Chemical Attraction

By Karen Schober

Margaret Carter is no stranger to grief. After having been widowed, she has spent the last two years trying to piece her life back together, along with her heart. But things haven't been easy. Each day is a challenge for her, especially as she deals with her loneliness. Yet she perseveres, having returned to her job as a chemistry teacher at her old high school. But in those halls are many preserved memories, and one memory, in particular, is about to become much more prominent…When lawyer William Harris returns to his hometown after years away, there are several things he doesn't expect to happen. Like coincidentally buying the house next door to his high school best friend. Even after all these years apart, he still holds burning feelings for her. Feelings that just might be returned…Together, Will and Maggie must navigate through the old memories while getting to know the person the other has become. Will the years apart affect the feelings they once shared for each other? Or will this be a case of being in the right place at the right time?

Author Karen Schober paints a breathtaking picture of loss and love, grief and gratitude in this sweet and diverting contemporary romance, "Chemical Attraction". With dynamic characters, a fast-paced storyline, and the nostalgia of young hometown love, this novel is a lovingly-written masterpiece that audiences will want to return to time and time again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fireball Studio
• Release date: Oct 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215784655

Karen Schober

Karen Schober is a renowned romance and fiction writer who crafts interesting stories about life. With over a decade of experience in self-publishing, she has reached many readers who enjoy her epic stories of love, hatred, revenge, and forgiveness. Her books including Fire and Ice, Hollywood Hearts: The Second Act, and several short stories have made her a multi-award-winning author. Karen is the founder of Fireball Studio, a company that offers author consultations through the entire writing and publishing process. She helps authors identify their goals, finish their stories, polish their work, and navigate the publishing process. It sparks her inner drive to help when she sees upcoming authors struggle with the publishing world. As a scholar, Karen has a B.A. in Psychology and an MBA in marketing.Karen is a smart, creative, and friendly author who loves telling stories and building her network. She has been writing all her life and growing her skills every day to surpass her readers’ expectations. When she is not writing, Karen loves cooking and travelling. She is an avid explorer who is always in for any adventure.

Book preview

Chemical Attraction

Karen Schober

image-placeholder

Fireball Studio

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

Copyright © 2021 by Karen Schober and Fireball Studio

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, address: [e-mail]

Fireball Studio Press

www.FireballStudio.com

www.KarenSchober.com

Contents

1. Chapter 1

2. Chapter 2

3. Chapter 3

4. Chapter 4

5. Chapter 5

6. Chapter 6

7. Chapter 7

8. Chapter 8

9. Chapter 9

10. Chapter 10

11. Chapter 11

About the Author

. Chapter

Chapter one

Maggie Carter pulled her black SUV into her driveway that late February afternoon. A moving truck sat in her neighbor’s driveway. As she gathered her bags, she wondered who bought Mrs. Paterson’s house. It had been vacant for months after her elderly neighbor moved to live with her son in Florida. It had taken a while for the four-bedroom Cape Cod to sell, but the new owner wasted no time moving in.

The national name sprawled on the side of the moving van made Maggie assume her new neighbors had moved quite a distance. She had decided that once the moving van had departed, she would go over and introduce herself. But right now she had a pile of papers to grade and finish the class’s midterms to give in a few weeks.

Inside her home, she set her bags down and shucking her winter coat. Maggie stood in her kitchen to put water on for tea to take the chill off her. No beverage of any temperature would expunge the chill that had settled into her bones for almost two years.

She looked out the window as she reached for a teacup and saw a man placing books on the shelf. The leather-bound books looked thick, but the man, who she assumed to be her new neighbor, had no problem handling a few at a time, as if they were nothing more than a few sheets of paper. His face was hidden, but the man next door had a perfect body. Through the windows, his gray sweatshirt pulled taut across his broad shoulders and his inky hair that sat under a crimson baseball cap he wore backward. The golden letters embroidered on it looked to spell out Harvard.

She watched him for a few seconds longer until he left that room. Maggie wondered what kind of man with the amazing shoulders moved next door. That was, until the kettle’s whistle rocketed her back to her lonely reality. With the tea made, she took her cup with her to the other room. Warmth radiated over her hands and through her gold ring that still stayed on her left hand. Her house was quiet, too quiet. The grandfather clock in the living room chimed, alerting her it was four-thirty. ‘Philip would be home in an hour,’ popped into her head. But that was the thing, Philip was not coming home in an hour or in two, or ever.

Next door, the new neighbor, the busy Will Harris, continued to unpack. Gone a long time, maybe too long, but William Harris, Esquire, had returned to Haddonville, New Jersey, a quiet suburb not too far from Philadelphia. He had just landed a big promotion with Preston, Maryland, and Stevenson, a huge corporate law firm which required him to move to the home office and back home. Instead of getting an apartment inside the city, he welcomed the change and escape living in the city for the first time in years. For the first time, he was the proud owner of a house on the pricey side of the town he had grown up in.

Will had grown tired of Chicago and drawn to return to his childhood hometown. The house was bigger than he needed, but hoped he wouldn’t be alone for too long. The thirty-two-year-old bachelor with jet-black hair kept short and eyes so dark they looked like two drops of the darkest ink, had changed so much from when he left the small suburban town for college. In college, Will grew five inches, making him six foot two inches and his time on the crew team had helped chisel his body into what one of his former girlfriends called ‘the perfect male specimen’.

As he directed the movers where to put some boxes, Will wondered about the compulsion to return home. Memories of high school and to Maggie Thompson flooded him. The tall, waif of a girl with wavy chestnut hair and the brightest blue eyes he had ever seen. The class salutatorian and his pal, his best bud.

Luck had smiled upon him when the teacher assigned him to be her lab partner in the ninth grade. He fell in love with her from the moment she smiled at him. A smile that still haunted his dreams all these years. The problem was, he had been too shy to tell her how he felt. Will didn’t even have the courage to ask her to the prom, but they had become best friends.

It broke his heart when she had gone to the University of California-Berkley to study chemistry and, through the few letters they had exchanged in their first two years away at college; it had become obvious that she had fallen in love with a finance major. After that, he didn’t have the heart to keep in touch and they drifted apart. Most likely, she was still living in California, surrounded by her beautiful children and adoring husband. ‘Lucky him,’ Will thought for the millionth time. Sure, he had his share of encounters with the fairer sex, but none as beautiful or as smart as his pal, his buddy, his Mags.

Will carried another box labeled books into his home office. As he placed the books in their new homes, a photo fell out of one. Picking it off the floor, he looked at it and remembered when he had taken it. Mags’ graduation party, many years ago. She looked so happy there before they went their separate ways. He remembered how he used to stare at it during his undergrad years until he found out she got engaged to Mr. Finance, their Junior year. As he drowned his sorrows in his dorm room with cheap beer, knowing he had lost any remote chance with her, he placed the photograph in that book he had just finished reading and tried to move on with his life. An impossible task, even with the picture hidden from him. No photograph needed. The image of Maggie etched in his mind, standing in front of him with the smile that captivated him, her blue eyes that pulled