Anxious in Atlanta: At the Altar Book 12 (A Magnolias and Moonshine Novella 11)
Anxious in Atlanta
At the Altar Book 12
Kirsten Osbourne
Unlimited Dreams
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Excerpt From Now On
Chapter 1
Afterword
About the Author
Anxious in Atlanta
Book 12 in At the Altar
Book 11 in Magnolias and Moonshine
Copyright © 2017 Kirsten Osbourne
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold 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 return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Introduction
Welcome to the Magnolias and Moonshine series, where you’ll fall in love with the South.
Twenty New York Times, USA Today, and Amazon bestselling authors joined together to bring you a taste of Southern charm in this brand-new Magnolias & Moonshine series.
There is something for everyone with these ten sweet and ten sizzle contemporary romance novellas. You’ll enjoy stories with cowboys, weddings, county fairs, lovers reunited, and much more.
Step into the world of the South and hear the cicadas, taste the mint juleps, see the stars, and smell the magnolias.
Authors in novella release order:
Ciara Knight (Sweet)
Hildie McQueen (Sizzle)
Beth Williamson (Sizzle)
Susan Hatler (Sweet)
Lindi Peterson (Sweet)
Kymber Morgan (Sizzle)
Amanda McIntyre (Sizzle)
Lucy McConnell (Sweet)
Sharon Hamilton (Sizzle)
Lisa Kessler (Sizzle)
Kirsten Osbourne (Sweet)
Susan Carlisle (Sizzle)
Tina DeSalvo (Sizzle)
Raine English (Sweet)
Amelia C. Adams (Sweet)
E. E. Burke (Sizzle)
Melinda Curtis (Sweet)
Merry Farmer (Sizzle)
Shanna Hatfield (Sweet)
Jennifer Peel (Sweet)
This book is dedicated to my sweet friend, Jean Stewart. Someday I really am going to make it across the Atlantic to meet you in person!
Chapter One
Jean Winters stood silently as she watched her best friend, Erin Krol, marry a total stranger. She admired her for not shaking and actually being able to speak her vows without crumpling onto the floor.
Erin had called just a few months before, telling her that she was planning on being matched to a stranger. Jean remembered the conversation well.
As soon as she’d answered the phone, Erin’s excitement had been almost palpable. “Jean, I’m going to do it. I’m getting married!”
“Really? I didn’t even know you were dating someone. Who are you marrying?” For a moment she’d been hurt that her friend had been dating someone and hadn’t even told her about it.
“That’s the thing. I have no idea. None. A man. That’s all I know!” Erin had sounded amused by the whole thing.
“How can you marry a stranger?” Jean pushed away from her desk and walked to the water cooler. There was no way she could work and concentrate on this conversation.
“I was surfing the internet the other day, because I was avoiding grading speeches, and I found this website where you go through all this testing to find the perfect match for you. And get this…they introduce you at the altar.”
“That sounds…scary. Are you really going to do it?”
“I already went through all my testing, and it’s happening. Just waiting to be told when to show up at the church and marry him.”
Jean paused for a moment, thinking about how nice it would be to just be matched to someone and not have to go through all the rituals of dating. She was shy and had trouble with the entire dating process. But Erin was outgoing and fun. She’d never had problems getting a date. “Have you lost your ever-loving mind? That sounds like something I should do, but not you! Why?”
Erin had sighed. “I can’t just start dating someone after Randall. When he died, he took a hunk of my heart with him. I can’t imagine ever loving someone else, but I want children…”
Jean leaned against a window, looking out over the skyline of downtown Atlanta. This was the prettiest time of day in Georgia. Sunset always made her happy. “What’s the name of the company?”
“Are you going to give them a call? I think you should. Dr. Lachele comes highly recommended. My sister knows several couples she matched.”
“I might call them. But only if you decide to give me the name of the company…”
Erin laughed. “I’m so excited I keep forgetting to answer your question!”
“And you still haven’t.” Jean and Erin had been roommates all through college and adored each other. Erin wasn’t usually quite this flighty.
“Matchrimony. Don’t you just love that name? It has a great ring to it.”
“It does.” Jean glanced at the clock on the wall. As a stockbroker, her whole life was based on the clock. After hours trading had just finished, and she had several phone calls to make yet. Twelve hour days were the norm, not the exception for her. And tax season, her busiest time of year, wasn’t for a few months. “I have to get back to work.”
Erin sighed. “You need to stop working so many hours. I want you to take a six-month sabbatical.”
Jean laughed softly. “Like that will ever happen.”
“But you’ll fly up for my wedding, right?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” After ending the call, she’d wandered back to her desk and sighed. Looking up Matchrimony would have to wait. She hadn’t heard of them, so they must not be a publicly traded company.
Jean shook her head slightly, realizing only then that she was ignoring her friend’s wedding. She watched as Erin and her new husband, whose name Jean hadn’t caught, kissed for the first time. When Erin turned, she had a huge grin on her face. The newlyweds took off for the back of the church, and Jean smiled at Megan, Erin’s sister who was standing up with her as well. “Looks like Erin is pleased.”
Megan nodded. “It does. I wonder what has her so excited.”
Jean shrugged. “No clue. He’s handsome.”
“He is.” Megan sighed and rubbed her belly. “Maybe we’ll have babies close together.”
“Wouldn’t that be great? I hope it works out that way. Maybe I can have one soon after. Dr. Lachele and I are driving to Culpepper to see you tomorrow. We’ve heard so much about Bob’s Burger Barn that we have to drive out and eat there at least once.”
“Is she going to do your evaluation in the car?”
“She said she could. We’ll be working on it during lunch as well, I’m sure, but we’ll at least get started on the way there.”
“What time are you coming? I can have lunch with you.” Megan and Jean had been friends for almost as long as Erin and Jean had. The Krol family had accepted her as one of their own.
Jean had been raised in foster care, bouncing
from one home to another. She had no family of her own, so it was good to be accepted for a change. “I’d love that. I think we’ll be there around noon. Does that work for you?”
“Sounds great. I’ll warn Bob to have some fried cheese curds ready.”
“Fried, what?”
“Trust me. You haven’t lived until you’ve eaten one of Bob’s taco burgers with some fried cheese curds.”
Jean smiled. “Sounds like you’re happy you married your burger-maker.”
“I couldn’t be happier.” Megan started toward the back of the church and the fellowship hall, where a small reception would take place. “Mom and Dad are freaking out about Erin’s choice, but I keep reminding them that it’s exactly that—Erin’s choice. She’s a big girl now, and she gets to make her own decisions.”
“She should feel blessed to have someone care about her so much.” Jean had lived in Atlanta since graduation, so five years, and she had only made a few friends, who were really just work acquaintances. She was alone when she wasn’t working, and while it suited her at times, it didn’t always. She flew back to Wyoming on every vacation she had, because she wanted to spend time with people she cared about.
Megan hurried off, mumbling something about the baby tap dancing on her bladder, so Jean went on to the fellowship hall alone. Even without Erin or Megan, she knew the Krols, and they wouldn’t let her stand around alone looking lost, which was her specialty at big events. She’d also met Dr. Lachele from Matchrimony, though she wasn’t sure how much good that would do her. Dr. Lachele was…well, “odd” was the word that sprang to her mind.
The older woman was short with purple hair and the most beautiful green eyes Jean had ever seen. She was full of life, laughing at her own jokes, and demanding “boobie bumps” from everyone who saw her. She was definitely an odd bird.
She stood alone at the edge of the room for a moment, scanning the crowd for someone she knew. Surely Erin had invited other college friends, and she would know them. Erin had very kindly included her awkward roommate in absolutely everything she did during her college years, determined that Jean wouldn’t sit in their room alone studying all the time.
“Trying to avoid me?” asked a voice close to her ear.
Jean jumped, startled, as she turned to confront the person. Dr. Lachele. She should have known. “Of course not.”
Dr. Lachele threw back her head and cackled. Her laugh couldn’t really be described any other way. “You don’t think I can see the panic in your eyes when you think about spending all day tomorrow alone with me? I promise, I’ll make it as painless as I possibly can. I won’t make you talk to strangers or even break dance on the highway.”
Jean blinked at the purple-haired woman. “I never thought you would.”
Dr. Lachele laughed again. “What do you do for a living, Jean? Maybe we can ask a few ‘getting to know you’ questions as we wait for this party to get started.”
“I’m a stockbroker.”
“Sounds hideously boring. Do you like it?”
Jean thought about that for a moment. Did she like her job? It was the only thing she’d done since receiving her degree in finance, and she was very good at it, but did she like it? “No, I don’t think I do. But it pays well, and I’m good at it.”
“What would you rather do?” Dr. Lachele asked.
Jean hadn’t expected the question, and she furrowed her brow as she thought about it. “I really don’t know. It might be nice to own a little bookstore and do nothing but read and help customers find books all day.” She shook her head with a laugh. “It would never work for me, though. I’m terrible at that sort of thing.”
“How do you know? Have you ever done it?”
Jean frowned. “Well, I’m pretty much afraid of people. How could I possibly own a store and make it profitable if I’m afraid of people?”
“And you don’t have to talk to people in the work you do now?”
Jean shrugged. “That’s different. I get paid to talk to them now. It’s my job.”
“And it would be then too!” Dr. Lachele sighed. “I hate looking at a young woman, knowing she goes to a job she detests every day. It doesn’t seem right.”
“I never really thought about whether I liked it or not. I just knew it’s what I had to do to pay the bills, so I did it. Isn’t that the American way? You do whatever it takes to pay the bills, and crush all your dreams under your heel?”
Dr. Lachele shook her head. “I do exactly what I love. I don’t care if other people don’t like me. I live life as I please. I wish you’d do the same.”
Jean gave her a sad sort of smile. “I don’t see that happening any time in the near future. Maybe someday.”
“I’m going to keep encouraging your dreams, Jean. You deserve to have them just as much as everyone else does.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” They were interrupted as the newlyweds came into the room, and Jean looked at Erin closely. Her friend had obviously been very thoroughly kissed since the last time she saw her. Maybe Dr. Lachele knew what she was doing after all.
Jean expected no more from life than simply existing, and that’s all she’d ever done. Dreams were for children. They were always crushed. No, she wasn’t going to even think about who her new husband would be after Dr. Lachele matched her up. What was the point? She was bound to be disappointed.
Dillon Jeffries stared at his Uncle Larry’s lawyer, shocked to the core. “Are you kidding me?” Dillon’s great-uncle had raised him after his parents died when he was an infant. The man had never married, always seeming content to run his business and make money. Loads and loads of money.
“I’m afraid not,” John DaMommio told him. “He was very specific in what he wanted. He said that he doesn’t want you to get into the kind of rut he was in, and you need to live your life.”
“So he’s forcing me to marry?”
“That seemed to be his answer. He wanted you to have children to leave your business to. He claimed you’re the grandson he never had, but he wished he’d made better choices in his youth. So he decided to force you to make the choices he thought were better.”
Dillon folded his arms on the table in front of him, leaning forward. “What’s to stop me from marrying the first random stranger I meet and just staying married for long enough to fulfill the terms of his stupid will?”
The lawyer sighed. “He told me you’d ask that. I’m supposed to make periodic checks on your marriage. Every month for the first year. After that, every three months. If you divorce within five years of marriage, you forfeit the entire sum of money. You keep the house regardless.”
“Like I could afford the upkeep on the house if I didn’t have the money.” He pushed away from the conference table and paced back and forth. “And I have how long to marry?” The old man must have lost his mind before writing that will. While there had never been a lot of warmth between them, he’d loved his great-uncle, and he’d believed the man loved him—as much as he was capable of loving.
“Three months from the date the will is read.”
Dillon groaned, flopping back down in his chair. “I’m not even seeing anyone right now. How am I supposed to find a girl to marry me in three months? Are you sure there are no loopholes? Nothing I can do to get out of it?”
“You can forgo the money.”
Dillon sighed. Billions. He could forgo billions of dollars to assert his independence, or he could go find some woman desperate enough to marry a man she barely knew. “I guess I’m getting married.”
“I’m sorry. I told your uncle you wouldn’t be pleased with this.”
“What happens to the money if I don’t marry?”
“If you don’t marry, the entire amount goes to homeless shelters across the nation. As it stands, a quarter of the money goes to shelters.”
“So do you need to be invited to the wedding, or can I just show you the marriage certificate?”
Mr. DaMommio smiled. “I’m afraid I
need to be there every step of the way.”
Dillon got back to his feet. He wanted the money. He wasn’t greedy, and he didn’t have a lavish lifestyle, but he’d started his own business. It was glorified house-flipping. He bought up old mansions and restored them to their former glory, and then sold them. With more money, he could hire a crew for some of the work, and he could be the one overseeing it. He had a vision for what he wanted to happen, and the money was needed to make that vision a reality.
“I’ll be in touch. Thank you for your time.” Dillon left the room, determined to take a walk. That was his answer to anything that upset him. He walked.
He found the nearest park and sat on a park bench, ignoring the cold wind blowing at him. He may live in Atlanta, Georgia, but even Atlanta’s winters were cold. Late January had never looked so bleak. He’d lost the only father he’d ever known, and now he was being asked to comply with the ridiculous terms of this will.
He needed to find someone who would just set him up with a woman to marry. He didn’t want to have to mess with any singles websites. The idea of hooking up with a random stranger was appalling, but so was the idea of having to weed through women. How was he going to convince someone to marry him in three months?
The obvious answer was to tell her that he’d be rich if she married him, but how would he ever know if she married him for him, or for his money?
No, there had to be a better way. And he would find it.
Chapter Two
Dillon was replacing the tile in one of the bathrooms of his newest project when his cell phone rang. He sat back on his knees and dug the phone out of the pocket of his jeans. He didn’t bother to look at who was calling. “Hello?”
“Dillon, this is Dr. Lachele. I’ve found someone for you.”