Melinda Curtis - Love, Special Delivery

What we do for family...and love

Third-generation firefighter Captain Ben Libby is sworn to keep Harmony Valley safe. But a recent series of fires points to arson. Not that Ben really suspects Mandy Zapien, who’s back in town to reopen the defunct post office—a potential fire hazard.

Turns out Ben and Mandy—she of the incredible smile—have a lot in common. They’re both trying to rebuild their lives. Mandy’s raising her teenage sister, just as Ben’s devoted to his godchild. Though lately, he’s started to suspect she’s his biological daughter. Amid secrets and family dramas, do Ben and Mandy have what it takes to go the distance together?

“You’re always smiling,” Ben said. “How do you keep it up?”

“I...” It was easy talking to him in the darkness, easy to overshare. But he’d half thought she was the cause of all his trouble. Mandy gave him a generic answer. “It takes as much effort to smile as it does to frown.”

“And you’re incredibly honest.”

“I’m not. I just... I have very little to hide.” Only her feelings and her debt and the fact that she’d lied to her sister about their inheritance and the reason their mother stayed away.

“I doubt that. Everyone has layers.” His head bent toward hers, almost as if he was going to kiss her. And then he pulled back, tilting his head to the side.

The kiss impression was totally the moon’s fault.

Stupid moon.

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Harmony Valley!

Just a few short years ago, Harmony Valley was on the brink of extinction with only those over the age of sixty in residence. Now the influx of a younger generation is making life in Harmony Valley more fun for its gray-haired residents than afternoon television.

Fire captain Ben Libby wants to investigate fires rather than fight them, but before he takes the next step in his career he needs to help his father reopen the Harmony Valley Fire Department. Ben expects the assignment to be easy, but suddenly there’s a rash of fires in town and they coincide with the return of Mandy Zapien. All Mandy wants is a fresh start for her and her teenage sister. She’s not an arsonist. But proving that to Ben turns out to be a challenge.

I hope you enjoy Mandy and Ben’s journey to a happily-ever-after, as well as the other romances in the Harmony Valley series. I love to hear from readers. Visit my website at www.melindacurtis.comto learn more about upcoming books, sign up for email book announcements (and I’ll send you a free sweet romance read) or chat with me on Facebook ( MelindaCurtisAuthor) to hear about my latest giveaways.

Melinda

Love, Special Delivery

Melinda Curtis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Award-winning USA TODAY bestselling author MELINDA CURTIS is an empty nester. Now instead of car pools and sports leagues, her days go something like this: visit the gym with her husband at 5:30 a.m., walk the dogs, enjoy a little social media, write-write-write, consider cooking dinner (possibly reject cooking dinner in favor of takeout), watch sports or DIY shows with her husband, read and collapse in bed. Sometimes the collapse part happens before any TV or reading takes place.

Melinda enjoys putting humor into her stories because that’s how she approaches life. She writes sweet contemporary romances as Melinda Curtis (Brenda Novak says Season of Change “found a place on my keeper shelf”), and fun, steamy reads as Mel Curtis (Jayne Ann Krentz describes Cora Rules as “wonderfully entertaining”).

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This book is dedicated to my dad and

my mother-in-law, both of whom supported

me on my writing journey. It wasn’t easy losing

them both just months apart. I thought of them

and their last wishes a lot during the writing

of this story.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

“TELL ME THIS isn’t where we’re going to live. It’s too...too...icky.”

“What’s wrong?” Mandy Zapien’s heart had been clinging to a position in her throat for the last hour of the drive to Harmony Valley. It clawed a degree higher as she pushed past her teenage sister to get a good look inside the house they’d left seven years earlier.

Same dark chocolate shag. Same tan-and-navy plaid couch under the front picture window. Same oak side table with Grandma’s sewing basket next to it and the fake ficus in a plastic planter Mandy had Bedazzled when she was ten. Nothing was new or out of place.

Mandy’s heart slid back into her stress-strapped chest.

Icky? It was home and it was vacant. The choke hold on her emotions loosened. “It’s perfect.” Just the way Grandpa, Mandy and Olivia had left it after Grandma died. A testament to the life Grandma and Grandpa had built together before lost jobs had forced them to move. Just the way Grandpa had wanted it to be when he returned after retirement.

“Seriously?” Olivia darted around Mandy, holding her cell phone and panning around the room, videotaping. “I opened the door and there was a nuclear explosion of dust.” Her yellow flip-flops snapped as she made her way into the kitchen. Her pale bare legs looked long because her jean shorts were too short.

Mandy had considered asking Olivia to change this morning and throw away the shorts, or at the very least roll down the thin cuffs, but as the guardian of a seventeen-year-old, she had to pick her battles and not break eggs. Today, moving day, was not the time to upset her little sister.

Mandy moved to the fireplace, pressing her hand against the solid red brick. It was as sturdy as their grandparents had once been. Would they approve of what she was doing? “I have good memories of this place.”

“Really? I don’t remember much about Harmony Valley.” Olivia’s voice bounced off bare walls.

The dust. The emptiness. The relief.

Mandy breathed deeply. Their grandparents may be dead, but they were going to be all right. It didn’t matter if her sister didn’t remember life here. Olivia claimed not to recall the tinsel-covered Christmas tree their grandparents put in the corner every year. Or the photos they’d staged of the girls on the hearth on Christmas morning wearing the annual holiday sweaters Grandma had knitted.

“Hey, the fridge is running.”

“Is it...” Mandy’s heart crept back into her throat. “Is it empty?” Mandy hurried into the kitchen in time to see Olivia pry the sticky refrigerator door open.

“Ew. That’s disgusting.” Olivia stopped filming and covered her nose.