Prossers Bay Series Read online

  This boxed set of Prossers Bay Books 1-3, including Finding Liam, Seducing Megan and Saving Stephanie, is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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  published by Cheryl Phipps

  Copyright © 2017 Cheryl Phipps

  Prossers Bay Series

  Books 1 to 3

  Cheryl Phipps

  Contents

  Welcome to Prossers Bay

  Also by Cheryl Phipps

  Books by C.A. Phipps

  Book 1

  Finding Liam

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Epilogue

  Book 2

  Seducing Megan

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Book 3

  Saving Stephanie

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Book 4

  Emily’s Wish Excerpt

  Restless Billionaire Excerpt

  About the Author

  Review for Prossers Bay Series

  Prossers Bay - No place like home

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  “I thoroughly enjoyed every story in this series, from start to finish and everything in between. There is a lot that reminds me of my own family & reading such loving, funny, hilarious parts of the lives in the Prossers Bay Series, will always bring back many happy & sometimes sad memories.

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  Thank you for putting so much honesty & thoughtfulness into each of the characters lives & personalities, it makes them all unique & equally special in their own ways. I will be reading Prossers Bay again & again.”

  5* - Amazon Customer

  Welcome to Prossers Bay

  Welcome to Prossers Bay, the small town with a big heart.

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  Four close friends have grown up together in this seaside town.

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  All have experienced heartache.

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  Now that the women are back together, it’s time to face some hard facts and make decisions they’d rather not. Can they survive the many changes they hadn’t counted on? And how will they deal with certain truths they hoped would stay buried in the past?

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  One thing is certain—things will never be the same again because once you step foot into this tight-knit community, your past isn’t as important as your future.

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  Be prepared to accept that love is in the air, strangers will care about you, and second chances can happen.

  When You’ve finished you might like to grab the next book in the series - Emily’s Wish.

  Also by Cheryl Phipps

  Prossers Bay Series - set in New Zealand

  Prosser Bay Boxed Set – Books 1-3

  Doc’s Town

  Finding Liam

  Seducing Megan

  Saving Stephanie

  Emily’s Wish

  Billionaire Knights Series

  Billionaire Knights Books 1-3

  Restless Billionaire

  Ruthless Billionaire

  Reluctant Billionaire

  Reckless Billionaire

  Resident Billionaire

  Millionaire - Family Ties Series

  The Millionaire Next Door

  The Millionaire’s Proposal

  The Millionaire’s Seduction

  High Seas Weddings

  Against the Tide

  Waves of Passion

  Kisses on the Sand - Out soon.

  Sycamore Springs Series

  Jack and Gill

  Adam and Eve

  Samson and Delilah - Coming soon!

  Cheryl also writes Cozy Mysteries and Romantic Comedy as C.A. Phipps

  Books by C.A. Phipps

  The Maple Lane Cozy Mysteries

  Apple Pie and Arsenic

  Bagels and Blackmail

  Cookies and Chaos

  Doughnuts and Disaster

  Eclairs and Extortion - coming soon!

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  Don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter. There’s a free recipe book waiting for you. x

  Book 1

  Finding Liam is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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  Finding Liam published by Cheryl Phipps

  Copyright © 2014 Cheryl Phipps

  Dedication

  For my children

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  I say children, but the three of them are adults now with their own families, yet they will always be my ‘children’.

  To have had such wonderful and loving kids has been a blessing which I am forever grateful for. I’m also grateful to them for the seven (so far) grandchildren they have given me. (I was a very young mother – just saying)

  I couldn’t imagine the journey I have been on without them. The good, the bad and the various trips to hospital. But through it all, the love never faltered, never diminished, and only grows stronger every day. Who they turned out to be is a constant source of amazement and joy.

  I love you with all my heart – Karl, Jamie and Nicole and your spouses, Vicki, Daniel, and Ashley who have become part of our family. So much so, that they feel like three more children to me.

  Thank you all, for being you.

  Love always, Mum xxxx

  Finding Liam

  How do you fix a broken marriage?

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  For Max, marrying his childhood sweetheart was a dream come true.

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  When a series of devastating events drive a wedge between them, their marriage looks doomed.

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  Scared she can never be the wife Max deserves, Abby is looking for a way to get back what they had because their love is worth the risk.

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  A Christmas miracle could pave the way for a second chance.

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  Do they have the courage to fight one last time for their happy ever after?

  Chapter One

  Max turned his head at the sound of his name. A pair of size ‘freaking huge’ shoes were inches from his face. There was no mistaking who they belonged to, even if the car Max was under hid the rest of Sergeant Dan Beadle.

  “What’s up? Slow day at the station?” Max tightened the sump plug while he waited for an answer.

  Dan tapped his foot, a clear sign that it was serious. Max sighed and slid his long frame out from under the red Corvette. As he stood he wiped his hands on his overalls, but realizing they were still too messed up to shake he shrugged his shoulders and nodded instead.

  Dan smiled, acknowledging the attempt at manners that the inhabitants of the small town of Prossers Bay were proud of.

  “Morning Max. Sorry to interrupt you, but I need a car pulled out of the ravine by Wilsons Corner.”

  “Hell, that’s miles out from town, and I’ve got a backlog of cars waiting for some TLC.”

  �
��I get that you’re busy, Max, but we need to get this car out ASAP, so I can work out how and why it ended up there.”

  “Anyone hurt?”

  “No idea. We’ve sent someone down to take a look at it, and there’re no bodies in, or around it, but the way it’s positioned is way too dangerous to do any more than that.”

  Max scratched his head, and sighed. It might not be convenient but helping each other was what people did in small towns, especially in New Zealand, and Prossers Bay was no exception.

  There was no way he could leave Kenny, his twenty-year-old apprentice, to make any significant progress on the work in the yard. There was only one option.

  “Kenny?” He had to yell to get the young man to hear him over his ear phones.

  “Yes, boss?”

  The young man came out from behind a truck where he’d been doing a spark plug check and ripped the ear phones out when he saw Dan, making both men smile.

  “Follow the Sergeant and tow a car out of the ravine, please. Then get straight back here.”

  The pleasure on the young man’s face as Max threw him the keys made him feel like he’d made the right decision. Kenny was eager to please, slow but methodical. It would be good for him to get some more experience in their side job of towing and, to be fair, it wouldn’t hurt the kid to be away from him for a while. Max was very aware that he’d been short-tempered with him lately. Hell, for a while now if he was being truthful.

  As he watched the lanky fair-haired Kenny and the short, stocky policeman leave, Max made the decision to get himself out of this funk he was in, before he alienated everyone, including his wife, who’d had enough to contend with.

  Poor, beautiful, fun-loving Abby. Not only had she had to deal with several miscarriages, last year her parents had been killed by a drunk driver. The woman he’d loved since high school had been through hell and, even though he’d tried to be there for her, she’d still developed a depression so deep he thought she’d never come out of it.

  Doctor McGregor, who’d brought her into the world, had put her on medication, but Abby had hated the side effects and had weaned herself off them pretty quickly. After that it had taken most of the previous year for her to get back to who she used to be. Thankfully, she was doing well, but along the way they’d lost their ability to be intimate with each other. When you loved someone passionately, anything less was frustrating at best.

  If someone had asked him two years ago, how he would feel about never having children he wouldn’t have imagined it could hurt like it had. It wasn’t just giving up on that dream, it was the fallout from hurt, anger and the despair of not being able to fix things. After all, that’s what he was supposed to be good at.

  Max kicked a container of screws and it spewed across the garage floor. He sighed, and bent down to clean up the mess, wishing he could put his marriage back so neatly.

  He didn’t know that you could lose a person in so many ways. A partner, a friend, a lover. They’d had a perfect marriage for so long, and now it wasn’t, and he didn’t know how to make it right. He wanted Abby so badly, but touching her intimately felt wrong somehow.

  Right now, Max did the only thing that could possibly make him feel a little better, and would help to take his mind off things. He got back under the car.

  Abby wanted to scream. Not the scream of a frustrated mature woman – which is what she was – rather, the scream of a child in the midst of a humungous tantrum.

  The fact that she was the boss of her own cleaning business, and her staff would lose all respect for her, made her take a deep breath. Besides, losing her temper wouldn’t get the houses cleaned. She could kick herself later for hiring Jeanne and Allan’s seventeen-year-old daughter, simply because they were such good friends.

  Lisa looked embarrassed about not being able to work, and Abby suspected that her parents had already given her a talking to, but she felt compelled to let the girl know how this affected her ability to get the work done in time, especially with the other women listening in.

  “So, you want to drop all your afternoon shifts this week because you have exams?”

  Lisa blushed furiously. “Yes please, Abby.”

  “And you’ve known about this for how long?”

  The teenager looked down at her feet.

  “For a while. I just forgot.”

  “So how would you feel if I forgot to pay you?”

  “You wouldn’t do that. Would you?”

  Lisa looked horrified, which made Abby feel bad, but not bad enough to forego giving her the same speech her mother had given to her when she’d started her first job, a couple of decades ago.

  “The point is that when anyone takes on a job or commitment, they have agreed to be punctual and provide plenty of notice if they can’t work. If I don’t have enough staff to fulfil my contracts, I’ll lose them, and if that happens none of us get paid. Not Stephanie or Megan.” She pointed to the other women who waited patiently by the van outside Abby’s house. “That would be hard for all of us. I’m not trying to be mean, but I want you to understand.”

  “Yes, Abby, I do understand, and I’m really sorry to let you down. I thought I could manage working and cramming, but I can’t. I promise to be back once my exams are over.”

  Her lip quivered, and Abby’s anger evaporated. Lisa was a good kid, really, and a good worker – when she actually worked. She was just an average teenager who didn’t give much thought to how her actions affected anyone else.

  Abby turned to Megan. “Can you help me out here?”

  “I’d like to, but it would cost me too much for after-school care.”

  Of course, the twins. She’d been crazy to suggest it. Megan finished at two-thirty every day to pick up her girls from school.

  “Stephanie?” She asked her other staff member who was busy tying up her long, blonde hair into a rough ponytail. Abby had similar coloured hair and the same hair style, but it looked nothing like her friends, who somehow managed to make an easy hair-do look like a fashion statement. No-one would pick her out as a cleaner, yet Stephanie was a fastidious and genuinely nice person.

  “I’d appreciate more notice, but if it’s just for the week, then I can do some double-shifts.” Stephanie sighed, then laughed. “Who am I kidding? I have no life at the moment, so work’s a good filler, and if I’m earning, I sure as heck aren’t spending.”

  Abby could have hugged her for solving her dilemma. “Thanks, Steph. You’re the best, and I owe you.”

  Crises averted, Abby’s normal good humor returned.

  “All right, Lisa. At least you told me before your shift started this afternoon, but next time I need at least a week or two warning.”

  “I’ll definitely be more organized next semester. See you in a week.”

  The women watched her hurry down the street, and all shook their heads.

  “Kids,” Stephanie muttered, on their behalf.

  “It gives me shivers, just thinking that my girls will be teenagers one day. They’re a handful already and they’re only five.”

  “They are so damn cute, though.” Stephanie said to Megan.

  “And that’s the problem. They get away with murder from everyone. You know they’re already tricking the teacher about who’s who?”

  “I’d love to see that. It would be so easy for them. They even laugh the same. If it wasn’t for that freckle above Mia’s right eyebrow, I’d be lost.”

  “To be honest, there are moments when I have to look twice. But they do have a few differences.”

  Megan pulled out a photo of the adorable girls who were dressed alike, but had their hair, the same rich auburn as their mother’s, tied differently.

  “Their personalities are so opposite. Mia loves school, while Cody wants to do sporty things or sing at the top of her lungs, which can be hard to take at six a.m.”

  Abby loved the bond that the three of them had formed. They were so different and yet they could talk about anything. Well, almost anythi
ng. She and Max were still having issues, but it wasn’t something she wanted to share, even with them. It wasn’t something she wanted to think about.

  “Unfortunately, I have to break this up, ladies. We’ve got quite a few houses to clean before the next wave of tenants arrive.”

  “Sorry. Want me to drive?”

  “That would be great.” Abby handed Megan the keys. Even a few minutes spent on the paperwork, rather than driving, saved her from pulling her hair out when things went wrong, like they had this morning. “I’ve already loaded the van.”

  She took a moment to admire the sign on the side. ‘Forth Right Cleaners’. The company she’d started a decade ago had flourished, which is why she’d had to hire these two. Her intention had been to surround herself with good staff so that she could work part-time when Max and she started a family. Times had certainly changed. Now, she worked all the hours that she could. It helped distract her from the hollowness that lingered after her breakdown a year ago.