Suddenly in Love (Lake Haven#1) Read Free Page A

this—it’s impossible I bounced a rent check.”
    “My eyes do not lie,” Mrs. Chalupnik said, jabbing a finger dangerously near her eye for emphasis. She snatched the paper from Mia’s hands. “Your bank, it doesn’t tell you this?”
    Her bank . The truth was that Mia hadn’t collected her mail in several days. And she had turned off notices on her phone to keep the battery from draining.
    “You find the money,” Mrs. Chalupnik said. She turned around and opened the door to her apartment. The smell of sauerkraut wafted out and hit Mia squarely in the face before Mrs. Chalupnik slammed the door shut.
    Mia whirled around, hurried to her mailbox, and opened it. Several things fell out, and among them, two notices from her bank. She fell back against the wall and slid down to her haunches in her stupid tea-stained dress and with a rash where her portfolio had rubbed against her leg as she’d trudged home.
    So this, apparently, was how a life was completely deconstructed.

Two
    May
    On a scale of one to ten, ten being everything-is-awesome, and one being someone-stole-my-puppy, coming home to East Beach in the early spring was a solid three. And only that high because Mia loved her family.
    She did not love East Beach, especially this time of year, when life around the lake was dead. It was too early for the summer people to come up from the city and occupy their stunning vacation homes that dotted the hills around Lake Haven. Winter would, without warning, drag its claws through the season once more, striating cold and gray misery across the emerging vivid greens and blues and colors of spring.
    It was too nippy for the full-time residents of the village, or the year-rounders as they called themselves, to take advantage of the empty beach, save those rare, sundrenched days. Mostly, they spent the early spring cleaning their gardens, hosing down their lawn furniture, and waiting for the summer people to arrive.
    This spring, there was a lot of gossip circulating around the lake along with the baby strollers. Everyone was talking about the inaugural Lake Haven Music Festival, to be held over Memorial Day weekend. That was new and different. The festival had been designed to kick off the summer rush and promote better tourism economy around the lake. Competition with the Hamptons and the Berkshires had ratcheted up in recent years, and the Lake Haven Chamber of Commerce was determined to take back their fair share of tourist dollars.
    There was also quite a lot of sniggering about Mia’s uncle, Larry Painter, who’d shown up at the Chamber of Commerce brunch with ditzy Britney Johnson on his arm. The same ditzy Britney Johnson who had graduated high school with Larry’s daughter, Emily. Mia knew her cousin was a bit bothered by her father’s choice of dates because she’d complained, “If he’s going to rob the cradle, couldn’t he at least have robbed a smart one?”
    Aunt Amy, who was the sister of Mia’s mother and also the ex-wife of Larry, laughed when she heard the news. “I hope he’s kept up his Viagra prescription.”
    In the local coffee shop, tongues wagged. Who did Britney think she was? Who did Larry think he was? Mia knew this, because she waited in line for lattes every morning. Not just one latte, mind you, but three. Lattes were part of her new career duties working at Uncle John and Aunt Beverly’s home interiors shop as head gopher.
    Obviously, Mia should have taken the sage advice of her high school guidance counselor, Mr. Braeburn, and developed some of those desperately needed backup skills. Alas, she had not taken his advice, and, in truth, had been a world-class champ for not taking advice in high school. As a result, Mia had no plan B. She had nothing but the same dream she’d had most of her life—and a growing anger with her idol, August Brockway.
    So here she was, back in East Beach with two choices: suit up and perform hostess duties at her parents’ bistro, or work on this