Somebody Like You: A Small Town Single Mom Romance (The Heartbreak Brothers Book 4) by Carrie Elks (best love story novels in english .txt) 📗

sales and marketing, while he ran the operations and finance. We dissolved the business last year and agreed to divorce, and now I’m looking for a new challenge here in Hartson’s Creek.”

“So you’re planning to stay here?” the younger man who’d introduced himself as Nathan, asked her. She knew from reading about the business that Nathan was one of four siblings involved in running the distillery, which was owned by their mother, Eliana Scott, who was sitting next to him. Nathan was the operations manager, and if she got the job, he’d be her boss. But she got the impression it was Eliana she really needed to impress.

“Yes. My children are happily enrolled in local schools, and I’m staying with my uncle while I look for a permanent home for us. I love it here, and have no plans to relocate.”

Eliana nodded. “Have you applied for any other positions?”

“A few,” Mia told her with a nod. “But can I be completely honest?”

Nathan raised an eyebrow, then nodded.

“My heart is really set on working for you. You have an amazing product, and that’s a dream for a marketing executive like me. While your whiskey sells itself once somebody has tasted it, I know that I can introduce it to so many new consumers. As I said in my presentation, there are a lot of different strategies we could follow, depending on what you think fits best with your brand. But I’m passionate about making your market share increase. About finding untapped markets not only in the US, but abroad as well. I can make your product stand out and make G. Scott Carter the brand that everybody asks for when they want a glass of whiskey at the end of a meal.” She took a deep breath before looking them both in the eye. “You’re great at making whiskey, and I’m great at marketing. I feel like this could be a mutually beneficial relationship.”

Nathan bit down a grin, and looked at his mother. “Any more questions?” he asked her.

Eliana shook her head. “I think I have all I need.”

“You should hear from us within a few days,” Nathan told her as he escorted her out of the interview a few minutes later. “But I can tell you I’m impressed. And my mother was, too.”

She was? Mia blinked, because Eliana had looked thoroughly unimpressed. But she’d take it anyway. “Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. You have a very special business here.”

Once she’d walked out of the building, Mia let out a long, deep breath, feeling her muscles relax for the first time that day. Despite the days of practicing her presentation, and the near-miss thanks to her tire blowing, the interview had gone well.

Or at least, it had felt that way.

It was only as she opened her car door that she noticed a note stuffed between her windshield and the wiper. She pulled it out, the paper flapping in the breeze as she unfolded it.

It was a complement slip, with Lawson Honda, Shawsville VA printed in red swirly letters at the top.

Dear Ms. Devlin. As instructed, your tire has been replaced, and your spare tire has been placed next to the trunk. Thank you for paying in full over the telephone.

She blinked at the words. She’d been planning to drive to a garage on her way home. Not a dealership, because she knew they charged an arm and a leg. A local garage selling generic brands would be fine. She wanted to feel annoyed, because she was perfectly capable of doing this.

But instead, a little fire sparked deep inside her. Because the tall, muscled football player had gone out of his way to help her. And it made her feel a little gooey.

Yeah, and look where gooey had gotten her. The last time she melted like a chocolate bar on a hot day she’d ended up pregnant as a nineteen year old college student. And it had landed her right here a decade and a half later.

After lifting the heavy spare tire into the trunk, she sat down heavily on the driver’s seat and let her head fall back against the chair. So now she didn’t only owe him ten thousand dollars, or for the help he’d given her changing the flat, but for a brand spanking new Goodyear tire that would probably cost more than all the money left in her checking account.

And still the fire didn’t go out. Her mouth dried as she thought about those eyes. The ones that kept looking at hers. And his lips, damn they were hot. She’d never really noticed a man’s lips before but his were flawless. Soft and parted. Maybe a little too big on anybody else, but perfectly masculine with his square jaw and dark beard.

The kind of lips you’d never want to stop kissing.

She rolled her eyes at herself. Those whiskey fumes had to be stronger than she’d thought. Because she didn’t do gooey.

She did strong mom. Determined worker. Woman who wouldn’t be messed with.

But gooey? Definitely not that. Because gooey always ended in a big mess.

“Look at us,” Tanner said, carrying a tray of beers to the table where Cam was sitting with his brothers. “The Heartbreak Brothers together again. I never thought I’d see the day.” He handed a bottle to Logan, Cam’s twin, and then to Gray, their eldest brother. They’d deliberately chosen a table in the far corner of the Moonlight Bar. With Gray’s worldwide fame as a Grammy Award winning singer, and Cam’s football career, they were used to attracting attention whenever they got together.

But if they could, they avoided the spotlight. When it was the four of them – or five when their younger sister, Becca agreed to join them – they wanted to be normal. Shoot the breeze without having to put on a front. Tease each other the way they did when they were teenagers sitting around the kitchen table while Aunt Gina chided them for not washing