Inn & Out

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

Beryl Meyer is a bum magnet. Her latest bum boyfriend was responsible for sending Beryl to prison for a crime she didn’t commit. Tired of bad relationships and sworn off men, Beryl learns that she’s inherited an old inn on Summer Island. She plans on selling the rundown house, in order to start a new life, but when she arrives on the island, she discovers that she’s only inherited half of the inn, and the other half now belongs to an ornery and hot ex-navy SEAL. Thor Stockman wants to run the inn, throwing a wrench into Beryl’s plans. Now she’s stuck in the inn, even though she wants out, and her vow to keep away from men is being tested by the hot hunk in the next room.

Inn & Out is the second hot and hilarious novella in 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: 9781370993208

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

CHAPTER 1

No more kissing. I can’t stand it one more second. This is not at all how I expected to spend my first day of freedom in two long years. I can’t look at any more swollen lips smashing against each other or tongues darting in and out of mouths.

Lots and lots of tongues. It’s like tongues are multiplying exponentially. It’s like a tongue block party. A tongue reunion.

Tongues. Lips. Lips. Tongues.

Normally, this would be a good thing, but I’m not the one doing the kissing. None of these lips or tongues are mine. They belong to Cade and Millie, the ones who picked me up hitchhiking.

Cade and Millie have been smooching in the front seat, while I’m in the back seat witnessing all of the spit-swapping. Six hours of oh, baby in their Mercedes SUV as we travel from Yuma, Arizona to Long Beach, California. Thank goodness Cade is a good driver, or we would have crashed for sure. Talk about distracted driving…sheesh.

And if Millie wasn’t already pregnant, she would have gotten pregnant from the kissing. I know it’s normally impossible to get pregnant that way, but in this case, I can totally see it happening. This is Mach five, code red, ultimate smooching. This is hardcore.

I guess this is what they call love.

Love.

I’m not exactly an expert on love. Every time I think I’m in love, it’s with a mouth-breathing knuckle-dragger who ruins my life. I don’t know why I fall in love with those losers. I never seem to recognize mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers for who they are until it’s too late and my life is ruined. My warped brain tells me that they’re Prince Charming on a white steed, even though they’re really Darth Vader in a monster truck, behind on the payments.

Yes, that’s right… I’m a bum magnet. The last bum I attracted set me up for a crime I didn’t commit, and I wound up at the women’s correctional annex of the minimum security prison in Yuma. I don’t know why they call it minimum security because they still shoot you if you want to leave for say, an ice cream.

Shooting a person for Rocky Road spells maximum security to me.

But today I’m finally free, and I’m going to stuff my face full of ice cream the first chance I get. Anything to wipe away the effects of two years in prison for a crime I didn’t commit because of a man I thought I loved.

Obviously my love radar is way off base.

I hope that Millie’s love radar is right on target. She seems to be in love with Cade and he with her. They’re engaged to be married, and she’s pregnant with their baby. At the very least, they seem to have the kissing thing worked out.

Despite the annoying public displays of affection, I’m thankful for the ride. They picked me up hitchhiking right outside of the prison when I was released today. I was planning to walk to the bus station, but luckily they’ve given me a ride all the way to Long Beach. It turns out that we’re all going to Summer Island, which is a ferry ride away from Long Beach. Driving in the luxurious Mercedes SUV to the California coast is a much better option than paying for Greyhound. Millie and Cade are very nice, and I hope that Cade isn’t a bum and Millie finds her happy ending.

In other words, I hope that love really exists.

But I wouldn’t bet on love. I’m never getting sucker punched from that particular emotion again. I’m going to duck and weave like Ali. From now on, I’m totally in control over my own life, and nobody is going to screw me over or even screw me. No more screwing. I’m done being screwed.

I’ve had two years in prison to think about it, and I’ve come to the determination that my happy ending means no to all men in my life. No more love for me because in my case, love is always wrong. I thought I was in love, and because of my stupidity, my entire life savings now consists of thirty-seven-dollars and all of my belongings fit into a duffel bag on the seat next to me.

Here we are, Millie announces as we arrive at the ferry parking lot. It’s a two-hour ride to Summer Island from here. We hop out of the car.

You forgot the keys in the ignition, I tell Cade.

The Mercedes belongs to the drug smugglers and kidnappers, he reminds me. It’s a long story, which they told me between kisses, but the upshot is that Cade and Millie are journalists, and they had a run-in with criminals, who they put in prison. Cade and Millie borrowed their car, which is fair because somehow the criminals took their clothes, or at least did something to their clothes, and now they’re wearing orange prison jumpsuits. Cade and Millie are getting more of their share of looks because of the jumpsuits, which takes a load off of me. I was worried that my ex-con status would be written all over me, but at least I’m not dressed in orange with Yuma Correctional written on the back. Next to Cade and Millie, I’m completely anonymous, and that’s exactly how I want to remain.

I can’t wait to get home, Cade says to Millie. Your place or mine? Mine has satellite TV. The whole sports package. Yours just has cable.

They kiss for a couple of minutes and then argue about the pros and cons of television coverage all the way onto the ferry boat. They sit inside, but I decide to sit on the top deck away from their kissing. Besides, I’ve just spent two years without a lot of fresh air, and now I want to take advantage of every available breath of oxygen.

It’s a gorgeous day without a cloud in the sky. Seventy-five degrees with a cool breeze. The ocean is pretty calm, and our ferry cuts through the water fast, like a knife through butter. In the distance, I spot a whale. I close my eyes and breathe in the sweet air. Paradise. Freedom. Finally, it’s a moment of serenity after years of sustained stress. I try to relish the moment. My resolve to never let a man ruin my life again and the promise of a fresh start helps me relish it.

This is my first trip to Summer Island. Supposedly, three generations of my family have lived on the island, but that’s three generations I never knew. As far as I was aware until two weeks ago, I’ve been family-less. My parents died when I was a toddler, and I was raised by foster parents, who died shortly after I graduated from high school. But two weeks ago, I was informed that I had an aunt. Since I’ve been family-less for most of my life, this news came as quite a shock. At first, I fantasized about Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt’s house, about shucking peas with her on her porch while we sat in rocking chairs, about her giving me my mother’s wedding dress, which she held for me all these years in an old trunk in her attic. I enjoyed all of these delicious fantasies for a wonderful thirty seconds upon hearing the news of her existence.

But not so fast, oh wonderful happiness bubble. My new-found aunt was already dead. Dead for only a few days. She had been alive for her whole life, and nobody bothered to tell me about her. She never bothered to tell me about her.

But now I know all about her. But she’s dead, and that’s why I was finally contacted about her.

I don’t have any living family members, but it turns out that I have a whole army of dead ones. Since I found out about my aunt, I’ve been told that about half of all the dead people on the island are related to me, and I’m the sole survivor of this once great extended family.

Having such a big, dead family hasn’t gotten me anywhere up until now, but that’s all changed. My dead aunt has left me something. As her sole surviving family member, Eleanor Thatcher has left her home and working inn to me, Beryl Meyer.

It’s my first kismet, good-timing, lottery type of miracle. It’s my chance for a new life. No, I’m not going to run an inn. I don’t want to be tied down to anything, and I have no idea how to be a hotel owner. Instead, I’m going to sell the inn, invest my money, and live on the proceeds. I’m going to get a little place in Seattle or Portland and live a perfect life on my investment. I’m going to find myself. I’m going to be re-born, learn to meditate, and drink vanilla