Blown Away

By Elise Sax

"Elise Sax will win your heart." -- Jill Shalvis, New York Times bestselling author

"Fans of laugh-out-loud romantic suspense will enjoy this author as she joins the ranks of Janet Evanovich, Katie MacAllister, and Jennifer Crusie."--Booklist
"Elise Sax will make you laugh. Her larger-than-life characters jump off the page and make crazy seem like a fun place to hang out."--Christie Craig, New York Times bestselling author of Texas Hold 'Em

“Elise Sax belongs on every bookshelf." -- Melissa Foster, New York Times Bestselling Author

Journalist Millie Mossberg has four positive pregnancy tests in her purse. Four. The problem is that Cade Reed, her aggravating—and crazy hot—colleague is the father-to-be of this secret baby. She’s got to tell him about the bun in her oven, but she’s still wishing that the pregnancy tests were duds. While they cover a story about a deposed dictator, they’re trapped in a runaway hot air balloon. Will they plummet to their death? Will these friends turned lovers admit their love for each other? And most importantly, will they figure out how to have sex in a balloon basket?

Blown Away is the first hot and hilarious novella of the Three More Wishes Series. Each novella is roughly 100 pages with NO cliffhanger.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elise Sax
• Release date: Oct 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370651368

Elise Sax

USA Today bestselling author Elise Sax writes hilarious happy endings. She worked as a journalist, mostly in Paris, France for many years but always wanted to write fiction. Finally, she decided to go for her dream and write a novel. She was thrilled when An Affair to Dismember, the first in the Matchmaker Series, was sold at auction to Ballantine.Elise is an overwhelmed single mother of two boys in Southern California. She's an avid traveler, a beginner dancer, an occasional piano player, and an online shopping junkie.Like her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theelisesax?ref=hlFriend her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ei.sax.9Or just send her an email: [e-mail] can also visit her website and get a free novella: elisesax.com

Book preview

cover.jpg

BLOWN

AWAY

(Three More Wishes – Book 1)

img1.jpg

elise sax

Blown Away (Three More Wishes – Book 1) is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 by Elise Sax

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by 13 Lakes Publishing

img2.jpg

Cover design: Elizabeth Mackey

Formatted by: Jesse Kimmel-Freeman

Edited by: Novel Needs editing team (Aemelia Manier & Alyssa Palmer) and Lynn Mullan

Printed in the United States of America

elisesax.com

[e-mail]

http://elisesax.com/mailing-list.php

https://www.facebook.com/ei.sax.9

Also by Elise Sax

Matchmaker Mysteries Series

Matchmaking Advice from Your Grandma Zelda

Road to Matchmaker

An Affair to Dismember

Citizen Pain

The Wizards of Saws

Field of Screams

From Fear to Eternity

West Side Gory

Scareplane

It Happened One Fright

The Big Kill

It’s a Wonderful Knife

Ship of Ghouls

Matchmaker Mysteries The Complete Series

Goodnight Mysteries Series

Die Noon

Doom with a View

Jurassic Dark

Coal Miner’s Slaughter

Wuthering Frights

Goodnight Mysteries The Complete Series

Agatha Bright Mysteries Series

The Fear Hunter

Some Like It Shot

Fright Club

Beast of Eden

Creepy Hollow

Matchmaker Marriage Mysteries

Gored of the Rings

Slay Misty for Me

Scar Wars

Die Charred

Partners in Crime Thrillers

Partners in Crime

Conspiracy in Crime

Divided in Crime

Surrender in Crime

Operation Billionaire Trilogy

How to Marry a Billionaire

How to Marry Another Billionaire

How to Marry the Last Billionaire on Earth

Operation Billionaire Trilogy

Five Wishes Series

Going Down

Man Candy

Hot Wired

Just Sacked

Wicked Ride

Five Wishes Series

Three More Wishes Series

Blown Away

Inn & Out

Quick Bang

Three More Wishes Series

Standalone Books

Forever Now

Bounty

Switched

For the dreamers…

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Inn & Out Excerpt

Also by Elise Sax

About the Author

Get free and discounted books! Join Elise Sax's newsletter, and you'll be notified first about new releases, sales, and inside looks at new books and works in progress.

https://bit.ly/3zDAQ0q

Chapter 1

Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh crap. This can’t be happening. Please don’t let this be happening. Anything but this. Butt acne? Fine. Tuberculosis? Not pleasant, but I’ll take it. Permanent halitosis? I’ll sign up right this second. But not this. Not—oh, crap—this.

I’m cursed. I mean, I’m not cursed…with the curse. In other words, Aunt Flow hasn’t visited me, and I had no time of the month this month.

My little friend didn’t bother showing up.

The little bitch.

In plain English, I was supposed to get my traitorous period ten days ago, but I didn’t. Yes, I’m sure. Not a drop. I only realized this disastrous hiccup in my life two days ago. What’s wrong with me? Why didn’t I notice ten days ago when I was supposed to get my period? I’ll tell you why. I’m too distracted by things, like my life and my career, to notice that my life and career are about to go way down the toilet.

Like swimming with the alligators in the sewers kind of down the toilet.

But I’m not ready to throw in the towel. I’m not going to admit that I’m pregnant. Those words are not going to come out of my mouth. I don’t care if I have four pregnancy tests in my purse that all say I’m preggers. Science can kiss my ass. I mean, science has been wrong before, right? For example, are we really locked down on the whole gravity thing? I think there’s some wiggle room, there. The Pythagorean theorem? Sounds fishy to me.

So, that’s why I’m here, staring at this rundown wishing fountain, which my town on Summer Island decided to save from being destroyed. The fountain, with its cracked plaster and lopsided construction, looks like it’s halfway to destroyed, anyway. It doesn’t work, and even if it has seen better days, I’d bet that in those better days it wasn’t anything to write home about, either. But I live in a crazy place filled with well-meaning do-gooders. They couldn’t let a historic fountain get tossed out with the garbage. And that’s how we wound up with a dry, useless well in the center of downtown.

It’s called downtown, but it’s really just the center of our village. Like a wheel with spokes, the center is a circular plaza with six streets emanating out from the center. Summer Island is the definition of a sleepy town. There isn’t a locked door anywhere on the island, and most of the excitement revolves around various town events, parades, and the high school prom. I guess the wishing well does kind of belong on Summer Island because it’s quiet too. There isn’t any water in it, but the bottom is coated with a light layer of assorted coins. Each coin represents a wish, if you believe in those sorts of things.

Today I’m a true believer of those sorts of things because I am going to throw in my luckiest coin, the silver dollar my grandfather gave me twelve years ago for my sixteenth birthday. Up yours, gravity. To hell with you, Pythagorean theorem. Science has let me down, so, I’m going for a wish from a broken well.

I rub my lucky coin between my thumb and my forefinger. I close my eyes tightly. Please don’t let me be pregnant. Please don’t let me be pregnant. Please, oh please, oh please, don’t let me be pregnant. I crack open my eyelids to make sure that my aim is true, and I throw the coin into the well, hard like a major league baseball pitcher. It hits the plaster with a loud noise and cracks the paint. I watch as the silver dollar bounces and rolls its way down the side of the fountain, shoving aside lesser coins until it reaches its final resting place.

Don’t fuck with me, I tell the fountain. I don’t usually cuss, but you can imagine how stressed I am. None of this is in my plans. I have very detailed one-year, five-year, and life plans. So far, everything has gone to plan. That is until now.

I was born and raised on Summer Island, which is located off the coast of Southern California, but I went to school at UCLA. After I graduated, I came home to work at the local paper, but I’ve got my eye on the LA Times. I figure I’ll be able to seal the deal for the new job soon, since they’ve already published a few of my articles. I practically drool when I think about working for them. I could use the better pay, and it will be heaven to be away from the wackos of my small town. That’s my plan.

Until now.

My phone chirps and I take it out of my purse in order to read the text. Where are you? You’re going to miss it, I read. It’s from my colleague and nemesis, Cade Reed. That’s okay. I’ll take the exclusive. Fine with me, he continues. Cade has been a thorn in my side since kindergarten. If we had ink wells in school, he would’ve dipped my pigtails in it. He pulled every dirty prank on me for years, never leaving me alone. He T.P.’d my house, froze my bras, and called me to see if my refrigerator was running and to chase it at least a dozen times. And all of that was just in the past six months.

Somehow, we’ve wound up working for the same paper in our hometown, competing against each other like we’re in the Olympics of journalism. Each story about a cat caught in a tree, the mayor’s bunion surgery, or the library getting a fresh coat of paint is fought over between us like it’s the Battle of the Bulge. Obviously, in this example, I’m Patton and he’s a Nazi, but he’s a tough competitor and each story is a hard-won enterprise.

And I’m so going to beat his ass today.

Mind your own business. I’ll get there when I get there, and the only exclusive happening today is mine.

I click send and hop into my electric golf cart,