Just One Kiss: A Harbor Pointe Novel Read online

  Just One Kiss

  Courtney Walsh

  Contents

  Praise for Novels by Courtney Walsh

  Also by Courtney Walsh

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  A Note From the Author

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Preview of Just Let Go

  Chapter 2

  Praise for Novels by Courtney Walsh

  HARBOR POINTE NOVELS

  Just Let Go

  “Walsh’s charming narrative is an enjoyable blend of slice-of-life and small-town Americana that will please Christian readers looking for a sweet story of forgiveness.”

  Publishers Weekly

  “Original, romantic, and emotional. Walsh doesn’t just write the typical romance novel. . . . She makes you feel for all the characters, sometimes laughing and sometimes crying along with them.”

  Romantic Times

  “A charming story about discovering joy amid life’s disappointments, Just Let Go is a delightful treat for Courtney Walsh’s growing audience.”

  Rachel Hauck, New York Times bestselling author

  “Just Let Go matches a winsome heroine with an unlikely hero in a romantic tale where opposites attract. . . . This is a page-turning, charming story about learning when to love and when to let go.”

  Denise Hunter, bestselling author of Honeysuckle Dreams

  “Just the kind of story I love! Small town, hunky skier, a woman with a dream, and love that triumphs through hardship. A sweet story of reconciliation and romance by a talented writer.”

  Susan May Warren, USA Today bestselling author

  Just Look Up

  “[A] sweet, well-paced story. . . . Likable characters and the strong message of discovering what truly matters carry the story to a satisfying conclusion.”

  Publishers Weekly

  “Just Look Up by Courtney Walsh is a compelling and consistently entertaining romance novel by a master of the genre.”

  Midwest Book Review

  “This novel features a deeply emotional journey, packaged in a sweet romance with a gentle faith thread that adds an organic richness to the story and its characters.”

  Serena Chase, USA Today Happy Ever After blog

  “In this beautiful story of disillusionment turned to healing, Walsh brings about a true transformation of restored friendships and love.”

  Christian Market magazine

  LOVES PARK NOVELS

  Change of Heart

  “Walsh has penned another endearing novel set in Loves Park, Colorado. The emotions are occasionally raw but always truly real.”

  Romantic Times

  “Change of Heart is a beautifully written, enlightening, and tragic story. . . . This novel is a must-read for lovers of contemporary romance.”

  Radiant Lit

  Paper Hearts

  “Walsh pens a quaint, small-town love story . . . [with] enough plot twists to make this enjoyable to the end.”

  Publishers Weekly

  “Be prepared to be swept away by this delightful romance about healing the heart, forgiveness, [and] following your dreams.”

  Fresh Fiction

  “Walsh writes a small-town setting, a sweet, slow-building romance between two likable characters, and a host of eclectic secondary characters.”

  Romantic Times

  “I discovered Courtney Walsh’s novels a few years ago and quickly added her to my must-buy-immediately list. Her stories have never failed to delight me, with characters who become friends and charming settings that beckon as if you’ve lived there all your life. Don’t miss Paper Hearts!”

  Deborah Raney, author of the Chicory Inn Novels series

  “Delightfully romantic with a lovable cast of quirky characters, Paper Hearts will have readers smiling from ear to ear! Courtney Walsh has penned a winner!”

  Katie Ganshert, award-winning author of No One Ever Asked

  “Paper Hearts is as much a treat as the delicious coffee the heroine serves in her bookshop. . . . A poignant, wry, sweet, and utterly charming read.”

  Becky Wade, author of Christy-award winning Falling For You

  Also by Courtney Walsh

  Just Look Up

  Just Let Go

  Paper Hearts

  Change of Heart

  Things Left Unsaid

  Hometown Girl

  A Sweethaven Summer

  A Sweethaven Homecoming

  A Sweethaven Christmas

  A Sweethaven Romance (a novella)

  Visit Courtney Walsh’s website at www.courtneywalshwrites.com.

  Just One Kiss

  Copyright © 2019 by Courtney Walsh. All rights reserved.

  Author photograph copyright © 2019 by Darge Photography. www.dargephotography.com All rights reserved.

  Designed by Jennifer MacKey of Seedlings Design

  Edited by Charlene Patterson

  The author is represented by Natasha Kern of Natasha Kern Literary, Inc.

  PO Box 1069, White Salmon, WA 98672

  Just One Kiss is a work of fiction. Where real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales appear, they are used fictitiously. All other elements of the novel are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Courtney Walsh Publishers at [email protected]

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Printed in the United States of America

  For my fellow writers who’ve made this solitary journey anything but lonely.

  Katie Ganshert, Becky Wade, Melissa Tagg & Deborah Raney

  Thank you for being my friends.

  1

  Carly Collins hated running late. She’d carefully calculated the amount of time it would take to drive from her house to downtown Harbor Pointe (eight and a half minutes), but she hadn’t accounted for being stopped in the driveway by Frieda Jenkins, who walked her corgi, Elmer, at the same time every single day.

  Frieda was sweet and lonely, and she was a talker.

  After a long and detailed description of her arthritic challenges, Frieda said, “If you need some help with the yard, my nephew Barry is available. It must be hard to keep up with everything as a single mom.” Frieda tossed a disdainful look at Carly’s overgrown yard.

  “No, ma’am,” she said with a smile, “my son and I enjoy taking care of our yard.”

  Enjoy might’ve been pushing it.

  Frieda raised one thinly lined eyebrow and gave a tug on Elmer’s leash. “Best get to it, then, I suppose.” She trotted off, Elmer at her side, leaving Carly feeling like a Harbor Pointe pariah, the single m
om with an embarrassingly overgrown yard and no real plans to catch up in that department.

  Who had time?

  As she drove downtown, she glanced at the clock on the dashboard of her Honda Civic, well aware that she was cutting it very close.

  Sometimes life was simply too much.

  The Memorial Day weekend traffic was, as expected, insane. She’d had the perfect parking place in mind, but as she neared Mulberry Street, she found the road blocked.

  I should’ve walked.

  Her phone buzzed.

  You’re going to miss him! Hurry!

  Her sister Quinn’s text shifted Carly’s nerves into panic mode. Carly’s son, Jaden, was riding on a float in the big parade, and Carly didn’t want to miss it, though at sixteen, Jaden probably didn’t care one little bit if his mom was there. But that was just it. He was sixteen—and Carly knew he wouldn’t be home many more years. She’d already moved in to “soak it all up” mode thanks to the nurses she worked with.

  Her unit manager at work, Dara Dempsey, made a point to lament the fact that her youngest was heading to college in the fall, leaving her to become a “lonely old cat lady with no social life whatsoever.” Dara would always follow up with, “It goes so fast, Carly. Get all the time you can with that boy because he’s going to grow up and leave you and then what will you be?”

  Actually, Carly didn’t say so outright, but she hoped she would be Dara’s successor. The woman had announced on Thursday she’d decided to take an in-home private care position that would allow her the freedom to set her own hours, better for visiting her youngest in college.

  Carly had immediately thrown her hat in the ring as a candidate for the pediatric nurse unit manager at Harbor Pointe Hospital.

  And she thought she had a really good chance of getting it.

  Carly had spent the last sixteen years of her life as Jaden’s mom, ruled by his calendar and his school events and his activities. She didn’t want to completely lose herself once he went away to school or, more likely, to train for some big ski competition. A promotion would be just the challenge she needed to make a life for herself now that Jaden was growing up.

  And maybe it would keep her mind off the fact that her son was growing up, whether she wanted him to or not.

  She shook the thoughts aside as she pulled her Civic into a spot on the grass that was absolutely not supposed to be a parking place.

  Desperate times.

  If she got a ticket, she’d take it up with her dad. The perks of being the sheriff’s daughter.

  She locked the doors and rushed out into the crowded street. Memorial Day was the big summer kick-off, the weekend when the seasonal residents returned, bringing with them extra business for the community and extra crowds for the locals. And, for Carly, extra bodies in the beds at the hospital. How many tourists did they treat every summer? And while the increase in revenue was good all around, it was hard for Carly to wish for anyone to be injured or ill.

  She pushed her way through the crowd like a salmon swimming against the current, and finally found her family set up in front of the Forget-Me-Not Flower Shop, her sister’s business. She spotted an open sling-back chair next to Quinn.

  Oh good, they saved me a seat.

  Her sister, decked out in red, white and blue attire and wearing a giant firecracker-inspired bow on top of her head, spotted her in the crowd and waved. “I thought you’d never get here. They already started!”

  Carly hugged Beverly and her dad, waved to Judge and Calvin and finally dropped her purse next to the chair and sat down, heart still racing from her scramble downtown.

  “It’s good to see you, dear.” Beverly gave her shoulder a squeeze.

  Carly squeezed the older woman’s hand, and it occurred to her that this unlikely foursome—Beverly, Judge, Calvin and her dad—had become a staple in both her and Quinn’s life. A momentary, and delusional, pang of jealousy erupted in her heart.

  Her father had a group of friends—life friends—the kind Carly had only dreamed of. And yes, she and Quinn had benefited from their relationships. Calvin had tutored her through biology. Judge had waived a parking ticket or two. Beverly had stepped in and loved them after their mom walked out when Carly was thirteen. Even still, as much as she loved all four of them, they couldn’t swoop in and fill the empty places in her heart.

  What a bizarre thought. Carly shoved it aside. She wasn’t empty. She had Jaden. She had her nursing career. She had an overgrown yard and a nosy neighbor.

  As independent as Carly was, some days she had to admit it would be nice not to have to be in charge of everything.

  “Did I miss them?” She pushed her brown hair back, wondering if she looked as disheveled as she felt. Humidity had never been a curly-haired girl’s friend.

  Quinn shook her head. “No, they haven’t come past yet.”

  Jaden had worked more hours than Carly would’ve expected from a sixteen-year-old helping Quinn’s boyfriend, Grady Benson, and his brother, Benji, with their float for the parade, which advertised their brand-new indoor ski training center. Jaden had practically become a spokesman for the new business, and while Carly thought it was a little silly for an Olympic gold medalist to open a ski center in mostly flat Michigan, who was she to say so?

  Carly had a habit of playing out every possible scenario and finding flaws in every plan. She was trying to be better about that.

  Her sister was happy. Grady was happy. Benji seemed happy. And Jaden was certainly happy. She should focus on how much joy that center had already brought into her son’s life. Grady had let Jaden in on the planning, the renovating, the dreaming—that ski center was a part of her son. It gave him purpose and kept him busy. She knew a lot of kids his age got into trouble when they got bored. Jaden was never bored these days.

  Still, it would be nice to see him once in a while.

  “I have to be honest,” Carly said. “I’ll be glad when this training center is up and running. It’s all Jaden has been talking about for months.”

  Quinn smiled but kept her eyes on the high school band as they marched down the street in front of them, playing “Louie Louie.” “Grady too.”

  “I still think a training center in Colorado or Utah makes way more sense,” Carly said.

  So far, she was doing a terrible job being better about her flaw-finding.

  Quinn seemed unfazed. “Those places already have training centers. What about kids like Jaden who love to ski but don’t have anywhere to go to learn?”

  Carly couldn’t argue with that. If Jaden had his way, he’d be competing with both his ski club and his high school team that winter, with the sole purpose of moving on to bigger races.

  Carly, of course, wanted him to focus on school. It had been a major point of contention in the house for months.

  Grady Benson was both a godsend and a disaster at the same time. He’d taken such an interest in helping Jaden that Carly felt permanently indebted to him, but that interest had landed her with a kid who had one singular goal: to ski.

  She supposed she should be happy he’d found something he loved so much, but what were the odds Jaden would end up being the next Grady Benson? Wasn’t talent like that rare? After all, not everyone who loved skiing could dream of competing at Grady’s level.

  “Grady said Jaden is crazy good, Car,” Quinn said, as if she was reading her sister’s mind. “And he’s not one to blow smoke.”

  “Really?”

  Quinn nodded. “He thinks he will do really well if you let him compete this year. And I don’t think he just means locally.”

  Carly groaned. “Let’s talk about something else.”

  Quinn pushed her hair back and turned away, craning her neck down the block. “I think I see the float!”

  “Did you help decorate it?” Carly asked.

  Quinn shot her a look. “Apparently flowers weren’t part of their design aesthetic.”

  “Why aren’t you riding on it? Or at least in the truck pulli
ng it?”

  Quinn shrugged. “I like to watch. Besides, who would you have sat with if I was on the float?”

  Carly tossed a glance over her shoulder to where her dad and his group of friends laughed and chatted, and she realized in that moment how pitiful she was. Her dad had a more active social life than she did.

  “I would’ve been fine,” Carly said quietly.

  As the float approached, Carly realized why it had taken so many hours to put the thing together. They had built a giant snow-covered slope onto a flatbed truck, and Jaden stood at the top in his ski gear, posed like he was about to shoot down the hill. It had been decorated with flags and a series of road signs that showed the address of the indoor facility Grady and Benji were opening.

  On the side, a professionally created sign read, We bring the slopes to you, and on the top of the slope, behind Jaden, another sign read, Harbor Pointe’s Indoor Ski Training Center.

  “Shouldn’t Grady be on the float?” Carly asked as the parade crawled forward. “He is kind of the big draw.”

  Quinn squinted. “I don’t even see Grady.”