Flirting With Disaster

Flirting With Disaster
Sherryl Woods

Opposites attract, but they don’t last.At least that’s what improper Southern belle Maggie Forsythe thinks after being unceremoniously dumped two weeks before getting hitched to a man even her mother approves of. Maggie has never given two figs what anyone thinks, so why is she hiding away from her South Carolina Low Country home?That is until concerned—albeit scheming—friends arrive with three options: One: Sit and mope. Two: Go home to her gallery. Three: Help them build a house for a needy family and make a difference for once. But one look at Maggie, and project foreman Josh Parker knows what kind of sweet-tea-swilling debutante he’s dealingwith. Even if she does know her way around a circular saw.Sure, they have enough sparks to ignite a bonfire, but he’s corn bread to her caviar. And if there’s anything he’s learned from growing up broke, it’s better to aim low than risk everything and lose.“Sherryl Woods is a uniquely gifted writer whose deep understanding of human nature is woven into every page. ” — New York Times bestselling author Carla Neggers

PRAISE FOR

SHERRYL WOODS

“Strong supporting characters, a vivid sense of place, and a strong appreciation for the past add to the appeal of Woods’ contemporary romance.”

—Booklist on The Backup Plan

“Clever characters and snappy, realistic dialogue add zest … making this a delightful read.”

—Publishers Weekly on About that Man

A “gripping, emotionally wrenching but satisfying tale.”

—Booklist on Flamingo Diner

“Sherryl Woods gives her characters depth, intensity and the right amount of humor.”

—Romantic Times

“Energetic pacing, snappy dialogue and an appealing romantic hero.”

—Publishers Weekly on After Tex

Dear Reader,

Usually when I write connected books, I plan in great detail well in advance, but when I came to the end of The Backup Plan, I suddenly realized that Maggie needed to have her own story. Here was a bright, spirited, successful woman who’d had the world’s worst luck with men, a mother who considered her a failure at love, and a safe, predictable ex-fiancé who’d called off their wedding at the last minute. Maggie’s self-esteem was pretty much trashed.

And so she ran … straight to a beach house to try to get a grip on her life. When three people show up to save her from herself—including her ex-fiancé—Maggie’s pretty sure that her future is about as bleak as it can get.

Her best friend, though, has a plan … and a man for Maggie.

Josh Parker has issues of his own, including a mother whose maternal instincts leave a whole lot to be desired. What fun to have this strong, sexy man try to battle his feelings for Maggie and wrestle with all those old issues when his exuberant, offbeat mother zips in from Las Vegas after yet another disastrous marriage!

Once I had the right guy for Maggie, the rest of the story came together the second I saw the Reba McEntire commercial for Habitat for Humanity. Every single time I see it, I get choked up and think about all the families this wonderful organization has helped to move into their first real homes. It’s a church that’s building a home this time, but the philosophy of giving people a fresh chance is the same.

I hope you’ll enjoy Maggie and Josh’s story and that you’ll have fun catching up with Dinah and Cord and meeting Amanda and Caleb. You guessed it! Those two will have their own remarkable story in Waking Up in Charleston, coming out in May 2006.

All best,

Sherryl

Also by SHERRYL WOODS

THE BACKUP PLAN

DESTINY UNLEASHED

FLAMINGO DINER

ASK ANYONE

ABOUT THAT MAN

ANGEL MINE

AFTER TEX

Flirting

With

Disaster

Sherryl Woods

www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)

1

At six, running away from home had been a scary proposition. It should have been easier and less traumatic at thirty-two.

It wasn’t, Maggie concluded with regret after three weeks in hiding. Oh, the logistics were easier, but the emotional wear and tear were about the same.

Way back then, lugging a Barbie suitcase packed with Oreos and her favorite stuffed toys, Maggie had set out to show her parents that she didn’t need them anymore. But by the time she’d wandered a few blocks away from their Charleston home onto unfamiliar streets, and by the time darkness had closed in with its eerie shadows, she’d begun to wonder if she hadn’t made a terrible mistake.

Still, she’d been far too stubborn to consider backing down. She’d climbed onto a wicker rocking chair deep in the shadows of a deserted front porch and, tightly clutching her tattered Winnie the Pooh, gone to sleep. Her frantic parents had found her there the next morning, thanks to a call from the owner of the house, who’d been alerted to her presence by his son. Leave it to terrible Tommy Henderson to rat her out. No wonder no one in first grade liked the little tattletale.

It seemed more than a bit ironic that twenty-six years later, Maggie was running away from home again and that she was still trying to prove things to her parents. The only difference this time was that Tommy Henderson was nowhere around. Last she’d heard, he was working somewhere overseas as a CIA operative for the United States government. At least he’d put his capacity for sneakiness to good use.

Sitting in a rocker on the front porch of a tiny rented beach house on Sullivan’s Island, Maggie sipped her third glass of sweetened iced tea and watched the fireflies flicker in their endless game of tag in the evening sky. The air was still and thick with humidity, the night quiet and lonely. Even though she was all grown up, in many ways she was just as scared now as she had been at six, and just as stubbornly determined to stay away till she made sense of things.

She couldn’t recall exactly what had sent her fleeing into the night back then, but now it was all about a man, of course. What else could possibly drive a reasonably sane and mature woman to run away from her home and business and fill her with enough self-doubt to keep her on a shrink’s couch for years? She didn’t miss the irony that it was, in fact, a shrink who’d turned her world upside down.

Safe, solid, dependable Warren Blake, Ph.D., had been the kind of respectable, charming man her family had always wanted for her. Her father had approved of him. Predictably, her mother had adored him. Warren didn’t make waves. He didn’t have any pierced or tattooed body parts. He could carry on an intelligent conversation. And he was Southern. What more could they have asked, after the parade of unlikely candidates Maggie had flaunted in front of them for years?

Basking in all that parental approval for the first time in her life, Maggie had convinced herself she loved Warren and wanted to marry him. The wedding date had been set.

And then, with the invitations already in the mail, Warren had called the whole thing off, saying he had come to his senses and realized their marriage would be a mistake. He’d done it so gently, at first Maggie hadn’t even understood what he was trying to say. But when the full import had finally sunk in, she’d been furious, then devastated. Here she’d finally done the right thing, made the right choice, and what had she gotten in return? Total humiliation.

She’d packed her bags—Louis Vuitton this time—and run away from home again. In terms of distance, it really wasn’t that much farther than she’d run all those years ago, but Sullivan’s Island was light-years away from Charleston in terms of demands on her shattered psyche. She could sit on this porch, swatting lazily at mosquitoes, and never once have to make a decision that she’d come to regret the way she regretted her decision to get engaged to Warren.

She could eat tomato sandwiches on white bread slathered with Miracle Whip for breakfast and an entire pint of peach ice cream for lunch. She could play the radio at top volume and dance around the living room at any hour of the day or night, if she could summon the energy for it. She could go for a swim without waiting a whole hour after eating, and she could track sand through the house, if she felt like it.

In fact, she’d been doing all that for a while now and, she was forced to admit, it was getting on her nerves. She was a social creature. She liked people. She missed her art gallery in Charleston. She was almost ready to start seeing her friends again, at least in small doses.