Whisper Cove Sweet Romance Bundle

💘 Book 1: Falling for your Fake Boyfriend
First rule of fake dating: Never fall in love …

I agreed to fake date a handsome billionaire I just met over a bowl of spilled candy. (Yes, that’s really how it happened.)

“Why are you bringing a fake girlfriend along to your sister’s wedding? I mean, you’re more than tolerable to look at—”

It was the understatement of the century. 

Luke Greyson was rich, sophisticated and gorgeous and now I, Isla Lovely—second oldest of the five Lovely sisters, resident of the small, quaint town of Whisper Cove, aspiring baker and current employee of three measly jobs—have agreed to play girlfriend to the very wealthy and eligible bachelor. 

The gig will bring me thousands of dollars closer to my dream of opening a bakery in my hometown. All I have to do is pretend to be madly in love with the man for one weekend …

Keyword: Pretend

💘 Book 2: Falling for the Wrong Guy-
Sometimes I wonder what the heck is wrong with me.

I have a perfectly suitable boyfriend. He checks all the boxes—handsome, successful, attentive (sometimes a little too attentive).

My young girl daydreams of being carried off by an all-too-charming highway robber or swooning into the arms of an extremely hot swashbuckling pirate were left behind with the rest of my childhood.

Then why on earth has the mysterious stranger who floated into town on a ramshackle boat captured my undivided attention?

From his cocky, tilted grin to those unbelievably big arms … he looks like someone who trouble follows.

Handsome as he is, Dex is certainly not boyfriend material.
Then again, perhaps I’m looking for something more than perfectly suitable …

Only I, Aria Lovely, could make such a mess of things so fast and still wind up dizzy-headed for the wrong guy.

💘 Book 3: Falling for the Grumpy Stranger
As usual it was my big mouth getting me into trouble. In my defense, I hadn’t realized that Whisper Cove’s mysterious new resident was behind me when I called him strange, dark and grim.

I finally landed my dream job as a journalist for an online publication, and my first assignment is a story about Grimstone Manor, a turn-of-last-century home that is rumored to be cursed. Naturally, the strange, dark and grim mystery man is the new owner of the manor.

It’s time to turn on that Lovely sister charm and warm my way into his crummy, cursed house.

When Rhett Lockwood, a handsome introvert, decides I can look through the old artifacts and books in the house, the last thing I expect is to become friends with the man.

And that friendship grows to something else. There’s only one thing in the way. His very angry, vengeful ex-wife.

It seems the curse is all too real, and the house has chosen me, Ella Lovely, as its next victim.

💘 Book 4: Falling for the Enemy
They’re sworn enemies … or so they thought.

After an abrupt and unfortunate ending to my last scientific expedition, I made the monumental decision to change things up and accept a job at a local university. My sisters were thrilled, and I was enjoying everything about my new position with the exception of him—Jack Sinclair.

For some reason, the moment I stepped onto campus, my new colleague, whom my sister Layla refers to as “the grumpy professor” (I prefer to think of him as Jack—followed up by another choice word.) decided I, Ava Lovely, was his nemesis. One thing is certain, Professor Sinclair is beyond irritating with an attitude as big as a redwood tree, and I can’t stand him.

When my team of grad students wrote a grant to study mushrooms in Costa Rica, I certainly didn’t expect the head of the department to force Jack to tag along. It means two weeks in the rainforest with my enemy. Jack isn’t any happier about the situation and that’s putting it mildly.

Another thing I certainly didn’t expect was for the entire expedition to turn into a huge, and very wet, catastrophe. Jack and I are thrown together unwillingly in a situation that grows more dire by the minute. Will it bring us closer together or drive us even farther apart?

💘Book 5: Falling for the Guy Next Door
He’s the handsome new neighbor, a rock star and … completely off-limits.

I, Layla Lovely, youngest sister of the Fabulous Five, have officially become the ninth wheel. All of my sisters have found their soulmates, and although I’ve been dating a man named Dustin for the last few months–we aren’t a match, and I need to end things.

Aside from dating, my social life is going well. My best friend, Emily, has found her newest obsession in Nash Ledger, the singer of a popular indie band called Moonstone. When Moonstone announces a gig at a local bar, Emily convinces me to go see them live. I accidentally have an interesting run-in with Mr. Ledger, but that’s just the beginning of our story…

Back home at the cottage, a new renter has moved in next door. The new neighbor has the most wonderful dog, and when I discover the dog’s owner and our new neighbor is none other than Nash Ledger, we start a friendship. But having to keep the whole thing secret from Emily creates a snowball of lies that I can’t seem to stop. Nonna would be horrified.

In the meantime, Dustin is certain our breakup is just temporary and he becomes that guy–the one who can’t take no for an answer–and things take an upsetting turn. So, as usual, I have found myself in the middle of a good deal of chaos, only this time my heart is on the line.

Prologue:
“Remember, Isla, don’t worry about princes. They’re overrated. You will make your own happily ever after.” Those were my grandmother’s last words to me.

My grandmother, Maeve, or Nonna, as my sisters and I called her, once told me that everyone has a happily ever after waiting for them. “You just have to be ready for it, my bonny little one, or it might pass you right by,” she’d tell me as she brushed my long, blonde hair.

Nonna loved to tell us stories that were chock-full of magical lands, handsome princes, glistening castles and grumbly villains. She’d fill her hearth with bristly pinecones and fragrant chopped wood, signaling in her own sweet way that we were about to hear a story. My four sisters and I would run for the dark mahogany chest where she kept her handmade quilts. Fat cherubs smiled up at us from the top of the chest, seeming to laugh at us as we argued over who would get to use the kitten quilt. The fabric on the kitten quilt had been worn soft as velvet, and each colorful square had a fluffy, fat kitten in the middle of it. Aria was the oldest and had the longest reach, so she invariably snagged the kitten quilt. Occasionally, Layla, the youngest, would put up enough of a fuss that Aria would hand her the quilt and settle for her second favorite, a red-and-green calico Christmas quilt.

While the others fought over the kitten quilt, I always reached for the mod flower quilt. It was dotted with massive flowers, each a different color. Nonna sewed it as a sixteenth birthday present for our mom, and I loved it the most because if I pulled it close enough around me, I could still smell my mom’s sweet scent in the folds of the fabric.
Nonna would put on soft, haunting flute or fiddle music before settling herself into her favorite rocking chair, the one that squeaked every time she rocked forward. She’d complain about the pain in her bones as she put her knit shawl over her knees. But first, she’d place a chipped blue porcelain plate of her buttery shortbread in the center of the floor and, like we did with the kitten quilt, we’d all dive for the biggest piece. Treats in hand and wrapped in our wonderfully worn quilts, we’d settle around her on the floor, forming a half-circle of eager smiles and sparkling eyes as we waited for her glorious tale.

We’d listen raptly as if she was telling us all the secrets of the world with her lyrical Irish accent. Her rosy apple cheeks would round with laughter when the story was funny, and when the story got dark or scary, she’d growl or jump suddenly, and we’d shriek and scream and fall apart in bouts of laughter.

Aria, always needing to be the brave big sister, loved the stories where a heroine met her love match in a swashbuckling pirate or charismatic highwayman. She loved the heroes who wore worn black boots, leathery frock coats and crooked, cocky smiles. Aria would sit up straighter under the quilt whenever the thin line between hero and rogue was crossed.

Ella, the middle sister, was our family bookworm. She loved the stories that took us out onto a cold, foggy moor or into a dark, dank castle. The more mystery surrounding the leading man, the better. She loved the stories featuring a quiet, troubled, scarred hero, as long as he came with a dry sense of humor and … perhaps … an ivy-covered manor house.

Ava was a year older than Layla and loved to remind her little sister that she was much more mature. Ava’s sparkling green eyes always rounded during the adventurous tales, the ones that took the heroine to the far ends of the earth where she—naturally—crossed paths with a handsome fellow adventurer. Then the two sailed or hiked or floated in a big, striped hot air balloon into the fading sunset.

Layla loved any story with lots of animals and a tall, handsome hero on horseback. As the youngest of the bunch, she crinkled her nose and made faces when the couple kissed at the end, but the rest of us giggled with glee at the happy ending.

And then there was me, Isla, the second oldest. I loved the Cinderella-style stories, where the heroine worked hard, did all the right things and was eventually rewarded with a glorious happy ending.

Sometimes at night, I’d lay in the bed I shared with Aria and Layla, and I’d think about my prince, somewhere in the world, waiting to give me that fairy-tale ending Nonna had promised. Nonna would hear me tossing and turning, and she’d come up to kiss me goodnight and tuck me in again. I’d ask her if she was sure there was really a fairy-tale ending waiting for me. She’d lean over and kiss my forehead and say, “Aye, my little cookie crumble, your happily ever after will come soon enough.”

But little girls grow up, and the ups and downs of reality hit more often than one would like. And that’s when I realized that Nonna’s last words, telling me to make my own happy ending, were the most profound of all.

Chapter 1:
I lunged for the oven timer. The house was so still it sounded like the clang of church bells echoing off stone walls. I winced as I looked over at the couch.

Layla growled. “It was a valiant effort, but I’m awake.”

“Sorry.” I grabbed the oven mitt and opened the oven door. The chocolatey aroma of brownies filled the small kitchen. I pulled the tray from the oven and set it on the cooling rack.

Layla’s incredibly thick hair stuck out in many directions as she plodded on bare feet into the kitchen. Aria and Layla were both blessed with cinnamon-copper hair—a color that people would pay big bucks for at a salon, but my sisters were born with it. Nonna used to call them her bronze bookends, because Aria was the oldest and Layla was the youngest.
The otters on Layla’s oversized T-shirt appeared to be swimming in their kelp forest as she lifted her arm to make a quick run at smoothing her hair. I tried, unsuccessfully, to hold back a laugh.

“Let’s see how you look after sleeping on that ancient couch.” Layla twisted her upper torso a few times to take the kinks out of her back. She leaned down and glanced at her reflection in the glass on the microwave. “I look like Medusa.” She spun around and reached for one of the small cakes on the baking tray, my latest creation.

“I filled them with mascarpone.”

Layla took hold of the treat. “What are these? Is this a candied fig on top?”

“Yes. Pretty, right?” I picked up my phone to show her my Instagram post.

She took a bite and hummed with pleasure. “Wow, Isla, this is delicious.”

“Thanks. That’s the first official review of my honey pistachio cakes.”

Layla laughed. “I do feel very official with my otter T-shirt and Medusa hair.” She licked her finger as she glanced out the tiny kitchen window. It was a small square of glass that provided a magnificent view of Whisper Cove. Nonna used to call it her portal to the world. She’d wash dishes in the cracked porcelain sink and stare out at the seagulls as they dashed along the choppy surface. For the last hour, the sun had been trying its hardest to poke through the usual layer of summer morning fog.

“It’s so early, even the ocean looks sleepy.” Layla finished the sentence, appropriately enough, with a long, luxurious yawn.

I packed oatmeal butterscotch cookies into a box. “Why were you sleeping on the couch?”

Layla patted her mouth to stifle another yawn. “Ella was up late writing on the laptop, and you know how she gets when she’s written something she likes.”

We both waved a fist in the air. “Bloody brilliant!” we said in unison.

Layla surveyed the kitchen table. It was a scarred-pine beauty with four legs so sturdy, it never wobbled, even when the five of us were leaning over it, diving for the last pancake or piece of fried chicken. Nonna had grown up at the same table, and she always considered it a part of the family. This morning the table overflowed with baked goods: brownies, cookies and my honey pistachio cakes.

“Both my sisters are vampires who never need sleep. You must have been up since three in the morning,” Layla said.

“Sleep is overrated. But I believe vampires do sleep … in coffins … apparently.”

Layla tilted her head and added a wry smile.

“Right. Guess that’s not really the point. And I know how Ella feels. When creativity takes hold, it’s impossible to ignore.” The timer on my phone went off. “Is it that late already?” I picked up the cookie-packing pace. “I need to take the cookies and brownies over to the café. Aria will be opening soon.”

Layla shuffled toward the hallway. “I’m going to try to get a few more hours of sleep. I assume Ernestine Hemmingway has closed her laptop and is out cold.”

Four of us shared the two-bedroom cottage—Nonna’s beloved home—but my roommate, our sister Ava, was currently on one of her worldwide adventures, discovering and cataloguing new fungus species in the rainforest.

Through the years, many greedy developers had been trying to get their hands on the cottage and its primely located parcel of land. We’d had several offers to buy the cottage in the past ten years. The cracked plaster walls and creaky wood floors held far too many memories, both happy and sad, to hand it off to a fast-talking realtor who would eventually sell it to some starry-eyed flippers, or, worse, a contractor who’d, no doubt, tear it down so a set of shiny, void-of-character condos could be built in its place.

Nonna’s sweet, unassuming cottage, with its gabled roof, diamond-paned windows and slightly tilted exterior, had not only the best view of the cove, but it was situated directly over a silky stretch of beach. When we were younger, we’d fill our arms with buckets, plastic shovels, brown paper-wrapped pickle-and-cheese sandwiches, and mason jars of lemonade, and we’d trudge down the steep, winding trail that stretched between our back door and the pristine sand below. We’d spend hours building the castles from Nonna’s stories. When the sun got too hot, we’d wade into the shallow, crystal blue water and float around, holding our legs together, flipping them like mermaid tails. Sometimes we’d be out on that beach until the sun took its final bow. Now it seemed we were all far too busy to enjoy the beach below. When Nonna died, just after Layla graduated high school, her amazing stories faded from our lives. We all held them tightly somewhere in our memories, but there just wasn’t time anymore to dream about princes and pirates and mysterious castles.

The morning air was still chilly enough for a sweatshirt. I pulled one on and headed out the door with my boxes. I rolled my bike out of the shed, set the boxes in the wagon I'd padded to use as my makeshift trailer, and took off on the two-mile journey to Whisper Café. Aria opened the restaurant nine years ago at the tender but energy-filled age of twenty-five. She came out of college with a business degree, worked in a few offices and quickly discovered the business world wasn’t for her. Henry and Theresa Gramble, the previous owners of the café, were retiring, so Aria cobbled together enough money to finance her takeover of the place. She laughed, admitting that the business degree came in handy after all, just not in the way she and her professors thought.

It was late July, so the morning fog was a much lighter version of the pea soup we got during winter. Rays of sunshine were breaking through, producing a smear of pastel as they illuminated the houses along the western shore. The hills overlooking the cove were populated by an eclectic mix of architecture—traditional timber A-frames like Nonna’s cottage, stalwart and stout brick houses from the late twentieth century, and new shiny baubles of glass and stucco, built recently after a treacherous storm took out a small cluster of old cottages. Nonna’s house stood tall, although not exactly erect, through the brutal lashing of wind and rain. There were a few times when my sisters and I wondered if we should huddle down in the basement for shelter. However, ever since a thirteen-year-old Aria had convinced all her younger sisters that a grizzled, old troll lived in the basement and that was why there were occasionally fewer cookies in the cookie jar, none of us relished the notion of taking shelter in the dark, dank basement, even though we were well past our teens and should have been well past believing in trolls.

Juniper Road, the street that would take me to the café, was being repaved, so I took a shortcut past the marina. The pathway was rough and crumbly, and the wagon hopped up and down over the ruts. There would probably be some cookie casualties before I reached the café. The slips in the harbor were filled with a dozen or so boats, vessels as different as the array of houses on the lush, sloping banks overlooking the cove. Oscar Mittel, an old friend of Nonna’s, was out washing the dove gray hull of his fishing boat. Oscar grew up in Whisper Cove, and while we didn’t know his exact age, we were convinced he was close to a hundred.

My shortcut took me along a dirt path bordered on both sides by tall, feathery dune grass. The coastal breeze pushed the tips just enough in my direction to tickle my calves. My wagon squeaked in protest as I pedaled my way behind the shops on Juniper Road. Aria’s café was nestled between Stylish Stitches, a clothing boutique owned by a woman named Claire who had a heavy French accent and wonderful taste (though most of the clothes were far too fussy and expensive for my closet), and Wolfsong’s Fishing Supply Store.

There was a light on in Aria’s café, and the aroma of bacon curled up from the vents on the roof. I rode between the café and the boutique and parked my bike out front. Aria was rolling out the chalkboard easel that listed today’s specials.

“You made corn chowder?” I asked as I glanced at the chalky sign.

“I thought I ordered three pounds of corn, but apparently, I clicked three crates. I needed to do something with all that corn.” I handed her a box of cookies and carried the other box into the café behind her. Aria’s silky copper hair was tied up in a neat bun at the back of her head. She was tall, and she walked so gracefully, Nonna was convinced she should have been a ballerina. My sister never thought much of the idea, deciding that spending that much time on one’s toes was nothing short of torture.

“Coffee?”

“Do you even need to ask?” I sat on one of the kitchen stools. Roberto, her main cook, stopped to wave his spatula at me before returning his focus to the stove.

Aria returned with a mug of hot coffee. “So, my first date with the guy who was supposed to be my perfect match turned out to be a complete disaster.” She joined me with her own cup of coffee. “He kept telling me about his coin collection. I listened politely the first three times he brought it up, but when it came up a fourth time, I developed an evening-ending headache—a real one.” She blew into her cup of coffee. “Dating is impossible. I give up.”

“I blame Nonna for setting the bar too high with her stories. I mean, let’s face it, I’m never going to meet Prince Charming, and Captain Blackthorn is never going to show up in the harbor on his pirate ship.” Aria was the one sister who’d come closest to getting married. Paul was a nice, sensible man who wore leather loafers and spoke a lot about good investments. The invites had gone out, and the dress was chosen and heading for a second alteration. We called it her “almost-nearly-phew” wedding. Two weeks before the big day, Aria showed up at the cottage, mid-panic attack, and asked us to brainstorm the best way to get out of an engagement. She told us she wasn’t beyond faking her own death, so we knew it was over.

“You’re too picky,” Roberto called from the stove.

Aria rolled her eyes and ignored the comment.

“Where are those mushrooms?” Roberto asked as he turned to his cutting board.

“Oh, that’s right.” Aria stood. “I’ll get them.”

My phone rang as I finished my coffee. “Hey, Amber, what’s up?” I glanced at the clock. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

A cough preceded her answer. “I’m at death’s door,” she said weakly. Amber and I had been friends since school. I couldn’t call her my best friend because I had four sisters for that, but she was definitely number five on the list. She also tended to exaggerate her frequent illnesses.

“What’s wrong?”

She coughed a few times for good measure, but it sounded a little rehearsed. “I can’t find anyone to cover my shift at the coffee cart. I asked Mary to stay and cover for me, but she has to get her nails done.” I could almost hear the eye roll through the phone. “Stan will fire me if I don’t find someone to run the cart. Do you have time this morning?”

“I was hoping to take a quick nap before I started walking dogs. Then I only have a short break before I go to my cleaning job.”

“Are you still working for that horrid lady with the office cleaning service?”

“Until I find something else, yes. It’s one of the few jobs I can do at night.” I was working multiple jobs to save money for my true dream—opening my own bakery. Unfortunately, that dream was still as far out of reach as Prince Charming.

“Please, please, please do this for me, Isla, and I will owe you big time.” She added a few coughs for sympathy. I sighed in resignation.

“Fine. I’ll do it.” In truth, it gave me a chance to hand out some of my new little cakes and see if people liked the flavor combo. I spent my free time, which was mostly in the middle of the night, experimenting with baked goodies. It wasn’t easy, because Nonna’s kitchen was still set in early last century and because there were only twenty-four hours in the day, but I was collecting successful recipes for my future bakery. “I’ll come get the key. And you owe me.”

“I do and of course I’ll pay you and I love you and thank you so much.” Another cough. This one sounded entirely forced.

I put my coffee mug in the dishwashing sink. “I’ve got to go. Amber needs me to run the coffee cart,” I called to Aria.

She popped her head out of the storeroom. “Guess we’ll both be slinging coffee this morning. See you later.”