Romancing miss stone, p.1
Romancing Miss Stone, page 1
M.C. VAUGHAN is a Baltimore-based author of contemporary romance riddled with humour and local flavour. If you want to giggle throughout your sexy stories, welcome! You’ll root for her characters as they fall for their perfect people...and you’ll simultaneously shake your head as they stumble along the way. She grew up in a house crowded with family, friends, books, music, and occasional ghosts. Currently, she lives in Maryland with her husband and three delightful kids.
Romancing Miss Stone
M.C. Vaughan
www.afterglowbooks.co.uk
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ISBN: 978-0-008-93840-6
ROMANCING MISS STONE
© 2024 Mary Vaughan
Published in Great Britain 2024
by Afterglow Books by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises ULC.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
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Note to Readers
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To Dad, who showed us every ’80s adventure flick and would have been so proud.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book contains references to anxiety attacks, gambling addiction and a deceased parent.
Contents
Cover
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright
Note to Readers
Dedication
Author’s Note
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Publisher
One
Bo Ferguson snuck a glance at the clock tacked onto his home office’s exposed brick. Seven, and this should-have-been-an-email meeting was still going.
He fought the urge to rub his eyes.
His promotion to senior algorithm engineer six months ago came with an anchor to his desk. The responsibility was worth it, since it meant he could shave his mom’s and sister’s money worries down to a manageable level. The lone luxury he’d allowed himself was his ergonomic masterpiece of an office chair to support his clench-prone back muscles.
Actually, scratch that “lone luxury” bit.
He didn’t pinch pennies when it came to his newfound cooking hobby, either. Before his fiancée left for an archeological dig in Belize in January, she’d teasingly encouraged him to eat more than PB&Js and string cheese. He could take a hint and used their time apart to beef up his chef game. To his surprise, cooking was fun.
The kitchen was low-stakes, unlike everything else in his life.
“Bo, what’s the ETA on your code?” his project manager asked.
The door’s squeaky hinge signaled his cat’s arrival. Where had she gone? Shit. He had maybe thirty seconds before Lorelai yowled for dinner.
“Bo, if you’re talking, you’re muted.”
“Sorry,” he said. “What was the question?”
“Is your code on track? Any blockers?”
“No blockers. I’ll check it in later tonight. Early tomorrow at the latest.”
“Great.” She noted his response in the task management system. “Anyone have new agenda items?”
Silence, as expected.
He and his teammates had a pact not to prolong meetings. They’d rather spend these much-needed minutes grinding toward their go-live deadline at month’s end. An on-time delivery would earn them sweet stretch goal bonuses, and his would go straight into his and Destiny’s wedding fund.
“Okay.” His project manager flashed a thumbs-up. “See you at our morning stand-up.”
Lorelai pounced on his lap from the antique shelves next to his desk.
“Uhngf.” Bo clicked the bright red Leave button. Hopefully his team hadn’t heard his pained grunt. “Why are you like this, Lore? We had a truce.”
The orange cat licked her paws, then settled onto his thighs.
“I know, I know. You miss her.” He scratched under her chin. “Me too. But don’t take it out on me. She’ll be home tomorrow, and we’ll be back to normal.”
If their past disagreements were any indication, they’d work this out fast. He’d pick her up from the airport with a bouquet of her favorite tiger lilies, they’d come home to his Victorian-era fixer-upper and they’d finally talk things through.
He leaned back in his chair to give Lorelai room to stretch.
Talking would be great, actually. Destiny had punted their eight-o’clock calls every night this week. She’d texted that there were farewell dinners, research closeouts, documentation for her dissertation...all of which was true, but the distance nagged at him.
It had started over the holidays. After his promotion in the fall, he was in a secure financial position. They’d been dating for seven years, so it couldn’t have been much of a surprise when he popped the question as the ball dropped at midnight. She’d said yes without hesitation. The next day, they’d gone shopping for a ring, she’d picked out the one she’d liked best and they’d been happy.
For a week.
Then, she’d confessed she wasn’t sure. About him, or marriage, or both, she couldn’t say.
Before they could hash things out like rational adults, the Ch’ooj Creek archaeological research site in Belize had invited her to participate in a dig. This was too good for her professionally to pass up, so they’d agreed this would be a good break. They’d use the time to take a breather, then figure things out when she returned.
“Ready for dinner?” he asked the cat.
The two-hundred-year-old floorboards creaked under his chair’s weight as he rolled back from the desk. Lorelai leaped from his lap and followed him down the stairs, tripping him as she twisted through his ankles.
He caught himself on the railing. “Every time, Lore?”
She meowed and dashed into the kitchen. Tonight’s fare was honey-glazed salmon, blanched green beans and saffron rice. The whole thing took twenty minutes to cook, less time than delivery and twice as delicious. He divvied the meal onto plates for him and his sister, covered hers with a lid, then flicked a smaller, unsauced portion into Lorelai’s bowl.
She chowed down without a second glance.
“You’re welcome.” He scratched her behind the ears, which she ignored.
As he flicked on the television to catch up on the news while he ate, his phone buzzed with a text. He sighed. Was Destiny seriously canceling on him again? How could he pick her up from the airport without her flight info?
He unlocked his phone and tapped the text.
Babe, this is difficult to write.
He dropped his fork on the coffee table.
We’re not meant to be a forever-coup le, and it’s not fair for me to jerk you around. I’m happy here, happier than I’ve ever been, and I want the same for you, so I’m ending our engagement. Please have a good life.
Wait, what? A single text threatened to shatter his heart and future. His trembling thumbs stumbled over the keyboard, typing and deleting garbled words until he strung together a coherent message.
Des, this doesn’t make sense. You’re supposed to be on a plane in the morning.
He clutched the phone, waiting. Seconds stretched into torturous minutes, and he got...
Nothing.
No response—no confirmation that his message had been delivered, much less read. Was she on the other end of the phone? Belize was only two hours behind Baltimore. She should be awake and have time to talk.
He poked her profile, then clicked Call.
A half ring, then, “Hi, you’ve reached Destiny Richards. I’m on a date with my trowel, so please leave...”
Voice mail. He rubbed the tightness in his chest, waited a beat, then called again. Same result. Dread thickened his throat as he paced the length of the town house. She couldn’t mean what she’d texted. He was humble enough to admit they weren’t in a perfect place when she left, but a few tense months shouldn’t mean the end of seven years together.
Unless... Could he have misread their relationship that badly?
Oxygen came fast and shallow, forcing him to take a knee. The nap of the Turkish rug bristled against his palms. He closed his eyes to focus on his breathing, to calm it with counting, the way his doctor had coached him to when panic attacks came on.
The darkness was a mistake.
Now he was reeling, tumbling through milestone memories. Asking Destiny to marry him at the top of the Harbor Court hotel... Adopting Lorelai at the BARCS Animal Shelter... Dinner with Dad at the casino buffet when he’d blown through town for a poker tournament...
He couldn’t pinpoint where things had gone off track.
Candy-colored light from the front door’s stained-glass panel skated across the floor as his sister let herself into the house. A crisp April breeze whipped through the room, and the piercing squeal of an MTA bus’s brakes made him wince.
“You won’t believe the day I had.” His sister, Delilah, wheeled her bike in, folded it, then hung it on the rack he’d installed when she moved in to help with the rent. “The new guy who runs my lab is the worst piece of patronizing garbage. He actually asked me—”
She paused, mid-un-clip of her helmet.
“Bo?” Fear edged her voice. “What’s wrong? Is Mom okay?”
He sank back onto his heels, then riffled his hair.
“Bo. Seriously, you’re scaring me. It’s seven thirty. You should be eating dinner and watching the news, but you’re on the floor.”
“Mom’s fine.” He exhaled. One, two, three. Might as well rip off the bandage. “But I’m not. Destiny sent me a breakup text. Then I think she blocked me.”
Del’s windbreaker swished as she hung up her helmet. “Oh.”
His sister’s face, a feminine version of his own, was inscrutable. This was bad. He’d been able to read her like an instruction manual since the day they were born. Even before her diagnosis and the meds that had balanced out her irrational whims, he’d understood her on a chromosomal level.
Not today, though.
“My fiancée breaks up with me, and ‘oh’ is all you’ve got?” Bo pushed up off the floor. “You gave me more sympathy when my freshman girlfriend cheated on me with my roommate.”
“Because that was a complete surprise.”
Delilah brushed past him and into the kitchen. Wordlessly, she grabbed a bottle from the top of the fridge and two shot glasses from the cabinet of random glassware.
“What’s that for?” he asked.
“If we’re doing this, I need to take the edge off your mood.” She set the glasses on the corner dinette by the back door, then poured two shots. “Sit.”
There was no arguing with Del when she took that tone.
He sniffed at the glass. “Rum?”
“It’s either that or Grape Pucker. You have a shitty liquor cabinet.”
“Because I don’t drink.”
“You do today.” She gestured at his shot glass. Once he held his aloft, she tapped her empty one against it. “Drink.”
His eyes watered as the rum burned a path down his throat.
“There.” He coughed. “Now what the hell?”
“Uh, uh, uh.” She wagged her finger. “You know the rule.”
He pursed his lips. Twinhood meant he and Delilah told each other truths that no other humans on the planet would dare to. After all, they had the full context of their shared life together. It did not always make for a peaceful home life, however. So, at sixteen, their birthday gift to each other was a promise to keep their opinions to themselves unless invited to share.
He’d never invoked radical candor about Destiny because they’d all known each other since middle school. He knew what his sister thought about his fiancée.
Didn’t he?
“Delilah Jane Ferguson, please tell me what you think about this situation.”
“I would be happy to, Boaz Jasper Ferguson.”
She shed her windbreaker, revealing her black lab tech scrubs. He loved those scrubs. They represented how far she’d come, how hard she’d worked to catch up after everyone but him and their mom had given up on her. They’d always been each other’s best friends, fiercest defenders and biggest cheerleaders whenever life was too much.
“You swear this won’t make things weird between us?” she asked.
“We’re twins. Things have always been weird between us.”
“Fair. But I have been sitting on this for years, so remember that you asked for it.” She pointed at him. “Maybe Destiny breaking up with you is for the best.”
That thumped him in the chest. He furrowed his brow. “Go on.”
“Do I have to?” She rotated the shot glass on its base.
“Yes.”
The seconds ticking on the kitchen clock pecked at his patience.
“Del,” he prompted. “Don’t hold back.”
“She’s not right for you. She might’ve been when you two started dating. You helped each other get over a heartbreak. But...” Del blew her dark hair out of her eyes. “Please, Bo, don’t make me say this.”
“Oh, you’re saying it.” He poured himself another shot.
“She’s kind of a jerk. Selfish.”
“No she’s not, she’s—”
Del held up a finger. “Stop. You invoked radical candor, so I’m coming clean. You had a crush on her since we met her. Fast-forward to when she strung you along and used you as a backup date for formals. You even took dance lessons so you could surprise her in case she asked you to prom.”
The truth of what she said itched.
He scratched his jaw. “That’s not exactly how it was.”
“Dude, I was there.” She poured him another shot. “When that guy smashed her heart after college, who white-knighted his way into picking up the pieces?”
“Me,” he grudgingly admitted.
“You. Good old reliable, predictable Bo.”
“That’s not all I am.” He knocked back the rum. He’d embraced reliability and predictability to keep his family intact. Left to his own devices, though, who knew? Maybe he was a secret swashbuckler.
He nudged the empty shot glass toward his sister.
“Of course that’s not all you are. You cook a mean salmon, too.”
“Is that why Destiny sent me that text?” Lorelai buffed his ankles, so he picked up the cat. “Because she’s off having the adventure of a lifetime and I’m boring?”
“No.” Del laid her hand over his. “She sent you that text because she’s an asshole who doesn’t deserve you. Bo, seriously, you’re the best. You helped her get into grad school, navigated the financial aid system to get the best benefits—”
“I helped you navigate the system too, then invited you to live here during your post-doc to split expenses. I help the people I love.”
