Stay With Me
Cover
Stay With Me
Ian was the wild boy every girl dreams of, a renegade who thrived on breaking the law and setting Savi’s body on fire. It was all fun and games and hot excitement, no strings attached, until the one day he got serious—and then disappeared without a trace.
Savi has spent the ten years since committing herself to her work, her daughter, and to not thinking about Ian—or love. Just when it’s possible she might have found the one man who can change her mind, Ian pulls into town, bringing with him all of the lust, danger, and excitement Savi remembers.
As Ian stirs up old feelings and draws Savi back into memories and passion she’s too weak to fight, he’s also digging up dirt on the man Savi is falling for, doing everything he can to prove that Duncan is not who he seems to be. And Savi, unsure whether she can trust either man, will be forced to decide between rekindling a love that never really burned out and building a new one that looks ready to catch fire.
Title Page
Copyright
Beyond the Page Books
are published by
Beyond the Page Publishing
Copyright © 2014 by Sharla Lovelace Scroggs.
Material excerpted from
Don’t Let Go
copyright © 2014 by Sharla Lovelace Scroggs.
Material excerpted from
Just One Day
copyright © 2012 by Sharla Lovelace Scroggs.
Cover design and illustration by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs.
ISBN: 978-1-940846-27-9
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, 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 both the copyright holder and the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
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Acknowledgements
First shout-out to my wonderful readers! Your support keeps me going and motivates me to do this magical thing called writing. When you shoot me a note to tell me what one of my stories has meant to you or that something the characters did made you laugh—oh, my God, you just don’t know. That’s like author happy drugs. Nothing is better than that!!
I hope you enjoy meeting Savi and Ian and Duncan! They have a bit of a roller-coaster ride ahead of them, so they know to hold on. I’m letting you know, too. :) There’s a little piece of “real” in everything I write, so you should know that Gracie, while slightly larger in the book, is very much alive and real and draping herself over my arms as I attempt to type this. After playing outside in the rain. So she’s a bit soggy and . . . aromatic at the moment. I wish I could say that we have a veterinarian like Duncan, but no, he’s kind of crafted into perfection.
Stay with Me
wouldn’t be what it is without my agent, Jessica Faust, of BookEnds Literary Agency, and Bill Harris, Editorial Director at Beyond the Page. A million thanks for everything you do. I might be sending you Rolo brownies. Don’t put it past me.
Hugs and love forever to the love of my life, Troy. To my son, Ethan, and my daughter, Amanda. You are my everythings. Kisses, finger-wiggles, fist bumps and all that.
I love hearing from my readers, so please shoot me a line on Facebook or Twitter (@sharlalovelace) or the contact page at
www.sharlalovelace.com
. Also, keep up with all my new book releases easily by subscribing to my newsletter at
http://sharlalovelace.com/my-newsletter
.
And just like last time, check at the end of the book! Lily just might have left a recipe. :) Enjoy!
Dedication
To Amanda . . . on your first year away from home, serving in the U.S. Navy. I’m so over-the-moon proud of you, my beautiful, crazy girl. Miss you bunches. Finger wiggle and lovesssss . . .
Contents
Chapter One
I can’t say that I was proud of myself. Whoring out my perfectly healthy mutt just to get a moment with the hot new veterinarian—well, it probably wasn’t one of my more upscale moments. The old me would have been disgusted with such a girly move, but I ignored that thought.
On the flip side, my Gracie was the best-maintained dog in town. And thought a trip to the vet was a play date.
“It’s Gracie Barnes again,” said one of the receptionists as the other two came around the counter to greet her wiggling bulk. Everyone loved Gracie. The one talking to me, however, was a girl named Gretchen who I’d gone to school with and was never a fan. “What’s her problem this time?”
Seriously? I wanted Gracie to bite her. “She’s itching really badly,” I said as Gracie scratched on cue. You’d think we rehearsed this. “I don’t see a single flea, but she scratches constantly.”
“Okay,” Gretchen said, with a look that said she knew what my game was. “Dr. Spoon is in surgery, so she’ll have to see Dr. Weatherly.”
I tried to keep the lip curl off my face, but I felt it. Dr. Weatherly was a crusty old woman who looked like she ate small children in her free time. That was probably unfair—I’m sure she was a very good doctor. She ran the clinic solo for fifteen years before hiring on Duncan Spoon, so she must have done something right. And my dad told me that she was at the top of her class back in the day. But her bedside manner was, well, left at home. Possibly in a house made of candy.
“That’s fine,” I said, smiling back.
“It’ll be just a minute,” she said. Turning to one of the other women, she widened her eyes and whispered, “Hopefully she won’t steal the magazines.”
“Really?” I said. “I’m right here. And all grown up. Are you?”
She sighed and scoffed and busied herself with papers. I turned to find a bench seat, thankful as usual not to recognize anyone in the lobby. Which was silly. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, and I was used to blowhards like Gretchen. People who lived for rumors and gossip. Even decades after the fact.
And as for why I was there—again—well, there was nothing to be embarrassed about. Still, the twitch I felt coming on had a voice. A voice that sounded ironically like me twenty years earlier. This was what getting old does to you. It makes you crazy. And sink to levels you would have laughed and pointed at with disdain in your prime. There was a happy thought.
Gracie wasn’t bothered a bit. She was wiggling from head to toe from all the attention she was getting.
“Come on, Gracie girl,” I said, pulling her along with me.
She followed for two whole feet before the need to go say hello to the dachshund and pit bull in the room was just too strong. The dachshund wasn’t in a social mood and made a big to-do before retreating under his owner’s chunky legs. Said owner then gave me the
really?
look. Which I then gave back to her. I mean, come on.
The pit bull was very friendly, however, and willing to play. And her owner was more interested in her cell phone than in my waning vet lobby etiquette. She looked familiar but I couldn’t quite place her.
“What kind of dog is that?” dachshund-lady asked, eyeing Gracie as if she were an alien being.
“Not sure,” I said. “She was free. Mom was a rat terrier, but—”
“That’s no rat terrier,” she said, eyebrows lifted to convey her belief that the misconception was some sort of evil plot.
I smiled and nodded, watching Gracie do the bounce-around thing with the pit bull. No, she wasn’t. Unless there was some recessive rat terrier gene hidden in her right toe, I’d been duped. Or her mom had a very unfortunate experience with the baby daddy. Because my beloved long-legged Gracie, with her soft brown and black brindle coat, black face, and thick body, resembled a small Rottweiler with height issues or a Labrador on steroids.