Seana Kelly - Welcome Home, Katie Gallagher

Nobody said a fresh start would be easy

A clean slate is exactly what Katie Gallagher needs, and Bar Harbor, Maine, is the best place to get it. Except the cottage her grandmother left her is overrun with woodland creatures, and the police chief, Aiden Cavanaugh, seems determined to arrest her! Katie had no idea she’d broken his heart fifteen years ago...

“Kelly’s debut book is smart, sexy, and so much fun. I couldn’t put it down.”

—Laurie Benson, author of the Secret Lives of the Ton series

“Chief Cavanaugh of the Bar Harbor Police Department, ma’am.”

He looked down at his portfolio and then back up at me, eyes cold. “You trashed your husband’s car and then ran, is that right?”

I thought it would be different if I left, if I came to the place I’d been the happiest. Even without Gran, I’d imagined being here would comfort me and help me figure out what the hell to do with myself now that I understood what was apparent to everyone else, that my life was a pathetic sham. I leaned forward, dropping my head to the table. Repeatedly. My brain needed a reboot.

A large, warm hand settled on my shoulder, the heat sinking into my bones. I looked up through wet lashes, and I saw it. I knew who he was.

“Aiden?” I sat up straight to better study him. “Aiden Cavanaugh?”

His hand fell away, and I missed its weight and warmth at once. Unbelievable. How the hell had sweet, oddly geeky Aiden Cavanaugh morphed into tall, dark and forbidding?

Dear Reader,

I’m excited—and more than a little terrified—to share with you my debut novel, Welcome Home, Katie Gallagher. At its core, this is a story about second chances, a story about starting over. We all deserve a do-over.

I love writing strong, funny women who fulfill their dreams on their own terms. For instance, when Katie envisioned what her life would be, she never once imagined depression-induced insomnia, being wedged into a battered car with a one-hundred-and-forty-pound dog, grape soda splattered in her lap, a fecund, mushroomy odor she wasn’t entirely certain she could pin on the dog, and a cop tapping at the window. Nope, she sure didn’t see that coming.

But it’s in times like these that we learn who we are. Katie could have stayed with a cheating husband who never looked at her except to find fault. She could have. Or she could have taken his expertly weighted and fitted golf clubs to his beloved BMW. Some of us find clarity through yoga, others through criminal behavior. And, let’s face it, a mug shot is a pretty clear indicator that different choices should have been made.

I hope you enjoy Katie’s fraught journey. Warning: there is a hot, grumpy cop, an adorably massive dog, snickering marmosets, cupcakes, and a woman trying like hell to make a home for herself.

Seana Kelly

Welcome Home, Katie Gallagher

Seana Kelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SEANA KELLY lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, two daughters, two dogs and one fish. When Seana isn’t dodging her family, hiding in the garage and trying to write, she’s working as a high school teacher-librarian. Seana is an avid (who are we kidding? obsessive) reader who is still mourning the loss of Fred Weasley. What the heck, J.K.? If you had to kill off a Weasley, why couldn’t it have been Percy?

For Mom and Dad,

who taught me the importance of

integrity, hard work and storytelling.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

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

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

Kate

YOU DON’T ALWAYS know when you’re having a nervous breakdown. It’s usually later, after being confronted with photographic evidence in the form of a mug shot, that you realize you lost your shit in a truly spectacular way.

The tap of the cop’s flashlight on the driver’s-side window, combined with a soft woof from the back seat, made me jump and splash grape soda down my sweater. I watched it pool in my lap before fumbling with the can. I searched for a napkin.

“Ma’am, could you roll down your window?” The shield on his coat was hard to miss.

Chaucer lifted his massive head, slowly coming to his paws, needing to hunch in order to fit. He sniffed my ear and then looked down into my lap, no doubt hoping I’d dropped something he could eat.

“Shit, shit, shit. Try to look innocent,” I told him as I rolled down the window. I did not need more trouble with the law.

“Ma’am, could you explain why you’re parked in the middle of the road? Are you having car trouble?” His voice was a deep rumble, which was oddly comforting, considering the situation. He leaned down, keen eyes taking in everything. God, he smelled good—warm leather and rich wood smoke overpowering the sticky sweetness of artificial grape.

Towering Maine pines, silhouetted against the predawn sky, swayed in the frigid gusts skating off the ocean. I shivered, wishing I’d worn something more substantial than a thin sweater set.

I’d stopped in the middle of the road because I couldn’t remember whether to continue straight along the cliff-side road or veer inland up ahead. And that question quickly turned into a paralyzing fear that I had no idea where I was going in my life.

“Um, car trouble? No, Officer. I was just thinking.” I hadn’t slept in weeks. What the hell was I supposed to say? I was falling apart, and this was merely a bump in the road of the shit-losing lollapalooza that had become my life?

Seemingly unaffected by the freezing temperature, he cleared his throat and leaned down farther, peering into my eyes. “Ma’am? Are you telling me that you purposely stopped your car in the middle of the road, possibly causing an accident, so you could think? Have you been drinking this morning, or late last night? Taking any narcotics?”

Chaucer wedged his head between mine and the window to get a better look, or more precisely a better sniff, of this potential food giver. I’ll give it to the cop; he barely registered the shock of seeing a hundred-and-forty-pound Newfoundland squished into the tiny back seat of a small sedan.

I tried to push Chaucer back, explaining around his head, “Unless you can get wasted on grape soda, I’m unfortunately sober.” What I wouldn’t give for a vat of margaritas and a big bendy straw.

He wore the same look of arrogant disdain that my husband, Justin, wore whenever I’d done something wrong, something worthy of censure. Ex, I kept reminding myself. On-the-road-to-being ex-husband. He let me know with one cursory glance that he saw through my carefully cultivated, but ultimately lacking, veneer and what he found wasn’t equal to his standards.