Can't Forget You (A sexy funny mystery/romance)

By Jennifer Skully

If you’re a fan of contemporary romantic comedy sprinkled with a heavy dose of mystery, then step into the world of NY Times and USA Today bestselling author Jennifer Skully!

Welcome back to Cottonmouth!

There’s something very special about the house Maggie grew up in. It’s sort of...alive. With a mind of its own.

And it has plans for the people living there now.

All Maggie Halliday has left after the divorce is the family dog and the home her grandmother left to her when she passed away two months ago. Maggie’s got no other choice but to run back to her hometown of Cottonmouth, California, only to discover her high school sweetheart, Cooper Trubek, is living in the house, along with four other boarders for whom Maggie is now responsible. And according to Nana’s will, Maggie can’t kick any of them out.

Unless one of them commits murder.

Still grieving for her grandmother and trying fix up the house that seems to be falling down around her, Maggie’s got more trouble than she can handle. Then things go from bad to worse when Samson the dog starts digging in the basement...

“Can’t Forget You” is a contemporary romance of approximately 65,000 words.

The book contains the following bonus material:

Excerpts from “Baby, I’ll Find You”, plus “Double the Pleasure” and “Wives & Neighbors” by Jasmine Haynes.

PRAISE FOR JENNIFER SKULLY NOVELS

“Here's something you need to know about Jennifer Skully/Jasmine Haynes. She can really write - no matter which genre she chooses.” The Book Sage

“Skully's novel is a triumph. It's fabulously funny, with top-notch dialogue, terrific pacing and witty compelling characters.” Romantic Times

Huntress Reviews: “A witty novel that will keep you engrossed until the very end!” Huntress Reviews

“An absolute delight.” Road to Romance Reviews

“Jennifer Skully combines humor, mystery, hot sex, fascinating characters, and annoying relatives into one winning book.” Romance Reviews Today:

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jennifer Skully
• Release date: May 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781626030374

Jennifer Skully

Award-winning author Jennifer Skully is back! The author of KOD Daphne winner SHE'S GOTTA BE MINE (formerly Sex and the Serial Killer) brings you poignant tales of loss and renewal. Her books are peopled with hilarious characters that will make you laugh and make you cry. And be sure to read her classy, erotic romances written as Jasmine Haynes, Rita Finalist for SOMEBODY’S LOVER, plus two-time Holt Medallion and National Readers Choice Award winner. In 2013, she starts a sexy new series for Berkley Heat, beginning with THE NAUGHTY CORNER coming Oct 2013 and TEACH ME A LESSON in April 2014. And there will be more in the sensual West Coast series! Of course, she’s also the author of the award-winning Max Starr psychic mystery series. Visit her websites at jasminehaynes.com, jenniferskully.com, jbskully.com, and her blog at jasminehaynes.blogspot.com

Book preview

CAN’T FORGET YOU

A COTTONMOUTH NOVEL, BOOK THREE

Jennifer Skully

Copyright 2014 Jasmine Haynes

Cover Design by Rae Monet Inc.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This is copyrighted material. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

Summary

Welcome back to Cottonmouth!

There’s something very special about the house Maggie grew up in. It’s sort of...alive. With a mind of its own.

And it has plans for the people living there now.

All Maggie Halliday has left after the divorce is the family dog and the home her grandmother left to her when she passed away two months ago. Maggie’s got no other choice but to run back to her hometown of Cottonmouth, California, only to discover her high school sweetheart, Cooper Trubek, is living in the house, along with four other boarders for whom Maggie is now responsible. And according to Nana’s will, Maggie can’t kick any of them out.

Unless one of them commits murder.

Still grieving for her grandmother and trying fix up the house that seems to be falling down around her, Maggie’s got more trouble than she can handle. Then things go from bad to worse when Samson the dog starts digging in the basement…

Acknowledgements

Thanks to my special network of friends who support me, brainstorm with me, and encourage me: Bella Andre, Shelley Adina, Jenny Andersen, Jackie Yau, Kathy Coatney, Pamela Fryer, Rosemary Gunn, and Laurel Jacobson. A special thanks to Rae Monet for such great covers! As always, I appreciate everything my husband does to help make my writing career flourish and my life easier. And of course, thanks to my cat Wrigley, who helps me to write by sitting on my keyboard.

Chapter One

Her ex-husband got the new wife, the new baby, the house, the SUV, and their daughter Evie’s undying devotion.

Maggie Halliday got the dog.

You’re such a good dog. What would I have done without you? she crooned as she stroked Samson’s snout. Along with his snub pit bull face, stout bulldog body, and Australian shepherd markings, Samson had the sweetest of natures.

Maggie rolled down the windows to let the October breeze waft through the old minivan’s interior. At noon, the air was warm, but it carried the promise of a cooler season. She’d parked beneath a massive oak along a tree-lined lane on the outskirts of Cottonmouth, the hometown she hadn’t visited in twenty years. Less than three hours north of San Francisco, Cottonmouth was a lifetime away.

Across Garden Street sat the weathered Victorian house of her childhood. White shutters had aged to gray, and the roof was minus some shingles, like a faded old lady caught without her dentures. Crab grass, weeds, and gophers had long since choked the lush lawn out of existence. To the left of the front steps, the porch sagged, the support column sinking beneath the overhang’s weight. Its chains broken, the porch swing lay forlorn beneath the dining room window. The paint was peeling, and the dormer windows in the third-floor attic looked as if they’d been sealed shut with time and rot.

A man appeared around the corner of the house, a tool belt at his waist, a stack of two-by-fours balanced on his shoulder. She hadn’t ogled anyone in more years than she could count, but there was something about him. The T-shirt molded to his chest and the jeans hugging his thighs started a flutter low in her belly.

Dumping the wood on the scrubby earth, he went down on one knee to shove what looked like a car jack under the edge of the porch. As he cranked the handle, the sagging support column rose, lifting the overhang. When it was level, he nestled a wooden square between the base of the column and the concrete it rested on. The repair was a stop-gap measure in a slow decline that brought an ache to Maggie’s heart. The house was all she had left of her grandmother.

A black Lexus purred to a stop on the gravel shoulder behind her. Maggie waited for the lawyer to get out of his car. Stacked in the back of the minivan, the detritus of her life obscured most of the view out the back window. Boxes and suitcases filled with clothing, photos, kitchen gadgets, an ancient computer, and other odds and ends were all she’d claimed from her marriage.

The door of the Lexus banged shut. Samson chuffed like a steam engine. He didn’t like loud noises, hated to be yelled at, and was afraid of strangers—at least for the first fifteen minutes. After sniffing feet, pant legs, and various body parts, be they private or otherwise, he was friends for life.

Except for Ray, Maggie’s ex-husband. Samson had cowered before Ray from the moment she and Evie brought the pound dog home. Ray hadn’t even yelled at him yet. Ray Halliday wasn’t an animal person. He said they were too hard to control. Then again, Ray wasn’t a people person either. They were also too hard to control.

Maggie scratched the dog’s ear. Be a good boy, she crooned, then climbed out of the van.

Elton Cook was tall, gaunt, and pasty-faced. He’d have made a perfect undertaker. Or a cadaver. Instead, he’d been her grandmother’s lawyer, looking as ancient when Maggie was a child as he did now.

An oak branch scratched the top of his gray hair as he stared at the crabbed lawn, the missing shingles, the sagging porch, and the handyman shoring it up.

This isn’t possible. He turned to Maggie, eyes deep and dark in his skeletal face. Right?

She guessed what he was driving at. You didn’t hire the handyman?

Maggie certainly hadn’t. Her grandmother had died two month ago, leaving Maggie the house and the boarders living inside it. She blinked away the pain at the renewed sense of loss. Officially divorced for six months, a week ago Maggie lacked even a home—the dingy apartment she’d been living in didn’t count. Ray had bought her out of the house, but with the second and third mortgages they’d taken out for remodeling and Evie’s college fund, there hadn’t been much equity to distribute. The trust fund her grandmother had left for maintenance wasn’t going to cover all this. And though she’d gotten money out of the divorce settlement, it wouldn’t last long if she had to spend it on house repairs.

"It didn’t need a handyman a month ago." Elton Cook whispered, as if the house itself might overhear and fall down as a consequence.

In Maggie’s estimation, it had needed a handyman for a long time. Turning it into a boardinghouse obviously hadn’t earned enough for all the necessary repairs.

I’m sure my grandmother did the best she could. A hole opened wide in Maggie’s chest as she thought of all the lost years she’d let build between her grandmother and herself.

No. Elton flapped bony fingers. You don’t understand. She had it painted last year. Then there was the new septic installed nine months ago, and she sodded the entire lawn afterward. There wasn’t a weed in sight when I was out here in the middle of August. A month and a half ago, two weeks after her grandmother passed on August first.

The handyman hammered at the base of the column, the afternoon sun shining down on his hair in an odd halo effect. In the van, Samson whined. He needed a potty break.

Elton Cook stuck his hand out, straight-armed, a key ring jangling in his fingers even as he eased closer to his Lexus. I have to go.

Maggie made a side shuffle to close the distance between them. You could come in.

There isn’t any need. Mr. Cook took a giant spread-eagled step in the opposite direction.

Shouldn’t you at least introduce me to the tenants?

I’m sure you’ll do fine on your own. He jingled the keys when she didn’t take them.

I don’t even remember their names.

Hopefully they do.

Maggie grabbed her grandmother’s keys before he dropped them. Mr. Cook skipped sideways the rest of the way to his car as if he were afraid to turn his back on the house. It might be time to let his son take over the law firm.

Don’t forget, he called. You can’t put them out unless they don’t pay rent or they get arrested and accused of murder.

"Can’t forget that," she muttered to the cloud dust he left behind as he peeled out. She’d inherited her grandmother’s house as well as the boarders living there. They could miss six monthly rental payments before she could kick anyone out. Unless they tried to kill her first. She’d have to read the will again; had it said get arrested and accused of murder or was that an either/or?

She tipped her head and gazed across the street. The house and its tenants might actually be worth it if she got the handyman, too.

She was forty, divorced, and it was high time she had some fun, right? Opening the van’s door, she snapped her fingers. Samson hit the ground running. He squatted on the edge of her new yard and christened the dirt for what seemed like a full minute as Maggie crossed the road. Despite being male, Samson was a squatter, not a leg-lifter. Ray said that made him a wuss. Maggie thought it demonstrated he was an individualist.

Guess your dog didn’t see the sign on the lawn? The handyman’s voice was deep, the kind of voice you felt vibrating on the inside.

Maggie stared at the crab grass, the weeds, the gopher holes, and the dirt. We didn’t notice a lawn, she answered, perfectly serious, not a funny-bone in her body.

He pointed to the marker, a picture of a dog squatting, the universal red not circle over its behind.

Ah, that’s it. He doesn’t read sign language.

His lips moved, but he didn’t crack a smile, and Maggie resisted pointing out that it was her nonexistent lawn. After all, he’d fixed the column so the porch no longer sagged. For that, he deserved a thank you. She shaded her eyes from the sun pouring over the roof, opened her mouth to offer it…

And looked up into the face of the man she should have married instead of Ray.

* * * * *

It took Maggie forever to find her voice over the crack in it. "What are you doing here?"

He crossed his arms, staring down at her with something that resembled a smile, but with the sun in her eyes, it could also have been a grimace. A whole lot of nothing, Maggie.

God. He recognized her.

Cooper Trubek had been her high school sweetheart. Had been, was, is. It depended on your definition of the word is. He still existed, she still existed, and she’d loved him with all her heart. So Cooper Trubek is her high school sweetheart might be the right way to say it. Despite the intervening twenty-two years, the girl she’d once been had never fallen out of love with the boy. That girl still remembered every precious moment with Cooper from sophomore to senior year.

She could have said all that but, thankfully, what came out was Samson did number one.

Cooper glanced at Samson, who sat on his haunches, giving him the mother of all stares.

Up close, Cooper’s dark brown hair was shot through with silver strands, and fine lines etched his eyes. The years had made him better, seasoned, overwhelmingly male, instead of a mere boy of eighteen. Tall, over six feet, he’d perfected a stone-faced demeanor she found daunting. In high school, he’d laughed a lot. Back then, she hadn’t hurt him yet.

His gaze tracked her face, her hair, her eyes, her lips, then down to the tight, low-waisted jeans and snug T-shirt. She wasn’t an eighteen-year-old girl either, and his gaze made her self-conscious, as if he thought she was trying to deny her age. It was just that she’d done all her shopping with Evie who’d always said that Maggie shouldn’t dress like an old lady.

I live here, he finally said, without inflection.

Deciding the man wasn’t a threat, Samson rose to his four paws, trotted to Cooper’s side, and sniffed his work boots, then his pant legs. He was heading north when Cooper stuck his hand in the way.

It took that long for Maggie to realize Cooper had answered her original question. "You’re one of Nana’s boarders?"

He nodded. This time, the smile made it to his eyes. "I’m one of your boarders. Samson circled, and Cooper shoved him away before he sniffed the backside. I’ve got the attic."

When Maggie lived in the house, the attic was dusty and dark, one long room with a sloped ceiling, boiling in summer and freezing in winter. How could a person live in the attic? Elton Cook told her Nana had remodeled to make more space for boarders, turning the first-floor rumpus room into a bedroom and adding a shower to the half-bath by the stairs. There were now three full bathrooms. But Mr. Cook hadn’t mentioned the attic.

Maggie snapped her fingers, and Samson slumped in the dirt, laying his snout on his paws. I didn’t know.

I didn’t expect you to—his voice roughened, the first sign of emotion slipping—since Cecelia never called you in the entire five years I’ve been here.

And not for twelve years before that. Did Cooper think Maggie had deserted Nana the way she’d deserted him?

I should have called her, she admitted, the guilt like a lump of raw cookie dough in her stomach, the kind of thing you thought you could handle until it expanded. How much had her grandmother told Cooper about Ray and Evie? Short for Evangeline. Long ago she’d chosen the name for the little girl she and Cooper would one day have. She’d dreamed so many things that had never come to pass.

If she wasn’t careful, she’d become maudlin, something she’d tried hard not to do since the divorce. What happened to the lawn? And the swing, the porch, the paint? Mr. Cook said the grass was just replaced.

Cooper stared at the house, the brown of his eyes deepening. It got sad.

"The house got sad?"

When Cecelia died. He swept an arm across the expanse of dirt, and Maggie realized the elusive sentiment in his gaze was grief. He’d had a soft spot for Nana, bringing her a treat when he arrived, meringues or flowers or a cookbook. And he’d left her with a goodnight kiss on the cheek. First week, he said, the grass died, second week the weeds and gophers took over.

Her grandmother’s house had always been...special. The scents of baking cookies and fried chicken lingered long after the kitchen should have aired out. If Maggie wanted a breeze on a summer’s night, she’d find a window open she was sure she’d closed. When she climbed out her second-floor window to meet the most beautiful boy in the world, the trellis suddenly reached right up to her sill. As if the house shared her feelings for Cooper. When she’d let him move to L.A. on his own following high school, the trellis vines grew thorns.

Over the years she’d been absent, Maggie decided she’d imagined all the strange things about the house.

Maybe the septic’s failing again. It could have contaminated the dirt and killed the grass.

Cooper went on. Then the swing fell down, the porch sagged, the paint flaked, and the shingles fell off. He kicked up one side of his mouth. I don’t think that’s the septic.

Her grandmother had loved the swing on a warm night, swaying, sipping homemade lemonade as they discussed the day. The torment when Timmy Tipton sent Maggie a love note only to have their fourth grade teacher intercept it and read it aloud. The tragic loss of Jimmy Howell when he was killed in the sixth grade as he crossed the big highway east of town. Susan Foster getting pregnant at fifteen. What Maggie should wear to the junior prom with Cooper.

All the memories, the years, the times she thought of calling Nana but never did. All the regrets and guilt. I thought you were some big screenwriter in Hollywood, she said, a catch in her voice.

His head bent to Samson, Cooper merely raised his eyes to meet his gaze. You know I never sold a screenplay.

She hadn’t known. For years, she’d searched movie credits for his name. When Cooper left to make his Hollywood dreams come true, she was supposed to go with him. Fear got the better of her, and she’d allowed him to board that train alone, deserting him with nothing but a note she’d sent via a friend. At eighteen, it had seemed the best way to let him down. Today, she saw it for the coward’s way out that it was.

After that there was college, Ray, then Evie. And now this, back at the house she’d started in as if she were George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life. What would her life have been like if she hadn’t thrown away Cooper’s love?

I’m sorry you didn’t make a movie. What else could she say? She’d chosen security over a frighteningly uncertain future with Cooper. Two years later, when she’d gotten pregnant, Ray had represented her safety net. She’d chosen what she thought was security, even against her grandmother’s wishes and advice.

She’d lost it all when Ray no longer had a use for her. Even Evie didn’t need her after she went off to college.

She sounded disgustingly poor-poor-pitiful-me, but she’d made her own choices. Thanks for fixing the porch.

Cecelia used to give me money off the rent for doing her odd jobs. He turned, bounded up the porch steps, then threw over his shoulder, I don’t expect the same thing from you.

The message, she assumed, was that he didn’t want anything from her. He disappeared into the bowels of her grandmother’s house, the screen door banging shut behind him. One of the hinges dropped off, the screws pinging on the porch.

She’d deserted him, hurt him, hadn’t talked to him, or written him. She’d owed him more than a note. Yet she’d walked away and never looked back. Just as Ray had done to her over a year ago, the day after they’d settled Evie in her first-year college dorm room in San Luis Obispo. So Maggie knew how Cooper felt.

She shoved the house keys in her jeans pocket, snapped her fingers, and whistled. People didn’t like being snapped at, but to dogs, it was a sound, a command, and if they obeyed, they knew they’d get a treat. Samson followed her back across the lane to the minivan, and she carried the first of her boxes into her grandmother’s house. Her house now.

They say you can’t go home again; Maggie had no choice but to try.

Chapter Two

She was older, a few life lines, a few gray roots, a crease of sadness across her brow. Hollywood had been filled with sweet young things ready to do anything, but Maggie, in those mouthwatering jeans, was no less desirable to him than she’d been at eighteen. Cooper watched from his attic window as Maggie negotiated the cracked flagstone path, the dog at her heels. He was an odd little mutt, gazing up at Cooper with intelligence in his brown eyes.

Maggie slid open the side door of her van to reveal an interior crammed with suitcases, boxes, and kitchen junk. He should have helped her, but seeing her had knocked him sideways. Sure he’d known she’d eventually come, and he’d gotten past feeling like a failure, but somehow facing Maggie made all his mistakes fresh again.

Weariness burrowed deep into his bones. He worked as a night watchman at the high school and would have been in bed at this time of day. That’s where she would have found him when she arrived—which might have proven to be pretty damn hot now that he’d seen her. But he’d been afraid the porch would fall down if he didn’t fix it today. Since the day Cecelia passed, the house had been sliding into decrepitude.

She should have let him call Maggie when the doctors diagnosed the cancer. Maggie would have come running, but Cecelia stated she wasn’t about to bring Maggie back to an old lady on her deathbed. She’d claimed there was a time for everything and Maggie would come home for house, not for her. What had gone wrong between them, Cecelia never said. He knew only that Maggie was married and had a kid Cecelia never saw. She’d blamed herself. Just as he now blamed himself for not calling Maggie months ago. He should never have listened to Cecelia. There were some dying wishes a man shouldn’t keep.

Below his attic window, Maggie skipped down the path with a box under one arm as she threw a rope tug for the dog. The mutt ran after it, twirled in a circle, then snatched the rope and ran back, dropping it at Maggie’s feet so they could play the game again.

When Elton Cook told Cooper that the now divorced Maggie was taking over the place, his housemates were afraid she’d kick them all out. Cooper knew better. Cecelia’s will stood in the way, but beyond that, Maggie was neither selfish nor vindictive. At least not the Maggie he’d known twenty-two years ago.

From the way she laughed as she threw the rope, he didn’t think she’d changed much, no matter the cards life had dealt her.