Spring's Second Chance (Fun For the Holiday's) Read online

  SPRING’S SECOND CHANCE

  by

  J. Sterling

  SPRING’S SECOND CHANCE

  Copyright © 2022 by J. Sterling

  All rights reserved.

  Edited by:

  Jovana Shirley

  Unforeseen Editing

  www.unforeseenediting.com

  Cover Design by:

  Michelle Preast

  www.facebook.com/IndieBookCovers

  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Please do not participate or encourage the piracy of copyrighted materials. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-945042-38-6

  Please visit the author’s website

  www.j-sterling.com

  to find out where additional versions may be purchased.

  Other Books by J. Sterling

  Bitter Rivals – an enemies to lovers romance

  Dear Heart, I Hate You

  10 Years Later – A Second Chance Romance

  In Dreams – a new adult college romance

  Chance Encounters – a coming of age story

  The Game Series

  The Perfect Game – Book One

  The Game Changer – Book Two

  The Sweetest Game – Book Three

  The Other Game (Dean Carter) – Book Four

  The Playboy Serial

  Avoiding the Playboy – Episode #1

  Resisting the Playboy – Episode #2

  Wanting the Playboy – Episode #3

  The Celebrity Series

  Seeing Stars – Madison & Walker

  Breaking Stars – Paige & Tatum

  Losing Stars – Quinn & Ryson

  The Fisher Brothers Series

  No Bad Days – a New Adult, Second Chance Romance

  Guy Hater – an Emotional Love Story

  Adios Pantalones – a Single Mom Romance

  Happy Ending

  The Boys of Baseball

  (the next generation of fullton state baseball players):

  The Ninth Inning – Cole Anders

  Behind the Plate – Chance Carter

  Safe at First – Mac Davies

  Fun for the Holidays

  (a collection of stand-alone novels with holiday-based themes)

  Kissing my Co-Worker

  Dumped for Valentine’s

  My Week with the Prince

  Spring’s Second Chance

  Summer Lovin’

  Thank you for downloading this book. I hope you enjoy my Fun for the Holidays collection!

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  Table of Contents

  Other Books by J. Sterling

  WEDDING COUNTDOWN

  BREAKING HEARTS

  NOW WHAT?

  HAWAII, HERE I COME

  I NOW LIVE AT THIS RESORT

  FALLING FOR A TOURIST

  WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?

  I’VE LOST MY SENSES

  NO BOUNDARIES

  REALLY DOING THIS

  DIEGO IS A GOD

  HAVE I LOST MY MIND?

  THE POOL BAR IS THE BEST BAR

  BAKING IS MY ZEN

  SHE CAN’T LEAVE

  THIS IS INTENSE

  TIME TO GO

  I LEFT MY HEART IN THE NORTH SHORE

  GET MY MAINLANDER

  EPILOGUE

  Other Books by J. Sterling

  About the Author

  WEDDING COUNTDOWN

  SPRING

  I fiddled with the diamond engagement ring on my left hand, twisting it and turning it until my sister, Dee—short for Delilah—yelled at me to stop. I’d been doing it a lot lately, and if I’d thought she wasn’t paying attention, clearly, I was mistaken.

  “What is wrong with you?” she asked. Her long auburn hair, which matched the color of my own, swished back and forth in her ponytail as she stopped filling a cupcake pan to stare at me.

  Dee always wore a ponytail high on top of her head, insisting that it never gave her a headache, but every time I tried to copy her, I got tension aches within the hour. And even though we looked so much alike that people often mistook us for twins, she looked sexy and sassy with her hair that way, whereas I looked childish. Like a preteen cheerleader trying desperately to look cute.

  “Nothing. Why? What’s wrong with you?” I snapped back, tugging at my two braids, pretending to be reading a recipe that I already knew by heart.

  She propped her hip against the counter before scouting the few tables and chairs inside the bakery walls. It was currently empty, and she gave me an almost-wistful look. “Your wedding is in five weeks,” she said, as if I didn’t have a countdown going on my phone, on every calendar, or in my splintering heart.

  “I know that,” I said, twisting the simple diamond ring again.

  This had nothing to do with the ring and everything to do with the guy who had given it to me.

  Or maybe it had nothing to do with him at all and everything to do with the girl wearing the ring.

  Dee and I had grown up in Lake Bliss, a tiny mountain town in the hills of California. Whenever most people thought about California, they usually imagined Los Angeles, San Diego, or San Francisco. But over the last five years, Lake Bliss had changed from a small tourist town, only visited by regulars each year, into one of the most coveted places to vacation and buy property, if you were lucky enough to come across someone selling, which used to not happen often.

  Lake Bliss had always been a diverse community, where families who’d originally moved there ended up never leaving. Their kids stayed and raised their families and so on and so forth. Houses and land were passed down from generation to generation, rarely falling into the hands of a stranger unless there was no family left. And even then, the property was usually snatched up by a local. This didn’t happen from a standpoint of greed, but more of an old-school preservation state of mind. Blissens, as the elder townspeople affectionately called themselves, didn’t want to see Lake Bliss change. And they fought hard to keep it the way it had always been—idyllic, and basically hidden in plain sight.

  That all changed after an article in a magazine, talking about “California’s Best-Kept Secrets,” named Lake Bliss as its number one hidden gem a handful of years back. That publication turned our little town on its head. We were overrun the first year after the piece came out, completely unable to handle the number of tourists who had suddenly flocked here overnight, wanting to stay the weekend and purchase vacation homes. There weren’t enough motels for them to stay in. Not enough restaurants for them to eat at. What had
been serving our community perfectly for the last hundred or so years had come to a screeching halt.

  If any of us Blissens had thought that the surge would die down after a couple of seasons, we were dead wrong. The magazine had given way to numerous blog posts and online travel articles. Lake Bliss was suddenly on the map with no plans of leaving it.

  Our town had quickly doubled in size after a handful of the townspeople sold their land to big resorts and condo developers—our parents being one of them. They only sold off half of the family land, but it was enough to upset some of the other locals that they’d sell anything to strangers at all. Others understood. Those businessmen paid life-changing money to the families who had said yes.

  Our parents had hightailed it out of California and relocated to Arizona at first before finally settling somewhere near the ocean in Florida. They claimed to love the humidity and the low cost of living. All we knew was that they were happy and seemed to be living their best lives. They texted us pictures almost every day, smiling, laughing, drinks in hand. They’d even bought a boat. Dad caught them dinner five nights a week.

  Selling had been a good thing for them. It gave them a new lease on life with the freedom to explore, travel, and do whatever they wanted. That was probably why I found the idea of change coming to Lake Bliss more than a little inviting. And I knew I wasn’t the only one.

  The younger generations of Blissens liked having all the new blood in town. It shook up our pond, as someone had once said. I wasn’t supposed to like any of the new guys who flitted in and out, flirting with me and my sister at our bakery, but even I had to admit that it was exciting.

  Up until that point, everyone in Lake Bliss had known everyone else. We’d all grown up together since birth practically. Which was why Dee claimed to never have a boyfriend after middle school.

  “They’re like family at this point. I just don’t see any of them in that way,” she’d told me one time.

  And for the most part, I agreed.

  Until the summer after ninth grade, when Mitchell Flores had somehow turned from a boy into a guy overnight. Mitchell had spent the summer working for his dad’s construction company, and it had done him good. He came back to school five inches taller, even more tanned than his naturally golden skin allowed, and full of defined muscles, where there’d been nothing more than skinny sticks before. I thought I’d drooled at the sight of him on that first day back.

  He wasn’t the only one who had changed that summer. I finally got actual boobs … as opposed to the tiny molehills I’d previously sported. Dee had sprouted her C-cups in, like, seventh grade, so waiting years for mine to catch up had been torture. But once they were there, I understood what she’d been telling me the whole time as I lamented to her, doing I must, I must, I must increase my bust exercises every night.

  “Boobs are annoying, Spring. And boys forget you have eyes,” she’d warned, but I never understood what the heck she was talking about.

  Until I got them myself.

  Boys stopped looking at my face while they talked to me, their eyes solely focused on my chest and what was hidden beneath my shirt. Everyone—except Mitchell, that was. He seemed to remember that I had eyes because he oscillated between looking me in mine and at my boobs when we spoke.

  He’d asked me out, and one date was all it had taken. We were inseparable after that.

  And now, here I was, falling into some age-old tradition that everyone said was the right thing to do. What other choice did I have? You dated, got engaged, got married, bought a house, had babies, and then you died.

  “Spring? Hello? Earth to Spring.” Dee’s voice pulled me from my thoughts.

  “I’m here,” I said, shaking my head.

  I knew there was no use in lying to her. My sister saw through my words, especially when they weren’t true.

  “But you’re not. What’s going on with you? You know you can tell me anything.” She placed a hand on my shoulder, and I hadn’t even realized she’d stepped closer until she took the bag of frosting from my grip.

  I looked down and realized that I’d used almost the entire piping bag on one cupcake. “Dammit,” I said, pulling my hand away.

  “You’re distracted. Are you pregnant?” she asked, and I started slapping at my chest like I might choke.

  “God, no. Don’t say that,” I yelled, sounding angry even though I wasn’t.

  “Then. What. Is. It?” she pushed. Dee was good at pushing. Which was half the reason why our bakery had been so successful in the first place.

  Dee was an absolute goddess when it came to building our brand. She handled every bit of the marketing and met with our local vendors, some farms not too far away, and eventually event planners in every arena of business to make sure that our bakery was the go-to stop for all things weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, et cetera. Not like there were many options, considering the fact that the two other bakeries in town only made breads and pastries, but still, Dee left them no choice. It was either us or the grocery store, and no one in their right mind was going to have stale cupcakes when they could have fresh, one-of-a-kind creations by yours truly. Dee said that I was a culinary genius of baking.

  We had opened our store, Bliss Bakery, about a year before the tourist boom, both of us taking online business classes while I was still wrapping up my senior year of high school. The idea for the store had come to life after I wanted fancy cupcakes for my birthday party in a tier, like I’d kept seeing online. But no one in our town made those, so Dee said we’d grow up and make them ourselves.

  And we did.

  We had been popular since the day our doors had first opened, the townspeople all too willing to support two of their own starting a new business venture. The town’s diversity was such a blessing, teaching me about various cultures and authentic flavors and spices. I had met with the elders of the community, taking my time in getting to know their traditions so that I could incorporate their spices into my cakes, if possible. Bliss Bakery was unlike anyplace else with flavor combinations that honored a multitude of traditions.

  “We only have a dozen more, and then the Pavlo anniversary party is done.” She smiled, trying to make me feel better even though I felt like I was unraveling inside.

  It kept getting worse—this feeling. I’d been good at hiding it the last few weeks, but the past few days had become almost unbearable.

  And there was no good reason for it either. Mitchell Flores was a good man, poised to take over and run his father’s construction company one day. Flores Construction received most of the winning bids within Lake Bliss. They were making a killing with the boom and earning the kind of money that, by any standards, would be considered wealthy.

  Mitchell worked hard, was handsome, and I trusted him implicitly. Even when other girls had hit on him over the years, he never strayed, and as far as I knew, he was never even tempted. Like I’d said, he was a good man. The kind of guy that any girl would be lucky to call her own. He would make a fantastic husband and a great father someday.

  But every time I so much as thought those words lately, my stomach revolted, threatening to bowl me over in excruciating pain. Something was wrong. Something I didn’t want to admit because there was no good reason for it. I felt like even having these thoughts made me a bad person somehow.

  Maybe it’s just cold feet, I thought to myself for the hundredth time, but the visceral reaction that twisted in my guts let me know that it wasn’t that at all. It wasn’t cold feet. I wasn’t scared. I just simply … didn’t want this anymore.

  I was only twenty-four years old. Mitchell and I had been together since I was fifteen. That made nine years. Nine years with the same person … with the only person. Instead of feeling secure and happy, it made me feel trapped and suffocated. Like I had nothing to look forward to anymore. Everything seemed so set in stone, so mapped out, so unable to be changed.

  “I don’t want to marry Mitchell,” I blurted out so quickly that I even surprised mysel
f by saying it. I couldn’t take it back now. The words were in the air, hanging between my sister and me.

  “I know,” was all she said before the bell jingled on the door, and I looked up to see my handsome fiancé walking through it, a giant smile on his face.

  BREAKING HEARTS

  SPRING

  “There’s my beautiful bride-to-be,” Mitchell said before walking straight past the employee counter and into the back, where I stood, forcing a smile.

  He reached for me, his hands gripping my waist as he pulled me up into the air and planted a hard kiss on my lips, just like he always did.

  This man loved me. Truly loved me.

  And I’d just admitted to my sister, no less than ten seconds prior, that I didn’t want to marry him.

  What kind of monster am I?

  I searched for Dee’s face, her eyes widening as she silently pleaded for me to do … something. I had no idea what though. I couldn’t interpret her expression.

  “You girls almost done for the night?” Mitchell asked before stepping back on the proper side of the counter.

  “We just have a dozen more,” Dee said for me since I seemed to have lost my voice somewhere between my admittance of not wanting a fiancé any longer and said fiancé kissing the information out of me. “But I can handle that if you want to go,” she urged, and I finally understood what she was trying to tell me.

  Talk to him, her expression pleaded.

  Tell him, it pushed even more.

  Call it off, it begged.

  They were all things that had been consuming my mind day in and day out recently, but saying the actual words out loud, to him, seemed impossible. I knew that once they passed my lips and crashed into his ears, I’d never be able to take them back. And what if I was wrong or making a mistake?

  Mitchell would be devastated. Especially when I had no reason to not want to go through with the wedding other than …

  It doesn’t feel right anymore.

  There would be a hundred questions that I wouldn’t have answers for. So many things that he’d want to know, like where it’d all gone wrong or when my feelings had changed, and I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint a single moment to explain why my heart suddenly wanted out of something it had loved being in for so long.