Kieran Kramer: Cloudy with a Chance of Marriage

To Steven, Margaret, and Jack with all my love

Thanks, as always, to the incredible duo of Jennifer Enderlin and Jenny Bent! And my deep gratitude goes as well to all the wonderful people at St. Martin’s Press, including Loren Jaggers, Eileen Rothschild, Anne Marie Tallberg, Brian Heller, Sara Goodman, Danielle Fiorella, and Matthew Shear. I’m so honored and proud to be a St. Martin’s Press author.

Thanks also to my family, friends, and even my town for always supporting me and making my life rich. Special hugs to Starla and Johnny Davis, Rob and Mary Beth Harlowe, and Brindy and Gary Scott, my dear friends and neighbors. A shout-out to Dr. David Castellone, our family physician, and his staff at Palmetto Primary Care. For a decade now, you’ve given us a ton of TLC. And finally, I’d like to thank the teachers, staff, and administrators of Dorchester District II schools for watching over my children all these years and helping them become smarter, kinder people (and giving me time to write). Bless you all.

Books were Jilly’s great escape, but unless she chose to use them as missiles—which she’d considered but decided against as they were her source of livelihood now—even they couldn’t save her from the unpleasant task before her. She must stop the loud goings-on at the dead end of the cobblestone lane once and for all.

She walked up from a murky bed of fog that swirled thickly about her knees onto the front steps of 34 Dreare Street and knocked on the door. The sprawling three-story house was situated on a scrap of lawn at a right angle to her own shop. A tattered skull-and-crossbones flag hung listlessly against the roofline while a piece of wood painted with the words HOUSE FOR SALE leaned against the aged foundation.

No answer.

She knocked again and heard bumping noises and several loud male voices, one of them singing off-key.

Finally, the door opened wide. A gorgeous man with golden hair, dressed only in a cambric shirt and faded trousers, lofted his golden brow. “Thank God, it’s you.” His voice was like honey. “Miss Jones.” He swept a slow, warm gaze over her.

Of all the nerve!

Jilly was so taken aback by what she could only call his brazen maleness, she didn’t know what to say.

He chuckled. “I thought you might be the constable.”

And then he smiled and winked, as if he’d just asked her to meet him in the garden at midnight.

She blinked, which she was wont to do when she was flustered. “And … and how would you know I am Miss Jones?”

“Because you look terribly angry.”

He certainly didn’t. He looked the opposite. He looked happy, damn his hide.

“May I assume you’re the thoroughly undisciplined Captain Arrow?” she demanded to know.

“The very same.” He took out a cheroot and lit it. She’d meant her remark as an insult, but he made unruly behavior seem like an appealing state. “I only forgo discipline when I’m off duty, you know. What can I do for you … Miss Jones?”

Really. He was too much. Did he honestly think a woman with any brains in her head would fall for that kind of nonsense?

“Stop saying my name as if—” Oh, dear. She couldn’t finish that sentence, not if she were to remain a lady.

“As if what?” He gave her a wide-eyed, innocent look.

“Never mind.” She forced herself to inhale a breath through her nose. “There’s a man hanging out of your upstairs window.”

Now it was his turn to give a short laugh. “Lumley, probably.”

She blinked. “Aren’t you concerned?”

“No,” he said around the cheroot. “It’s a trick of his.”

“Well”—she shook her head and tried not to make her hands into fists—“I find it hard to work when I see a man hanging upside down out a window.”

Captain Arrow gave her a charming grin. “You’re not getting angry again, are you, Miss Jones? We moved onto Dreare Street on the same day, after all. That’s a special connection, don’t you think?”

She huffed. “Your sign makes clear you’ve no intention to stay. I do plan to make this my home. And I’m not angry. I want—”

“You want what?”

Very well. She was angry.

“I want to be able to look out my window and not see a man hanging upside down, that’s all!” She flung an arm in the direction of her store. “Who’s going to have a pleasurable browse for books when my neighbor holds parties night and day? You and your cohorts had just better not introduce any fallen women to the mix, or I’ll call the constable myself.”

“We already have,” he said, his expression angelic, “but the ladies leave discreetly through the rear so as not to cause a stir.”

Jilly gasped. “How dare you! The sooner you sell this place, the better.”

“I told you,” Captain Arrow said, “after the last letter you put through my door—”

“My fourth,” she interjected, running out of breath. “My fourth in six days.”

“Yes, your fourth,” he replied equably. “I had a courier deliver you a note in return—”

“You call a drunken man who falls through my door a courier?”

Captain Arrow looked abashed—yet somehow not. “This is an unusually complicated house party, Miss Jones. I beg your patience. On the one hand, my friends and I are celebrating my safe return from my final voyage with the Royal Navy, during which I captured a notorious pirate. He was a ruthless murderer, so you must grant—”

“Your noble deeds don’t give you license to disturb the peace!”

“Nevertheless,” he went on smoothly, “at this house party we’re also mourning the fact that I didn’t receive the purse I should have. All that pirate gold seems to have vanished into other people’s pockets.”

“That’s your business, not mine—”

“Which brings me to the third reason for the house party. There’s hope yet for me to become a rich man. I’ve suddenly found myself the proud owner of this tidy mansion, and as soon as I procure a buyer for it, I’ll be well equipped to make my way through the world as a landlubber. In the meanwhile, the house needs christening, don’t you agree?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “No. I don’t. It needs paint. And you’re ruining my business.”

He chuckled. “ I’m ruining your business? I should hardly think so. Perhaps your business needs a proprietress with a little more sport in her.”

He smiled, and one of his eyebrows flew up in a suggestive manner.

“Why,” she asked, ignoring his disgusting display of masculine allure, “would a respectable female wish to be sporting?”

“You’ll know once you try it. Come to my house tonight. We’re holding a small theatrical evening.”

“Over my dead body,” she said, even though she adored theatrical evenings. “Let’s get back to the point that forces me to venture over here—you’re disturbing the peace, sirrah.”

“Hardly. We’ve had no one running naked down the street in the last two days.”

“Fancy that!”

“And not a single one of my guests has sung a word of any song outside.”

She put a finger to her mouth, pretending to consider his words, then dropped her hand. “You know, you’re right. They only sing in the house now—with the windows wide open. And sometimes”—she drew in a breath and said low— “the singer is wearing only a tricorne hat.”

“That’s Lumley again,” he said as if he were talking of the weather.