One More Night (Sweetbriar Cove Book 13) Read online

  One More Night

  Sweetbriar Cove: Book 13

  Melody Grace

  Melody Grace Books

  Copyright © 2020 by Melody Grace

  All rights reserved.

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

  Cover design copyright British Empire Designs.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Also by Melody Grace

  Introduction

  One More Night

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Also by Melody Grace

  About the Author

  Also By Melody Grace:

  The Sweetbriar Cove Series:

  1. Meant to Be

  2. All for You

  3. The Only One

  4. I’m Yours

  5. Holiday Kisses (A Christmas Story)

  6. No Ordinary Love

  7. Wildest Dreams

  8. This Kiss

  9. Always Be Mine

  10. Two Hearts (Kinsella Family #1)

  11. The Story of Us

  12. Back to You

  13. One More Night

  14. Time After Time

  15. Forever Summer

  The Beachwood Bay Series:

  1.Untouched

  2.Unbroken

  3.Untamed Hearts

  4.Unafraid

  5.Unwrapped

  6.Unconditional

  7.Unrequited

  8.Uninhibited

  9.Unstoppable

  10.Unexpectedly Yours

  11.Unwritten

  12.Unmasked

  13.Unforgettable

  The Oak Harbor Duet:

  1.Heartbreaker

  2.Reckless Hearts

  With Every Heartbeat

  The Promise

  Thank you for reading!

  Ever since I introduced Cal’s cousin, Letitia, in No Ordinary Love, I knew that she deserved a story of her own. Now that Letitia is in Sweetbriar Cove helping Cal and Eliza plan for their wedding, she decides it’s her time to find Mr. Right! But it turns out, her perfect man might be the one she least expected…

  I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. So pack your sunscreen, take a mini-vacation, and enjoy a taste of summer, wherever you are.

  xo Melody

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  Welcome to Sweetbriar Cove: the small town where happily-ever-after is guaranteed.

  ONE MORE NIGHT

  Fall in love with Sweetbriar Cove in the new feel-good summer romance from New York Times bestselling author, Melody Grace!

  Letitia Prescott is a woman with a mission: to find her perfect match. Sweetbriar Cove seems packed full of eligible bachelors, so she’s rented a house for the summer to scope the man of her dreams. He’ll be successful… mature… Sophisticated.. He definitely won’t be a laid-back surfer with a wicked smile and a heart-stopping kiss that makes her forget all her careful plans.

  Chase Kinsella takes every day — and every wave - as it comes. No plans, no rules, and absolutely no buttoned-up blondes with marriage on their mind. So when his gorgeous new neighbor sends his pulse racing, he decides the best cure for temptation is to help find her future husband, and fast.

  With Chase playing wing-man, soon Letitia has eligible men lined up around the town square. But somehow, nothing compares to the sparks she feels when they’re together. Can they find a future together despite the odds? Or will they have to settle for just one more night…?

  Find out in the new feel-good summer romance from New York Times bestselling author, Melody Grace.

  The Sweetbriar Cove Series:

  1. Meant to Be

  2. All for You

  3. The Only One

  4. I’m Yours

  5. Holiday Kisses (A Christmas Story)

  6. No Ordinary Love

  7. Wildest Dreams

  8. This Kiss

  9. Always Be Mine

  10. Two Hearts (Kinsella Family #1)

  11. The Story of Us

  12. Back to You

  13. One More Night

  14. Time After Time

  15. Forever Summer

  1

  Letitia Prescott was at her wits’ end. But looking out at the perfect summer’s day, with the sun shining down and the ocean sparkling just a few steps away, she had to admit: the view from here was pretty great.

  “It’s a wonderful space, lots of light, and the location can’t be beat.” Her realtor, June, showed her out onto the back porch, with spray roses climbing up the railings, and a picture-perfect view of the shore. “It was all booked up for the summer, but they had to cancel last week. Divorce,” she added with a knowing whisper. “Poor things. But lucky for you. What do you think?”

  Letitia took a deep breath of salty ocean air, and couldn’t help but smile. The waves crashed, blue under a cloudless summer sky, and the small grassy backyard even had a little gate leading straight onto the sand.

  It was perfect. And perfect for her plan.

  “I’ll take it,” she said, turning back to June.

  “Of course you will.” June said, like it had never been in doubt. “I held it for you especially.” She produced a sheaf of rental papers from her bag, and a pen for Letitia to sign.

  Letitia took them, trying not to wince at the cost of the summer lease. This was an investment in her future, she reminded herself, as she signed on the dotted line – and wrote a hefty check to match. She wouldn’t think twice about paying for a training seminar, or a big professional conference to take her career to the next level. This was just the same.

  Kind of.

  “Now, we’re all set!” June declared, taking the contract, and passing Letitia a set of keys. “The furniture’s a bit outdated, I know, but you won’t be spending much time indoors. All a woman needs is hot running water, and a comfortable bed. And we can make do without the bed, if there’s something better available. Or someone,” she added, with a saucy wink.

  Letitia laughed. She’d heard about June’s reputation – for gossip, and wild romantic adventures – and she wondered for a moment if the older woman might be a useful ally in her plans…

  But she was getting ahead of herself.

  “Thanks for all your help,” she said, showing June to the door. “This is perfect. I can already tell, I’m going to feel right at home here.”

  “Do you have any big plans for the summer?” June asked, and Letitia was almost tempted to tell her. But instead, she just smiled.

  “Oh, you know…” she said vaguely. “Relaxing, catching up with friends…”

  “Well, I’m sure I’ll see you around town.” June said, enveloping her in a friendly, jasmine-scented hug. �
��Welcome to Sweetbriar Cove!”

  Letitia closed the door, and took a moment to look around the sunny room, reveling in the possibilities of the summer rental – and everything it represented. She could only imagine what June might have said if she’d revealed the real reason she was blowing off all her commitments, putting her regular life on hold, and moving to Cape Cod for the summer:

  To find herself a husband.

  It sounded crazy, even to her – which was why Letitia still couldn’t quite bring herself to say it out loud. Only one person had overheard her plans and… Well, that hadn’t exactly turned out great. No, Letitia knew what people would think. They’d probably assume she was some lonely, pathetic spinster, looking to trap an unsuspecting guy and drag him down the aisle. But it wasn’t like that. She had a great job, plenty of friends, and a family that only occasionally drove her crazy. She didn’t need a man in her life to make it worthwhile.

  She just wanted one. Desperately.

  The right man.

  Letitia headed out to her car, and started hauling her luggage up to the cute first floor bedroom. She definitely hadn’t packed light: she had a month’s worth of date outfits crammed in her suitcases, and hopefully, she’d be wearing every single one of them. Because Sweetbriar Cove had more to offer than just friendly locals, a quaint town square, and gorgeous beaches.

  It also had a curiously high population of handsome, available men.

  Letitia had been visiting her cousin, Cal, a few months ago when she’d first noticed. He and his friends had all met their partners here in town, and fallen madly in love. They joked about it, wondering if Aunt June was slipping something into the local water supply, but Letitia had made a mental note. She knew from the business world that the data rarely lied, and when it came to her own love life…

  Well, her numbers weren’t pretty.

  She was thirty-two, which meant she’d been out there dating for almost fifteen years. And what did she have to show for it? She’d crunched the math once, on a particularly boring blind date, and the results were enough to make a betting woman give up, start eating carbs again, and get a cat. Countless awkward first dates, a handful of serious relationships that fizzled out – and a failed engagement that ended so politely, it was proof they weren’t meant to be. Watching her friends all start their families and move on to the next phase in their lives filled her with a terrible ache, but instead of despairing, Letitia decided to do something about it. She couldn’t just sit around hoping she’d swipe, or click, or bump into the perfect man on the street. Whenever she wanted something in life – from a promotion, to impossible-to-get concert tickets – she made a plan, figured it out, and didn’t stop until she was victorious.

  This should be no different.

  So what if finding lasting love and happiness might be a little bit harder than bribing a ticket resales girl with Letitia’s favorite pair of pink slingback shoes? The same rules still applied. If she made her list, and stuck to it, she would find a man she could built a life with, and start a family. A partner, who ticked all the right boxes. The perfect match. Not just some guy who made her heart race, but would leave her high and dry the minute she started making plans for their future.

  Even if he was thigh-clenchingly sexy…

  Letitia flushed, recalling her run-in with the mysterious surfer a couple of weeks ago. She’d been having coffee at a roadside diner just up the Cape, chatting to a friend about what she was looking for in a man. The guy at the next booth had overheard, and pretty much laughed in her face. She’d been so humiliated and angry, they’d wound up having a passionate fight in the parking lot.

  And then a passionate kiss.

  Her pulse kicked, just remembering the taste of his tempting mouth, and the feel of his body, hot and hard against her…

  Letitia groaned. What had she been thinking, making out with a total stranger like that? He wasn’t even her type! She liked preppy, distinguished men, not scruffy guys wearing threadbare T-shirts, in desperate need of a haircut and a shave. No, she decided firmly, it was a moment of madness, a brief lapse in sanity, and judging by the tire marks that his beat-up Airstream left as he high-tailed it away from her, he felt exactly the same.

  This was exactly why she needed her plan: to avoid wasting time on distractions like him.

  However hot and pleasurable that distraction had been…

  “Hello?”

  A familiar voice echoed up the stairs, and Letitia headed down to find her cousin, Cal, and his fiancée Eliza, looking curiously around the front room.

  “Hey,” Letitia greeted them, surprised. “What are you guys doing here? In fact,” she asked, “how did you even know where to find me? I haven’t even sent my mom the address!”

  Eliza grinned. “We just saw June at the bakery, she said you’d snapped up her last summer rental. We came to check it out, and officially welcome you to town,” she added, producing a pastry box and a beautiful bouquet of hydrangeas.

  “But I thought this was just a vacation,” Cal said, greeting Letitia with a hug. He took in the stack of boxes in the middle of the room. “I didn’t realize you were moving here permanently.”

  Letitia gave him a playful shove. “You know I don’t pack light.”

  “Seriously,” Cal grinned. “Remember that awful family trip to the mountains? You must have brought two tons of luggage up to that lodge. The poor bellhops walked with a stoop all week,” he told Eliza.

  “They did not!” Letitia protested, laughing. “And I tipped them double, all the same.”

  She led them through to the sunny little kitchen. “Sorry I don’t have much to offer you, I need to do a grocery run.” She slid the pastries they’d brought onto a china plate, and hunted down mismatched silverware from the drawers. “Sparkling water, or fresh juice?” she offered, plucking a bottle of each from the cooler she’d packed.

  Eliza laughed. “If this is your idea of roughing it, I can’t imagine what you’ll do with some warning.”

  “Are you kidding?” Cal said, with a smirk, “Tish was hosting five-course meals for her dolls when she was in kindergarten. Aunt Sylvie used to quiz her on the correct place settings instead of science or math.”

  Letitia rolled her eyes good-naturedly, but it was true. Her mom had raised her to be the perfect hostess, and even though she traded in etiquette manuals just as soon as she learned how to read the Financial Times, the lessons had stuck. “Fine then,” she said, whisking the plate away. “No eclairs for you.”

  “I didn’t say that!” Cal snatched it back, and they all laughed.

  “This is a cute place,” Eliza said, looking around, “And the perfect location, too. We’re just a mile away. So anytime you want to drop by and help me with all the boring wedding plans, feel free.”

  Letitia stopped. “What do you mean, ‘plans’?” she demanded. “You’re getting married in a month! The invitations went out. Everything should be booked already. Isn’t it?” she asked, panic rising.

  Eliza laughed. “Relax, it’s all set,” she reassured her. “Kind of. Brooke’s taking care of everything, at her hotel. She’s done a million of these events, so I figured I’d just leave the details to her. And you,” she added. “Since you have such exquisite taste.” Eliza batted her eyelashes, and Letitia couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Of course I’ll help,” she reassured her. “I know the Prescott family can turn everything into a circus.”

  “Understatement of the year!” Eliza agreed. “Your mom called me yesterday at six a.m., asking if we’d finalized the seating charts yet. Apparently, your aunt Mindy can’t be within twenty feet of her cousin?”

  “A vicious feud over their prize orchids,” Letitia explained. “I’m not sure what happened, because it was twenty years ago now, but they still refuse to even speak. Welcome to the family,” she added with a wry grin.

  Eliza gulped. Cal slung his arm around her shoulders. “You know, we could always just elope…” he said, sounding hopef
ul.

  Letitia snorted with laughter at the idea. “The only Prescott son and heir, getting married on a beach somewhere?!”

  “I’m not the heir anymore, remember?” Cal grinned. “I quit. That’s all on you now.”

  Letitia wasn’t so sure. Her father had been grooming Cal to take over the Prescott Group for years – while she worked her ass off to prove that maybe, being a woman shouldn’t automatically rule her out of the job. Since Cal had stepped back, she’d made progress: finally getting to work on projects that weren’t just fluff PR and party-planning, but she still had a long way to go before her father took her seriously as a businesswoman.

  As seriously as a man, anyway.

  “It doesn’t make a difference,” Letitia said. “The wedding is still an excuse for my parents to lord it over all their society friends. It’s going to be the event of the season, whether you like it or not.”

  Eliza’s phone buzzed, and she glanced at the screen. “It’s the print shop,” she explained, sliding down. “I’m trying to put together a double issue of the newspaper, a big summer special for all the tourists.” She headed into the next room, already cajoling someone to extend her deadline.

  “So, are you going to tell me the truth?” Cal asked, the minute Eliza was out of earshot.

  Letitia choked on her sparkling water. “What do you mean?” she asked, trying to keep a straight face. But Cal knew her too well for that.