raw fish and expanding our horizons!

  Cherry Dreams and Smiles,

  Abby

  Chapter 1

  Penny

  I’m innocently sitting at the counter of the Screaming Beans Coffeehouse reading Abby Peters’ latest blog when someone plops onto the seat right next to me. That someone taps me on the shoulder.

  “Hey,” says Holly Sparks, my hairstylist from the salon a few doors down on Main Street. She pushes back the hood of her puffer coat. “Is it true you’re out of here? No more Cherry Valley for you because you’re leaving us for a gross new home like Chicago?”

  I put down my tablet and arch an eyebrow at her, challenging her to wonder why I’d ever pull up stakes and give up a sweet gig like owning The Curio Cupboard here in town. But every Cherry Valleyian knows that my job isn’t all that sweet, and I’ve been dying to take off to faraway places ever since Mama popped me out of her cha-cha twenty-seven years ago, so my arched eyebrow is wasted.

  “Oh, no,” Holly says. “It’s true?”

  “It’s true.”

  She wrinkles her delicate nose at me as if Chicago is a word that people generally whisper behind their hands to each other in the same sentence as filth and depravity. Chicago is evil in these parts. But Holly’s harmless. With her blonde-and-brown-streaked pixie cut, she looks like one of the woodland creature figurines I sell to tourists at my store. Or I used to sell before I unloaded the place to a new owner.

  “Dammit, Pen,” she says. “I’m losing you as a client, and even worse than that, I’ll miss all your stories about your terrible boyfriends. You don’t know how much they’ve entertained me and the rest of the shop all these years.”

  “Uh, thanks?”

  “That’s my way of saying I’m gonna miss you.”

  Before I can aw at that, I’m interrupted by my smarty-pants little sister from behind the coffee counter. “Don’t worry, Holly — Penny will manage to find the lamest boyfriends in a different location just as well as she does here. There’ll be stories galore.”

  Grinning back at me, Mandy takes off with a full coffee cup in hand, then serves it to an obvious tourist at a nearby table who’s playing around on his phone. He looks at her from under his winter sunglasses, smiling at her cute, ponytailed self, but she’s already off to wipe down one of many empty tables in the post-lunch lull. Outside the large windows, Main Street is just getting over a sprinkle of light, sleepy snow. It’s as boring as ever, and I turn my attention back to Holly.

  “As I was saying,” I tell her, “thank you for caring.”

  “Why’re you leaving, anyway?” she asks.

  “Really?” I gesture around the shop, which is pretty much what you’d get if a pinewood ranch house, bare light fixtures, and chalkboards took part in the most slow-motion, snooze-worthy orgy imaginable. “This town is as podunk as it gets. I’ve been waiting to see the world, and now I’ve got a chance.”

  “But Chicago? It seems s
o dirty, and aren’t there about a thousand murders there per day?”

  Yes, this is Cherry Valley — sweet, small, and oh-so scared of anything different. “It’ll be an adventure. I have a new job lined up and everything.”

  Mandy’s voice floats over the country music on the sound system. “She’s going to work in Human Resources at some big-city business.”

  “It’s a small software firm,” I say.

  Mandy returns to her place behind the counter, and as she gets busy fulfilling Holly’s same-as-always order of chamomile tea to-go, she’s like a more innocent version of moi, but with hair that’s more the color of cinnamon sticks than the cherry cider of mine. She has light freckles sprinkled over her nose, uses a hell of a lot less makeup than I like to, and is dressed so very country today in her jeans and Screaming Beans sweatshirt. In Chicago, they’ll appreciate the efforts I make to be fashionable.

  “I don’t know why you think this is a good move,” Mandy says to me. “You’re not even into computers, and certainly not into human resources.”

  Not for the first time, I want to argue that I’ve dealt with hiring, firing, paying employees, and following laws and regulations for years at my shop, but Mandy’s been hassling me about this decision for a while now. I don’t think she realized I was serious about moving. No one here takes me very seriously, but now people will have to in Chicago.

  Ah, Chicago.

  Before I can respond to my sister, Holly checks her watch, then scrambles off her seat so she can pick up her tea and go back to the salon. “So when’re you leaving, Pen? Because I’d love to spiff up your cut before you cheat on me with another stylist in your new home.”

  “A week and a half, and I’ll gladly take you up on the spiffing. But don’t be surprised if I come back to the Curly Cue for a little somethin’ somethin’ every time I visit. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

  “She won’t visit,” Mandy says.

  Once again, Holly interrupts the oncoming sparring match by paying for the tea and saying goodbye, leaving Mandy and me nearly alone except for the tourist. He’s enthralled enough with his phone so that when Mandy comes over to refill my plain coffee, we don’t mind that he’s there.

  She nods toward my tablet. “You were reading Abby’s blog?”

  Good — she’s not going to guilt-trip me again about leaving the family for what they call my silly escapade. “I read most of it. Isn’t it just my luck that we’ll finally be getting sushi in Cherry Valley now that I’m moving away?”

  “I’m sure the restaurant will be open by the time you come back for one of your visits, which really won’t ever happen once you get into the swing of your new, wonderful life.”

  I give her the stink eye, and she leans back against the counter and crosses her arms over her Screaming Beans logo. She’s got one of those looks I hate to see — it says she’s going to miss the stuffing out of me and she’d do anything to keep me here.

  “Anyway,” she says, clearly deciding not to hassle me more, “I didn’t know you had a thing for sushi.”

  “I have no idea if I do. I’ve never tried it. But at least it’s something different, and I need different. So does everyone in this town, if you ask me.”

  “Different,” Mandy says, curling her lip.

  I roll my eyes. “Different was a good thing when you and Zach first got together over that sushi date.”

  “It was a dare, not a date. And I still hate salmon roe rolls.”

  “Stubborn,” I mutter, because that’s Mandy for you — a little bit resistant to change, a lotta bit small town, even if she is engaged to one of the guys who brought Full Circle Technologies to Cherry Valley. I myself am too impatient to stick around for the mixed reality firm to get up and running so they can bring some modernization and life to this place. Maybe in a hundred years, FCT will have made a dent in the snail-paced, easy-peasy attitudes here, but I’ve waited long enough. “As I recall, you and Zach had a lot of ‘dares-not-dates.’ Besides, I’m sure there’re sushi places in Chicago where I can meet the kind of man I’m looking for.”

  “And what kind of man would that be?” Mandy teases. “The urban version of the hound dogs you date here?”

  “If you’re leading up to one of your animal stories, don’t. I’ve heard them all.” Mandy’s going to college over in Marloe, the nearest city — if you can call it that — and she’s studying to be a large-animal vet. I’ve heard many stories from her about horny bonobos and mating cows in relation to my boyfriends, and I don’t need more of a reminder that my taste in men could improve ever so slightly.

  Mandy has been watching me, and her expression has softened. “Have you even told your latest squeeze about moving? You know, that guy who moved to town from the mountains? I can’t remember his name.”

  “Hacksaw Leroy.” Ugh. “We’re over.”

  “You are?”

  I sigh. “He had some lumberjack muscles on him, and he actually found gainful employment down here in the woodworking shop on Craftsman’s Row, so those were plusses. And he had that come-on-strong attitude I like. But when things started going somewhere, he started pussyfooting around. ‘I’m not ready for a relationship, Penny,’ he said. So I dropped him and all those muscles.” I lean my elbow on the counter and rest my cheek in my hand, remembering the feel of his hard, buff arms. I just wish he’d been more arms and less problems.

  “Well,” Mandy says with a look that tells me she knows more about Leroy than she’s letting on. “Maybe he wasn’t ready for a relationship.”

  I slump in my seat. “Okay. So you heard what really happened.”

  “He was cheating with that Spanish mixologist newbie at the Acentric Alchemist. Did it ever occur to you that she’s got a habit of sleeping with your men?”

  Yes, it has. Leroy isn’t the first one of my exes who dipped his stirring stick into her tincture, but I don’t take her poaching personally. Word has it that she sleeps with anything that can suck on an ice cube.

  “Well, you know how it goes,” I say. “Another man, another loser. But that’s not going to happen in Chicago.”

  “Oh, Pen, I’m so sorry to hear about Leroy.”

  “It’s no big deal. Before I leave, I should probably even track down that Spanish fly while the Alchemist is closed for repairs, then thank her for clearing the way for me to get out of town. I’m so done with local men. Cherry Valley has more losers per capita than any other place in semi-civilization.”

  “You just need to choose better guys.”

  “That’s easy to say when you got the only good one.”

  “I know.” Mandy smiles. She glows just as brilliantly as the ring on her finger. She’s in love, and it’d make me sick if I wasn’t so happy for her.

  The tourist at the nearby table lowers his sunglasses and glances at us, and I know he’s heard everything. Both Mandy and I shrug at him, and he shrugs back like Maybe girls suck, too, then returns to his phone.

  Mandy says, “Zach’s business partner is a more sophisticated and worldly guy. Just the type you’re going for in the city, so those do exist here.”

  “Barry, right?” I laugh. “How many times have you told me what an ass he is?”

  “As many times as it occurs to me. I never wanted to introduce him to you. He’s always on some dating app, screwing over women.”

  “Well,” I say, sliding off my seat and snagging my faux-fur-trimmed down coat. “As appealing as the prospect of another crappy relationship sounds, I’m choosing Chicago.”

  Mandy’s expression falls at that. We grew up sharing a room, and whenever a boy would even glance cross-eyed at my little sis, I would whoop him but good on the playground. The guys would never admit to anyone that they got put in their place by a girl — especially one who liked to wear dresses and adorable hair accessories. But as I got older, I guess my feistiness made me a challenge for most bad-news men in Cherry Valley.

  I never did stop attracting those losers.

>   “Pen,” Mandy says, “you’re going to let me throw a going away party for you at the Footloose Saloon, right?”

  So much for the low profile I’ve been trying to keep. “I don’t need a party. I just need to go.”

  Mandy looks even sadder, and those puppy dog eyes have always gotten to me.

  My shoulders slump in surrender. “All right. I’d rather slip out of town in the dead of night without a fuss, but if my dear, loving sister wants to make a big deal about it …”

  “I do.”

  Well, then I do, too.

  Chapter 2

  Barry

  “Sushi’s coming to this shit town!” I announce to Zach from across the conference table in our makeshift Full Circle Technologies building. It’s lunchtime, and deli sandwiches from the nearby health food store litter the surface between us. I turn my laptop’s screen toward him so he can see this long-awaited, official announcement on Abby Peters’ blog. “You can thank me for the giant leap in Cherry Valley’s food quality later.”