By
Laura Drewry
Publisher: Loveswept Contemporary Romance
Publication
Date: April 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8041-7773-3
In Laura Drewry’s funny, heartwarming Loveswept
debut, a man and a woman learn the hard way that a little bit of love makes
staying friends a whole lot harder.
Worn out from the long drive back home, Jayne
Morgan can only smirk at the irony: Of course the first person she sees from
her old life is Nick Scott. Once best friends, they lost touch when Jayne left
town at eighteen, but nothing could keep them apart forever. Jayne has returned
to take over her grandmother’s bookstore, determined to put all her bittersweet
memories and secret disappointments strictly in the past—until, that is, Nick
insists she bunk at his place.
Nick never did care what people thought about
having a girl for a best friend—or the “scandal” she caused by showing up to
his wife’s funeral four years earlier—so he’s got no problem with the gossips
now. Jayne was always the one person he could count on in his life. Now Nick is
starting to realize that he never wants her to leave again . . . and that being
“just friends” isn’t going to be enough anymore.
We’re
all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that’s all.
Excerpt from Chapter One
Andrew
Clark, The
Breakfast Club
“Jayne!”
Half-hidden in the growing shadows of the store-lined street, and
almost four years since Jayne had last seen him, the walk was still the same;
left hand tucked down the front pocket of his jeans and a slight limp on the
right.
Nick Scott.
He shuffled to a stop a couple feet away from her, hesitated, then
stood there with an awkward half smile, half wince like he wasn’t sure if it
would be okay to hug her or if he should duck in case she took a swing at him.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought about punching him—and hard—over the last
four years, but this was Nick.
She couldn’t very well stay mad at her best friend forever.
But best friend or not, that didn’t mean Jayne wanted him hugging
her right there in the middle of Main Street, for Pete’s sake. He’d do it
anyway, it was just a matter of when, and even though she knew it was coming,
Jayne wasn’t ready. She never was. The only thing she could do was resort to
her usual defense: crossed arms, a sigh, and a smirk.
“You can never just stick to a plan, can you? I said I’d call when I
got here.”
“You also said you’d be here by one and it’s . . .” Nick tapped his
watch, held it up to his ear, then tapped it again, his eyes softening into a
mocking grin as he did. “Look at that—two fifteen.”
He held his hands out, palms up, and started toward her. Jayne took
a step back but not fast enough. He was already hugging her. Tight. And right
in the middle of the sidewalk for all the lookie-loos to see.
“Welcome home, Jayne.” His arms were like a vise; not letting up
even after she’d given him her token pat and let her arms fall.
Jittery laughter caught in her throat, trapped by an avalanche of
emotion she was wholly unprepared for. Gillette Foamy, sunshine, and sawdust;
it was the combined scent that had always been his, the one she’d tried so hard
to put out of her mind, and failed so miserably at.
“I . . . can’t . . . breathe.” She squirmed and twisted until his
grip began to ease, albeit slowly. Finally free, Jayne retreated a step,
scowled at him through her grin, and tried to ignore the stares from the two
old guys outside the hardware store across the street. Thackery and Thayer
Ostlund never missed a thing that happened downtown. They’d opened that store
long before Jayne had been born and the only way they’d leave was in
side-by-side pine boxes.
In unison, the twin brothers grinned and waved, which Jayne returned
with a chuckle and an added eye roll.
“Great. Back in town two minutes and by this time tomorrow,
T-Squared’ll have everyone thinking we were having sex on the sidewalk.”
“Look at you.” Nick’s grin warmed as his gaze moved over her face,
completely oblivious to the old guys’ stares. “You look great.”
Jayne snorted and adjusted the brim of her faded blue ball cap. “No
one looks great after being on the road for three days.”
“You do.”
If this is what he thought great looked like, he obviously needed
a good optometrist. Her hair was at least six months past its last cut, her
face hadn’t seen makeup since Christmas, and the only good thing she could say
about her clothes was that the rip across her knee was from constant wear and
washes, and not from the ten pounds she’d gained since the last time she saw
him.
Nick, on the other hand, looked just as good now as he had in high
school; maybe better. His thick dark hair was still short and untidy, the
little gold and green flecks in his eyes seemed to have darkened a bit, and his
Garth Brooks T-shirt fit him better now than it did when she bought it for him
senior year.
Who kept T-shirts for that long? And, more to the point, who could
still fit into them?
His awkward smile returned, bringing with it a shadow that fell over
his eyes, a worry that could only mean one thing.
“Oh no.” Jayne shook her head slowly, trying to warn him off with a
wide-eyed glare. “Don’t even—”
“I’m really sorry.”
Damn it. Normal people waited until they were somewhere a little
more private, but that’s not how Nick worked. He’d never cared what anyone else
thought of him. If he wanted to hug someone, he did it, if he wanted to say
something, he said it, and he never gave a good hot damn where he was or who
was watching.
“Yeah,” Jayne muttered. “The first three hundred apologies made that
pretty clear.”
“Phone calls and emails don’t count.”
“Some were texts. And those first few came with flowers.” She pulled
her key ring out of her pocket and twirled it around her index finger until
Nick grabbed it and held it still.
“Jayne.”
“Nick.” She tipped her face up to his and offered him the same
mocking little grin he’d flashed her a minute ago. Didn’t work. The worry
lingered in his eyes, his mouth twisted a little to the right. If she gave even
the slightest hint at how much he’d hurt her, she’d no doubt find herself back
in his vise grip until every one of her ribs popped. Best to dismiss it—and
quickly.
“So you kicked me out of your wife’s funeral in front of a church
full of people. Big deal. It’s not like it was the first time I was shown the
door in this town.”
The green flecks in Nick’s eyes darkened and his jaw tightened, but
before he said anything else, she yanked the key ring out of his grip and
stared straight back at him.
“Seriously. Enough already.”
After a long exhale, he tipped his chin toward the papered-up
storefront behind her. “You been inside?”
“No.” She hesitated, turned her gaze toward the old building. “Not
yet.”
Water-stained brown paper covered the windows and door, and a thick
layer of grime plastered the glass on the outside. How many times had she
washed those windows? How many books had she displayed behind the glass and how
many times had she taken the broom to those nasty cobwebs hanging from the shingle
overhang?
Twelve years ago she’d stood in this exact spot when Gran shut the
door behind her without so much as a goodbye, good luck, or kiss my ass. Over
those dozen years, Jayne had come back to town a few times to see Nick, but as
much as she’d wanted to, she’d never set foot back inside the store, and after
being humiliated at Abby’s funeral four years ago, Jayne had made a point of
avoiding the whole town in general.
There was no avoiding it now; it was long past time to accept the
fact that Gran had never loved her, and all those years of wishing for a normal
family had been a waste of time.
Nick could hug her until the cows came home, it wouldn’t make a spit
of difference now. Gran was dead and Jayne had no other family.
Available 4/08/14:
Random House:
http://www.randomhouse.ca/search/node/laura%20drewry
REQUEST TO REVIEW PLAIN JAYNE ON NETGALLEY:
Laura Drewry had been
scribbling things for years before she decided to seriously sit down and write.
After spending eight years in the Canadian north, Laura now lives back home in
southwestern British Columbia with her husband, three sons, a turtle named
Sheldon, and an extremely energetic German Shepherd. She loves old tattered
books, good movies, country music, and the New York Yankees.
Website: http://www.lauradrewry.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lauradrewry
Goodreads:
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