Pippa Bared All

By Ally Blake

Pippa Bared All by Ally Blake:

A When Honey Got Married... Novella
The groom proposed to her eight years earlier, but it was the steamy kiss that Pippa shared with his brother the night she left town that haunted her memories. Now she's back and sharing much more than just kisses.

Bonus story included!

When Honey Got Married...

Nothing was going to ruin Honey's wedding to the man of her dreams. And she has just the wedding surprise for her beloved groom!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Feb 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781622664917

Ally Blake

Australian romance author Ally Blake has a thing for strong hot coffee, adores fluffy white clouds and bright blue skies, and is smitten with the glide of a soft, dark pencil over really good notepaper. She also loves writing warm, witty, whimsical love stories. With more than forty books published, and having sold over four million copies of her novels worldwide, she is living her dream. Alongside one handsome husband, their three spectacular children, and too many animal companions to count, Ally lives and writes in the leafy western suburbs of Brisbane. More about her books at www.allyblake.com

Book preview

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Pippa Bared All

Ally Blake

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Ally Blake. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

Edited by Shannon Godwin

Cover design by Heidi Stryker

Ebook ISBN 978-1-62266-491-7

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition May 2013

Second Edition February 2014

The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: Firebird, Bentley, BMW, eBay, Tastee Freez, MTV Movie Awards, Wedding March, Joanie Loves Chachi, New Orleans Saints, Lynyrd Skynyrd, True Blood, Mack, Howard Johnson, MTV, MTV Movie Awards.

Table of Contents

Pippa Bared All

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

About the Author

Honey Lived Happily Ever After

Dedication

About the Author

Indulge in More

For Kim, Kelly & Anna.

From this time forth hummingbirds will not fail to bring me out in a grin, and it’s all your fault :).

Chapter One

Pippa Montgomery was a fraud.

She made a darn fine living with P.S., her widely syndicated blog, traveling the country, shining a spotlight on girls who’d done extraordinary things with their pint-size lives, and on the back of those stories conjuring bite-size affirmations for hopeful tweens.

And yet, her first time back in Bellefleur after leaving the place in her dust, Pippa sat hunched down in the driver’s seat of the exact same swamp-rescued Firebird in which she’d once fled the scene, trying very much to achieve invisibility.

From the corner of her eye she watched the river of wedding guests in an array of spring pastels flooding past her car. The joining of the Moreau and Delacroix clans was akin to forming a dynasty, so maybe the wedding was big enough that a small person like her might be able to disappear. She could only hope!

A row of knuckles materalized in front of her face, knocking so hard on the window it rained down desert dust, causing Pippa to flinch so hard she banged her knee on the underside of the steering wheel.

Pippa? a muffled voice singsonged with a Louisiana lilt. Pippa Montgomery? That you, sweet pea?

Pippa cranked the squeaky old window to halfway, letting in air thick with humidity and the mixed scent of distant magnolia and adjacent talc.

Why, of course it’s you! Bellefleur native Lady Calliope shouted in a kind of fervor. I’d have recognized that car of yours anywhere!

Right. The car. Duh. With its faded red paint job, the huge black bird sprayed on the hood, and an engine that sounded like a monster truck rally all on its lonesome, the car she and the bride and groom had once famously rescued from a Baton Rouge bayou must have stuck out among the Bellefleur Bentleys and Beemers like a gnome in a rose garden.

Lady Calliope leaned in deeper as she wrapped her long pink talons around the window. Now tell me true, what you doin’ here, sweet pea? And Pippa knew she wasn’t asking why she was still in her car.

Lady Calliope wanted to know why—after disappearing into the night after high school graduation, leaving behind the boy who’d loved her and the best girl friend she’d ever had—Pippa had decided to come back to Bellefleur on the very day Brent Delacroix was to marry Honey Moreau.

Her reasons were…complicated, and none of Lady Calliope’s business, frankly. So Pippa conjured the art of gracious endurance that the achingly short amount of time she’d lived in Bellefleur had taught her. She spread a smile across her face, blinked sweetly, and said, Why, Lady Calliope, I was invited. You?

Lady Calliope barely raised a brow before she guffawed so loudly heads turned, saw her, saw her car, and the those well-coiffed heads bent together as the word began to spread—Pippa Montgomery was back in town.

You always were a lively one, girl. Would have been a grave disappointment to find the big wide world had subdued you any.

An unexpected smile quirked at Pippa’s mouth. Same to you, Lady.

With a smile, Lady Calliope straightened, putting her impressive bust at Pippa’s eye level as she said, Better scoot. Bride’ll be a sight to see. Mind you, the groom ain’t ever been hard to look at either, as you well know. Then she tottered off to join a colorful group of women in big jewels and bigger hats, leaving Pippa to let out a long, slow breath.

That went okay, considering. If they were all as well behaved as Lady Calliope, she’d get off lightly.

She laughed at the thought of Lady Calliope being well behaved. According to the old-money types in town, Lady had earned her fortune the shady way, by marrying it. Which was fine for someone with breeding, but not an outsider, not a woman with no family or ties to the Mayflower. Which is why they’d spitefully pinned the Lady moniker upon her. But rather than pretending she didn’t know, Lady Calliope had owned it until it stuck.

Now that was the kind of chutzpah P.S. was recognized for. Hiding out, not so much.

Like a kick in the pants, it shot Pippa upright. She angled herself for one last check in the rearview mirror. Her long dark waves had so far survived the humidity shock, and waterproof mascara was doing as advertised by taming her overlong lashes and making the most of her light hazel eyes. She lifted a compact to her cheeks before letting it drop. It was late spring in the Deep South and LA had given her something of a tan; there’d be no stopping the Louisiana glow.

P.S. Don’t sweat what you can’t change! she’d quip if she were blogging about it. Or, P.S. It’s your chance to shine!

It made her think of the faces of the eleven-year-olds she’d met in Texas the day before, their faces so sweet, so hopeful, so enamored of her cool car, her amaaazing life, so matter-of-fact as they told her how they’d managed to survive a night in the Guadalupe Mountains after getting separated from their parents while camping.

Buck up, Pippa. How about, P.S. Get the hell out of the car!

So told, she did. Her knees wobbled from being cramped so long in the one position. And okay, from more than a little nerves. Unforgettable as she was, Lady Calliope had been only peripheral to Pippa’s time in Bellefleur. There were others who’d loomed larger. Several of whom she owed far more than gracious endurance.

For one, there was the groom; handsome and amiable Brent Delacroix, the absolute catch of the town. The last time she’d seen him had been high school graduation. That night he’d proposed. To her.

Behind her back, Pippa gripped the handle of the open door with both hands, so tight she fast lost feeling in her fingers.

There was also the bride. The lovely Honore Moreau—Pippa’s once-upon-a-time best friend forever. The last time she’d seen Honey, she’d been even more dumbstruck that Pippa had turned Brent down than Brent had. People didn’t turn down Delacroixes. It just wasn’t done.

If possible, Pippa gripped the door handle harder still.

Brent’s parents would be in there somewhere too. When her impossible mom had stayed true to form and chased another man across the country just six months before Pippa had been due to graduate high school, Marie and Robert Delacroix—the most munificent, astute, dazzling people she’d ever known—hadn’t hesitated before insisting on taking their son’s non-native girlfriend in so that she could graduate with her friends.

And Pippa had left Bellefleur that fateful graduation night without even telling them good-bye.

When the fingers

Reviews for Pippa Bared All

[gloria.herrera · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is just an enjoyable novella. Pippa has to come back to her hometown to appear at her ex boyfriend's wedding and wish the newly weds good luck. This would be impossible she thinks when she still is carrying a torch for him.

Talk about a southern town going nuts! Pippa shows up in a black dress, dressed to hilt and showing a lot of skin. The gossips are all blabbing.

As our story evolves, Pippa grows to realize what her real feelings are. All with the help of Griff. Let me tell you, that is one hunk of man I would not mind kissing myself.

Enjoy this delightful story!