In her pumpkin patch a h.., p.1
In Her Pumpkin Patch: A Holiday Romantic Comedy, page 1
In Her Pumpkin Patch
Alina Jacobs
Contents
Other books by Alina Jacobs
Synopsis
Acknowledgments
Mailing List
1. Penny
2. Garrett
3. Penny
4. Garrett
5. Penny
6. Garrett
7. Penny
8. Garrett
9. Penny
10. Garrett
11. Penny
12. Garrett
13. Penny
14. Garrett
15. Penny
16. Garrett
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85. Penny
Sneak peek
In Her Pumpkin Pie
1. Penny
2. Garrett
Read In Her Pumpkin Pie
About the Author
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright ©2019 by Alina Jacobs
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Created with Vellum
Other books by Alina Jacobs
Check out other books about characters mentioned in this one on my website:
http://alinajacobs.com/books.html
Synopsis
Garrett
Fall. Autumn. It doesn't matter what you call it, I hate it.
I despise pumpkins, Halloween, and the overwhelming sense of dread as the cold and damp move in.
But when my new chauffeur drives up in a hearse, Halloween carols blaring, I realize there will be no escape from the holiday.
Penny is the self-proclaimed Queen of Fall.
And it's her mission to turn me into a pumpkin spice fiend.
Penny
Fall is the best time of the year! I love pumpkin spice everything, cozy scarves, and nostalgic movies. But most of all, I love Halloween.
My quaint home town of Harrogate is the perfect place to celebrate the holiday. We're the original Halloween town. We have celebrations all month!
I should be more excited, except that I'm going back to Harrogate after failing to make it as a journalist in Manhattan.
Instead of living out my dreams, I'm living in a dilapidated Victorian house with creepy identical twins, a black cat named Salem, and a snobby ghost. I also have a new temp job with a sexy, but grouchy billionaire who is determined to make me quit.
Garrett is in desperate need of some Halloween cheer. But as much as I want to take him in the back of my hearse and have my way with him (okay that's a little creepy!) I can't be distracted by his washboard abs.
I'm up to my eyeballs in debt.
The mean girl from high school is now my mean coworker and is trying to wreck my life.
My mother wants me to write a juicy tell-all about Garrett and his huge family.
Yep, I’m going to trick the cold-blooded billionaire.
I know I need to stick with the plan and weasel enough information out of my boss to write a killer article for a big payday.
But when Garrett says in that deep, sexy voice, "Nice costume."
Instead of playing a trick, I'd rather give him a treat!
This standalone, full length romantic comedy has no cliffhangers! It features plenty of steam, the largest selection of hot brothers to ever grace your e-reader, and a multitude of Halloween innuendos!
To discounted Halloween candy—you are my ride or die.
Acknowledgments
A big thank you to Red Adept Editing for editing and proofreading.
And finally a big thank you to all the readers! I had a great time writing this hilarious book! Have a happy, funny, sexy Halloween!!!
Mailing List
Read the short romantic comedy, IN HER PUMPKIN PIE, along with other novellas and short stories for free when you join my mailing list!
alinajacobs.com/mailinglist.html
1
Penny
Fall—a time of hayrides, pumpkins, apple picking, cozy sweaters…and failure.
I was travelling by train to my small hometown with a torn duffel bag filled with my meager possessions and broken dreams. At least I had a temp job as an account manager at Svensson PharmaTech waiting for me. It wasn't my dream job as a journalist, but hey, I’d taken what I could get. Going home, tail between my legs, would be unbearable if I was going to be unemployed.
The worst? I didn't even have overbearing parents or a childhood bedroom to crash at. Instead, I was going to be staying at my now-deceased foster mother’s house. Her granddaughters, the twins Morticia and Lilith, lived there now. Yeah, they were identical and creepy and finished each other's sentences, but it was a free place to stay—though the twins claimed the house was haunted. But beggars can't be choosers.
A haunted house would be fitting, though, since it was fall, which was, in my opinion, the best time of the year. I loved sweaters, apple cider, and pumpkin-spice anything. Too bad I couldn't afford nice new fall outfits and accessories. I had barely been able to scrounge up some business-casual clothes for my new job.
Be positive, I ordered myself. It was my favorite time of year, and I was going to enjoy it, dammit, even if I did have a crappy temp job and a failing baking YouTube channel. I was going to make soups, pies, and cheesy pasta. Mimi's house had a large kitchen, though it was old. I was going all out for Halloween. The fall holiday season in Harrogate was fun! There was the Halloween festival and handing out candy to trick-or-treaters…
I sighed and stared out the window. It was overcast and drizzly. The weather didn't even have that wow factor of the crisp blue sky and orange, yellow, and bright-red leaves. My small hometown was improving, mainly thanks to the investment from the Svenssons, but the train still sucked. It was packed with people going back to Harrogate from various weekend trips away.
The child in the seat next to me sneezed, getting snot all over my plaid skirt. Where were his parents? I tried not to swear as I blotted the fabric. To cheer myself up from the reality that I had officially failed as a journalist, I had dressed for fall, complete with boots, a scarf, and a cute sweater with smiling pumpkins, which also looked like it had snot on it.
The kid sniffled. His nose was running. I sighed and pulled a tissue out of my purse and handed it to him. He looked at me.
"Seriously, you need me to wipe your nose for you?" The kid blinked. He was a little greasy but otherwise cute: chubby cheeks, blond hair, and big gray doe eyes. I gingerly blotted his nose.
"Where are your parents?" This kid was tiny—probably a toddler. He had his ticket pinned to his shirt.
"Who does that?" I muttered. "I thought that was something that happened in the olden days on orphan trains." I was suddenly nostalgic for rainy days in Mimi’s attic, reading American Diaries books and eating caramel popcorn.
"You're not going to bite me if I look at your ticket, are you?" I asked the kid, curious about how far he'd come. Maybe he was a child of a broken home, sent to visit his father for the weekend.
He pulled at the ticket, and I unfastened it for him then peered at it.
Davy Svensson – unaccompanied minor. Yellow Ridge Wyoming to Harrogate
"That’s—" I took out my phone, "fifty-seven hours? You've been on the train for fifty-seven hours? Who sends their toddler on a train for fifty-seven freaking hours by themselves?" Where before I had found the kid weird and annoying, now I was feeling protective. My mo
I felt terrible for the kid. And incensed. How dare his parents treat him like this?
"Who's your dad? Is that who you're going to meet?" I demanded. "A Mr. D-bag Svensson, I assume?"
The kid whimpered and looked sad.
I took a turkey sandwich with brie, apple slices, and arugula on ciabatta out of my bag. I had stopped by the Grey Dove Bakery before I left Manhattan. Yes, I splurged. Now that I’m not paying rent, I can do that, right? Don’t judge me! I’m terrible at money and math. That’s why I majored in journalism.
I fed the kid bites of sandwich as I stewed about his neglectful father. "Eat that, and you can have a cookie. It’s a special Halloween cookie!" Yeah, I really went all out. How could I not? Chloe, owner and baker extraordinaire, had carefully wrapped the sugar cookie in Halloween-themed tissue paper.
"I have three cookies," I told Davy when he had eaten his half of the sandwich. "You want a bat or a witch or a pumpkin?"
He pointed to the pumpkin. "Thank you," he said softly, cookie crumbs raining all over his shirt.
"We’re train buddies," I told him as I dusted him off. He grabbed my hand then immediately fell asleep next to me.
I had always wanted a giant family with a bunch of kids. I wanted to host elaborate Halloween parties, and my huge house would be decorated top to bottom, and the kitchen would be filled with yummy baked goods.
Life did not work out like that. Now I had three children named student loans, credit card debt, and poor decision-making skills to keep me company. I ate the other two cookies and the rest of Davy's. He'd just sneezed on me, so I guessed I already had whatever germs he was carrying.
I stewed as I thought about someone sending their kid on a train alone like that. He must have been so frightened! That sent me into a spiral thinking about my mother. Trisha had left me with my father when I was just a kindergartener to run off to Europe with her much older boyfriend. She rarely called. When she did, it was just to make promises she had no intention of keeping. When my father died, the state of New York tried to contact my mother, but she had dropped off the radar. She didn't resurface until I aged out of the system. Like a dummy, I welcomed her back into my life again and again. She would always dangle nice things in front of me. Trisha was now an editor at the Vanity Rag, and she was constantly promising she would run one of my articles.
My phone rang, playing spooky Halloween sounds. Davy stirred, and I hurried to answer it before he woke up.
"Penny, darling!"
Speak of the devil—or rather, speak of my mother.
"Hi, Trisha," I said, trying to keep my voice neutral.
"Why don't you ever call me Mom?" she complained. "You are my daughter, after all."
"Are you calling about the article I sent you?" I said, gritting my teeth. I had submitted an article about the Wild West of knitting: people stealing yarn, sabotaging projects, and lying about patterns. It was nuts and would make a fascinating article. I was sure of it.
"Our readers don’t want to hear about that," Trisha said with a fake laugh.
"Oh. Okay. Well, I appreciate you calling to tell me in person."
Ugh! I couldn't believe I had fallen for her lies again!
My mother snorted. "I didn't call about that. I heard through the grapevine that you are going to be working at Svensson PharmaTech."
"I'm not technically working for them, I’m just a temp."
"Of course you are."
There was that underhanded dig. Every time I had to talk to my mother, my self-confidence did a nosedive, and I had to self-medicate with copious amounts of cake.
"Great conversation, Mom."
"Don't get snippy with me, Penny," Trisha said, a harsh undercurrent in her voice. Then it softened. "I was calling to see if you had availability to do some freelance work."
In spite of myself, I perked up. Was this my big break?
"I have a fantastic idea for the next issue," my mother continued. "The Svenssons have been in the news recently with the popsicle scandal, and people are interested. They’re the new hot topic—all those good-looking brothers, polygamist cult victims turned billionaires. We want you to do an in-depth exposé on them. Really get to know them, learn about their family, their habits, their interactions."
"That sounds a little unethical…" I said uncertainly.
"They’re public figures," Trisha insisted.
I blew out a breath.
"If you can write a good story on them, you could parlay that article into a book, a TED talk, a Good Morning America appearance, maybe even a movie," Trisha said. "You could be one of the top investigative journalists of your generation."
Against my better judgment, I saw dollar signs and glory pass before my eyes. Then I thought better of it.
"I don’t know, maybe I shouldn't," I said.
"Trust me, Penny," Trisha said, using that tone that always made me believe whatever she was saying. "The Svenssons are terrible people. Men like that don’t become billionaires by being nice. They have skeletons in their closets. Ask me how I know. Evan Harrington’s investment firm bought our magazine last winter, and they are determined to wring every cent out of it. We want you to expose them."
"Can I think about it?"
"We need an answer now. There are other people we can ask, too, you know. You're not that special." She sniffed. "Look, we really want this story to happen. We’ll give you an advance."
An advance! Well then. Penny had bills to pay. But when I had signed up to be a journalist, I’d had visions of being like Erin Brockovich and exposing things people in power were trying to sweep under the rug. I had imagined saving lives and making a difference, not airing someone's family drama all over the newsstands.
I looked down at Davy asleep on my lap. Good men don't send their sons across the country by train all alone.
I had never been able to stand up to my mother on my own behalf, but maybe I could be in Davy's corner.
"You know what?" I said. "Sign me up."
"That's my girl!" my mother said.
Against my better impulses, I felt a flush of joy that my mom seemed proud of me.
I woke Davy up as we pulled into Harrogate station. There was a break in the rain. The sun was setting; the historic buildings and the tall clock tower were silhouetted against the orange rain clouds.
I loved Gilmore Girls, and the New England town of Harrogate feels like the closest you can get to Stars Hollow. It even has a town square with a bandstand. The Halloween festival is held there every year. I snapped pictures of it from the window as the train chugged into the ornate station.
"I’m so excited for Halloween in Harrogate," I said to Davy as he yawned. "You're going to love it!" I picked him up and carried him off the train. He had a small grocery sack holding a few clothes and a stuffed animal.
