Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 33324 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33324 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Adventure junkie and single dad Price Webber has only one woman in his life and that’s how he likes it. His six-year-old daughter is his only focus outside of being the new director of Camp Wanderlust in the wilds of northern Michigan. But when the whip-smart sweetheart with curves to kill from the bar ends up being his new employee? He starts questioning all his life decisions.
When these two opposites end up stranded in a remote cabin with one bed, they whip up their own kind of summer storm. Price will need to upend his life and break all his own rules to secure the city girl with the heart stopping assets and fear of spiders into his life forever. Their lives were pointed in opposite directions when they met, but when summer comes to an end, will they end as well?
Author’s Note: These opposites attract like a flash of lightning. Their no-strings, no-names playtime ends up tying them both up in knots. It’s summer love and tequila. Starry nights and bears at the cabin door. Always no cheating, withan overprotective hero that breaks all the rules (and kills all the spiders) for the perfect happily ever after.
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Chapter One
Summer
“Licking salt off my hand is going to help how, exactly?” I stare down at the shot glass, already dreading tomorrow morning.
“Here’s to bad decisions!” My best friend Dolly clinks her glass to mine, licks the side of her hand, tosses back the tequila and sucks on the lime in one fluid motion.
She slams the shot glass down on the black laminate high top with a resounding crack, raising her fists in victory and drawing the eyes of every man in this north of nowhere bar as she swipes the backs of her fingers over her plum-colored lips.
“Yeeeeeehawwwww!” She yelps, shaking her head while sucking air through her teeth. “That’ll wake ya up in the mornin’ boys, won’t it?”
Dolly draws attention wherever she goes, with legs to her neck, a jet-black Uma Thurman circa Pulp Fiction bob, and a face that could launch a thousand bar fights. But here in Ompotomic, Michigan, where they are more bears than people?
Every guy here must be thinking they’re not in Kansas anymore.
Neon beer signs and horrible fluorescent lighting give everything in here an odd green glow, and there is clearly no regular cleaning schedule for the restrooms.
And don’t get me started on the floors. It’s like walking on the sticky side of duct tape.
“What are you waiting for?” She rounds her mouth, squinting one eye at the trembling tequila shot I’m holding a few inches in front of my lips.
“Christmas?” I suggest, screwing up my mouth on an unsteady exhale.
“Well, Santa’s coming down your chimney right now.” She smiles, easing the glass toward my lips. “Lick, swallow, suck,” she says on a snort. “That’s not always the right order, but with tequila it is. You’re the one who wanted a reckless summer before we start adulting for real next year. Don’t pussy out on me now.”
She tosses a wink at the two ruddy-looking farmers sitting at the table next to us, as I shake my head, looking up at the bowing, water-stained ceiling tile above our table.
She’s right, I did ask her to join me in one last frivolous choice before we head in our different directions this September. That choice turned out to be Camp WanderLust, a wilderness adventure park in the wilds of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula where she’s been a counselor since our freshman year at Michigan State.
She said it’s been taken over by some new high-adrenaline adventure type, and this will be the last summer for kids to attend. There was some nostalgia there for her, so I signed on, making her promise me she would sweep my cabin twice a day for spiders.
Besides, getting as far away from my ex as possible in a place with limited to no cell service made Dolly’s proposition more appealing.
Still, I’m a fish out of water here, and I haven’t even gotten to the camp yet. The only stars I’ve ever slept under are the ones my nightlight used to project on my ceiling when I was a little girl, and my idea of roughing it is staying in a three-star hotel with no room service.
And I know there will be spiders but Dolly can talk me into almost anything.
Lick, swallow, suck, I repeat in my head, doing my best to emotionally prepare for my first tequila shot.
I do a mental countdown, 3, 2, 1, curl my toes inside my cowboy boots, take a swipe of the salt from my hand with my tongue, and go.
I immediately know this is going to be a night to remember.
Or forget.
Holy shit.
My gag reflex kicks in, nearly expelling the shot all over Dolly’s black AC/DC tank top before she shoves the slice of lime between my bared teeth.
“Suck!” she yells, delivering a smile to the farmers again, who haven’t taken their eyes off her since we sat down.
I do as I’m told, desperate for anything to replace the taste of the poison in my mouth, as sweat breaks on my forehead and my upper lip, while a wave of heat cascades and prickles over my skin.
“Oh, my gawd,” I choke out through the burning in my throat, fumbling my attempt to slam the shot glass onto the table like she did. It clicks against the laminate in a sad roll onto its side spinning toward the edge, where Dolly catches it on a laugh.
“Not sure I’m cut out for a reckless summer after all,” I hiss, as the liquor reaches my stomach, and bile tickles the back of my throat.
How am I here? I didn’t even own a backpack or a pair of hiking boots before last week.
I like manicures and lash extensions and body glitter.
Don’t get me wrong. I respect the boho, quirky, ‘I just never fit in’ girls and the darker emo version of such as much as I support the Botox, IG, bikini wax crowd. I’m an equal opportunity queen supporter.