"Being dumped by her fiancé is just the beginning of fulfillment for this woman."
Reviewed by Kay Quintin
Posted November 13, 2014
Romance Contemporary
Josephina "Joie" Harrington just blew her future with her
fiancée, in front
of everyone at the tarmac, where the private jet was due
to depart for Paris.
And all she wanted to do was get the sizzle back. She has
spent her time
orchestrating a Manhattan social front to ensure that
Wilson's career-making
moment went off without a hitch. Now after she and her
little pink lace
panties have embarrassed him, he has dumped her, deciding
to do it now
rather than after they were in Paris where her parents
were there for support
as planned. Crushed, this little socialite takes a detour
and heads for Sugar,
Georgia where she has inherited an historical piece of
property from her
deceased Aunt Letty, the only person who truly understood
her and promised
her she'd find her wings some day and fly.
PGA Masters golfer Brett McGraw is Sugar's hero. His
brothers Cal and Jace
are also loved by all, possessing a special admiration in
the community,
especially sexually for all the women. Caught with his
derriere captured in
print along with a naked heiress, it's time to down play
his popularity and
head home to keep low for a couple of months until the
FedEx Cup.
All hell
breaks loose when Brett is again acquainted with his
childhood friend Josie
and his feisty grandma Hattie, who raised the McGraw boys
after their parents'
deaths, and her co-horts get involved. Never able to keep
their noses out of
everybody's business, the gun totting and extremely pushy
Sunday School
Mafia (Sugar ladies Baptist Choir) uses their devious
wiles to attempt driving
Joie from renovating the Fairchild House and restoring her
childhood dreams
in honor of her Aunt.
The community is all competing to raise the most
money for a new children's wing at the local hospital and
Joie tries to help.
However, Joie will not get involved with a famous
womanizer and this
womanizer changes his stripes as he gets totally involved
with the child-
turned-adult. Two people desiring different views of life
just isn't going to
work and Joie stands to lose her dream when she learns of
Brett's deception
for this balls-to-the-wall girl who can't trust a man that
doesn't believe in
her.
This Sugar, Georgia novel is a fascinating
read. Once I picked up SUGAR'S TWICE AS SWEET
I was hooked! Joie creates more havoc than a clown and is
such a beautiful
and caring woman. I loved the escapades she innocently
finds herself in at
every turn. . Believe me, this will keep your mind
working to keep up with all
the mishaps this girl can get into.
SUGAR'S TWICE AS SWEET is the first in this series. .
Marina Adair always
fills me with pleasure when I read her works.
SUMMARY
He's trouble she doesn't need . . . Thanks to a cheating fiancé, Josephina Harrington's
perfect
life just crashed and burned. Moving in with her
overbearing
parents is definitely not an option. No, she needs to
prove
she can make it on her own. And she will-by turning her
great-aunt's old plantation house into a destination
getaway. She's just not expecting her contractor to be so
hands-on-and so totally irresistible. . . . but everything she wants Bad-boy golf champion Brett McGraw figured his hometown
of
Sugar, Georgia was the perfect place to lay low and get
his
life back up to par. The leggy blonde with a pint-sized
pup
is the kind of sweet 'n sassy trouble he never saw
coming.
She doesn't know a nut from a bolt and before long, he's
renovating her house . . . as she steals his heart. Can
he
convince Josephina that his womanizing ways are in the
past
and he's ready for forever?
ExcerptIt was official. Brett was exhausted. A little under two
weeks back in Sugar and he’d already dredged the lake,
helped out the local Booster Club with their yearly jog-
athon, gotten the first set of campers settled, and
agreed to play a friendly round of golf with the mayor—
and local press.He was in desperate need of some time on the course—
alone, which was where he’d been coming from when he ran
across— “What the hell?” Brett swerved, narrowly missing a golfer
decked out in cultured couture, stomping down the middle
of the road. He pulled over to the shoulder of Brett
McGraw Highway—which, in Sugar, was nothing more than two
narrow lanes, one going in each direction, through the
middle of a cattle pasture edged with oak trees and
barbed wire—and rolled down his window “Must have been some drive,” he said, leaning out the
window and watching her approach. “The nearest hole is
about eight miles back that way.” He’d walked this same road more times than he cared to
count as a kid, dragging a worn-out set of clubs, looking
for an escape. The leggy blonde, tugging what looked to be—a bunny on a
leash?—stormed past his truck without sparing him a
glance as the set of golf clubs, slung across her back
like a samurai sword, nearly took out his side mirror.
She wore some kind of skirt, silky and uptight and still
somehow managing to hug every curve. Exposing a damn near
perfect set of never-ending legs that balanced on the
most ridiculous pair of heels he’d ever seen, which for
some reason turned him on. Wait, did that trailing dust mop just bark? Yup. Under
the pink bows was a dog that seemed about as friendly as
its owner. “Afternoon.” Even though Golfer Barbie was clearly working to ignore
Brett, he was a good ole boy and a gentleman, and would
never pass a woman in distress. He pulled alongside her.
She was weighted down by a bag of clubs, a couple of
wheelie suitcases, and a dog with rat-sized legs. Those
shoes weren’t helping but they sure made her world-class
ass sway in a manner that made his day suddenly seem less
shitty. “Ma’am?” She stopped, her blue eyes narrowed into what had to be
the best screw-you look he’d ever seen. The soft planes
of her face folded into a scowl, pursing her lips out in
offense. The dog growled. “Ma’am?” she repeated. Aw, she was a Yankee—her polished subtle accent giving
her away—and obviously offended by his southern manners.
The starched top, accessory on a leash, and stick-up-her-
ass attitude told him probably Upper East Side. Not that
he’d spent a lot of time in New York, although he had
been with enough bored socialites looking for their wild
round with the PGA bad boy to spot one of her kind. One arm on the wheel, the other hanging out the window,
Brett asked, “You need a hand?” She crossed her arms, pulling the leash taut and cutting
the yip off mid-yap, and opened her mouth to speak. Her
eyes darted to the bed of his truck and then did an
exaggerated roll before narrowing to two pissed-off
slits. “Nope,” was all she said, and continued to head due
north. The word was thrown over her shoulder and sounded
an awful lot like the four-letter kind. Brett looked back to see what had taken her from pissed
off to hostile. All he saw was his bag of golf clubs. “Sugar,” he hollered. Since ma’am had set her off, he was
hoping sugar wouldn’t make her snap. “You can walk for
five miles in any direction and you’re going to end up
nowhere. And there’s nothing that way but Sugar Lake and
an old boardinghouse.” “Good. Since that’s where I’m headed,” she enunciated
slowly, and if Brett hadn’t been so busy checking out her
swing, he would have noticed she was mocking him. Easing off the pedal again, he followed the sound of her
heels smacking the asphalt, which was loud enough to be
heard over his diesel. It had been a while since he’d had
to chase a woman. And for the first time since he’d come
back to Sugar, Brett found himself smiling. He was
actually enjoying himself. And if that wasn’t a testament
to just how crappy his life had gotten, he didn’t know
what was. “Well, how about that? Me, too. So, why don’t you hop in
and I can give you a lift?” “My aunt told me never to trust a balding man.” “Balding?” She spared him a very brief and very annoyed glance,
jerking her chin toward his Stetson. “Men wear it to hide
their lack of hair.” “My hat?” He hit the brakes. The dog bared its teeth.
“It’s a southern thing.”
.
“Uh-huh.” She kept walking. Brett grinned. He suspected she would rather walk back to
New York in those shoes than admit she needed help.
“Well, I’m never one to push a lady but I am a southern
gentleman and I’d hate for anything to happen to you out
here on the open road. So I’ll just drive along here
beside you with my air-conditioning on high, maybe
sipping from this ice-cold bottle of soda, just to make
sure you get to where it is you’re going. Okay?” Her shoulders sank a little and she stopped. Raising a
hand to shield her eyes, she took in the long stretch of
pavement that cut through endless miles of sun-dried
hills, which housed enough snakes and armadillos to make
even the toughest cowgirl balk, only to disappear into
the horizon. Her shoulders slumped a little more and . .
. shit . . . she was gonna cry, he could sense it. He was about to say he’d call Lavender Spenser, who owned
the only tow truck in town, to check out the car he had
seen a few miles back, then disappear before the
waterworks started, when she spun around. And that was
not the look of a woman on the verge. Instead she glared at his truck and, dragging what
appeared to be her life, stepped closer to take a peek
inside. She placed her hands on the door and gave his rig
an aggressive shove, smiling when it didn’t budge. Then it was his turn for inspection. She gave him a
thorough once-over that was so clinical and suspicious
Brett was sure it was meant to make him squirm. It did,
but not in the way she intended. Because the harder she
looked, the higher up that pert little nose went, the
more pronounced her delicate cheekbones became, and the
farther she stuck out that full, glossy lower lip of hers
—and the harder he got. “You a rapist?” “Nope.” He hadn’t considered how he must look to her in lived-in
jeans, worn-out shitkickers, and a John Deere–embroidered
polo that had seen better days. He had skipped shaving
this morning—actually he’d skipped it yesterday, too—and
his hair, in desperate need of a trim, was curling out
from beneath his hat. The look screamed uneducated hick,
but he’d been trying to get in a few holes without being
recognized. Not that it had worked. The beer cart girl, Lindsey—or
was it Lena—gave him a cold long neck and tried for a hot
kiss, scribbling her number on his scorecard when she
failed. He’d just finished his hole, a birdie no less, when
people started gathering around, wanting to talk about
the season, get tips on their swing, play a round with
him. So he’d packed up, resigning himself to heading back
toward the ranch, and maybe having a slice of Grandma
Hattie’s peach pie. Opening the truck door, he stepped out of the cab, around
Mrs. Madison Avenue, and her little dog, too, stretching
his cramped muscles and flexing a bit in case she decided
to look his way. She didn’t. She was back to inspecting
the truck. He reached out his hand. “Name’s Brett McGraw.” When she just looked at his outstretched offering as
though it was a snake about to bite, he stuffed it in his
pocket and leaned back against his rig, which was
conveniently parked next to a highway sign boasting his
name. Crossing his ankles, he gifted her with his cover-
of-Sports-Illustrated grin—and waited. It didn’t take long. Her eyes went wide with recognition.
Two cute pink spots appeared on her cheeks and she
gasped. In just about three seconds, she was going to be
batting those lashes in his direction, telling him how
sorry she was for treating him like he was some kind of
perv, and asking—no, begging—him for a ride. And not just
in his truck. At least that’s what his lower half was
hoping. His upper half was telling him to get back in the
cab and get the hell out of there. “Ohmigod.” Her hand, the one holding the leash, came up
to flutter in front of her stunned, dangling jaw. In the
process, she yanked the little rat, which had its leg
poised to piss all over his truck, out of firing
distance. “Oh. My. God.” And here it comes . . . “You’re that tractor salesman?” “Excuse me?” Brett blinked. Then choked a little,
remembering the ad he had done a few years back for John
Deere. Holy shit. She had no idea who he was. Meaning she had
zero expectations. The notion made the hollow pit in
Brett’s chest, the one that he’d been carrying around for
over a decade, fade a little. “I’m right, right?” She looked back at his truck, two
tons of steel testosterone with enough power to haul
whatever the hell he wanted to haul. “You’re the cowboy
from that television commercial who sings that song while
the cow pulls him around.” “Something like that,” Brett said, picking up one of her
suitcases and dropping it in the bed of his truck. She
was the first person all day who hadn’t wanted anything
from him, which was probably why he was set on helping
her. Finished with her suitcases, he reached for her bag
of clubs, the back of his hand grazing the curve of her
neck where the strap rested. God, she was soft. She smelled like a lingerie store and
some kind of flower. All he could think of when he looked
at her was sex. She seemed to know exactly what he was
thinking, because she shifted those two pissed-off slits
back in his direction. “What are you doing?” She clutched the bag to her chest. “Being neighborly.” He waited for her to let go. All he got was silence. Uneasy, mistrust-filled silence. “Good lord, Yankee, you are the most suspicious person
I’ve ever met.” “Says the man in the creepy truck offering women rides.
And who said I wasn’t local?” “Your accent. New York by the sound of it.” He looked at
her outfit and raised a brow. “A Madison Avenue address?” She scowled. Bingo. “And it’s not creepy, it’s called
being a gentleman.” Although, when she crossed her arms, accentuating the
generous swell of her breasts, the last thing he felt was
gentlemanly. “Now, how about you let me get on with my southern
manners and load up your things?” He gave a tug, surprised when she tugged back. Even more
surprised at his reaction to getting her all riled up.
And she was plenty riled. Why he enjoyed irritating her,
he couldn’t say. But when those eyes flashed his way,
shooting off attitude and irritation, all of the bullshit
in his life seemed kind of stupid. Letting her win this battle, he let go of the bag and
watched her stagger a little under the added weight
before walking around the truck to open the passenger
door. “You coming? Or do I need to call the sheriff and
tell him some crazy lady and her ferret are loitering on
my property?” She hitched the golf bag higher in her arms, a nine-iron
shifting up and out a little as if the bag was flipping
him the middle finger. She looked around the miles of
rolling hills and highway. “I’m on a public highway.” “No, ma’am,” he drawled, playing the part of the
hillbilly. “This here is all McGraw land. Sign right there says so.
And that means you and Toto are trespassing.” Rooted in the middle of the highway, reluctance and
exhaustion playing across her face, she looked lost. Lost
and sad and maybe a bit scared. He hadn’t noticed before,
but under all that sass and primping was someone trying
to hold it together. Brett stepped back around the truck, stopping in front of
her and softening his voice. “Look, it’s hot out and will
be dark soon. If that Bentley sitting in the middle of
the field back there was yours, you’ve already walked a
good couple of miles.” He looked at her shoes. “Which I’m
betting seemed like a lot more. At least let me give you
a ride back to your car. I can drop you off somewhere or
go into town and get some gas and help you get her
running again.” “She’s not out of gas,” she pointed out, as if he’d just
offended her entire sex. “My cheating bastard of an ex
decided to report his car stolen. It has one of those
antitheft thingies. It just stopped working.” Which would explain the shrieking horn and flashing
lights. “How did it get in the field?” “The alarm gave me a warning and I was driving kind of
fast. Figured if he was going to screw with me he could
search for it.” “It’s probably got a GPS. They’ll find it pretty easy.” “I was hoping for a pond. A deep one. Full of scum.” She
shrugged, her top shifting in the process and exposing a
very lacy, very pink bra strap, making him more than
aware of how tight his jeans suddenly seemed. Because,
well, he was a guy, and he’d been without a woman a lot
longer than most people knew. “I didn’t find one.” “Lucky him.” Brett smiled, thinking about that strap and
wondering if it matched her panties. “Lucky him, I didn’t drive it through the lobby of his
career-making moment.” Her hands made aggressive air
quotes around the last three words, adding, “And it’s
bulletproof,” with more air quotes, as if that would
explain away everything. That was his cue to walk. He didn’t do complicated.
Because complicated usually came with expectations. And
this woman had more expectations than her wheelie
suitcase could possibly hold. Plus she was kind of crazy.
Sexy as hell. But crazy nonetheless. Brett could almost hear Cal’s voice, not to mention the
one inside his own head, reminding him how pink lace
hadn’t panned out so well for him in the past. And it was
obvious that this woman and her pink lace were nothing
but trouble. But Brett didn’t get to where he was in life
by playing it safe, not when trouble was so much more
fun. Which was why he was determined to get her into his
truck. “If you want you can call the sheriff. His name is
Jackson Duncan and he can give me the Sugar stamp of
approval.” “All right,” she conceded, desperation—and possibly her
shoes—winning out. She balanced the golf bag between her feet and reached
into her purse. Hands fluttering through all eighty-seven
pockets, they finally pulled out a cell. Pink. She
punched in some keys and waited, her face going blank
after about fifteen seconds. She stared at it, punching
harder and tried again. “Rat bastard!” She pulled the phone back, wound up, and let her fly.
They watched the pink metal glisten in the sun before
shrinking into the horizon to finally disappear. “Nice arm.” Ignoring his comment, her eyes went to his truck again. “How tough is your truck?” “Chevy tough.” “Uh-huh.” She gave his tire a swift kick. Not impressed. “Tough enough to withstand a head-on with a Bentley?” “It’s American.” He meant it as a testament to how badass
his truck was. But she mumbled something that sounded
vaguely like “figures.” “You promise to take me to my car so I can get the rest
of my things—” “There’s more?” “And get me to where I’m going, untouched?” “Yes, ma’am.” She still didn’t look convinced, which made her a lot
smarter than he was. This trip home was about lying low,
playing it safe. Not picking up designer women with
purse-sized pets. Sighing, he ushered her toward the
passenger door, her fuzzy companion letting loose sounds
that were about as intimidating as a Christmas carol. He
reached around to help her inside, but paused, content to
watch her struggle with her dog, purse, and bag of clubs.
Finally realizing that they wouldn’t all fit, she thrust
her clubs in his face and went back to tending to the
dog. “Listen, Barbie, Toto here isn’t going to pee in my
truck, is she?” “My name is Josephina. This is Boo. And she is male,
which means he’s predisposed to making public statements
whenever he feels his masculinity threatened.” She eyed his truck again and smiled. Brett looked down at the tiny dog covered in white fluff
that was teased, sculpted, and pinned back with a pink
bow. Two wet black eyes looked up at him and Brett
actually pitied the fuzzball. Until it leaped over the
center console, made himself at home in Brett’s seat, and
started gnawing on the steering wheel. His mistress, on the other hand, climbed into the
passenger seat, while Brett took a minute to admire the
view before hoisting her clubs to toss them into the
back. “Wait,” she said, grabbing at the strap. “It won’t fit. Besides, already got my own set, Jo. Nicer
than,” he looked at the label and mumbled, “those Stone
clubs.” “Josephina,” she corrected. “And how do I know those
aren’t from your last victim?” “Same way I don’t know if you used those clubs to
emasculate Rat Bastard.” She nibbled her lower lip for a long minute and then let
go of the bag. But not before she snagged one first—a
nine-iron. “Good girl. Now promise me you don’t have him locked in
that trunk of yours.” This time she smiled—and man, what a smile. Who knew that
a smiling blonde wielding golf clubs could mess with his
mind like that? Clearing his throat, he tossed her bag, sans the nine-
iron, in the back and climbed behind the wheel, looking
to see if he managed to crush her dog in the process. No
such luck. Boo sat happily on her lap, tail wagging as she stroked
his head. Lucky dog. “What’s that for?” Brett nodded to the nine-iron,
clenched in her hand like a billy club. “We already
established you know of my commercials and I have the
sheriff’s support.” “I never got to call, remember? Plus, you’re male, which
means 50 percent of what comes out of your mouth is a
lie. I’m not taking any chances.”
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