Love Letters in Fortune's Bay: A Fortune's Bay Novella Read online

  Love Letters in Fortune’s Bay

  A Fortune’s Bay Novella

  Maria Luis

  Copyright © 2018 by Maria Luis

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Art by Qamber Designs and Media

  Editing by Indie Editing Chick

  Proofreading by Tandy Proofreads

  Created with Vellum

  To the ladies behind Fortune’s Bay, I truly wish we could sit on the beach, sip a cocktail, and talk romance books until the sun sets. Until then, we’ll just have to live vicariously through our characters.

  And to everyone who has ever had the pleasure of finding their four-letter curse words converted to “duck”…and to everyone who has given up hope of ever getting your phone to stop autocorrecting you. This one is for you.

  Good job, honey.

  Travel to Fortune’s Bay from the comfort of your home and drink in the white sand beaches and crystal clear waters. The sun always shines in this fictional small tourist town in the South-West of Florida and soulmates always find each other.

  A Note To Readers

  At the back of this novella, you will find the exclusive Fortune’s Bay short story, The Bay of Love: LOUISA and CHASE. Previously published in the Fortune’s Bay Short Story Holiday Collection, it is now only available with this novella.

  Before you go, readers of my work will know that my stories are sexy and full of heart. As the Fortune’s Bay world is sweeter, I wanted to satisfy both the sweet and the sexy! At the end of Chapter 11 in Love Letters, you will find that the last sentence is hyperlinked. Click that and you will be brought to my website to read the Bonus Sex Scene. Skip it, and you can just keep reading without missing a thing. Enjoy! <3

  Happy Reading from the Friends of Fortune!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  The Bay of Love: LOUISA and CHASE

  More Fortune’s Bay Stories!

  Acknowledgements

  Also by Maria Luis

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  “Oh, c’mon.”

  Throwing a quick glance over her shoulder at the empty office, Daisy Mae turned back to face the old-school desktop computer seated on her desk. It was clunky, huge, and currently reflecting the one request she could have done without this week.

  A love letter to your ex.

  Just fantastic.

  When she’d kicked off her anonymous blog, Love Letters Unrestricted, three years ago, she’d never expected it to skyrocket the way that it had. Simply put, she’d only been looking for a way to let off steam through comedy.

  The first love letter posted to her site had honored a glass of Merlot, which she’d imbibed in record time, after learning she’d been “relieved from her responsibilities” at the comedy club she’d managed two towns over from Fortune’s Bay. Something about the owner thinking that his brother, a brawler of a man if there ever was one, would be a better fit.

  Daisy could read between the lines easily enough: her jerk of a boss believed that men were funnier.

  That love letter had earned her four hundred hits to her website once she’d linked it to Tumblr.

  Her second love letter had taken a turn for the ridiculous on account of a request from a follower, and she’d written a pretty darn good limerick about a burrito.

  In the last three years, Love Letters Unrestricted had written odes to puppies, songs about coconuts, a sexy haiku about Brad Pritt, and at least one-too-many snarky commentaries on household items that made Daisy roll her eyes but had her followers posting all sorts of laughing emoji’s in the comments of each post.

  But this . . .

  Cupping her elbows, she planted her forearms on the desk and stared at the computer in resignation. She didn’t want to write about her ex, especially as said ex was also the jerk of a boss who’d fired her.

  And, yes, she knew that dating a coworker of any kind was a bad idea.

  Your entire dating history is a bad idea.

  That, too.

  Sighing, Daisy withdrew a notepad from the top drawer of her desk and tossed it next to the computer keyboard. She could do this. Really, she could. What was one little song about Steven “Flat Butt” Barker, anyway? One song. One flat butt. One horrible man who deserved to rot in an open vat of boiling—

  Focus, girl.

  With ballpoint pen to yellow legal paper, Daisy’s messy handwriting took form across the page. The words were steady, frustrated punctures of crossed T’s and dotted I’s. Steve didn’t have a redeeming quality about him. Not. A. Single. One. And with each stabbing period that indented the notepad, she felt a whole lot better about writing a “love” letter to a man who’d given her the proverbial boot out the door.

  “Do you have the report ready for me, Mae?”

  Daisy whipped around so fast, she nearly stabbed herself in the chin with the pen. “Hey!” Her back snapped straight and she shot up and out of the chair. Reese Harvey may have become her boss following the comedy club fiasco, but he’d also become a close friend of sorts. Even though she sometimes suspected he had no sense of humor.

  Dark-haired. Dark-eyed. A mouth constantly pursed together like the devil himself was inhaling the scent of rambunctious puppies. If he weren’t so very cold, she might find him tipping the scale of sexy.

  Maybe.

  But then again, there was that whole “I eat cute, furry animals for a snack” vibe of his to consider. So yeah, maybe she might find him sexy . . . all right, she totally did. Considering her lackluster dating past, however, it was best that she squashed the attraction—and that’s what she’d done. For three years and counting.

  Powerful shoulders shifted to the right as he quirked his head and tried to get a look at her computer screen. Oh, crap. Daisy bounced to the side, cutting off his line of sight. Perhaps for the first time in her twenty-nine years, she was thankful for having been born like a string bean. Five-nine was tall, but in comparison to Reese Harvey’s broad six-three frame, she was only tall enough to block his gaze.

  “Hey yourself,” he said in that thick New Orleans accent he’d never lost, even after ten years in Florida’s Fortune’s Bay. Whenever he spoke, it sounded like he’d swallowed his vowels with an added spoonful of molasses. Slow, gritty, and with a permanent edge of something she could never put her finger on. Dark eyes lowered from the top of her head to meet her gaze when he asked, “Working on the report?”

  “I was . . .” Daisy swiped her tongue over her bottom lip. You were what? Not working on the report for the Main Street house, that’s for sure. “I was taking a break.” Lies—otherwise known as the coward’s choice of truth. “All those numbers and figures, you know?” Oh man, because that was even better.

  If Reese wasn’t standing three feet away, she’d do everyone a favor and bop herself in the forehead for that one.

  As his assistant—read: lackey/secretary/wing-woman-in-disguise—it fell to Daisy to tackle any task he threw her way. Somedays, it was as simple as corresponding with stores for appliance deliveries. On others, she might as well start submitt
ing applications to universities for a degree in architecture.

  And after dealing with three of the guys down at the site on Main Street this morning, she’d probably have more luck fitting a square peg in a round hole before she even typed The End on the report Reese wanted.

  His jaw worked, and Daisy swore she could see the wheels spinning in his head. Hastily, she added, “I’ll stay late. Work a little overtime”—at his raised brows, she laughed awkwardly—“unpaid, I promise.”

  “It can be paid.” With one ginormous paw—okay, a masculine hand—he rubbed the back of his neck and gave it a quick twist-twist side-to-side. Air popped as he cracked his neck, and then he was scrubbing his hand over his mouth and ducking it downward to slip into the front pocket of his worn jeans. “Listen, Mae”—Daisy smiled at his frequent use of her last name as a nickname—“I’m going to ask you something weird.”

  She cocked her head to the side to study him. “Weirder than the time you told me all about your sandwich preferences? What was it again? No tomatoes?” She tapped a finger to her mouth, then snapped her fingers. “Wait, no! I remember now. It wasn’t the tomatoes that was the issue, but rather that you—”

  The growling sound that erupted from his throat made her laugh out loud. As did the way his cheeks bloomed red and he flashed those dark eyes of his up at the ceiling. Like if he prayed hard enough, she might disappear.

  Joke’s on you, Reese Harvey.

  “Some of us don’t like it when our sandwiches get soggy,” he muttered. “It’s not a crime.”

  “Of course not.” Stepping forward, Daisy threw a teasing punch at his bicep, which was as hard as the coconut she’d once written a song about a few years back. Lowering her voice, she whispered conspiratorially, “The nerve of that bread, boss. Seriously, how dare it get . . . moist.”

  Reese didn’t laugh. He rarely did. But she didn’t miss the way his throat worked with a swallow and how the lines fanning out from his eyes creased. It was the Reese Harvey Smile, and it was one that always made Daisy feel like she was on stage performing to an audience—happy and all-in-all pleased with herself.

  “You know how much I hate that word.”

  “Moist?” Daisy grinned. “As does the rest of society. Which is why it’s so much fun to toss it around just for fun. Stir up trouble. Make the world feel uncomfortable in all their moistness—”

  She didn’t expect it.

  His hand wrapping around her wrist, his thumb fluttering over the delicate pulse at her wrist. Nor the gritty way he muttered, “Fu—”

  “Duck,” she threw in.

  Dark eyes widened down at her. “What?”

  “It’s my New Year’s Resolution. No dropping f-bombs.” As a comedian, she’d always felt the need to play the f-card to compete with her male peers. But, hey, even if her career was down the toilet, it didn’t mean she couldn’t make a personal sort of change . . . in April. “I’ve swapped it out with ‘duck’—you know, like how our phones are always autocorrecting us?”

  For a moment, he only stared down at her, his hand still clasping her wrist. Then, “Daisy Mae, you’re got a real ducked up way of looking at life sometimes. You know that?”

  She did. She’d known for years, ever since her mother had sat her down at the age of six and explained that sometimes kids had to be put in certain classes because they didn’t understand material the “right” way.

  At the end of the day, Daisy understood everything just fine. It was just that having ADHD meant she sometimes lacked focus. Her brain (and its tendency to wander) was her worst enemy.

  She shoved her shoulders back and kicked up her chin. Her wrist, she noted, he kept tight in his grasp. “What do you need from me?” she asked. Focus. It was the mantra she’d put on repeat since the age of seven when a doctor had prescribed her medicine and she’d refused to take it. “Anything besides the report?”

  Reese released her and stepped back. “Yeah, actually, I—”

  The chorus of “It’s Raining Men” met her ears, and she bit back a smile at the answering twitch in Reese’s mouth. So, so close to a real one. She’d been trying for years now. Sliding the cell phone out from the back pocket of his slacks, he asked, “I’m guessin’ I have you to thank for the ringtone choice?”

  Daisy shrugged. “Don’t leave your work phone unattended.”

  With a swipe of his thumb across the screen, he pointed the phone in her direction in a fake-threat before lifting it to his ear. “This is Harvey,” he barked in that New Orleans accent of his. “Aw, fu”—he cut a look in her direction—“duck. Why am I saying duck . . .” He screwed his eyes shut briefly. “Yes, I’m feelin’ all right. No, Gage, my briefs aren’t on too tight.”

  Watching the impenetrable Reese Harvey squirm was perhaps the best entertainment she’d had in a good, long while. But watching him struggle to maintain his cool mask in front of her was a lot like watching a performer struggle to remember their lines, and so Daisy motioned toward the open door behind him.

  No, he mouthed, wait.

  Her feet ground to a halt on command. Reese had one of those voices, silently mouthed or not, that when issuing a command, you didn’t even think about disobeying. If he ordered every last person in Fortune’s Bay to jump into the water fully-clothed, Daisy had no doubt he’d have a 99.9% success rate.

  “Listen, man, a meeting came up and I’m going to have to take it. Be on the lookout for a massive black truck that looks like it could fit all of Fortune’s Bay into it. Yeah, yeah, I’m going to have my assistant—no, I’m not trying to be fancy when I say I have an assistant.” Reese pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re a pain in my a—”

  Daisy cleared her throat when he glanced her way, then whispered, “kiwi.”

  A tick leapt to life in his temple. “My assistant is coming to pick up you and Lizzie from the airport.” He caught her gaze. “It’s her penance.”

  Penance?

  Well, well, well, maybe Reese Harvey did have a sense of humor under all those rigid—and sexy—muscles of his.

  He hung up a moment later, and as though they were balanced on opposite ends of a seesaw and struggling to stay on, they both spoke at once:

  “You could have just asked me to drive to the airport.”

  “Kiwi, Mae?” He sounded completely bewildered. “That’s the best you could come up with?”

  “What? I’ve been dying to take a trip to New Zealand.”

  Shaking his head, he dug into his front pocket and withdrew a set of keys. He faked a throw at Daisy in preparation, and once she’d cupped her hands to offer a secure landing, he let them fly. Cool metal slapped her palms as her fingers closed over the truck keys.

  “Airport, please. My cousin and his wife just came in, and I forgot all about that Metairie meeting you set up for me last week.”

  Excitement bubbled in her belly at the thought of the plans which involved restoring one of Fortune’s Bay’s oldest properties on Shelter Island, just off the coast. Only two such mansions existed on the island, and the other was firmly off the market. This one, though, this one, she’d had a good feeling about when she’d first spotted the listing online and forwarded it to Reese.

  “Airport, got it.” She offered a saucy salute. “I’ll wrap up the report when I get back, I promise.”

  And then, as though she’d been gifted a small glimpse into the always elusive world that was Reese Harvey, he grinned. “Your promises should kiss me in the kiwi.”

  Daisy blinked. “Now that’s quite an image.”

  She didn’t linger to hear his response. Like every other time in the last three years that Reese smiled at her, she felt like she’d ingested a jar of butterflies. And that just wouldn’t do—Daisy had already bought the T-shirt for “dating your boss” and she had no plans to pull a repeat.

  Not even for the maybe-sort-of-sexy Reese Harvey.

  Chapter Two

  Reese’s heart rate refused to even out.

  Not that he ex
pected otherwise—that was the problem when you were attracted to your employee. Although “attracted” was putting it mildly, since what he felt for Daisy Mae pushed past any and all respectable boundaries.

  Unfortunately, there were two problems with that: the first, he cut her checks every other Friday. The second, he was Reese Harvey, which meant that the closest he’d ever come to admitting how he felt was ordering her favorite sandwich from the local diner she loved so much.

  Rotisserie chicken, a dash of ranch dressing, lettuce, pickles, and a piling of provolone cheese.

  If relationships were as easy as remembering the way a person liked their sandwich dressed, he’d have already proposed, bought a house, and adopted two dogs.

  As it was, he brought her sandwiches weekly and hoped she’d read between the lines.

  “You are such an idiot,” he muttered to himself.

  No, not an idiot—just shy, sometimes unreasonably so. People took one look at his big frame, heard the deep timbre of his voice, and immediately assumed he was as talkative as his shoulders were wide.

  Unfortunately, talking had never been his strong suit.

  Which made the way he felt about Daisy slightly pathetic. With her, he’d found his voice. With her, he could shoot the shit for hours on end and never even glance at the clock. With her, alternatively, he couldn’t help but wonder if her lips tasted like the cherry-flavored lip gloss she swiped on every other hour. And that wasn’t even factoring in one pertinent thing: Daisy never once looked elsewhere when they were together, as though content to just be with him.