Firefly Island Read Free

the guys in Kaylyn’s romance novels had integrity. They fell in love and stayed that way, unlike so many of the people I worked with. Life around the movers and shakers could make you cynical after a while. “I think it’s great to be a romantic.”
    Kaylyn nodded her approval, her pert little nose scrunching. “Mmm-hmm. Did you read Taming the Texan yet?”
    I wasn’t sure whether to confess that the books she’d loaned me were gathering dust in my apartment. Across the table, Josh, all two hundred and eighty pounds of him, was once again watching Kaylyn through lovesick eyes. Even though they shared an office at a software company, she wasn’t the least bit romantically inclined toward poor Josh. He didn’t look anything like her favorite cover models.
    â€œI . . . uhhh . . . started it. There was some good . . . history,” I hedged. That seemed a benign enough response.
    Kaylyn was pleased. “I told you so.” She lifted her straw from her cup and sipped drips from the end while Josh watched wistfully. “Wait until I give you His Irish Bride . It’s so good. You know that if two people meet on St. Patrick’s Day, they’re destined, right? That’s why I asked if the guy was Irish.”
    â€œSo, it only works for Irish people?” I raised an eyebrow to indicate that I was in no way being sucked into any premise that came from a used paperback.
    â€œI’m sure it works for anybody.” Snorting, she flashed an eyetooth and dipped her straw back into the glass. “Except cynics. Amy Ashley does her research, by the way.”
    â€œWho’s Amy Ashley?”
    Kaylyn wheeled a hand as in, Pay attention here . “She wrote His Irish Bride . She’s won Readers’ Pick of the Year, like, five times. She does her research.”
    I ate a few peanuts, pretending to defer to the wisdom of Amy Ashley. “All right, all right. But the odds of my running into the rotunda guy again are a million to one. I’ve never seen him around before. He was probably a tourist from Hackensack. Anyway, I’m not a cynic. I’m just . . . realistic.” Is that so wrong? “But I’m not Irish, either, so I don’t suppose it matters. I think you’d have to be Irish for the St. Patrick’s Day thing to work.” I threw a peanut across the table. “What do you think, Josh?”
    Josh helped himself to the peanut and pretended to think about it. “We could test it.” Throwing his head back and his arms out, he smiled and said, “Kiss me. I’m Irish.”
    Kaylyn rolled her eyes and pointed the straw at me again. “All right, how about we just put our money where our mouths are. I bet—” she interlaced her hands and steepled two fingers—“a year’s supply of romance novels that you see that guy again, and that he asks you out before the month is over.”
    â€œYou’re on, sister.” Laughing, I stuck out my hand to seal the deal. I wasn’t a gambling type, but it seemed like an extremely safe wager.
    Across the table, Josh was shaking his head with an expression of foreboding.
    He knew how many romance novels Kaylyn could read in a year.

My beloved is mine, and I am his.
    â€” Song of Solomon 2:16
(Left on the Wall of Wisdom by Blaine and Heather, proud new owners, Harmony Shores Bed and Breakfast, Moses Lake)
Chapter 2

    L ove is a many splendored thing. There’s a more classic history to that phrase, I’m sure, but I learned it from a Sinatra album—the old-fashioned vinyl kind my father played on an ugly console stereo that looked like something out of The Jetsons .
    The night after my sixth birthday party, that song tugged me from my bed. I moved to the sliding glass doors, pulled back the curtain, and saw my father out for a late-night swim, trying to coax my mother into the pool. She was curled in a chaise