First Chapter: Sand Dollar Lane by Sheila Roberts

Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.

Sand Dollar Lane first chapter

SAND DOLLAR LANE

BY SHEILA ROBERTS

Sand Dollar Lane

Title: SAND DOLLAR LANE (Moonlight Harbor Series Book 6)
Author: Sheila Roberts
Publisher: Harlequin / Mira
Genre: Women’s Fiction / Romance

BOOK BLURB:

Brody Green is finding it hard to recover after being dumped by his fiancée, Jenna Jones, then watching her walk down the aisle with someone else. Jenna is determined to make up for her love defection and find him the perfect woman, but Brody is done with love. First a divorce, then a broken engagement. From now on he’s keeping things light, no commitments. Luckily Brody’s business is booming. Beach Dreams Realty is the best real estate company in town. And the only one. Until…

Lucy Holmes needs a new start. In business, in love, in…everything. If ever there was a cliché, it was her life back in Seattle. She was a real estate broker working with her husband until she caught him trying out the walk-in shower in a luxury condo—with another agent. She’s always been the more successful of the two, and with him gone, she’s determined to build a business even bigger than what she had. Moonlight Harbor is a charming town and it has only one real estate agency. Surely there’s room for a little competition.

Or not. Looks like it’s going to be a hot market in Moonlight Harbor. And maybe these two competitors will make some heat of their own.

“Lighthearted and full of colorful, quirky characters and surf-side warmth… Roberts’s picturesque coastal world is sheer delight and will appeal to romance and women’s fiction fans alike.” —Library Journal

Book Information

Release Date: April 26, 2022

Publisher: Harlequin/MIra

Soft Cover: ISBN: 978-0778386353; 368 pages; $9.99; E-Book, $7.99

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3sfzSoa

~ Chapter 1 ~

To be or not to be? That was not the question when your perfect woman decided she was perfect for someone else. The question was, how the @!*!!! did this happen? How had Brody Green gone from being engaged to Jenna Jones to getting dumped by her? How had he gone from saving the Driftwood Inn for her to seeing her honeymoon there with his archrival, Seth Waters? The rival Brody had beaten.

Or so he’d thought. One minute he was engaged to the prettiest, smartest, pluckiest woman in all of Moonlight Harbor and the next he was at her wedding, pretending to be a good sport. Something had gone very, very wrong.

Unlike his first marriage he hadn’t seen the great dumping coming. Yes, he’d looked like a villain for a short time, but he’d known that once Jenna learned the truth and he’d proved himself to be a hero, all would be well once more.

By all rights they should have gotten married, then walked off into the sunset together, hand in hand—her, barefoot in a flowing wedding gown, him all duded up in a tux. They’d have sipped champagne on the beach, maybe even made love on a blanket. He’d have whisked her off to Tahiti for a honeymoon to remember.

Instead, she’d chosen that glorified handyman, who hadn’t been able to take her any farther than the Driftwood Inn for their honeymoon. Some honeymoon. Some marriage.

Except Jenna was ecstatically happy.

Okay, Brody wanted her to be happy. He was happy for her. He just wasn’t so happy for himself. What they’d had was the perfect relationship. What they had now was all whacked out and wrong.

As far as Jenna was concerned, they were still best buds. He didn’t want to be best buds. He wanted to go back in time to when they were in love.

Except maybe only one of them had really been in love. Not hard to figure out which one that had been.

Friends. Meh. But that was all he had now, all he was ever going to get. And he had to be good with it. If Jenna was happy, then he should be happy. Right?

Still, it was hard not to feel the sting of unrequited love, to act like all was well when they met at chamber of commerce meetings. Kind of like asking a zombie not to walk funny, look vacant and dopey, and drool blood. If they were characters in a book, he’d climb right off the page and slap the idiot writer who hadn’t kept them together.

Once he’d been Moonlight Harbor’s most eligible bachelor. Now he felt like Moonlight Harbor’s biggest loser. He had no interest in dating and he hated the feeling of sadness that settled over him every time he saw Jenna. So, of course, he tried to see her as little as possible.

But then he’d wonder where she was and what she was doing. (Except at night. He didn’t want to think about where she was and what she was doing then because he knew exactly where she was, what she was doing and who she was doing it with.)

He couldn’t completely avoid her. When he wasn’t running into her at Beachside Grocery, he had to see her at the chamber of commerce luncheons. They’d both worked together on the last Seaside with Santa festival and that had left him with a real bah-humbug attitude toward Christmas that he found hard to shake, even when his kids came down to celebrate New Year’s at the beach.

After the kids left he’d stuffed himself with chips, and binged on Bourne movies. He’d found it temporarily consoling that even Jason Bourne couldn’t hang on to a woman. That proved it. Heroes walked alone.

He was no hero though, and walking alone sucked. Nobody cared if you stubbed your toe or ate too much crap. Or that your life was crap. The only thing good about the New Year was that the old one was over.

With such happy thoughts he made his way to the chamber of commerce’s January meeting. New year, new beginnings, better attitude. Who cared about Jenna Jones?

He did. There she came, entering the banquet room of Sandy’s restaurant in a black jacket over a long red sweater and skin-hugging black tights. Jenna Jones had great legs.

Jenna Jones had great everything. He frowned at the sight of her.

She saw him and smiled, and he forced the corners of his lips up. “Happy New Year,” he greeted her.

“Happy New Year to you, too,” she said. “Did your kids come down?”

“Yeah. We had a good time.” He’d have had a better time if Jenna had been with him. “So, did you make any New Year’s resolutions?”

“Yes, to find you the perfect woman.”

I already did. He didn’t say it. What would be the point?

“You’re still the catch of the day around here, you know,” she said.

“Yeah?”

Did he sound bitter? It was so hard to be a good sport when you should have won the game. Except it hadn’t been a game.

She shook her head at him, making the silvery earrings dangling from her ears dance. He didn’t remember seeing those before. Had Waters given them to her for Christmas?

“You know you are,” she said.

“Yes, I am,” he agreed. Which showed remarkably poor taste on Jenna’s part.

It seemed like every conversation they had started off in this vein—her trying to put what they once had together in a completely different way, him trying to pretend it was okay and eventually failing.

They would never get back to where they were before they’d dated. He didn’t think they’d even get near it. She felt guilty. He felt…a lot of things. Let down. Resentful. Jealous. Yeah, all of the above. And he still loved her, which complicated things even more. At least it did for him.

He spent a lot of time after every encounter trying to shake off his ignoble feelings. Jenna Jones deserved the best, and if she was content with second best (hey, it was true), then that was okay by him. Waters still didn’t like him and he didn’t like Waters, but he could rise above all that for Jenna’s sake. He could be civil when they met at various functions. He could refrain from kidnapping the guy, tying him up, rowing him out to sea on a dark night and dumping him overboard. He had ethics.

“I see you’re selling the Dinglers’ house,” she said.

“Yeah, they want to move to Palm Desert.”

She gave a mock shudder. “Ugh. All that heat.”

“My thoughts exactly. Why would you want to live anywhere but here?”

Where you could be miserable. He’d thought more than a few times about moving after they broke up. He still loved Moonlight Harbor, but after losing Jenna he was finding it hard to see the magic in the waves crashing onto the beach or moonlight dancing on the water or a beautiful sunset.

You need to snap out of it, he told himself for the millionth time. So things hadn’t worked out? So what? There were other fish in the sea. Other sand dollars on the shore. Other pebbles on the beach. Moonlight Harbor still had plenty of women who’d like to date him.

None of them measured up to Jenna.

He could feel his facade of easy charm crumbling. Time to get away.

“There’s Ellis. I need to talk to him,” he said, and made his escape. There had to be something he needed to talk to Ellis West about.

Checking in on how things were going with Ellis and his bride only resurrected Brody’s frown. Melody West should have been his mother-in-law.

Ellis and Mel were still happy as a couple of Moonlight Harbor clams. Good for them. Good for everyone. Meh. Every man in Moonlight Harbor was getting happily hitched except him. Every man would be getting lucky on Valentine’s Day. He’d be getting drunk.

He could get lucky if he wanted. He didn’t have to keep roaming around town all by himself like the ancient mariner. He could have friends. With benefits.

That was as close as he was ever going to come to getting involved with anyone from now on. Never again was he plunging heart-deep into a relationship. Jenna was his second love disaster and he wasn’t a big believer in that old saying that the third time was the charm. He lived at the beach. He knew what happened when you were drowning. The third time you went down, you never came up.

Rian LaShell sauntered up to him. Rian was cool. He liked her a lot. They’d dated for a while but, although there’d been some sparks, it hadn’t been enough to light a fire under him and get him to commit. Rian was svelte and sexy, and this day she looked hip in tight jeans and a black sweater. But she wasn’t Jenna.

“Hey there,” she said in that throaty voice of hers. “Happy New Year.”

“To you, too,” he said. “Did you do anything exciting to ring in the New Year?”

She shrugged. “I managed to ring it in.”

A mysterious answer, meant to pique his curiosity over whom she’d rung it in with and make him jealous.

He didn’t take the bait. “Well, good. How are things going at Sandy Claws?”

“Doing a fifty-percent-off sale next week. Too bad you don’t have a pet.”

He should get a pet. Not a cat; cats were too independent. A dog. Dogs were loyal. They stuck with you. Yeah, maybe a dog. Why was it he didn’t have an animal, anyway?

Oh, yeah. Animals required time and commitment.

Well, it wasn’t like his days were full now.

They could be. They should be. Jenna was the past. He needed to be looking toward the future. But really, who did he think he was going to have a future with?

People were starting to find seats at the two tables in Sandy’s meeting room and their waitress had appeared and was taking orders. He and Rian sat down next to each other and he cast around in his mind for something to say to her. His brain locked up.

Good grief. They’d dated for six months. He ought to be able to come up with something. The exotic eyeliner that accented her eyes inspired him.

Ah. The cat. “How’s Pyewacket?”

“He misses you.”

Brody gave a snort. “Cats never miss anyone.”

“Sure they do,” said Rian. “You should come by and visit.”

“So he can scratch me?” Brody and Pyewacket had never really bonded.

“He’ll be good. So will I,” she added, her voice as smooth as whiskey.

A hot woman inviting him to her place. Any man in his right mind would be all over that. Obviously Brody was no longer in his right mind.

Their waitress came up, getting him temporarily off the hook.

But it was only temporary. Once they’d placed their lunch orders, Rian was still there smiling at him, waiting for an answer.

“You know, I think I need to stay on my own for a while.”

“I’m sorry things didn’t work out with Jenna,” she said in a low voice, “but that’s a closed chapter. Maybe it’s time to turn the page.”

“Or close the book,” he quipped.

But he wasn’t kidding. Lightning didn’t strike twice. What were the odds he’d ever meet anyone again whom he wanted as much as he’d wanted Jenna?

And actually, he wasn’t sure he wanted lightning to strike again. Lightning was destructive.

About the Author

Sheila Roberts

USA Today and Publisher’s Weekly best-selling author Sheila Roberts has seen her books translated into several different languages, included in Reader’s Digest compilations, and made into movies for both the Hallmark and Lifetime channels. She’s happily married and lives in the Pacific Northwest.

Her latest book is the women’s fiction/romance Sand Dollar Lane (Harlequin/Mira, April ’22)

Visit her website at http://www.sheilasplace.com. Connect with her at Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Award-Winning Book Publicity Company Since 2007

VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR, BLOG TOUR & BOOK PUBLICITY ENDORSEMENTS: NICE THINGS PEOPLE SAY ABOUT PUMP UP YOUR BOOK

NEW! "Thank you Dorothy for a lovely tour! Thanks so much for the graphics and wonderful trailer!!"Avery Sterling, PRECIOUS BURDENS

"I just wanted to thank you for everything. You ARE the queen. Your are so personable and professional. Your graphics soared beyond. They are beautiful. It was a pleasure to work with you."Jude Hopkins, BABE IN THE WOODS

"THANK YOU for all of these graphics!!! That was a valuable added perk of working with you on the VBT! Thank you for all the work you put into those, and into the organization and follow-ups on the tour itself. It's been a pleasure working with you, Dorothy!"Allyson Rice, The Key to Circus-Mom Highway

"Oh, awesome!! Thank you so much! You ran such a lovely tour. Those images are great, I look forward to using them and will miss seeing the regular postings on Twitter ;-).
I really appreciate your steadfast and ongoing support. It means a lot!!"Palmer Pickering, MOON DEEDS

"Just wanted to send you a quick note to say thank you again for the amazing blog tour and to tell you that we will be adding the tour to Mark's author website in the next few days. We will of course be recommending your company to other authors we know. And when Mark's next book is out, we will use your services again." Kirsten Grenside on behalf of Mark Grenside, FALL OUT

"Thank you for all the great, creative, work you have done on behalf of my book. You are
a special lady, as a kind hearted woman and a professional."
Maria Andrade, DEFIANCE AND REDEMPTION

"Everyone did an excellent job. The blog pages were beautiful, and the trailer was so clever and funny. Thanks for sending these lovely "souvenirs" from my tour. I will be able to use all of these posts on Twitter. I enjoyed this so much and look forward to my next tour!"
Irene Woodbury, HONEYMOON ROULETTE

" I am delighted with the results of my recent tour with Pump Up Your Book. Dorothy is meticulous and professional, presents beautifully laid out pages, maintains constant contact with the client, and gives more than expected value for money. In a nutshell: you get what you pay for and more on top! I will certainly be using Dorothy’s services for my other Regency romance books.”
Arabella Sheraton, THE LORD BLACKWOOD REGENCY ROMANCE SERIES

"Thank you so much for The Shadow of Atlantis tour. I've really enjoyed all the posts and seeing my book being promoted. I will definitely come back to you with another of my titles!"
Wendy Leighton-Porter, THE SHADOW OF ATLANTIS

"Thank you so much for the great job on the book tour! Pump Up Your Book was a driving force in the launch of THE PILATE SCROLL!"
M.B. Lewis, THE PILATE SCROLL

"Thank you ever so much - it was a fun tour. I will continue singing your praises to my fellow authors. And grateful for the images, I will put them to continued use."
Kathleen Shaputis, HIS KILT DROPPED HERE

"I appreciate you and your hard work. Thank you for creating these awesome images for my book and allowing me to use them. I am very thankful to have them!"
Joni Ankerson, TO KILL OR BE KILLED

"Thank you for an Amazing Virtual Book Tour for Son of a Soldier! I really appreciate all the work you put into it!"
Aiken Brown, SON OF A SOLDIER

"Thanks so much for getting ANNA INCOGNITO out there and reviewed and shared with so many people. It was great to see it on so many twitter feeds!"
Laura Preble, ANNA INCOGNITO

"Thank you so much for such a fantastic tour! You did an amazing job getting it together so quickly, and I couldn’t have been happier!"
Lena Gregory, GRAVE CONSEQUENCES

"Thank you so much Dorothy! I appreciate your hard work. Love the graphics!"
Jennifer Chase, FLOWERS ON HER GRAVE

"This has been one of the best things I’ve done as an author. Not only am I getting the word out about my books but I’m learning about my own work and my readers along the way. I love it!"
Elysia Strife, A PROMISE IN ASH

"Today my blog tour ended, with another great review which made me end the tour with a big smile! What a fun way to end this incredible 4-week tour. I will surely miss it. I want to thank you for arranging it so well and for being there for me whenever I needed. Thank you!!!"

Miri Leshem-Pelly, SCRIBBLE & AUTHOR

"I think you did an excellent job last time, thank you!"
Shami Stovall, KNIGHTMARE ARCANIST

"Just wanted to thank you for the book tour. :) You did a great job. :)"
Suzanne M. Hurley, THE TEDDY BEAR EYE CLUB

"I just wanted to thank you for a wonderful virtual tour in August for Brimstone and Water. I was very happy with the amount of attention given to the book and to me. I am mentioning it to friends on line that haven't gone to the site yet to be sure and take a look. Thanks for all your work."
Sharon House, BRIMSTONE AND WATER

"Thank you for running my book promotion for BlackJack. I am so pleased with the reviews that came in and appreciated all you did. My sales have improved from being around 800,000 down to the 200,000 on Amazon and hopefully dropping still. I will definitely be contacting you for a promotion again."
Christine Donovan, BLACKJACK

"You’ve been a joy to work with, and I’d do another tour with you in a heartbeat. Overall, it was an excellent experience and a good value. I’ll be sure to look you up when it’s time to release my next book."
Michael Allan Scott, GREY DAZE

"Just wanted to thank you for putting together a great tour for You Won't Remember This. I think the author was pleasantly surprised and overall very pleased."
Bacon Press Books

"Dorothy, thanks so much for another great VBT!!! The Twitter-Party was a new feature this time that I particularly enjoyed. I will continue to recommend PUYB to my writer-friends, because you are simply the best!!!"
T.M. Wallace, WINTERGARDEN

"Thank you for a great blog tour for my “Depression and Your Child.”
I’m in the middle of my third book and will definitely call on you again when it’s time to market it."
Deborah Serani, DEPRESSION AND YOUR CHILD

"Your hard work and professionalism hasn't gone unnoticed. When I release my next novel(s), I will definitely use your service. I have already recommended you to several authors."
Ashley Fontainne, GROWL

"Thanks for a very good experience with Pump Up Your Book. Fighter Pilot's Daughter has sold out of the first printing (still available as POD on Rowman & Littlefield's site, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.). My editor at R & L says there's a very good chance the book will come out in paperback in the summer. He asked me "Did you hire a publicist or something?" I told him about you, and he was impressed."
Mary Lawlor, FIGHTER PILOT'S DAUGHTER

"You are amazing Dorothy and I love what you do to get the spirit of our books out to the world. Thank you!"
Lee Papa, TEMPLE OF ALL KNOWING

"I can't believe the response this book is getting! I am so very thrilled that she liked it!!! You are THE BEST, Dorothy, for hooking up this amazing tour with all these stunning reviews! This was the book I was going to keep under my bed forever and ever and now WOW. I can't believe this is happening. It's like a dream come true!"
Madeline Wynn, DAUGHTER OF THE FALLEN

"Just wanted to say I'm appreciating your tweets so much. This is really helping my book sales, and I'm telling writer friends about you."
Mary Lawlor, FIGHTER PILOT'S DAUGHTER

"Thank you SO much!!!! I had a blast on the tour and appreciate all the time the bloggers and reviewers spent promoting Ash to Steele:)"
Karen-Anne Stewart, ASH TO STEELE

"When it comes to looking for a virtual book tour coordinator, Dorothy Thompson of Pump Up Your Book Tours is simply the best. I have tried several virtual book tour coordinators and have even set up a book tour on my own, but none of them were as successful as my tours with Pump Up Your Book Tour, which has the combination of expertise and experience needed to get the author the results they need. On this latest tour, TWELVE TO MURDER made it up to number three on Amazon! Thank you, Dorothy!"
Lauren Carr, Best-Selling Mystery Author of Mac Faraday, and Lovers in Crime, Mysteries

"Thank you again for all of your help and support for my recent book tour. You were so supportive and responsive, and I enjoyed working with you. It was a great tour and I really enjoyed it, especially when my book hit the top 100 in the two subcategories! That was awesome! Thanks for "pumping up my book!""
Monique Roy, ACROSS GREAT DIVIDES

"Thank you for another amazing tour, Dorothy!! I loved the sites I had an opportunity to visit and the people I met along the way. I even made a few new friends and found wonderful supporters that I'll never forget - I promise! The exposure you gave my book was absolutely unbelievable, and I can't think of a better way to welcome and expose an author's new creation to the literary world. Happy New Year to all your readers and may your success continue to grow. "
Kaylin McFarren, BURIED THREADS

"Thank you for a great virtual book tour. I thought it went really well and it was great to have a wave of PR that flowed through the two month period of my book release. I'm working on my next book - and will definitely reach out to you when it comes time to market! You were a delight to work with and really made me feel looked after. As I've mentioned before, I just don't know how you do it all."
--Deborah Serani, DEPRESSION AND YOUR CHILD

"I just wanted to let you know how wonderful I felt my book blast went for Be Careful What You Wish For in the month of August. So many emails and contacts that I would never have gotten. The publicity was just phenomenal!"
--R.K. Avery, BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

"Just wanted to touch base with you and extend a huge thank you for the wonderful and successful book blast you arranged for Love Vindicated for me. I was very happy with your services and will be passing your name and brand along to some writer friends with a stellar recommendation. Again thanks and I look forward to working with you again in the future."
--Lila Munro, LOVE VINDICATED

"Thank you so much for all your hard work in putting together the virtual book tour for The Sixth Power. I appreciate it so much."
--Carol Nicolas, THE SIXTH POWER

"Thank you SO MUCH for such a great blog tour!"
--Sandra D. Bricker, ALWAYS THE BAKER, FINALLY THE BRIDE

"Wow - you are absolutely fantastic. Can't believe how lucky I was to find you :)"
--Jo Sparkes, THE BIRR ELIXIR

"I just wanted to let you know that tonight Steven Manchester's Twelve Months became The Story Plant's first #1 Kindle bestseller. This couldn't have happened without you. Barb's cover is an absolute showstopper, Sue's copyediting boosted the overall work, Jackie's proofreading kept all of us honest, and Tracee Gleichner's blog tour started what has become an avalanche of great reviews."
-- Lou Aronica, STORY PLANT

"Blog tours have been the most effective promotion I’ve done. Dorothy Thompson and her company Pump Up Your Book are the greatest. I’ve spent money with other promotion companies that advertised packages then didn’t deliver the service they advertised, inflated their audience and reach and point blank falsely represented themselves. Dorothy has been a Godsend, and by far, her services are the best promotional endeavors I’ve invested in thus far."
-- Alicia Singleton, DARK SIDE OF VALOR

"I didn't realize that there is a place on amazon that you can see your stats for foreign sales; mine are really good and I believe it is your tweeting service. I think I might have found the key to successful self-publishing when I found Pump Up Your Books."
-- Suzanne Jenkins, PAM OF BABYLON SERIES

"Dorothy Thompson helped promote my book, Gringos in Paradise: Our Honduras Odyssey. Taking part in it was so much easier (and less expensive) than the travel schedule I was hving to keep doing on my own. She set up everything, coached me through my part, and I found my book and I promoted it all over the Internet. It definitely increased my book sales."
-- Malana Ashlie, GRINGOS IN PARADISE

"Dorothy was not only a lot of fun to work with but she helped me get the word out about my book. I would recommend her to both debut and experienced authors."
---Deborah Woehr, PROSPERITY: A GHOST STORY

“Dorothy is a firecracker promoter. She is skilled at finding the most visible placements in promoting your book with unmatched enthusiasm.She is creatively talented and a wonderful person to have on your team.”
--Kathy Holmes Eckardt, REAL WOMEN WEAR RED

“I invested in a three month virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Books promotions for my noir thriller, Moonlight Falls. Not only did the marketing campaign work wonders for spreading the word about the new novel, in the very last month, on the very last day of the tour, Moonlight Falls became an Amazon Kindle bestseller!”
–Vincent Zandri, MOONLIGHT FALLS and THE REMAINS

“I’m so pleased every day when I look at Google Alerts and see our titles all around the blogosphere, so thanks for that!”
–-World Ahead Media

“This has been a wonderful experience. Dorothy Thompson and her whole team are very committed to each author, take each author’s tour very seriously, and work towards maximum exposure in the right places. This is the best book promotion expenditure I’ve made in terms of return on investment. I highly recommend Pump Up Your Book Promotion.”
--Phyllis Zimbler Miller, MRS: LIEUTENANT

"I used Pump Up Your Book promotions a few months ago for my novel, Nephilim. My publisher is a great person, but when it comes to promotions, she encourages authors to do that on their own. Enter Dorothy Thompson at Pump Up Your Book. I had 8 reviews of the book and was featured as a guest author every day of the week at various websites during the month that I used her company. Amazing! She secured everything for me which was really nice and I didn't have to do anything but write a few blogs or answer interview questions. I would use Pump Up Your Book again in a heart beat!"
--Mary Ann Loesch, NEPHILIM

Visit here to find out what others have to say!

Follow Us!

Click on image to see who’s touring in December!

Book Mockup Graphics for $49!

Click on image to find out more!

PUYB Book Trailer of the Week

Princess Sophie and the Christmas Elixir

Question of the Day

How do you make sales happen for you?

A lot of hard work! I sponsor a lot of on line parties, festivals and contests. Book sales don’t magically happen, believe me. An author has to work hard to earn her readers. And then she has to work hard to keep them by giving them something they’ll enjoy reading. I try hard to make my books worth a reader’s time.

-- Sheila Roberts, Author of Winter at the Beach