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Dockside at Willow Lake

Год написания книги
2019
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Dockside at Willow Lake
Susan Wiggs

Find your own happy ever after with Susan Wiggs…With her daughter grown-up and flown from the nest, Nina Romano is ready to embark on a new adventure. As a young single Mum there were things she’d given up – no postponed! – and this is Nina’s time to start again, chase new dreams and find herself or at least a new self…!But just as she she’s beginning to enjoy being on her own, Nina meets Greg Bellamy, owner of the charming Inn at Willow Lake. Greg’s struggling being a single dad, his teenage daughter is pregnant and he can’t figure out how to fix things. Nina finds herself stepping in to help. Perhaps Nina’s new life will include a new love?For fans of Cathy Kelly

Acclaim for New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs

‘this is a beautiful book’

—Bookbag on Just Breathe

‘… Unpredictable and refreshing, this is irresistibly good’

—Closer Hot Pick Book on Just Breathe

‘… Truly uplifting …’

—Now Book of the Week

‘A human and multi-layered story

exploring duty to both country and family’

—Nora Roberts on

The Ocean Between Us

‘Susan Wiggs paints the details

of human relationships with

the finesse of a master.’

—Jodi Picoult

‘The perfect beach read’

—Debbie Macomber on Summer by the Sea

Also bySusan Wiggs

The Lakeshore Chronicles SUMMER AT WILLOW LAKE THE WINTER LODGE DOCKSIDE SNOWFALL AT WILLOW LAKE FIRESIDE LAKESHORE CHRISTMAS

The Tudor Rose Trilogy AT THE KING’S COMMAND THE MAIDEN’S HAND AT THE QUEEN’S SUMMONS

Contemporary HOME BEFORE DARK THE OCEAN BETWEEN US SUMMER BY THE SEA TABLE FOR FIVE LAKESIDE COTTAGE JUST BREATHE

All available in eBook

Dockside at Willow Lake

Susan Wiggs

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

For boat commutes to our writers’ group in the

summer, for treacherous drives through frozen winter

nights, for sticking together through spring floods and

autumn rains, for my fellow writer

and friend for all seasons—

For Sheila! For Joy!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many thanks to the real innkeeper, Wendy Higgins of The Ocean Lodge in Cannon Beach, Oregon. Deepest appreciation to fellow writers Elsa Watson, Suzanne Selfors, Sheila Rabe and Anjali Banerjee; also to Kysteen Seelen, Susan Plunkett, Rose Marie Harris, Lois Faye Dyer and Kate Breslin for their humour, wisdom and patience in reading early drafts.

Special thanks to Meg Ruley and Annelise Robey of the Jane Rotrosen Agency, and to my terrific editor, Margaret O’Neill Marbury.

‘A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.’

—Henry David Thoreau

Walden, ‘The Ponds’

Part One

Now

“You are part travel guide, social director, advertising and marketing specialist, housekeeper, chef, accountant, public relations specialist, buildings and groundskeeper, and local historian all rolled into one. If … you are willing to work hard, are dedicated to creating comfortable accommodations for visitors, have a love of your area and a desire to share that passion with others, then you may want to consider owning and operating a bed and breakfast inn.”

—The Bed and Breakfast Association of Alaska

One

After Shane Gilmore kissed her, Nina Romano kept her eyes shut. All right, she thought, so he wasn’t the world’s best kisser. Not every man was born a great kisser. Some had to be trained. Surely, Shane Gilmore was trainable.

She opened her eyes and smiled up at him. He certainly looked like a good kisser, with nicely sculpted lips and a strong jaw, broad shoulders and thick black hair. Maybe he was just having an off day.

“I’ve been waiting a long time to do that,” he said. “Your term in office couldn’t end soon enough for me.”

He didn’t mean it as a dig. Did he? The fact that her term as mayor of Avalon, New York, had concluded in scandal still stung; maybe she was just being paranoid. She decided to laugh it off. “All right, now you sound like one of my political enemies.”

“My reasons are romantic,” he insisted. “I was waiting for the right time. It wouldn’t have looked right for us to be together when you were mayor, not with me being president of the only bank in town.”

You look like such a hunk, she thought. Don’t act like a dork. And yes, she was being paranoid about the scandal, which was odd, because given her background, Nina was no stranger to scandal. As a young single mother, she’d held her head up and gone to work for the town of Avalon, eventually serving as deputy mayor. The salary was almost nonexistent, and hadn’t improved much when Mayor McKittrick fell ill and she became the de facto mayor, the youngest and lowest-paid in the state, as far as she knew. She’d inherited a city-finance nightmare. The town was on the verge of bankruptcy. She’d cut spending, which included her own salary, to the bone and eventually found the source of the leak—a corrupt city administrator.
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