Turning a New Paige: A Groundhog Day Romance

By Ginny B. Nescott

More than her car is snowed in on Groundhog Day... The loss of her job spurs Paige Myers to a rash decision. She needs a new start. With her car packed to the roof, she leaves behind her expensive Atlanta apartment and ex-boyfriend and heads to her aunt's home in the snowy north. When a storm forces her to seek refuge in a small town restaurant, a flamboyant waiter introduces her to his hot, straight cousin celebrating his Groundhog Day birthday. Paige isn’t looking for a man, but this one is hard to resist, especially when her car gets plowed in and he’s offering a warm room at the B&B. Rebound or not, it’s a Groundhog Day that melts more than the ice around them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
• Release date: Dec 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781509219049

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Turning a New Paige:

A Groundhog Day Romance

by

Ginny B. Nescott

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

Turning a New Paige:

A Groundhog Day Romance

COPYRIGHT © 2017 by Ginny B. Nescott

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: [e-mail]

Cover Art by Diana Carlile

The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

PO Box 708

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

Visit us at www.thewilderroses.com

Publishing History

First Scarlet Rose Edition, 2017

Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-1904-9

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

To Mark for making me feel young. To Vicky, Max, Diana, and so many others who showed me I had a voice. And a hearty cheers to lovers, to renewed lovers, and to lovers yet to find each other!

Chapter One

Her tan showed she wasn’t from around here. Her Southern drawl didn’t help either. Snowflakes covered the shoulders of her thin jacket and dampened her hair. Her teeth chattered. All of it made her look less than the stunner she was.

Paige Myers didn’t see herself as a beauty at twenty-six. Her muted light gray/blue eyes were intelligent if she glanced your way. Her body was her own without the added cup size enhancements her Southern campus sorority sisters had recommended. She even kept her own butterscotch hair color.

Paige looked around the bar/restaurant and pulled back a chair in a huff. Her mind reeled in exhaustion. February in a snow storm in some college town bar in the mountains. She was still at least an hour from her aunt’s home and famished. Not at all where she expected to be. Each man was more handsome than the next and hardly a woman in sight. She had picked the place because of the name, but Sizzle looked more and more like a gay bar.

F-f-fine by me, she mumbled with her Carolina accent to no one in particular. She shivered. Just a few years out of college, she had moved to Atlanta to get a job. It hadn’t hurt that her boyfriend, Davis, and his whole group of fraternity brothers moved to Buckhead, too. It also hadn’t hurt that he was a big blond hunk of a guy. What had hurt? He was a jerk. She’d left him behind. Who n-n-needs men anyway?

I do for a start, sister. A flamboyant black-haired waiter slapped a menu and drink list in front of her and flashed a very white-toothed grin. You eating or is this just one of those drown yourself in a drink with a cherry and make it a double?

D-drink, yes. Ch-cherry, no. Hot fries, hot sauce, and c-cold whatever you have on tap. Leave the menu, too. Paige wanted to sound tough, but the shiver and sugared accent took off any of the edge she tried to portray.

She shook the snow off of her jacket and huddled deeper into it.

The waiter tightened his eyes in an assessing way.

What? Paige said in a dismissive tone. She thought she’d left all that judgement behind in Buckhead with Davis.

Hmm.

This time, Paige made a face and gestured with her hands in a shooing motion, her nails perfectly manicured and painted, her expensive rings glittering in the artificial light. She stared him down with tired eyes and pushed back her matted hair with another shiver, becoming aware that the snow made it look wet and greasy.

The waiter didn’t move. Then he smiled. You’re not gay, but you just need a girlfriend’s touch, right?

N-no, I am not gay. I am not anything tonight. Broke up. Hate men. Hate snow. Lost. Just hungry.

"Honey, if you were hungry, you would’ve stopped at a burger joint. If you were thirsty, there are a dozen other bars closer to the highways. You came here for more than a plateful. And if you are a big tipper, which I know you will be, you came to the right place to share your story."

When he still didn’t go away, Paige gave in with a nod and a half smile to her sigh.

The waiter beamed. One breakup special coming up. I’m adding the slider trio to your order, honey.

Whatever. J-j-just food, drink, and I’m not t-talking. Her shiver added a stutter to her speech.

Oh, of course not. But it’s mid-week. This place might be relatively dead for the next hour or two, and me and my girls haven’t done a major overhaul fixer upper in a while. He sashayed away, turned back, and said, And you, honey, are going to be a special, fun project.

Hey, I am not s-s-special! Paige called out after him. With her drawl, her matted hair, and stutter, she drew attention from those close by, including the manager, who came over.

Oh, we are all special. We’re bright in our own way, he said, patting her hand in a kind but condescending way used mainly for toddlers and those with mental issues. He waited a beat and broadened his smile. She was taken aback. He just left laughing, round belly jiggling.

Embarrassment. Paige added embarrassment to the list of crap happening to her. Job lost. Boyfriend a jerk. Make that ex-boyfriend. Drove straight through and for too long. Snow, ice, without snow tires. No way was she finding her aunt’s house. Not this late. Or was it early? What time was it?

She pulled out her cell phone, only partly charged since her car was packed to the top with her possessions, her charger buried in the mix. Only seven at night but pitch black from the growing storm. Less than forty-eight hours ago, she had been living with a guy, had a job, and few cares. She’d been happy. Well, happy enough. At least not cold and miserably frustrated from driving an extra six hours through a storm. Eighteen friggin’ hours, half of it in bitter, horrible ice and snow.

The waiter slipped a mug of warm spiked cider in front of her. She was about to object, but the sincere expression of kindness made her stop from grousing. The drink was warm and slid down with a comfort of apples and cinnamon.

Strong, honey, so you can be, too.

She nodded her thanks.

Paige was a realist and less of a girly girl than most of those southern belles she grew up knowing. She normally wasn’t dismal. She wasn’t sure what she was now. Too exhausted to be hangry. February sucks. Winter in the North sucks. Atlanta wasn’t better, just warmer.

She sank back into her downward-spiraling mood. The fight with her ex kept churning in her mind. Davis… How could he? She had returned to the condo from being laid off at her job. It didn’t matter that they had recently promoted her or she worked her ass off. Seniority was seniority. Laid off. Davis’s first reaction was, There go all the plans.

Did he mean a proposal? No. The plans were for her to chip in so they could go on an overpriced vacation with the group, meaning his fraternity brothers he constantly hung out with anyway.

She remembered her response. That was the surprise you mentioned at the holidays to my parents? A trip? Everybody thought you were hinting you would ask me to marry you.

Marry you? What? With your college debt? No way, Davis scoffed.

Her mind had reeled. What had he said after he begged for her to be reasonable? Something about