Cindi Myers: Life According to Lucy

Dear Reader,

I’m so excited to be a part of Harlequin Flipside! I’ve always loved romantic comedy because sometimes life is pretty absurd, and all you can do is laugh and go on. I think that’s what my character Lucy Lake does. When life hands her lemons, she attempts to juggle them. The results aren’t always pretty, but she manages to see the humor in every situation…even when she’s falling in love.

I especially enjoyed writing this book because of Millie. I’m a big dog lover, but for some reason I’d never written a story with a dog as one of the main characters. Granted, Millie isn’t an ordinary dog, but she does embody that wonderful loving, accepting spirit all dogs have.

So I hope you enjoy Life According to Lucy. And look for other Flipside stories from me in the coming months. I love to hear from readers. You can e-mail me at cindi@cindimyers.com, visit me online at www.CindiMyers.comor write me in care of Harlequin Books, 225 Duncan Mill Rd., Don Mills, ON M3B 3K9, Canada.

Happy reading!

Cindi Myers

And now she had to go meet one about flower beds.

She staggered to the kitchen, but she didn’t see the old gardener. Instead, she saw a guy with broad shoulders and thick blond hair. She froze. This was definitely a man who would notice her wrinkled shirt and rat’s-nest hair, not to mention her leg stubble.

She backed toward her room. She’d just go change clothes, wet her hair and blow it dry, shave her legs, put on makeup—

“Lucy! There you are.” Great. Outed by her ever-so-helpful father.

Trapped, she moved her legs automatically as she stared at the gorgeous stranger. He had on more clothes today, but there was no mistaking those broad shoulders and that smile. It was the hot guy who had witnessed her humiliation yesterday. And it looked as if he was about to go two for two!

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Cindi Myers believes in love at first sight, good chocolate, cold champagne, that people who don’t like animals can’t be trusted and that God obviously has a sense of humor. She also believes in writing fun, sexy romances about people she hopes readers will fall in love with. In addition to writing, Cindi enjoys reading, quilting, gardening, hiking and downhill skiing. She lives in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado with her husband (whom she met on a blind date and agreed to marry six weeks later) and two spoiled dogs.

HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

902—IT’S A GUY THING!

935—SAY YOU WANT ME

HARLEQUIN BLAZE

82—JUST 4 PLAY

118—RUMOR HAS IT

For Carole, and other daughters who miss their moms

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

Epilogue

Gardens teach us many lessons, among them humility, hope and the importance of pest control.

WHAT DOES A GIRL have to do to change her luck? Lucy Lake thought as she watched her landlord march past her and deposit her TV by the curb. She’d wanted true love and dated a string of players. She’d wanted a raise and gotten a pink slip. She’d wanted love letters in the mail and instead had gotten an eviction notice. Honestly, how much worse could it get?

“Mr. Kopetsky, it was just a little mix-up at the bank.” She followed her landlord back toward the apartment. Could she help it if she hadn’t kept very good track of her finances? It had been all right when she’d been gainfully employed, but the money she brought in doing temp work since she’d been laid off hadn’t been enough to cover the shopping habit she’d acquired in more flush times.

“Ha!” Kopetsky spat into the oleanders that flanked the walk, narrowly missing the gardener who was planting a flat of marigolds alongside the shrubs. “That check bounced all the way to San Antonio. And it wasn’t the first time either.” He started up the outside stairs toward Lucy’s second floor rooms, pausing to lean over the railing to address the gardener, “Make sure you use that big bark mulch so it don’t blow all the way to Del Rio when the wind comes up. I ain’t payin’ for that stuff to blow away.”

“I’ll take care of it, Mr. K.” The gardener rose, all six feet two inches of him, broad shouldered and bare chested. Even given her distress over her current situation, Lucy couldn’t help gaping at him. Her notoriously fickle libido gave signs of stirring, and the only thought that came into her mind was the old soup slogan: Mmm, mm, good!

“Can I help you with something, ma’am?”

Her libido made a hasty retreat and her shoulders slumped. As too often happened, the Greek God spoiled everything by opening his mouth. Not that his voice wasn’t nice enough—rich and appropriately masculine—but the word “ma’am” was the killer. She was not a ma’am. Her mother was a ma’am. Her grandmother was a ma’am. She, Lucy Lake, was light-years away from ma’am-hood.

“Ma’am?” He did it again, and took a step toward her. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she snapped, and turned away. Any man who would call her “ma’am” was not anyone she could be interested in, no matter how broad his shoulders.

Kopetsky marched past her with a box of dishes. “I’m just doing my job here,” he said. “Don’t take this personal or anything.”

“Oh, of course I won’t take it personal.” She raised her voice as he walked away from her. “Why would I take having all my belongings dumped by the curb personal?”

She was keenly aware of the gardening god standing there watching this little drama. It was bad enough being evicted without having Mr. Bronzed Muscles looking on. She gave him what she hoped was a quelling look, but he annoyed her further by smiling. A gorgeous, white-toothed grin that might have been sexy if not for the fact that it was completely ill-timed.

Kopetsky hunched his shoulders up around his ears and turned to glare at her. “You’d better call somebody to haul this stuff away before trash pickup in the morning.”

She frowned. If she didn’t get her belongings out of here by nightfall, they’d be picked clean long before the garbage men showed up.

Sighing, she gathered up an armful of clothing and headed toward her car, ignoring the curious looks from her neighbors and passing strangers. Didn’t they have anything better to do than gape at her?

Of course they didn’t. An eviction ranked right up there with the Mosquito Festival and the Art Car Parade in her neighborhood. All three were venerable Houston entertainments, though mosquitoes and Art Cars had to settle for being feted only once a year.

Other women might have burst into tears or made a big scene, but Lucy was almost getting used to this kind of setback. Two months ago, she’d lost probably the best job she’d had to date when the software company she worked for went belly-up. Since then she’d worked a series of temporary jobs and drowned her sorrows with hefty doses of shopping therapy.