Spotlight: Love Blooms by Jo McNally

Tonight should be the best night of Lucy Higgins’s life. Tomorrow she’s finally marrying Owen Cooper. She’s been waiting to start a life of wedded bliss, like the happy marriage her parents have. Except…she just learned her parents are divorcing and she’s freaking out. Owen has been so distant lately, shutting her out. Suddenly this big wedding seems like a really bad idea. Packing up her car, Lucy bolts for Rendezvous Falls and finds work at a flower shop while she gets her life together. The last thing she expects is for Owen to show up, wanting her back.

Owen Cooper’s carefully planned out life is ready to begin. He’s home from the military to join the family business and marry the sweet girl who captured his heart…until Lucy runs out on him. That was not part of the plan. Armed with an article that promises to help him win her back, Owen heads to Rendezvous Falls. But from the moment he sees her again, she seems…different. Happier, more confident and at ease. Can he convince this new version of Lucy that he’s become the man she deserves? He might need a little help from the local book club to accomplish this mission.

Excerpt

CHAPTER TWO

Of all the contingencies Owen Cooper had prepared for on his wedding day, having his bride’s best friend hand him a Dear Owen letter at the church was nowhere on the list. Nikki Taggart looked almost pleased with herself when she did it, too. She hadn’t done anything more than give the slightest of crooked half smiles, but he should have known it meant trouble. He should have been at least somewhat prepared for the bombshell he found inside the envelope. After eight years in the Army, bombshell wasn’t a word he used loosely. But at that moment, as he stood there in the church vestibule wearing his tuxedo, boutonniere in place…well, it was hard to imagine even a roadside IED could shake him up more than this.

Lucy had left him. Left. Him. On their goddamn wedding day! He closed his eyes and willed his heart rate to slow. Flying off the handle would accomplish nothing. Every problem had a solution. He’d learned long ago not to complain about anything to his father or grandfather unless he also presented a solution. Same thing in the Army. Never bitch about a plan unless you had a better one. He blew out a long, slow breath, reprocessing the past few weeks to figure out where it all went wrong.

He knew Lucy had been uptight. His dad said all brides became bridezillas as the wedding got closer, so he’d dutifully dismissed Lucy’s heavy sighs and restlessness as just normal bride stuff. She was the one with the max pressure, putting this together with his mom. Lord knew that couldn’t have been easy. Mom could be a real bulldozer when she wanted to have her own way. Which was always.

Sure, he’d been surprised to get home after his discharge to learn that hundreds of people were coming to this thing. Lucy always talked about keeping their wedding small. But she must have agreed to it. If that’s what she wanted, he figured he could handle it for one day. Dad said the wedding was always about the bride anyway. Owen’s role was to show up and smile.

But Lucy kept asking his opinion on stuff. Did he like the flowers? Did he like the menu? Did he like the idea of a pink champagne-flavored cake? It almost felt like a test. One he was destined to fail. He wanted her to pick whatever she wanted. Seemed like the only possible right answer. Lucy hadn’t had the easiest of childhoods, and if she’d decided she wanted this big, fantasy wedding instead of barefoot on a mountaintop, it was fine with him. Him telling her he didn’t care what flavor of cake she picked didn’t mean he didn’t care about her.

She had mentioned more than once in her emails during his final months in Afghanistan that things weren’t her “style,” but she’d ordered all this stuff, so it was too late to change it now. Unless, of course, she just walked away. Away from everyone. Away from him.

One of the things he loved most about Lucy was her free spirit. Her quick laugh and willingness to try some new adventure, from kitesurfing to ziplining. She’d upended his world when they met. She was a sparkling counterbalance to his rigidly controlled life. His sunshine surprise. Unpredictable. But this? For her to just…leave. She was the kindest person he’d ever met, so how could she do this?

Buy on Amazon Kindle | Mass Market Paperback

About the Author

Jo McNally lives in upstate New York with 100 pounds of dog and 200 pounds of husband – her slice of the bed is very small. When she's not writing or reading romance novels (or clinging to the edge of the bed...), she can often be found on the back porch sipping wine with friends, listening to an eclectic playlist. If the weather is perfect, she might join her husband on the golf course, where she always feels far more competitive than her actual skill-level would suggest