Over the course of one wild road trip,
feuding childhood sweethearts get a second chance at love.
LOVE STORY
a Love Unexpectedly novel
Lauren Layne
Releasing February 14th, 2017
Loveswept
Over the course of one wild road trip, feuding childhood sweethearts get a second chance at love in this charming rom-com—a standalone novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Blurred Lines and Good Girl.
When Lucy Hawkins receives a job offer in San Francisco, she can’t wait to spread her wings and leave her small Virginia hometown behind. Her close-knit family supports her as best they can, by handing over the keys to a station wagon that’s seen better days. The catch? The cross-country trip comes with a traveling companion: her older brother’s best friend, aka the guy who took Lucy’s virginity hours before breaking her heart.
After spending the past four years and every last dime caring for his sick father, Reece Sullivan will do just about anything to break free of the painful memories—even if it means a two-week road trip with the one girl who’s ever made it past his carefully guarded exterior. But after long days of bickering in the car turn into steamy nights in secluded motel rooms, Reece learns that, when it comes to Lucy, their story is far from over. And this time, they just might have a shot at a happy ending.
Although listed as a title in the Love Unexpectedly Series, all books in the series stand alone.
“Spock, we’re giving you Horny!” my mom
blurts out, apparently fed up with my denseness.
Her utterance is too much for my siblings to
handle and they both burst out laughing, retreating into the kitchen to rejoin
the party where there’s wine.
Oh what I wouldn’t give for wine right now.
“I, um . . . you’re giving me the car?” I
ask.
“Because yours broke down,” my dad explains,
walking forward to thump Horny’s dented hood.
“And this one’s . . . not broken down?” I ask
skeptically.
Look, it’s not that I’m not grateful. My
parents are trying to give me a car, I appreciate the sweetness of the gesture,
it’s just . . .
Here’s the thing about Horny: he barely got
us three kids through high school. I mean, Horny is the car that sputtered and
shook making it the 3.2 miles to Jefferson High, no matter who was behind the
wheel.
I’m even going to come all the way clean here
and say that early on in my freshmen year, I was embarrassed
showing up in Horny. Then I realized I was lucky to have a car at all, and well
. . . I dunno, I guess Horny became a part of us Hawkins kids’ charm, because
the station wagon was practically an institution from Craig’s high school reign
all the way through Brandi’s.
But poor Horny quit working years ago. Much
to Brandi’s chagrin, he gave up the ghost a mere two months before her high
school graduation, and I spent the last bit of her senior year being picked up
by my parents.
“He’s going to take you to California,” Dad
says, giving the car another thump.
“Really?” I step forward and run a tentative
finger along the familiar panel. He’s had a bath, so at least that’s something.
“Because last I knew, he wouldn’t even make it out of the garage.”
“Yeah, well, we neglected him for a while,
but he’s right as rain now,” Dad says, puffing out his chest as though Horny’s
a fourth child.
“Like, as in he actually starts?”
“Purrs like a kitten,” my mom says with an
emphatic nod, even though I know she doesn’t even like cats. “We didn’t believe
it, but we took him to church on Sunday and there were no issues.”
I literally
bite my tongue to keep from pointing out that this is hardly a feat. Sacred
Presbyterian is 0.8 miles away from the house.
“You took Horny into a shop?” I ask, starting
to warm to the idea of having a car again. I’m a little touched, actually.
Money is tight for my parents. Dad’s a PE teacher, and Mom gives a mean winery
tour, but the gig’s never paid much.
“Not exactly, it was more of a bartering
situation,” Mom says.
“Yeah?” I say, going around to the driver’s
seat, already giddy with the prospect of telling Oscar I’ll be able to come see
him in Miami after all, even if I won’t exactly be riding in style.
“Reece agreed to fix him up.”
I’m lowering myself into the car as my dad
says this, but I reverse so quickly I hit my head. My skull doesn’t even
register the pain, because I’m too busy registering the hurt in my heart at
the familiar name. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Reece,” my mom says, giving me a bemused
look. “He’s always been handy with cars.”
“He fixed up the car in exchange for what?”
And then I feel—I actually feel—the air change
around me as the side door to the garage opens, and a new presence sucks all
the air out of the space.
I don’t turn around. I don’t move. But I feel
his eyes on me. Over me.
“Reece is headed out to California too,” my
oblivious mother chatters on. “It worked out perfectly actually. Now you two
can ride together, and your dad and I don’t have to worry about you alone in
the middle of nowhere with a twenty-something-year-old car.
They think the car is going to be the problem
here? It’s not the car that’s toxic to me. It’s him.
Reece Sullivan. My brother’s best friend. My
parents’ “other son.”
Slowly I force myself to turn, and even
though I’m prepped, the force of that ice-blue gaze still does something
dangerous to me.
He winks, quick and cocky, and I suck in a
breath, and I have to wonder . . .
I wonder if my parents would feel differently
about their little plan if they knew that their makeshift mechanic is the same
guy that popped my cherry six years earlier under their very roof.
And then broke my heart twenty-four hours
later.
Lauren
Layne is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen
romantic comedies.
A former
e-commerce and web marketing manager from Seattle, Lauren relocated to New York
City in 2011 to pursue a full-time writing career.
She lives
in midtown Manhattan with her high-school sweetheart, where she writes smart
romantic comedies with just enough sexy-times to make your mother blush. In
LL's ideal world, every stiletto-wearing, Kate Spade wielding woman would carry
a Kindle stocked with Lauren Layne books.
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