Birds of a Feather (Sunday Cove)

By Peggy Webb

Welcome back to SUNDAY COVE, a new romantic contemporary series by the beloved and iconic USA Today Bestselling author, Peggy Webb.

The Legend of Orange Blossoms has woven its love spell over Sunday Cove since the Civil War. But Mary Ann, a thoroughly modern widow with two small boys, believes there will be no second chances for her, regardless of an outdated legend. Then her mother packs her off to a bird watchers’ retreat, and she keeps getting rescued by a sexy birder with a killer smile and a great sense of humor. Is it possible for the legend to work so far from home? Is it possible to put the past behind and take another chance on love?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peggy Webb
• Release date: Jun 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311770363

Peggy Webb

Peggy Webb is the author of 200 magazine humor columns, 2 screenplays, and 70 books.

Book preview

Birds of a Feather

(Sunday Cove)

Peggy Webb

WH

Westmoreland House

Birds of a Feather (Sunday Cove) by Peggy Webb

Published by Westmoreland House

Smashwords Edition

All characters and events in this book are fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

Copyright @2014 by Peggy Webb, author’s cut w/new material

Cover design 2014 by Vicki Hinze

Publishing History/Bantam/Loveswept/Copyright © 1984 by Peggy Webb

This is a work of fiction.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or via any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or via any information storage and retrieval system without the express written permission of the copyright holder and publisher.

Published in the United State by Westmoreland House, Moorevillle, Mississippi

WH

Dear Reader,

Welcome back to SUNDAY COVE and more innocent, carefree times. You’ll find the language tame and the bedroom doors closed.

I hope you fell in love with Holly in NAUGHTY AND NICE, the first book in the series. Rarely do I base characters on real people, but Holly is very much like my dear friend, Alice Virginia, a zany redhead who sings with me in the choir at First United Methodist Church and who used to be the church hostess. The scene in the book with the live nativity actually happened. I was in the corner, doubled over with laughter and taking notes! Alice Virginia said she might just have to kill me over that.

In this second book, BIRDS OF A FEATHER, travel with Mary Ann from Sunday Cove to the deep woods of Tennessee as she strikes out on a bird watching trip that was her mother’s idea. Mary Ann is very much like me, Southern to the bone and ever mindful that mother knows best. And even if she doesn’t, it’s prudent to take her advice just to keep the peace.

The original version of this book was considered the first true romantic comedy. When it was first published, it was used by a few colleges on the west coast as an example of how to write comedy. Many years and many books later (dates tend to escape my mind), I received a Romantic Times Pioneer Award for forging the way for the sub genre of romantic comedy.

It’s so much fun to revise these classics for you! I’m changing the settings in all eight books to Sunday Cove, a small fictional town on the Mississippi Gulf Coast with its own romantic legend. In addition to the legend, I’ve added new scenes and a new cast of regulars. I’ve also deleted and/or revised scenes and added Clara’s Cookbook as a bonus to the back of BIRDS OF A FEATHER. Have fun as you watch the characters get caught up in the love spell woven by an ancient legend.

Now curl up with a cup of spicy Mayan hot chocolate (recipe in the back) and enjoy a few belly laughs – I did as I created this author’s edition. When you read the last page, I hope you’re still smiling.

I plan to have eight books in SUNDAY COVE, the first one in December of 2014, and the other seven in 2015. Though each story is connected by a romantic legend, a small Southern town by the sea and the lovable regulars who inhabit it, each book stands alone and can be read out of sequence.

Look for DISTURBING THE PEACE next…February, 2015! As always, I hope you enjoy every one of the stories in SUNDAY COVE. Thank you for reading!

Peggy

Table of Contents

Letter to Readers

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

What’s next from Peggy

About the Author

Book list

Bonus Holiday Recipes from Clara’s Café

Prologue

Sunday Cove, Mississippi

May, 1985

In Sunday Cove, you’ll likely see Hoot, the opinionated owner of Hoot Sims Barbershop, enjoying a cup of coffee and his wife Clara’s famous chocolate pecan pie over at Clara’s Café. Don’t be surprised if you also run into Miss Emma Lumpkin, the postmistress, who has a fondness for Clara’s sweet potato casserole and even more interest in the local news, otherwise known as gossip. You can count on Sunday Cove’s regulars to take an avid interest in everything newsworthy in the town, especially if it involves the love legend.

You can also count on an occasional pod of bottlenose dolphins in the blue waters of Mississippi Gulf, and the tourists that flock southward every summer to enjoy Sunday Cove’s white sand beaches.

But don’t be fooled if you smell orange blossoms. Sometimes you might find an orange tree growing tame in Miss Emma’s yard, but more likely than not, you might follow the fragrant trail and find nothing more than an empty park bench that leaves you with the nagging feeling you’ve just missed something remarkable.

The legend of orange blossoms dates back to the Civil War and Sunday Cove’s founder, Colonel Joseph Lancaster. The Colonel was known for his matched team of white horses, his fancy three-story house with the white Corinthian columns, and the uncommon beauty of his wife and daughter. The Colonel, a handsome man in his own right, claimed credit for everything. His hubris was matched only by his wealth.

But wars respect neither wealth nor position. The Colonel lost everything, including his wife and the sprawling estate he called Camelot by the Sea. The only thing he didn’t lose was his daughter, a fair-haired, ethereal girl whose hopes of a lavish wedding to her beloved Rebel captain were now gone.

Reduced to poverty, the bride-to-be sat in the charred remains of her father’s gardens and cried. But everywhere her tears fell, an orange tree sprang up, fully grown. And so, the bride married her true love in an orange grove under a shower of fragrant blossoms.

According to the legend, you’ll know when you find your true love by the scent of orange blossoms. Even if you’re nowhere near an orange tree, the scent will be so strong you’ll lose your breath and feel as if your heart is about to take flight.

Mary Ann Gilcrest knows the legend all too well. She’d felt its power once. But like the Colonel’s daughter, she’d also discovered how easily love can be ripped away.

Don’t tell her Sunday Cove’s legend will give her a second chance at love. She won’t believe you.

Besides, she’s too busy running her dress shop and single-handedly raising impish twin boys to get wrapped up in fantasy. Though to be technical about it, she’s not really alone. She has her mother Judy, who is there to help, but her mom is also slowly and systematically driving Mary Ann crazy. Not that Judy meddles; she’s just opinionated – and a bit daffy and zany, though thoroughly lovable.

And she has this crazy notion that Mary Ann needs to leave the relative sanity of Sunday Cove and head off on a retreat, which sounds like a wonderful idea if you’re going to a spa in Arizona that features massages with hot rocks and lazy days of pampering around the pool.

Unfortunately, this particular retreat involves mosquitoes and snakes and birds of every feather. Feathers make Mary Ann sneeze.

But what’s a lonely widow drowning in the past to do except leap onto every leaky raft that floats her way.

Chapter 1

Mary Ann Gilcrest emerged from her motel room carrying a tote bag and a lumpy, overstuffed duffel bag and dragging a raggedy mass of canvas. She stubbed her toe coming out the door, and the lumpy tent banged heavily against her legs.

If I ever get back home, I’ll kill you, Mother, she muttered.

Still, in spite of the awful feeling she’s just made the biggest mistake of her life, the brisk mountain air took her breath away. Mary Ann looked toward the blue, mist-covered peak of Mt. Le Conte. The mountain range was a far cry from the familiar and beloved beaches and flat blue Gulf of Sunday Cove. Mary Ann wondered for the hundredth time how she had let herself be talked into this.

Premature senility, she said stoutly as she half-walked, half-stumbled toward the waiting bus. She already missed her boys so much it was like nursing a toothache that wouldn’t go away.

I beg your pardon? Did you say something to me? The man’s rich baritone voice seemed to match the rest of him. In khaki pants and shirt he looked like a big-game hunter. With his deep tan and sun-streaked chestnut hair he was every inch the virile outdoorsman. Only the steel-rimmed glasses belied the safari image.

Well, no, she said. But now that you mention it, I could use some help with all this paraphernalia. She smiled what she hoped was her most engaging smile, the one that revealed the dimples she’d passed along to both her sons. She was tired of lugging all that junk around.

I’m afraid it’s every man for himself. He waved his arm to encompass his own stack of luggage. As you can see, I already have my hands full.

Mary Ann’s smile disappeared completely.

I see that I’m not likely to find any gentlemen on this so called retreat. Though she often wished her mother weren’t so dramatic, Mary Ann was not without a flair for drama, herself. She made a big to-do of struggling with her luggage.

You’re supposed to be here to look for birds, not gentlemen. With that parting shot the man turned a broad back on her and proceeded to load his gear into the bus.

Mary Ann wanted to stick out her foot and trip him. On second thought she decided to content herself with marching along behind him, panting and heaving in a great show as she stowed her own gear.

He paid her not the least amount of attention. Which was fine with her. It really was.

She climbed aboard the bus and took a seat beside a billowy, motherly looking woman.

Hi, I’m Mary Ann Gilcrest.

Sally Hines. Pleased to meet you. Sally made no bones about scrutinizing Mary Ann. This your first birdwatcher’s retreat?

Yes. How did you know?

Sally laughed. You’re the only one not wearing binoculars. Don’t worry. You can use mine.

Mary Ann noted the binoculars hanging around Sally’s neck. She hadn’t even packed a pair. Not that she wanted to see any birds up close and personal. She was allergic to feathers, and she intended to stay as far away from them as possible.

That’s all right, she told Sally. I brought some good books. I’ll just sit in the lodge and read while you’re out looking for Woody Woodpecker.

You’ll see.

That didn’t sound too promising to Mary Ann, but she was distracted from asking what Sally meant. The other birdwatchers filed down the aisle, and so did the big-game hunter of the ungallant behavior. He sat down directly behind her. Irked for noticing, she turned her attention to the front of the bus.

A hawk-nosed woman clambered in and tooted on a whistle. Welcome to the Great Smoky Mountains and the May retreat of the Tennessee Bird Watchers! Her voice dripped with good cheer.

How could anybody in her right mind be so cheerful at six o’clock in the morning? Which brought up another mournful thought: Mary Ann hadn’t even had her breakfast and her morning cup of coffee. She always felt rather bearish until she had coffee.

With a subdued roar the bus pulled out of Gatlinburg, taking its load of bird watchers toward their campsite in the Great Smokies.

The woman up front was still speaking. I am Harriet Fitzhoffer, and I will be your guide and coordinator during this retreat. The park naturalist tells me that large quantities of birds have already migrated in and begun nesting.

Mary Ann felt more like molting than migrating. Why was she sitting on this bumpy bus with a ragged tent instead of home running her dress shop?

You need a change, her mother had said. You know what your therapist told you. And I’ll take care of the twins.

And so here she was at the crack of dawn heading into the wilds to watch birds.

Finally Harriet finished her welcome speech and sat down, and the yellow bus pulled off the highway at a small café. Mary Ann didn’t know whether to applaud or burst into tears