Flirting with Forever

By Kim Boykin

Forty-year-old Tara Jordan’s first book, The Perfect Marriage in 30 Days, is at the top of the bestseller lists, and her publisher wants her on a book tour ASAP. Tara’s about to live her dream only there’s one problem. Her husband of 15 years has just walked out, leaving Tara on the brink of financial ruin with no choice but to promote a self-help book about marriage when hers is secretly in ruins.

Enter publicist Jake Randall, 30, who’s had it with hand holding newbie authors channeling their inner divas on their first book tours, until he meets Tara. Their instant attraction blossoms quickly into love. Tara thinks she has achieved her dreams and earned her license to thrive until her husband, Jim returns determined to win her back.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tule Publishing
• Release date: Jul 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781940296494

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Dedication

This book is dedicated to Sinclair Sawhney whose wit and wisdom gave this book a license to thrive.

Dear Reader

Dear Reader,

Kick back and relax. You’re on island time, Isle of Palms time, that is.

The Isle of Palms is one of my favorite places in the world, so much so that when I got the chance to start my own series for the Tule Publishing Group, I knew exactly where the setting would be.

If you haven’t been to this Lowcountry jewel, let me make an open invitation to come where the food is fabulous, the island breezes are cool, and the beaches are romantic. While Tara and Jake’s story takes place during a whirlwind publicity tour, it’s on this beautiful island that they open themselves to the possibility of a long and lasting love.

There will be more Island Bliss books with Melissa Bliss working her magic as vacation property manager and matchmaker extraordinaire. I hope you enjoy this series and if you ever plan a trip to the Lowcountry, I hope you’ll email me for a list of my favorite places, many of which are in these books.

Y’all come!

Kim Boykin

[e-mail]

Chapter One

There’s a sigh that comes at the end of a belly laugh, the kind of laugh you hope will take you away from that crazy, awful, sad point in your life. The sigh that comes from the reality that staying in that happy place is a lot like walking a tightrope and after everything that had happened, I was working hard to stay out of the abyss.

We’ve got plenty to celebrate, Melissa barked like an Army sergeant, holding a copy of my book. But somehow, with my friend’s headband with the springy heart antennas and red neon light-up Elton John glasses, it didn’t have the intended effect. No moping, Tara, I mean it. It’s Valentine’s Day and we’re going to celebrate the hell out of it.

She was right, I did have a lot to celebrate. I’d gone from a wannabe author to debuting on the bestseller lists, and now the book that was fulfilling all my hopes and dreams of having a writing career was sitting on my kitchen counter, mocking me. Thirty Days To The Perfect Marriage? What was I thinking?

Raise your glass, girlfriend. She nosed through what must have been the biggest box of chocolates Godiva made, then popped another one into her mouth.

I’m not celebrating Val—. That day. We’d made a really good dent in the box and had laughed so much, my ribs ached. I’m celebrating Tuesday. I raised my glass. To Tuesday.

To Tuesday.

We threw back our wine, but, as much fun as Melissa was, it was getting harder for me to stay in that happy place.

I love this house. I swiped at my tears with a sassy little cocktail napkin she’d brought over along with the listing contract for me to sign.

I know you do. She rubbed my arm and smiled.

Melissa Bliss didn’t want to, but she had sold the beach house to Jim and me eight years ago and had managed our second home for us, renting it out to tourists. It had bothered her that Jim was all gung ho about taking on the ten-thousand-dollar-a-month mortgage payment on top of what we owed on our home in Charlotte, and I, as she had so eloquently put it when she pulled me aside, looked as nervous as a pregnant nun.

Even with the financial pressures that came with the place, and there were plenty, I had grown to love the house I couldn’t afford. But with my husband gone, in a few months, that great big mortgage payment would ruin me.

I glanced down at the description Melissa had written. Stunning Isle of Palms oceanfront estate home that has been meticulously kept. I’d spent a year decorating, perfecting, and hoping to hell the place wouldn’t be the albatross I jokingly called it. Views galore of the Atlantic Ocean with open floor plan. Impressive high-end finishes and welcoming spaces. Which sounded frou-frou I know, but while the house was elegant, it was all about comfort.

Enjoy the outdoor spaces, too, with lovely wraparound porches and a private boardwalk to the beach. And I had enjoyed those spaces, more times than I could count.

I had called Melissa yesterday and told her we needed to sell the place and to fax over the listing contract. When she noticed the similarities between Jim’s signature and mine, she called and fished around a bit before she spilled. I get that you need to sell, Tara, and I don’t mean to be a bitch, but did Jim really sign this?

No. But you have a power of attorney on file from when we closed and he was out of town. It covers all matters concerning the beach house.

She waited for a beat, probably pulling the document. I knew she didn’t want to ask these questions, but she didn’t want to get sued either. Is Jim out of town?

I lost it and told her Jim had left me. That was when she vowed I wouldn’t spend February 14th alone and made me promise I’d drive three hours to toast whatever great things were waiting around the corner for me. Her words not mine. Still, this house was a part of me, but looking at my name and Jim’s on the dotted line, it was officially for sale.

Want some more wine? She opened a second bottle, the little hearts on her antennas bouncing like crazy.

Okay, I said. My turn to ask you a question. I know we joke about it all the time, but do you really believe in your matchmaking thingy?

Gift, she corrected and handed me another glass of wine. Melissa considered herself part Realtor and part matchmaker in the sense that she matched people up with the right house. But she believed her calling was in the truer sense of the word. Think a gorgeous, young Yente from Fiddler on the Roof. We’d become good friends over the years, and I knew her well enough to know she liked her unpaid but chosen calling as matchmaker more than she liked closing a big sale, and that was saying something. Are you looking? Because I can—

No. God, no; I just want Jim to come home. More than anything. I have to believe he will— It’s just you told me how you do it—that you see auras, and you just know when two people are—

Meant to be? I nodded. I believe in soul mates. That chemical attraction that instantly draws two people together; I see it in colors. Two people, two separate auras, sometimes the same color, sometimes not. But when they’re together, it’s almost blinding.

My finger trailed around the rim of the wineglass, afraid to ask the next question, but I needed to know. Did you ever see that? With Jim and me?

She shook her head slowly. "Honey, not everyone finds their soul mate, and that’s okay too. While it is the rarest most beautiful thing I know, most people don’t have the patience to wait for the one. That doesn’t make them taking on a mate and having a good life together wrong."

I thought Jim loved me, Melissa. I thought we had a good life. Until I wrote that damn book.

The next morning, I headed home to Charlotte, alone. Thoughts of guilt writhed around with my pride from writing a successful book—one that had sent my husband packing. I didn’t write the book for him, and I didn’t expect him to read it, at least that’s what I told myself. After it came out and was doing so well, all our friends were talking about it, congratulating me, but Jim didn’t seem to be the least bit interested in what my idea of the perfect marriage was.

I felt so proud, almost giddy the morning he came into my office. He took a copy out of a box and kissed me on the cheek, his lips so close to my ear. Thought I’d see what all the fuss was about.

This was a big deal, to me at least. Jim never read anything I wrote, and that was okay, since before Thirty Days To The Perfect Marriage I wrote romance. Lots of romance nobody wanted to publish. But from the get-go, The Perfect Marriage received a lot of media attention. I really thought he’d at the very least be curious. But he waited until it had been on the shelves for a month before he started reading it.

Still, I was touched, honored when he blew off his Saturday golf game. Something he’d only done once in fifteen years when he had the flu. He kept reading, not saying anything, just appeared to be totally enthralled. That was good right?

I had to go to a bridal shower late that afternoon for my best friend Marsha’s daughter. I’d hoped he’d be done before I left, but he wasn’t. I thought about missing the shower, but I knew Marsha would kill me.

I was trying to be cool and wait for him to tell me he loved the book, that he loved me. The shower shouldn’t last long; I’ll pick up some Thai food for dinner. I kissed him on the cheek and noticed he was fifty pages from the end. I love you.

He just nodded and kept reading.

Of course it wasn’t one of those cool drop-ins with refreshments and small talk, it was the marathon kind with one stupid game after another. Then the bride opened presents for over an hour. Among other things, the happy couple received four margarita machines and six copies of my book and the accompanying workbook.

Finally, the shower ended, and I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I was dying to get back home and hear what Jim thought. I dashed by our favorite Thai restaurant about thirty minutes from our house, picked up his favorites, but when I got home, the house was empty, except for my dog, Lilly. I remember laughing out loud because I really believed Jim had been so enthralled in my book, he’d thought I’d asked him to pick up dinner. And now we’d have enough Thai food for a week. I tried his cell phone but got no answer, so I texted him I’d already picked dinner up.

I poured myself a glass of wine, ate my shrimp and green curry before it got cold, and fell asleep on the couch watching an old movie. When I woke up, the house was cold and dark. There was a sick hollow feeling in my stomach; I wrote it off to the spicy food, but deep down, I knew my husband was gone.

Chapter Two

"Have you heard from him?" Kit asked.

I shook my head and looked away from her because I didn’t want to cry again. It had been a month since I signed the listing agreement to put the beach house up for sale. The market was slow, but that would hopefully change with the warmer spring weather, what hadn’t changed was Jim was officially gone for two months, no phone calls, no nothing.

Well, that wasn’t true. After he’d been gone for forty-eight hours, I was sick with worry, thinking of all the horrible things that might have happened to him—car accident, amnesia, kidnapping. Anything to keep from acknowledging the fact that my husband was so angry with me, he’d left. I’d tried to file a missing person’s report, hoping the police could find my husband for me, and they did. Sort of.

The detective had asked me a million questions and said he’d file the report. But before he left, he got a call from his boss, who was also one of Jim’s long-time golfing buddies. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I’ll tell her. And then he did tell me that my husband wasn’t missing, he had just left me.

He’ll come back, Kit said, you know he will.

I used to think so, but now I’m not so sure.

Kit was my rare bird—the illusive literary agent I’d searched high and low for and snared with my first and only attempt at writing nonfiction. She was flying through Charlotte on her way to some writers’ conference today and had a two-hour layover. We’d planned this brunch months ago, but it had a very different tone than we’d initially intended.

For having known her only for a year, I knew a lot about Kit. She hated wearing shoes and people who can’t commit. She loved to laugh, and her idea of nirvana was closing a massive sale while simultaneously having her feet massaged. But the most distinctive characteristic about Kit was that she was the nicest all business on the planet.

At the café near the airport, the way she picked at her lunch made it apparent she’d come for the coffee. She looked down at the brown stuff she loved to swirl around in her cup, like the right words for my situation were floating around in there somewhere. The crease in her brow almost made me smile. I was sure she was calling on every ounce of her estrogen-fortified wisdom to help me feel better.

Look, I know it’s not a good time to mention this, Tara. I’d never tell your publisher about Jim; but the book and the workbook are still soaring and the publisher keeps bugging me about setting up dates for a tour.

Book tour. I’d dreamed about hearing those two words connected to my name my entire adult life; every writer does. I felt like a giddy kid when Kit briefed me on the possibility after she sold the novel to Penguin, who had crunched the