Driving Mr. Wrong Home
By Shirley Jump
()
About this ebook
Can a feisty four-legged matchmaker help four best friends find the romance of their dreams?
When a handsome man from Gabby's past agrees to a cross-country road trip, her master plan to re-launch her art career quickly morphs into an unexpected, romantic reunion.
Shirley Jump
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Shirley Jump spends her days writing romance to feed her shoe addiction and avoid cleaning the toilets. She cleverly finds writing time by feeding her kids junk food, allowing them to dress in the clothes they find on the floor and encouraging the dogs to double as vacuum cleaners. Chat with her via Facebook: www.facebook.com/shirleyjump.author or her website: www.shirleyjump.com.
Read more from Shirley Jump
Sugar And Spice Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Firefighter's Family Secret Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Billionaire Matchmaker Bundle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTheir Last Second Chance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWinning the Nanny's Heart Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOne Day To Find A Husband Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFamily Christmas in Riverbend Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Family Christmas In Riverbend Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Matchmaker's Happy Ending: An Anthology Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Her Frog Prince Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sweet Single Plus Bonus Novella/Snowbound With Her Hero/Hold The Date Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to Driving Mr. Wrong Home
Related ebooks
Don't Hold Back Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Seduced by the Soldier Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Spring Cleaning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One Moment: Montana Matchmakers, #7 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5His Runaway Campfire Princess: Camp Firefly Falls, #8 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Undercover Lover Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Return to Chateau Pines Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Groom Wanted Seconds Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Turning the Tables Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5His Counterfeit Campfire Bride: Camp Firefly Falls, #2 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unscripted Love: The Complete Reality TV Romance Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Millionaire Tempted Fate Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sideways: The Sideways Series, #1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Birthday Wish: The Birthday Romance Series, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLoving a Compton: New Generation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLust in Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wife for Hire Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Opened Up Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHello Dolly: Montana Matchmakers, #5 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMajor Renovations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTexas Made Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHoliday Hearts Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Paris Interlude: Escape in Love, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDiscovery (Traveling Hearts - Vol. 3): Traveling Hearts, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow To Wed A Billionaire (Book Three): How To Wed A Billionaire, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLove on the Run: Romance about Running Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Best Friends Forever Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5High on Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Vegas Pitch Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Romance For You
It Starts with Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Erotic Fantasies Anthology Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Him: Him, #1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Adults Only Volume 3: Seven Erotica Shorts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bossy: An Erotic Workplace Diary Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Under the Roses Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Messy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Protecting What's Theirs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Before We Were Strangers: A Love Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Confess: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All Your Perfects: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ugly Love: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wish You Were Here: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stone Heart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Swear on This Life: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Kingdom of Dreams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heart Bones: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Seven Sisters: Book One Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hopeless Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5November 9: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Visitors Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Favorite Half-Night Stand Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Something Borrowed: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Without Merit: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe Not: A Novella Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chased by Moonlight Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe Now: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Home: the most moving and heartfelt novel you'll read this year Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roomies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Driving Mr. Wrong Home
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Driving Mr. Wrong Home - Shirley Jump
Driving Mr. Wrong Home
Shirley Jump
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 Shirley Jump. 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 and Libby Murphy
Cover design by Heidi Stryker
Ebook ISBN 978-1-62266-5037
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition October 2013
Second Edition March 2014
The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: Spanx, Jack Russell, Toyota, PETA, Facebook, American Gothic, Stonehenge, RAM, Ansel Adams, Picasso, GPS, Dateline, Forbes Magazine, Jeep.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
About the Author
More Indulgence Novellas!
To Barbara, Susan ,and Jackie, three of the most spectacular authors, friends, and people I know. I couldn’t have asked for a more gifted—or giving—team to work with on this book. Thanks for the laughs and the friendship.
Chapter One
Gabby Wilson had perfected the art of covering up the things she wanted to forget with a few brushstrokes of burnt sienna and emerald green. In a painting or a photograph, she could frame a whole other version of who she was, and she had been doing exactly that for damned near eight years. She didn’t want the people in Chandler’s Cove to remember the impetuous, rebellious girl she used to be, the one who had made the pages of the Chandler’s Cove Gazette twice—not for scoring a last-minute goal or writing an award-winning essay but because she’d been the youngest resident to get a free ride to jail, courtesy of the sheriff’s department. One more time, the sheriff had joked, and she’d get her own plaque on the wall.
She wasn’t that Gabby anymore. Now she was an artist with an affinity for mixed digital media, blending her love of photography with her penchant for quirky expression. A respectable, tax-paying citizen who stayed out of trouble.
Well, mostly.
Still, a part of her missed the old days. Maybe just the thrill of them, the unexpectedness that each day brought.
Unexpectedness—yes, that was what it was. Maybe that explained why she was striding up to her reclusive neighbor’s massive stucco monolith on a brisk winter afternoon in Chandler’s Cove. Earlier today, she’d received a mysterious message from Mr. Bonaparte’s butler, asking her to come by.
She had just about reached the granite steps when a familiar six-foot-two figure emerged from the house. A piece of her past, here, of all places.
Well, well, if it isn’t Gabby Wilson,
he said.
T.J.?
she said.
T.J. Shepherd took off his sunglasses and grinned. Something went hot and dark in Gabby’s gut. Hi, Gabby.
She hadn’t seen T.J. in almost a decade—not since high school. They’d grown up in the same area, gone to the same schools, but it wasn’t until they’d been paired up in a chemistry lab freshman year that she got to know him. The T.J. she’d remembered had been nice, funny even, but way too into computers and technology. He could drone on and on for hours about megabytes and RAM and stuff that bored her to tears.
That T.J. had been a bookish, quiet guy who rarely loosened the leash on his life. His reticence and caution had intrigued her in those days. But the man standing before her now had done a complete one-eighty. He had a dangerous sexiness in the way he stood, the smile playing on his lips.
What, uh…What are you doing here?
Gabby said, the syllables a little harsher than she intended. T.J. Shepherd’s appearance on the doorstep of the Bonaparte mansion was about as incongruous as a hippo in a ballet.
Not that he looked anything like a hippo or anything that would belong in a ballet. Heck, if it hadn’t been for his eyes, those ocean-colored green-blue eyes of his, she wouldn’t have believed it was really him. He didn’t look one bit like the nerdy guy she remembered from high school.
She shook her head, and found her wits again. For Pete’s sake, this was T.J. She’d known him practically from birth.
I had an appointment with Mr. Bonaparte,
he said, interrupting her wayward thoughts. He thumbed toward the door.
But…I thought you lived in Boston or something.
The boy she had known and the man she saw now were two different people. The one who had left Chandler’s Cove for college had been a scrawny guy with glasses and an affinity for buttoned-up polos. In a weird way, she’d liked that buttoned-up side of him. It seemed to dare her to figure out what it would take to get T.J. to unbutton.
The man standing before her now was as far from buttoned-up as he was from the moon. Taller, broader, and more defined, as if Channing Tatum had morphed into T.J.’s body. He still had the same eyes and sharp, lean features she remembered, only now they danced with hidden secrets and a sexy tease. And when he’d smiled at her—
Well, she wasn’t here to think about that. Not at all.
I’m sort of between residences,
T.J. said, and once again she reined in her runaway thoughts. I’m meeting with Mr. Bonaparte about a…potential job. I’ve been here for a few days, visiting my grandma at the same time, and I thought I’d take the opportunity to call on Mr. Bonaparte. Since he travels so much he’s pretty hard to catch.
T.J.’s explanation made sense but a part of Gabby thought there was a piece missing to the story. He’d been gone a long time and his return felt, well, sudden. Maybe because seeing him had hit her with a hot, fast rush of something that sure as heck wasn’t nostalgia.
What about you? What are you doing here?
he asked.
Oh yeah, back to the reason she was here. Which had nothing to do