A Girl Like You Read online

  A GIRL LIKE YOU

  SAMANTHA CHASE

  CONTENTS

  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

  Epilogue

  A Sneak Peek

  About the Author

  Also by Samantha Chase

  Copyright 2019 Samantha Chase

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  All Rights Reserved.

  * * *

  No part of this book, with the exception of brief quotations for book reviews or critical articles, 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 express written permission from the author.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  Editor: Jillian Rivera

  Cover Design: Uplifting Designs/Alyssa Garcia

  1

  “I’M IN HELL.”

  “Dramatic much?”

  Sam Westbrook glared at his twin sister Mallory. “It’s not dramatic. It’s a fact.”

  Mallory rolled her eyes at him even as she smirked. “Care to clarify, then? Because from where I’m sitting, your life is pretty damn sweet.”

  Now it was his turn to roll his eyes. “Okay, if anyone needs to clarify anything, it’s you. How could you possibly think my life is sweet? Look around, Mal! This is not my life! This is like some kind of nightmare!”

  The look she gave him said it all – and yeah, he was being dramatic. Sam knew he was being unreasonable, but this really wasn’t the life he wanted for himself. This was a life that had been forced on him and he was counting down the days until he was free to go back to the way things were. To the life he had made for himself.

  A life not in Magnolia Sound.

  Only two hundred and seventy days to go.

  “Sam, you have to get over it and move on. If you stopped being so angry, you’d see that your life here is really great. The business is doing well, the town is rebuilding which is helping the business grow, the work on the house is coming along and looking great, we’re all together so you’re surrounded by family…”

  “Mal, I think you’re listing the reasons why your life here is great,” he grumbled.

  Mallory stood and slapped him on the back of the head on her way to the refrigerator. Reaching in, she grabbed two bottles of water, handing Sam one. “Why are you fighting this so hard? You’re making more money than you ever have, you’re living rent-free, I mean…think about it! There are worse situations to find yourself in.”

  “Maybe.”

  “No, not maybe. Definitely!” She sat back down beside him at the kitchen table and smiled.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he felt like smiling.

  Oh, wait, yes he could! It was almost six months ago – right before Hurricane Amelia ravaged the East Coast and destroyed not only a large portion of the small town of Magnolia Sound, but also their family. The storm may not have directly killed his great-grandfather, but the fact that their family patriarch perished during the storm didn’t lessen the blow. When Ezekiel Coleman died, it left a big hole in all their lives. Within a week of his death, Sam found out his great-grandfather left him a landscaping business – the biggest one in Magnolia Sound. Most people thought it would be a dream come true for him, but they were wrong.

  So very wrong.

  Did Sam enjoy working with plants and trees and shrubs? Yes.

  Did he love being outside and making his own hours? Yes.

  Did he want to be stuck here in this small, hick town for the rest of his life? Hell no.

  Growing up, he’d spent most of his summers here and developed a reputation for being a hell-raiser – and he was proud of it at the time. Now? Not so much. Unfortunately, no one around here seemed to forget anything and no matter where he went or what he was working on, there was always someone ready to remind him of all his past transgressions.

  So much for people deserving a second chance.

  Mallory placed her hand on his and it broke him out of his reverie. “I wish you would give this a chance.”

  “I have!” he said a little too loudly. “You know I have, but the good people of Magnolia don’t seem to want to ever let me forget all the shit I pulled when I was just a kid!”

  “Sam, it wasn’t that long ago when you admitted you almost got caught peeing in the church parking lot!” she reminded him with a small laugh. “You were hardly a kid and you knew better!”

  Okay, so maybe he hadn’t been trying all that hard to morph into an upstanding citizen, but still…

  “Whatever,” he murmured, slouching in his seat and raking a hand through his hair in frustration. “All I know is I have nine months left before I have my freedom back. Then I’m free to sell the business and go and do my own thing.”

  “You know that would break Pops’ heart.”

  Yeah, he knew that and he didn’t particularly like it, but Sam was also a little pissed that Pops had put him in this position in the first place. Getting the inheritance wasn’t a bad thing, but the stipulation that Sam stay in Magnolia and run the business for a full year was. And if Sam refused to follow those rules, he’d lose the business to his cousin Mason.

  Unbelievable.

  “He knew exactly what he was doing, Mal,” Sam reasoned. “He knew he was forcing me to stay in one place and play by his rules – rules I was never very good at following. But I’m doing the right thing by him for the next nine months. After that, according to his will, I am free to do whatever I want with the business.”

  “I wish you’d reconsider.”

  “And I wish we weren’t having this conversation, so…”

  She let out a loud and overly dramatic sigh. “Want to come over for dinner tonight? I know Mom’s going out with Colton, so if you don’t want to be here alone you’re more than welcome to join me and Jake. We’re just grilling some steaks if you’re interested. And it will be an early night since it’s a Wednesday and Jake has to get up early for work tomorrow, so…”

  And that was another reason Sam resented being here – everyone had a social life but him.

  Correction – a romantic social life.

  Since he’d never stuck around very long in the past, he was fine being a little of the love ’em and leave ’em type. Now that he was living here full-time? Uh, yeah…that wasn’t going to work out too well for him and it certainly wasn’t going to help his reputation.

  Something he found out after the first month here.

  How was he to know Rhonda and Kim were sisters? Yeah, that was an extremely awkward night and he’d been laying low ever since. Well, he’d been laying low here in town. He’d managed to convince his cousin Mason to drive down to Wilmington with him a couple of times so he could find someone to hook up with who he wasn’t going to run into while out on his landscaping route.

  It was exhausting and far too constricting of a lifestyle for him.

  At first, he had seriously considered turning down the inheritance and just letting his cousin have it, but after he had calmed down, Sam knew that was the coward’s way out. Like it or not, Pops wanted this for him and after all the ways Sam had rebelled and Pops had bailed him out, it was the least he could do.

&n
bsp; No matter how much he resented it.

  He had been given three months to get his stuff in order back in Virginia before he had to officially take the helm at Coleman Landscaping. Quitting his job hadn’t bothered him – it was just one in a long line of jobs he’d had in the last several years that bored him – but it hadn’t taken long for him to realize there wasn’t much holding him to his life there either. Sure, he had buddies he hung out with, but saying goodbye to them – even temporarily – really didn’t faze him all that much.

  That wasn’t normal, was it? Was he some sort of sociopath who didn’t have any real feelings toward people? Or was it strange how he never developed any kind of attachment to a job or a place? Holy shit, what if something was seriously wrong with him? Did everyone else think this about him? Know this about him? Was he some sort of danger to society?

  “Earth to Sam!”

  Oh, right. He was in the middle of a conversation. Clearing his throat, he decided to get off the topic of himself and on to another awkward one. “Does it bother you that Mom is dating?” he asked his sister.

  She shrugged. “It was a little weird at first, but…I don’t know. This is the happiest I think I’ve ever seen her, and Colton is a really nice guy.”

  Sam couldn’t disagree. “It’s a little annoying how Mom’s got a more active social life than I do.”

  “And whose fault is that?”

  He shook his head and reached for his bottle of water. “This town’s!”

  “Oh, my gosh, are we back to that again? For the love of it, Sam, let it go! You did a lot of stupid things and now you have to prove to everyone that you’ve changed! It’s not a big deal.”

  “Why should I have to?” he argued loudly. “I don’t stand around passing judgment on everyone, so why do they get to do it to me?”

  “Not everyone is…”

  “Oh, please,” he interrupted. “Everyone is so damn uptight around here it’s almost painful.”

  “Not true,” Mallory said with a soft sigh. “You are completely exaggerating and you know it.”

  Leaning forward, elbows on the table, Sam smirked. “Mal, you and I both know that no matter where I go, people give me looks.” When she went to comment, he cut her off. “Old Mrs. Whitman at the grocery store? She always shakes her head and gives me a disapproving look when I go in there.”

  “You stayed out all night with her daughter Penny the summer we were seventeen!”

  “She needs to move on! Penny’s married with three kids!” Shaking his head, he continued. “Then there’s Mr. Jenkins at the bank. I do all my personal and business banking there and he still acts like he doesn’t want to touch my money.”

  “I’m sure you’re imagining that,” she began and then her eyes went wide. “Oh, wait! You dated his daughter that same summer! When Penny was grounded, you took out his daughter! Her name was Jen or Jan or something like that.”

  Groaning, Sam hung his head.

  “So the parents of this town aren’t too fond of you. Some of them have good reason.”

  “It’s not just the parents. That uptight librarian is always looking at me funny too. Like she peers at me over her glasses like she’s disapproving of something.”

  “When do you go to the library?”

  “I don’t!” he cried. “But I take care of the property next to it and whenever she sees me out there, I get the over-the-glasses glare.”

  Mallory studied him for a moment. “Wait. You mean Shelby? You know she’s…”

  “Doesn’t matter.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what her name is. All I know is she’s definitely got some kind of stick up her butt about something.”

  “Sam, Shelby’s our age. Are you sure you didn’t hook up with her and never call her again?”

  “Please, does she even look like my type?”

  “Ugh…you are the worst. You know that, right?” she said with a hint of disgust. “It’s amazing you even remember what some of these girls look like with how quickly you go through them.”

  “Dammit, Mal, it’s not always that! I’m telling you, the people of this town are the worst!”

  He knew his twin well enough to know she was carefully considering her words and mentally counting to ten before she spoke. After a minute, she looked at him serenely. “While I am sure there are some residents here in Magnolia who aren’t particularly nice, I can’t think of one who has gone out of their way to make a spectacle of themselves like you seem to thrive on doing.”

  “I haven’t in a long time!”

  “A long time? Really? Do you realize you’re the reason there is a ‘No Public Urination’ sign next to the church? For crying out loud, Sam, Pastor Steve was devastated that he had to put it there!”

  He didn’t mean to snicker, but…it just sort of slipped out. When Mallory shot him a sour look, he instantly sobered. “Yeah, he’s the worst for sitting and passing judgment and really, he shouldn’t.”

  “Oh, this I’ve got to hear,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “As a pastor, isn’t it his job to preach forgiveness and not judging others? Isn’t that biblical or something?”

  The look she gave him said she agreed with him, but he knew she wouldn’t say it out loud.

  “So he and his secretary…”

  “His wife,” Mallory corrected.

  “Whatever. So he and his wife look at me with those pinched expressions like they’re sucking on lemons or something, and yet he continues to call and ask for estimates on working on the church grounds.” He paused and took a sip of water. “I mean, why? He clearly knows it was me so…is he just trying to bait me into coming to the church so he can yell at me? Condemn me? Pray for me?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “If you were me, would you go there? Knowing how he felt about you?”

  “For starters, I never would have done what you did.”

  Now it was Sam’s turn to roll his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah…you’re perfect. Can we just pretend for a minute? Put yourself in my shoes?”

  “Sam…” she whined.

  “C’mon, Mal. Humor me.”

  She let out a long breath. “Okay, fine. No. I probably would not go there.”

  Her answer pleased him greatly.

  “However…”

  So close…

  “You could send one of your top guys over to talk to Pastor Steve. You wouldn’t have to do it yourself. It could be a good contract for you and good for the business. As a businessman, can you really afford to turn down jobs just because you’re embarrassed by your previous behavior?”

  And that was the thing with Mallory – she had a way of putting things into perspective that made complete sense so he couldn’t argue with it. The work the church needed was fairly extensive. They were going to take down a bunch of trees and create a small park on the church property and wanted Sam to do all the landscaping – including designing the space.

  Apparently, someone had let it be known that Sam had some skills in that department and now they were interested in having him design something custom for them.

  Ugh…why me?

  “I guess I’ll think about it,” he murmured.

  Mallory sat up straighter and smiled. “Excellent!”

  And now he just wanted to move on to another topic. “So what else is going on with you? Anything exciting?”

  “Not really. Wedding plans are at a standstill until we can get the work done here. I’m too afraid to set a date and then risk having the house unfinished.”

  He laughed softly. His sister had a weird obsession with this house ever since they were little kids. It was their great-grandfather’s home and it had been in the family for over a hundred years. While it was nice, he never felt the connection to it that Mallory did. With their mother inheriting it and deciding to turn it into a bed and breakfast, there were a ton of changes it was going through, and she still was mildly obsessed with it. “Your fiancé is the contractor for the entire job, Mal. S
urely he knows when the house will be done.”

  “You would think,” she muttered and instantly cleared her throat and put a smile back on her face. “Jake and the crew aren’t the problem. Mom is.”

  “What?” he asked with a laugh. “How is that possible? She’s been very hands-on with the whole thing and all she does is talk about the work that’s going on and how happy she is!”

  “Sure, she’s happy, but she also keeps changing things! Half the original plans have been scrapped because she’s come up with a better idea. She spends way too much time on Pinterest looking up design ideas and then not understanding why she can’t implement them all. She’s making Jake crazy and she’s frustrating me because it’s always been my dream to get married here. The longer she drags this out, the longer I have to wait!”

  “Maybe that’s her plan,” he teased. “Maybe she’s not really on board with you marrying the boy next door, ever think of that?”

  Mallory’s eyes went wide and she paled. “Do you…I mean…do you think that could be it? I always thought she was okay with me and Jake and our relationship. There was a time when it was a little awkward, but…”

  Instantly, Sam felt bad for teasing her. Reaching out, he placed a reassuring hand on hers. “Mal, relax, I’m just messing with you. Mom adores Jake and we’re all happy for the two of you. Seriously, I was just kidding around.”

  She practically sagged to the floor with relief. “Not funny, Sam!”

  “Come on. It was a little bit funny.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him. “Not even a little bit. And just for that, I should invite Pastor Steve over for dinner to talk to you tonight!”