Lizzie Shane [Shane - The Real Thing

By Lizzie Shane

A Bouquet Catchers Novel

Copyright 2019 Lizzie Shane

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights reserved under copyright above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and publisher of this book.

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

Reality Romance

Marrying Mister Perfect
Romancing Miss Right
Falling for Mister Wrong
Planning on Prince Charming
Home for Christmas (A Holiday Novella)
Courting Trouble

The Bouquet Catchers

Always a Bridesmaid
Little White Lies
Dirty Little Secrets
The Decoy Bride
The Real Thing

Yours For Christmas

All He Wants for Christmas
Miracle on Mulholland
An Unplanned Christmas (Coming July 2019)

Not your average girl next door

As Hollywoods hottest leading lady, Maggie Tate is a master of illusionsso much so that shes even managed to convince the world shes perfectly happy. But when her estranged aunt leaves her a run-down beach house in sleepy Long Shores, Oregon, she jumps at the chance to escape the bubble of her perfect life. What better place to lay low than the tiny coastal town where she used to spend her summers?

But when Maggie arrives in Long Shores, nothing is quite like she rememberedincluding the boy next door.

The unforgettable boy next door

Ian Summer was the first boy Maggie ever kissed, but hes all grown up now, with a daughter of his own. She knows she should keep her distanceno matter how rugged and manly hes turned out. With her disastrous relationship track record, shes sworn off men, but shes never been able to resist the emotionally unavailable ones.

Ian isnt the ambitious musician he was when Maggie knew him. Hes got his daughter to think of now, and a steady job as the town handyman. He doesnt need a diva actress coming in and rocking the boatbut the more time he spends with Maggie, the more glimpses he catches of the girl he used to know. And the more right it feels.

Could this be love?

Maggie can play the love interest like no one else, but with Ian it isnt an act. After a lifetime of Hollywood illusions, could this finally be the real thing?

Chapter One

The house had shrunk.

Though it was possible it was simply smaller than she remembered.

Maggie peered through the drizzle slowly collecting on the windshield, half-heartedly wondering if she might have taken a wrong turn, but the house numbers nailed in a vertical line to the front porch pillar were too familiar. Theyd been red once, but now theyd faded to a muted peachy orange. Everything about the place had faded.

And shrunk.

She shouldnt have been surprised. She hadnt been here in fifteen years. Didnt everyone say childhood memories shrank in the face of reality? Wasnt that the clich? But Maggie still stared at the ramshackle little bungalow that seemed to be leaning slightly in the wind and felt something inside her deflate.

It probably didnt help that her perceptions had been warped by the scale of Beverly Hills, but the place looked like a shack. Nothing like the warm, cozy cottage of her memory.

The paint had been stripped by the wind and the salt in the air, leaving weathered, graying boards. The ocean wasnt visible from the house, separated by a quarter mile of patchy forest and grass-covered sand dunes, but she knew she would smell it as soon as she opened the car door. Just like she knew where, in the overgrown brush of the garden, she would find the start of the path that wended through a thicket of trees, past the gorgeous sprawl of the Summer house, and over the dunes before emptying onto the beach.

She must have run that path two thousand times, starting when she was so small the tall grass of the dunes had hit her in the chest. That first summer.

The wipers swish-thwapped across the windshield as Maggie squinted through the glass. In the passenger seat, Cecil B. DeMille stirred, snuffling sleepily before settling back into his nap. She reached over and stroked his silky-soft head, crooning something soothing. Hed been sleeping a lot lately and she tried not to worry that her baby was getting older, little white hairs beginning to crop up in his furry eyebrows.

Hed been so good during the two day car ride to get here, alternating between sleeping and standing on her lap, his little nose pressed against the drivers side window. It had been fun, their little road trip, but now that they were actually here, she wasnt sure she wanted to go inside. She was starting to think this may have been a mistake. Two days of driving. An impulse decision.

Maggie was known for her impulse decisions. For never really thinking things throughbut she usually had a team of people around her who were paid to think things through. Paid to worry about details and logistics so she never had to. But none of them were here. Shed left them all behind in LA.

Melanie would undoubtedly be annoyed. Her manager hated anything that wasnt under her control, and there was a certain note she would get in her voice when Maggie did something illogical or foolish to upset the status quo. A note Maggie had no desire to hear right nowwhich was why shed turned off her phone two days ago.

She paid Mel to run her life, and the woman was amazing at it, but somewhere along the line it had stopped feeling like her life.

When Maggie had read the letter about Aunt Lolly, shed just wanted to get away. She hadnt thought about logistics. Or optics. Or any of the other bullshit that seemed to consume her life. Shed just jumped into the car Ethan had given her as a ridiculously over-the-top present when they wrapped principle photography on the last Alien Adventuress movie and started to drive.

It was a hot pink vintage convertible. Not really her style and not exactly ideal for a movie star traveling incognito, but it was the only car in her garage since she hadnt gone anywhere in anything other than a chauffeured SUV in years.

She could have called the car service. She had a contract with a private jet charter as well. She could have made the trip from Beverly Hills to Long Shores, Oregon in a matter of hours, and in perfect comfort. But she hadnt just wanted to get away from Los Angeles. Shed wanted to get away from being Maggie Tate, if only for a little while.

Sneaking off at five in the morning with just her dog probably wasnt the most rational choice shed ever made, but it certainly wasnt the most irrational either.

Maggie shoved open the car door. The drizzle had diminished until it was little more than a mist in the air, kissing everything with an edge of cold. It was May, practically summer, but there was no sign of that on the Oregon coast. In a few weeks summer would find the shore and the beach would be crowded with weekend tourists, basking in the sunthough the weather could turn on a dime, pivoting back to fifties and raining with no warning.

Once upon a time, Maggie had loved those unexpected cold snaps almost as much as the perfect summer days. Clouds had meant long hours inside, hiding from the rain, listening to The Fifth Horseman, the Allman Brothers, and Van Morrison for hours on end and dreaming about who she was going to be when she grew up. The famous actress. Beloved by all. Glorying in success and all that came with it.