Sweet To You (Fire and Icing) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten One Week Later

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  About the Author

  Please enjoy this sample of PERFECT FOR YOU, a Summerville short story, “Fire and Icing” Book Four:

  A Summerville Novel

  Fire and Icing Book Three

  By Jessie Evans

  Where there’s smoke, there’s fire…

  Thou shalt not lie, cheat, steal, covet thy neighbor’s ass, or date thy sister’s ex-boyfriend—simple commandments Maddie Whitehouse has never had any trouble keeping. But when s’mores and whiskey shots lead to Maddie and Jamison Hansen skinny-dipping under a full moon at a singles’ camping retreat, Maddie realizes she has some serious repenting to do. Jamison may not be “technically” her sister’s ex, but he’s close enough. Besides, after the way things ended with her ex-husband, Maddie knows better than to get involved with another bad boy.

  Jamison Hansen is falling—hard and fast. Maddie Whitehouse is as sweet as the pastries she bakes, as unpredictable as Georgia weather in the spring, and lights a fire inside him he doesn’t want to put out. And sneaking around to avoid their prying families only makes the chemistry between them that much hotter. Maddie is everything Jamison never knew he wanted, and it isn’t long before the sparks between them kindle more serious feelings.

  But small towns are dangerous places for big secrets—a lesson Maddie and Jamison learn the hard way. Will the new couple be condemned by a jury of their peers, or live happily ever after? Sometimes forever doesn’t come easy…

  Other sexy, contemporary romances by Jessie Evans

  The Summerville Novels

  Always a Bridesmaid Series

  BETTING ON YOU (Always a Bridesmaid Book One)

  KEEPING YOU (Always a Bridesmaid Book Two)

  WILD FOR YOU (Always a Bridesmaid Book Three)

  CATCHING YOU (Always a Bridesmaid Four-Short Story)

  TAKING YOU (Always a Bridesmaid Five-Novella/Short Novel)

  Fire and Icing Series

  MELT WITH YOU (Fire and Icing Book One)

  HOT FOR YOU (Fire and Icing Book Two)

  SWEET TO YOU (Fire and Icing Book Three)

  PERFECT FOR YOU (Fire and Icing Book Four-Short Story)

  SAVING YOU (Fire and Icing Book Five-Novella/Short Novel)

  Cupid Island Novellas (Short Novels)

  AUDITIONING YOU (Cupid Island Two)

  A Cupid Island Christmas Anthology by Jessie Evans, Lila Ashe, and Ruby Laska

  Join Jessie’s newsletter to stay up-to-date on new releases and receive newsletter-only coupons: http://eepurl.com/FbwUb

  Visit Jessie on Facebook or Twitter

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Copyright © 2013 Jessie D. Evans

  This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author. This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously. Cover image by Grekov’s for Shutterstock. Cover design by Bootstrap Designs. Editing by Edited Ever After Editorial.

  Chapter One

  “Crap on a cracker,” Maddie Whitehouse muttered as she stepped out of her friend Piper’s van at the Southern Singles Seaside Camping Retreat to see none other than Jamison Hansen emerging from the pickup truck in front of her.

  Jamison Hansen—the last person she wanted observing her trying to remember how to flirt—looking ridiculously handsome with the late-afternoon sunlight glinting off his sun-streaked brown hair. His muscled shoulders strained the fabric of his olive green tee shirt, and his corded forearms exuded pure manliness, while his sculpted backside practically demanded that a woman drop to her knees and thank God for whoever invented blue jeans.

  Maddie had been looking forward to this singles camping retreat for weeks. She’d been so excited when she piled into the van with Piper, Shelley, and Dawn this morning she could barely contain herself. She’d talked her friends’ ears off all the way down to Myrtle Beach, promising to out-hike, out-swim, and out-drink all three of them, so long as they swore to lock her in the van if she let the whiskey get the better of her.

  Most of the time Maddie was a level-headed person, but get a little whiskey in her and she became daring to the point of personal endangerment. But the four women had been best friends since they met at Girl Scout camp in junior high, and Maddie knew they wouldn’t let her do anything life-threateningly stupid.

  They’d actually encouraged her to let her hair down, to start her Month of Maddie—her annual month-long celebration of her May birthday—off with a bang. They knew the past year had been rough on her and insisted Maddie deserved a break.

  A little over a year ago, Maddie’s six-year marriage had ended in disaster when her ex-husband, Serge, left her for another man. She’d spent a good eight months grieving the loss of a friend and partner who had loved her well—if not always with as much passion as she might have hoped for—and only recently emerged from her despair pit.

  She finally felt ready to celebrate being single, to flirt and banter and maybe kiss a sexy stranger on the beach after the bonfire burned low. This singles camping trip was going to be the start of a new Maddie, one who wasn’t afraid to reach out and touch someone, even if that someone wasn’t going to end up being long-term relationship material.

  She was turning thirty in three weeks, for goodness sake. She couldn’t afford to let any more time slip through her fingers. She needed to start enjoying herself, and put her dreams of home and hearth on hold until she met the right guy.

  But now, everything was ruined.

  Jamison Hansen—childhood friend, womanizer, drop-dead delicious firefighter, and a man who smelled so good he shouldn’t be allowed within fifty feet of the ocean for fear his yummy man-scent might attract sharks—was here.

  Three months ago, that would have been bad news. Jamison had always treated Maddie like a little sister, someone he was in charge of pestering to her wits’ end while keeping her safe from danger in all forms, including men with amorous intentions. In the old days, he would have cramped her style; now, he was going to ensure she suffered three days of misery while being forced to watch Jamison flirt the panties off of at least one, if not more, of the single women on the trip.

  Knowing Maddie’s luck, it would be one of her friends, and she’d have to endure a play-by-play description of Jamison’s legendary lovemaking skills the entire trip back to Georgia.

  Because Jamison would be getting action this weekend, there was no doubt about that. The man was the Casanova of Summerville, Georgia, a professional smolder-wielder who had bedded half the women in their hometown, leaving a string of broken hearts in his wake. He was also the man who had almost kissed Maddie last February, when an unexpected eruption of mutual attraction had nearly led to a friendly hug becoming something more.

  Since then, Maddie had done her best to avoid Jamison, but the fire station was right across the street from her bakery. Maddie couldn’t help running into him at least once a week, often enough for his full lips, strong hands, and delicious man-sc
ent to remain in her thoughts and continue to pop up in fantasies so naughty they made her blush just thinking about them.

  It was awful. She had never been attracted to Jamison growing up, and she certainly didn’t want to be attracted to him now. Even if he weren’t the wrong kind of guy—one more interested in conquest than commitment—he wouldn’t be an acceptable man to lust after. He had already locked lips with Maddie’s sister, Naomi. Sure it had happened over a decade ago, and Naomi was marrying Jamison’s brother, but any amount of sister-making-out was too much. Jamison was off-limits. Nothing was ever going to happen between them. Ever.

  Maddie’s head knew that, but her libido did not, a point proven when Jamison turned and their eyes met, sending a shiver of awareness sweeping over Maddie’s skin, raising gooseflesh on her arms and legs despite the eighty-five degree heat.

  Jamison didn’t look much happier to find his weekend of fun crashed by a childhood friend than she was, but his look of displeasure only lasted a moment before he smiled and leapt down from the truck bed with the agility of a jungle cat to prowl across the pine-needle covered ground toward her.

  “What are the chances, huh?” Maddie said, determined to have her first—and last—words with Jamison for the weekend over as quickly as possible. “Guess we’ll just have to try to stay out of each other’s hair.”

  Jamison crossed his arms, one side of his lips lifting in a smirk. “Is that your subtle way of telling me not to interfere while you’re trying to hook up?”

  “No,” Maddie said, rolling her eyes. “That’s my blunt way of saying I’m not here to cramp your style, and I’m sure you’ll extend me the same courtesy.”

  Jamison inclined his head, casting a glance behind Maddie to where her friends were unloading the van. “So I guess that means those three are off-limits?” he asked in a low voice.

  “If you want to go home with all your man parts intact, yes,” Maddie whispered, flinching when Jamison laughed.

  Even his laugh was sexy, a sensual expression of mirth that showcased even, white teeth and that delicious neck Maddie knew smelled better than fresh bread, lavender-scented candles, and a pan of recently fried bacon combined.

  “Got it.” Jamison winked at Maddie before lifting a hand to the women behind her and backing away with a husky, “Good day, ladies,” that triggered a sigh from one of the weaker members of the company.

  Maddie spun back around to find out which of her friends had become tangled in Jamison’s smolder-web to find Shelly and Dawn leaning against the van with slightly dazed expressions and Piper wiping drool from her chin.

  “Are you drooling?” Maddie asked, glaring at the athletic brunette she knew Jamison would have made a play for if Maddie hadn’t made it clear that her friends were off-limits. “Tell me you aren’t drooling, Piper Youngman.”

  “Who was that?” Piper asked with a grin, not even bothering to deny the accusation. “I like.”

  “Me, too,” Shelly added with a sigh that stirred the fuzzy blond curls falling into her face. “But you can have dibs, Piper. Since you drooled and all.”

  “No, she cannot have dibs.” Maddie propped her hands on her hips. “Jamison is off limits.”

  Dawn’s pierced eyebrow rose. “Oh, it’s like that, is it? Back off ladies. Studly’s already spoken for by the birthday queen.”

  “No, it’s not like that,” Maddie said. “I just—”

  “And what the birthday queen wants, the birthday queen gets,” Piper interrupted, lifting her hands into the air. “I withdraw my claws. Pounce away, sister.”

  Maddie rolled her eyes. “I am not going to be pouncing anyone, especially Jamison Hansen.”

  “But that’s the whole reason we’re here!” Shelley’s full lips pushed into a pout. “This weekend is for pouncing. It’s like Virginia is for lovers except it’s a weekend instead of an entire state.”

  “Jamison is my sister’s fiancé’s brother,” Maddie explained. As non-residents of Summerville, her friends weren’t privy to the intricate details of her and Jamison’s relationship. “It would be like incest.”

  “No, that’s when you marry a cousin or something,” Shelly said. “I know because my stepsister married her first cousin. She lives in Arkansas, but they went to Tennessee to get married because it’s legal to marry your first cousin there.”

  “That’s it,” Dawn said, frowning as she pulled her shiny blue-black hair into a low ponytail, showcasing the mermaid tattoo on her upper arm. “I’m officially divorcing Tennessee as my birth state. I mean, what is the world coming to when something is illegal in Arkansas but not in the Volunteer State?”

  “Tennessee is simply volunteering to perform a cousin-marrying service other states won’t,” Piper said as she grabbed her pack from the van and swung it onto her back. “I think you should be proud of them. Love is love, after all.”

  “As long as you don’t have inbred children,” Dawn said, while Maddie shook her head, wondering how this conversation had gone so far astray.

  “But I think you should go for him, Maddie,” Dawn continued. “He’s yummy and he was looking at you like he already had you half-naked in his mind.”

  Maddie scoffed, ignoring the way the thought of being undressed by Jamison—mentally or otherwise—made her skin prickle all over. “You’re crazy.”

  “I am not crazy,” Dawn said. “I’m thirty-two years old, unreasonably excited to be away from my precious children, and dangerously horny, but not crazy.”

  Dawn and Piper both had kids—Piper two boys she had full custody of after her ex took a job overseas, and Dawn a nine-year-old boy and seven-year-old girl she’d been raising mostly solo since her husband ran off with his secretary four years ago. Both of them needed this singles retreat every bit as much as Maddie did, but they had insisted Maddie was the queen of the weekend.

  They were sweet friends, such sweet friends Maddie promised right then and there not to do anything to ruin their good time. She wasn’t going to let Jamison’s presence spoil her fun, or anyone else’s.

  She resolved to ignore him completely, a feat that proved fairly easy at first. Having birthed two, ten pound babies, Dawn couldn’t go an entire night without getting up to pee, so Maddie’s group set up camp at the site nearest the bathrooms, while Jamison and his buddies pitched their tent closer to the beach.

  The girls joined the group heading down the beach to gather driftwood for a bonfire, while the guys were on dinner duty for the first night, in charge of grilling hamburgers and hot dogs for the thirty-five singles on the trip. Maddie and her friends and Jamison and his crew ate on opposite ends of the long line of picnic tables, and by the time supper had been eaten and the beer flowing for awhile, Maddie could barely hear the rumble of Jamison’s voice over the laughter and flirtation at her table.

  Shelley and a man with brown eyes and glasses, who resembled a graying Harry Potter, were getting along like gangbusters, and Piper had two gorgeous co-workers from an Atlanta law firm hanging on her every word. The other two men at their table seemed more interested in texting than talking, but Dawn was deep in conversation with a pretty red-haired woman named Helen, whose kids went to the same art camp as Dawn’s son, and seemed to be having a great time.

  The only person who hadn’t found a conversation mate was Maddie, but she didn’t mind. It made her feel free to toss her paper plate, grab a fresh beer from the cooler, and head down the path to the beach. She arrived as the sun was setting and kicked off her sandals, letting the cool sand slither between her toes as she walked toward the ocean.

  The sound of the waves shushing in and out against the shore was one of her favorite sounds in the world, but it also made her melancholy. She and Serge had spent most of their marriage living on an island, in a condo right on the beach. They’d eaten almost every dinner on their patio and sometimes even slept outside on his-and-her hammocks, letting the surf lull them to sleep. Some of her most beautiful memories of her marriage were set to the music of the
sea, and for a moment she couldn’t help missing the days when she’d assumed she was in a relationship that would last.

  Maddie sat down behind the pile of driftwood she and the others had gathered earlier in the day and stared out at the water, watching as the sun sank below the horizon and the twilight air took on a bluish hue. Gradually, the early summer air grew chilly, and Maddie’s toes began to go numb. She was about to head back to the campground to ask the organizers if it was okay for her to get the bonfire started when she heard a woman’s bubbly laugh.

  “No, you go in first.” The woman’s voice came from the other side of the woodpile. “I bet the water’s still freezing.”

  “That’s all right.” Jamison’s drawl made the hair on Maddie’s neck stand on end, even before he added. “If you get cold, I’ll warm you back up.”

  “Is that right?” The woman giggled.

  “Yes ma’am,” Jamison drawled, seconds before Maddie heard the unmistakable smacking sound of two people playing kissy face.

  She cringed, lip curling, disgust that Jamison was already hooking up with a complete stranger mere hours after their arrival warring with the embarrassment pulsing through her veins. The last thing she wanted was to be discovered eavesdropping on Jamison’s make out session, but she couldn’t very well make a run for it now. She hunched lower in the sand, praying Jamison and his friend would finish their smooching and make a dash for the ocean without noticing her.

  No sooner had she finished the thought than the couple stumbled across the sand three feet away. But, despite the fact that his lips were trailing down the blonde’s neck and his hands were wandering over her bikini-clad body, Jamison spotted Maddie immediately.

  Chapter Two

  Jamison pulled away from the woman with a guilty look. “Hey, Maddie. I didn’t know you were there.”

  “Yep, I’m here all right,” Maddie chirped in a forcibly upbeat voice as she struggled to her feet, smiling weakly as the blonde shot her a none-too-friendly look. “But I’m on my way back to the campground this very second. As you were, soldiers!”