Will Moon give Mr. Can’t Answer His Phone For Three Months another chance?

Bragg’s Truth is live. SQUEAL! Finally! I love Moon and Riley’s story so so so much. And can’t wait to share it with you. I’m so excited I lowered the release price to just 99 cents!

Moon has been a side character in the Winter Falls series from the very beginning. She first made an appearance in My Forever Love and she’s been around – in the background ☹ – ever since. Well, no more! It’s time for Moon to get her own story. YEAH!

Moon more than deserves her own love story. This troublemaker who believes she’s the prank queen of Winter Falls is hiding more hurt than you’d think. Can Riley sort her out? Can she give Riley a second chance?

Are you ready for a brand-new romantic comedy about a man who will do anything to get another chance with the woman he loves and how his plan goes marvelously awry? 🤭

Grab your copy if you want:

✔️ A stubborn chef who’s lonely but too pig-headed to admit it

✔️ A flirty handyman who will do anything to get another chance with his moonbeam

✔️ A gang of elderly matchmakers who are too sneaky for their own good

✔️ Witty banter that will have you laughing out loud

✔️ Hilarious pranks that always seem to go awry

✔️ Quirky small-town romance

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Chapter 1

It’s not murder if the guy deserves it ~ Text from Moon to her best friend, Ashlyn

I glare at my nemesis. You will not beat me. I refuse to be defeated by a piece of porcelain. Wait. Are toilets made of porcelain? Never mind. Bring it on, toilet.

I lift the lid off of the tank and gaze inside. This doesn’t resemble the YouTube video I studied last night. At all. No matter. It’s fine. I’ll figure it out. I always do.

I grab my pliers and attempt to disconnect the tube thingy from the float thingy. Ugh! The tube thingy won’t budge.

“Come on. Come on,” I chant as I pull but there’s still no movement. I inhale a deep breath and yank as hard as I can.

“Yes!” I shout as the tube finally moves. Only it doesn’t disconnect. It breaks and water flies into my face.

“Stop!” I scream as I try to force the water back down into the tank with my hands.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Thank the goddess up above. The handyman is here. I rush to the front door and whip it open. Hold on. This isn’t my handyman. Not even close. This is Riley flipping Bragg. The person I want to see least of all in the world. Especially when I’m filthy from working on a toilet.

I snarl at him. “What are you doing here?”

Riley smirks as his gaze travels from my head to my toes. Yeah, yeah. I get it. I’m covered from top to bottom in toilet water while he looks amazing with his plaid shirt open to reveal all those delicious muscles.

No, not delicious. He’s an asshole. Assholes aren’t delicious no matter how much they resemble a cover model with their perfect smile and glorious hair. Thick brown hair I love to glide my hands through while he—

“I’m your new handyman,” Riley announces.

He grins and his ocean blue eyes sparkle in amusement. I wonder how amused he’ll be when I throw my pliers at him. Lucky for him I dropped them in my rush to answer the door.

“Where’s Sirius?”

Sirius is my handyman. He’s the handyman for everyone in Winter Falls, the small town in Colorado where I’ve lived my entire life except for when I attended culinary college.

I should have stayed at home.

Then, I wouldn’t have ended up falling in love with a man over the course of one short week. The same man who then ghosted me after telling me he loved me. The very man who’s now standing in front of me claiming to be my handyman. I don’t think so.  

Riley shoves his hands in his front pockets and rocks back on his heels. “He’s retiring.”

I gasp. Sirius is retiring? This can’t be.

“Retiring? Since when?”

And how the hell didn’t I know about this sooner? Sirius is supposed to be helping me with the renovations on the diner since my contractor up and quit on me. You tell a guy he made a mistake one time and he loses his mind. Although, if I’m being honest, it might have been the way I told him he screwed up. Oops.   

“You can—” He cuts himself off. “Do you have a leak?”

“A leak? Where did you get such a crazy idea?” I motion to myself since I’m doing a hell of an impression of a drowned rat.

He ignores my sarcasm as he strides into the diner.

I chase after him. “Where are you going?”

“To fix your water leak.”

“But you’re not my handyman.”

He stops at the door to the restroom and gestures to the water now flowing out of the room into the diner.

“Let’s fix this problem first, shall we?”

“But…” The protest dies on my lips when he opens the door and I see the utter destruction in the restroom.

Oh no. I can’t afford any more problems. I already spent more money on this renovation than I had budgeted. I knew the former owner, Gracious, hadn’t updated any of the appliances in the kitchen since the 1960s, but I didn’t realize she hadn’t performed any maintenance on the place in just as long.  

And to think I was beyond excited when she agreed to sell the restaurant to me. I thought it was the opportunity of a lifetime. Living in a small town, there aren’t a whole lot of opportunities for a chef like me. Especially considering my determination to be my own boss.

Riley snags the pliers from the floor. “Get some towels for the water, will ya?”

I rush to follow his demand. I’m mopping up the floor with the towels before I realize how quickly I hurried to follow his orders. Damnit. This man should no longer have any power over me.  

“Your toilet is fixed,” he says from way too close behind me causing me to startle and drop the towels.

He grasps my shoulders and turns me around. “You okay, Moonbeam?”

I sway toward him before I remember. He’s not mine. Not any longer. I push him away.

“The name is Moon. I’m not your moonbeam anymore, remember? You disappeared on me.”

Pain flashes in his eyes. Blue eyes that remind me of the time we spent playing in the ocean in San Diego. “I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?”

Forgive him? Is he crazy? Does he think he can just waltz back into my life, snap his fingers and I’ll forgive him? He’s more likely to get another slap.

Confession time. I may have slapped Riley when he first showed up in Winter Falls. It wasn’t my fault. He didn’t reply to my calls and texts for three months. What did he think would happen when he showed up in town without a word of warning? Any woman would have slapped him. 

I cross my arms over my chest and glare at him. “Why did you ghost me?”

His chin drops to his chest and silence fills the room.

“I should have slapped you harder,” I mumble as I stomp toward the door and fling it open. “You should leave now.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m your handyman.” He scans the restaurant. “Judging by the state of things in here, you need me.”

Who does he think he is? Reminding me of how badly I miscalculated when I began these renovations. And insinuating I can’t manage without him. What a jerk.

“I don’t need you,” I hiss. I don’t need a man. I don’t need anyone. I’ve survived this long on my own. There’s no reason to change a winning strategy.

“I meant you need a handyman.”

I have YouTube and I know how to use it. Maybe the toilet repairs didn’t work out great, but I can figure out how to tile and lay a floor from Google. I’m sure of it.

“You don’t even live in Winter Falls,” I point out.

“I do now.”

He’s got to be kidding. “What?”

“My brothers and I are all relocating to Winter Falls. We want to get to know Peace.”

Peace is Riley’s half-brother. It turns out Peace, a local boy I grew up with, has a whole family no one – including him – knew about. The man who raised Peace isn’t his biological dad. His biological dad is Riley’s dad.

I don’t know all the details. I’m usually curious to learn all the gossip in town but heartbreak kind of took over my life for a while there. But no more. I’m done with pining over a man who can’t bother to pick up a phone or answer a message.

Riley reaches for my hands. “And I want another chance with you.”

I swat him away. “Second chance not granted.”

He shrugs. “I’ll wear you down.”

If I could shoot lasers from my eyes, he’d be dead right now. Who does he think he is? My heart may still yearn for the man, but my head knows better. He has no staying power.

“In the meantime, you really do need a handyman. Don’t sabotage the business you’ve dreamed of owning for your entire life because I’m an idiot.”

Why did I share all of my hopes and dreams with him? Oh right, I fell in love with him and opened my heart to him. Lesson learned. I am hereby encasing my heart in a metal cage where it shall stay from now until the end of time.

“I’ll give you a fifteen percent discount on my hourly rate.”

Crap. I want to kick him out, but having help to finish the renovations of the diner would enable me to open earlier. The sooner I can open, the sooner I can start earning money to dig myself out of the hole I’m currently drowning in.

“Make it twenty and you have a deal.”

“Deal.” He holds out his hand.

When our hands touch, sparks explode and a shiver travels from my hand through my body until heat fills me. My body remembers exactly how well Riley can use his to make me see stars. How his strong arms can hold me in any position he wants while bringing me pleasure.

I cut those thoughts off and yank my hand away before I end up jumping into his arms and molding my lips to his. I will not give in to temptation. Project Forget How Sexy Riley Is, is hereby initiated.

“I’ll expect you here tomorrow morning bright and early,” I say as I shove him out of the diner and lock the door behind him.

He smirks at me from the sidewalk. I glare at him. He winks before strolling away while whistling.  

I force myself to look away. I will not watch him walk away. I will not stare at his perfect ass. I won’t. I will remain strong. He’s a leaver, remember?

I’ve been left enough in my lifetime. No more.