Situationship

by Marina Adair

Genres: Siblings; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

In a witty modern twist on How Stella Got Her Groove Back, New York Timesbestselling author Marina Adair blends the fun of falling in love with a thoughtful and heartfelt exploration of modern family dynamics when two former teenage crushes reunite unexpectedly for a second chance at love.
Complicated and steamy, Situationship shines a light on romantic and family relationships that don’t easily fit into any box.
The sand and surf of California’s coastal Pacific Cove is the charming backdrop for New York Times bestselling author Marina Adair’s fun and sexy novel about getting back on track after life makes a sharp left turn—and finding you’ve arrived in just the right place to get back your mojo …
Teagan Bianchi has survived a road trip with rambunctious toddler twins and a large mutt named Garbage Disposal. She clings to a tattered scrap of hope that moving into her late grandmother’s house is the best way to repair her failing business—and the sad shreds of her life—after the man who promised her forever lost everything they had. But she’s barely arrived when she finds herself face to face with her teenage crush, now an irresistible man—who still happens to live next door …
Veterinarian Colin West is closer to being an empty nester than a soccer dad. His marriage lasted only long enough to give him his beloved daughter, and he has no regrets. But as she readies for college, Colin contemplates his own future—whichis, of course, exactly when his past shows up, as gorgeous as ever, and twice as fascinating. But Teagan torpedoed his plans once before. Is he crazy to consider letting her into his life again? Is Teagan ready to admit what she’s really afraid of?
Could this unexpected “situationship” be forever?

Release date: October 25, 2022

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

Teagan Bianchi was at the crossroads of Forgiveness and Letting Go when her GPS crapped out—a problem of living life on autopilot for too long. In the past she would have relied on her intuition. But intuition was one finicky prick.

“Are we there yet?” a tiny voice asked from the back seat. It was the fifth time since their last potty stop. One of thousands on their trip from Seattle to California.

Teagan always encouraged curiosity in her daughters, so it wasn’t the question that bothered her. It was the feelings it evoked. It made her feel like a fraud. Even worse, a failure.

“What does your tablet say?” she asked Poppy, her elder daughter by seven minutes. After thirty-three weeks of sharing thirty-six centimeters, the twins had come out of the womb inseparable.

“Da blue dot is by da red dot,” Poppy said, her Ts sounding more like Ds.

“What number does it show?” She glanced over her shoulder at her daughter, and all four years of her smiled back, filling Teagan with a sense of purpose. With the disillusionment of her marriage in the rearview mirror, she was moving away from her immediate past and toward a happier and simpler time.

“Five,” she said, holding up the coordinating number of fingers. “One, two, fwee. Four. Five.”

“That’s right. Good job,” she said, and a bark of agreement came from the back seat as a wet nose nudged her shoulder.

Their horse-sized puppy, who’d broken free from his crate—with help from his two partners in crime—wedged his head between the two front seats.

“GD, back seat only.”

Garbage Disposal barked excitedly at the mention of his name, then took a flying leap, and 120 pounds of dog landed on the passenger seat with a thud. Teagan leaned right, pressing herself against the window to avoid being smacked in the face by a wagging tire iron.

“You want me to pull over and put you in the cage?” she threatened but he panted happily and stuck his head out the open window so he could drool on the cars behind them. Part Portuguese water dog and part Great Dane, Garbage Disposal looked like a buffalo with four left feet fathered by Mr. Snuffleupagus. While he more than lived up to his name, he had a heart the size of his stomach.

Teagan pulled through the quaint downtown, noticing gas-lamped streets, brick sidewalks, and awninged storefronts, then turned down Lighthouse Way, where the landscape opened, revealing the crystal blue waters of the Pacific Ocean. Coiling with intensity, the waves gathered speed before crashing against the cliffs ahead. On her left sat rolling hills dotted with cypress trees and rows of bright-colored Victorians. To her right was the road to fresh starts, childhood memories . . . and heartache.

It was the last part that had panic knotting in her chest and activating her internal countdown. She was one, two, fwee, four minutes away from the place she’d called home for most of her childhood—well, the happy parts anyway.

Pacific Cove was a sleepy beach town nestled between Monterey and Carmel. Settled by Episcopalians, it was a sea of steeples on a stunning horizon. It was later home to many military families during World War II, thanks to its location close to three military bases: Army, Navy, and Coast Guard. Teagan’s grandmother had been one of those Navy wives whose last missive from her husband had been a Just in Case letter with his wedding ring enclosed.

Grandma Rose had reinvented herself in this very town, and Teagan could too. Or at least that was the hope.

“Are we there yet?”

At a stop sign, Teagan turned back around to look at Poppy. “You just asked that question.”

“Lily wants to know. You said we’d be there at fwee-oh-oh. And it’s four-oh-oh.” Hushed negotiations ensued. “Lily say that four comes after fwee.”

Teagan’s ETA hadn’t accounted for the wind drag of towing a twelve-foot trailer or the volume of potty breaks. “We’re about four minutes out from Nonna’s.” Even though Nonna had passed and willed the beach cottage to Teagan, she always thought of it as Nonna Rose’s house.

“We’re about four minutes out from Nonna’s.” Word for word, Poppy repeated their ETA to Lily and then, doing their twin thing, her too-big-to-be-toddlers and too-small-to-be-schoolkids had a complete conversation without saying a word. “She’s gotta go number one.”

Better than number two. “Sweetie, can you hold it for just another few minutes?”

Lily, who was having a silent conversation with the tops of her shoes, shook her head, then gave a thumbs-down to her sister.

“She said no,” Poppy translated, and Garbage Disposal barked in solidarity.

Teagan had known that last juice box was a bad idea. Almost as bad as adopting a rescue puppy three months before moving two states away. A clumsy, untrained, former outside dog who loved to be inside and eat Teagan’s shoes, handbag, tampons—the list went on.

“Five minutes, that’s all I’m asking for.”

After an intense exchange of looks, Poppy said, “Fwee works but not four.”

Teagan gunned it. She knew better than to tempt fate. Especially when Lily’s Go Time was about as accurate as a nuclear countdown clock. T-minus fwee was Go Time—toilet optional.

She blew through the stop sign and took a hard right onto Seashell Circle. An ocean-soaked breeze filled the car—reducing the stench from Lily’s bout of car sickness, which had kicked in her twin’s sympathetic reflex.

Winding her way down the hill, she made the final turn into her old neighborhood and a sense of rightness, a sense of home, swept through her body. Because there it was, the purple and white Victorian where she’d spent the first half of her life making memories.

They’d arrived, intact, if not a little wrinkled around the edges, to begin their fresh start, leaving behind a history of pain and disappointment.

Complete with clapboard siding, massive stained-glass windows, and widow’s walk, Nonna Rose’s house—now Teagan’s house—butted up to pristine beach, which was shared by the neighbors on Seashell Circle. At one time, this house had meant everything to her but as she pulled up to the empty drive, she was reminded that Nonna was gone, and Teagan’s earlier excitement was painted with a coat of sorrow.

Another thing she intended to change.

With nine seconds to spare, Teagan pulled into the drive and pushed the button to open the side door. Her daughters freed themselves from their boosters and a flurry of arms and legs exploded out of the car. Garbage Disposal sailed through the window as if it was a fence and he was a thoroughbred at the Royal Cup.

Lily ran behind the big magnolia tree in the front yard, lifted her sundress, and squatted—a recently acquired skill. Adhering to the where one goes, the other follows philosophy, Poppy did the potty-squat even though she didn’t have to go. Garbage Disposal barked and ran circles around them.

Teagan dropped her head against the steering wheel, accidentally honking the horn and dislodging a cheesy poof from her hair. Yup, that pretty much summed up the past year.

She looked at the dog hair stuck to every surface, including but not limited to the passenger seat, the dash, and interior roof of the car. Then there were the grape juice stains on her armrest and clothes.

“Why couldn’t you have packed lemonade?” That was the one chore she’d left for the morning: packing the kids’ snack bags. Somehow in her exhaustion, she’d packed cheesy poofs and grape juice. It was almost as if karma was doing it on purpose.

She thunked her head to the wheel again, wondering about her next move.

“Careful, you might knock something loose.” The voice startled her—in more ways than one.

She must be hearing things. Her sleep-free, peace-free, caffeine-free state was to blame. Surely when she looked up, no one would be standing outside the window smiling. The voice definitely had a smile to it. And brought a feeling of nostalgia that had her heart racing.

Don’t stroke out.

Teagan closed her eyes for a moment to compose herself. Hard to do when she smelled like vomit and looked like roadkill.

With the bright smile of someone in control of their world, she looked up and—yup. She was definitely hallucinating. Because standing outside her window was a blast from her past, who did not look like roadkill. No, her unexpected visitor looked cool, calm, and incredibly handsome.

How was it she’d forgotten his family owned the vacation house next door to Nonna Rose? And how was it that the first time she’d seen him since her divorce she looked as if a convenience store bomb had gone off around her?

Colin West, in nothing but bare feet, wet jeans, and bare chest, still damp from washing his truck, looked like the sexy-dad-next-door.

He twirled his hand in the universal gesture for roll down the window and, even though her heart wasn’t in it—it was lodged in her throat—she complied.

“Excuse that.” Teagan looked at her daughters racing around the yard with their sundresses repurposed into superhero capes, leaving them naked. “I’m sorry, they’re . . . it’s been a day.”

“Been there.”

At the foreign voice, Garbage Disposal’s head poked out from beneath a shrub. Covered in leaves, with one ear flopping topsy-turvy, he chewed on a garden hose—the neighbor’s garden hose.

“Um, I think my dog . . .” Oh boy.

Garbage Disposal lurched. Hard and fast, galloping across the lawn in record time with all the grace of a flamingo in a snowbank. He was infamous for licking toes, knocking spill-able things off tabletops with his tail, and knowing the precise latitude and longitude to give the ultimate doggie-high-fives to the crotch.

“Watch out, he’s bigger than he looks. . . .”

With a single hand motion, Colin said, “Down,” and Garbage Disposal lay down, resting his head on his big paws, looking up at Colin as if he were his new master.

“Good boy.” He crouched down and gave the dog a good rub, which ended with Garbage Disposal rolling over on his back, proudly showing off his doggie bits.

“How did you do that?”

“Magic,” he said, sitting back on his heels. That was it. No “Hello” or “Good to see you” or even “Why the hell are you here?” Just a single evocative word.

“Magic.”

“He’s still got some puppy left. How old is he?” he asked, his attention still on the dog.

“Oh, I have no idea. He isn’t mine,” she lied.

“Funny, he thinks you’re his pack.”

“Pack, smack. He looks all cute and innocent and, okay, he’s kind of mine. The girls and I went to the shelter and he followed us home.”

Colin chuckled.

“And before you tell me what a good dog he is, he’s a dog training school flunk-out.” Not that anyone could tell, since Garbage Disposal was giving a good-boy wagging of the tail as if he’d earned a gold star in obedience school, when in reality he’d flunked out three times. “Probably why he kept following us when we told him to stay.”

“There aren’t bad animals, only bad teachers.” Colin looked up, his gaze tinged by amusement.

“Are you saying I’m the problem?”

At that exact moment, Poppy jumped up on the porch step. Hands raised to the heavens as if she were some Amazon warrior ready to wreak havoc on the mere mortals, she tied her dress around her neck and pumped a single hand in the air. Lily followed suit until there were two nearly naked tots chasing a dog around the magnolia tree.

“It is me,” she admitted.

In a very Colin-like move, he rested his arms on the car door frame above her head, leaning in and getting up close and personal. It took everything she had not to stare at his chest, which—with his forearms on top of the door—was at direct gawking level. Looking at his face wasn’t any better. He was near enough that she could ascertain he hadn’t shaved recently and that his eyes were glimmering with amusement.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“Wouldn’t think of it.” He didn’t bother to hide his grin. “First rule in long trips, superheroes aren’t just for boys. Pack dress-up capes, coordinating flags, and plenty of tiaras or they’ll get creative.” He chuckled. “Just wait until they’re teens.”

“Is it worse than the terrible twos?” she asked.

“I thought they were older than that.”

“They’re four, but still going through the terrible twos. I’m afraid it’s a permanent condition. You’re a doctor. Tell me it gets easier.”

“Vet,” he clarified. “And I wish I could. Maddie hasn’t been easy in seventeen years.”

Right about now, Teagan would give anything to go back and be a bright-eyed, naive, and trusting teenager again.

When had everything become so difficult?

“Maddison’s a teenager?”

“Unfortunately,” he said. “In fact, you just missed her stomping off and slamming the door because I looked at her wrong.”

“How did we get so old?”

His eyes slowly slid down her body. “You don’t look a day older than you did that summer before sophomore year, when I first saw you.”

She smiled with the same mischievous smile she’d worn when she snuck out her bedroom window and met him at the cove. It had been her first time sneaking out, her first time skinny-dipping—oh, she’d had a lot of firsts that night. She could tell by the smile on his face, his thoughts weren’t far from hers.

“Just be grateful yours don’t talk back yet.”

“Only one talks.” It hadn’t always been that way. Lily had always been the quieter of the two, more cerebral, but after her dad moved out, Lily stopped talking. To anyone who wasn’t her twin.

“Even better.”

“Oh, Poppy talks enough for everyone in the family. In fact, there wasn’t a silent moment on the entire trip from Seattle.”

He looked at the small trailer behind her. “Movers coming tomorrow?”

“Nope. This is it.” She swallowed because this was it. This was the moment every recent divorcée dreaded. The where’s your other half question.

Surprisingly, he didn’t say a word about Frank’s absence, but his gaze did shift to the empty passenger seat, and she thought she’d be sick.

Her ex. Her lying, selfish, bonehead of an ex, who’d cost her family nearly everything. The writing was still wet on the dotted line of the divorce papers, but they’d separated a year ago, when things took a turn for the worse.

She knew all too well how confusing it could be for kids when their parents reenacted The War of the Roses on a regular basis. By the time Teagan’s parents divorced, things had become so bitter, she’d promised herself if she ever had kids, she would never put them through that, so she’d stayed in her marriage as long as she could.

She’d tried so hard to make it work. Frank wasn’t a bad man; in fact he was an incredibly sweet man and a good father. But he lived with his head in the clouds and his money on a poker table.

For a long time, she’d obsessed over what she could have changed. Done differently.

“You okay, Bianchi?” His voice was quiet, and she knew he’d figured it out. He only used her nickname when he was razzing her or concerned for her. This time it was a little of both.

She waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, just tired from the drive.” Her pants were going to burst into flames for that lie. But the last thing she wanted to do was talk about her last ex with her first ex.

He studied her and then thankfully let it go without any further questions. “If you need help unloading the trailer, I’m right next door.” She was tempted to take him up on the offer. She was exhausted, her back was killing her from the long drive, and she still had to empty the boxes in the U-Haul trailer, which was due back tomorrow before ten. But his voice held a cool distant tone.

Maybe the past wasn’t buried in the past. Not that she blamed him.

“I’ve got it,” she said, even though she totally didn’t have it.

“If you change your mind.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder.

“Noted.”

His face went carefully blank, and he stepped back from the car. “I forgot. You’re good at notes.”

Well played but ouch.

“If you change your mind, let me know. Oh, and for the record, lemonade is overrated, unless it has something stronger in it.”

Harley Ashford was a lioness.

A big, fat, cowardly lioness who also lacked a brain and a heart. Otherwise, she’d be back in Los Angeles living her dream life, at her dream job, with her dream boyfriend. Instead, she was sitting on the back patio in a pair of pajamas and Nonna Rose’s quilted robe, eating chocolate-chocolate-chunk ice cream straight from the carton.

In fairness, chocolate-chocolate-chunk ice cream was a dinner Nonna Rose would have approved of. There was a lot about Harley her nonna had approved of—even the parts of Harley that usually turned people off.

“Love you, Nonna.” Harley toasted her grandma in heaven with an ice cream scooper.

As she sat on the edge of the two-story patio, her legs dangling over, she watched the gold and blue landscape, white capped waves joining sand and sky together. Her life was forever buoyed up by this town. Her nonna’s house grounded her; it was the place where security and love allowed her to dream of all the things she could become and the woman she could aspire to be.

She was scooping up more ice cream when her cell rang, sending her heart plummeting to her stomach.

Shit. It was Bryan. Sweet, sexy, understanding Bryan, who’d told her he was falling for her. The exact reason she capped things at six months. Always. Any longer and she felt agitated, cooped up. With Bryan none of those feelings arose, until he wanted to take it to the next level.

Harley didn’t do next levels. She suffered from an acute case of Dating Vertigo. Even whispers of taking things to the next level made her woozy. Which was why her feet were planted solidly on the ground floor. Things were simpler down there. No room for misunderstandings or unrequited feelings, and absolutely, positively no room for heartache.

Until there was.

Harley was the master of the situationship. Random, shallow, situation-based dating that never allowed real feelings to solidify. If the situation began to smell like a budding relationship, Harley ran screaming for the nearest exit.

Even from the start, things with Bryan had felt different. Around him, she was different. Calmer, peaceful—happy. He inspired things inside her that she’d never felt. Scary things. Which was why she’d waited until he’d left for work before fleeing Los Angeles under the cover of night.

Subconsciously, she’d headed north, surprised when she pulled into Nonna’s driveway. Maybe the universe was telling her she needed a safe place to work through her emotions. And Nonna’s house had always been her safe place.

She’d found the spare key in the hidey-hole—another affirmation that she was making a sound and mature decision. Which was why, not wanting Bryan to think she’d been murdered or kidnapped, she called him . . . when she knew it would go to voice mail.

“Hi, Babe,” she’d begun. “Sorry I won’t be here when you get home. My nonna, she’s . . . uh. Well, she . . . passed on so I need to go home. To, uh, help my sister. Help her look after the house. Not sure how long I’ll be gone.” She’d almost hung up, then decided to add, “Don’t wait for me. Okay, gotta go.”

She should have made it into the Guinness World Records for telling a lie without actually lying. Her nonna had passed a year ago, and while Harley was looking after the house, especially the kitchen portion, the house didn’t need looking after. Pacific Cove was the kind of place people left their doors unlocked and their car keys under the driver’s seat. As for handling the service, because her sister was a control freak with borderline OCD, Teagan had handled everything—so efficiently she’d handled Harley right out of any meaningful contribution. Lastly, Harley knew exactly when she would be back.

She’d return to LA the moment after Bryan realized there were other, more emotionally experienced fish in the sea and he was better off without her. Or when Harley got her hormones under control and banished the ridiculous notion that she, a four-time romance flunky, could go the distance. Until then, Pacific Cove was her place of peace and harmony.

She considered, for a split second, answering but sent him to voice mail instead. She let out a long breath and dipped the scooper into the carton.

“You’re one mean mother clucker, Harley Ashford,” she said around a spoonful of melting ice cream.

She was reaching for the dish towel to wipe her mouth when she heard a rustling. No, more like a rattling followed by a series of thumps, loud and determined thumps, which were startling in the empty house. And they were coming from the front door.

She went still and, shit, someone was fiddling with the door lock. Unsettling because no one knew she was there. No one! Not even her boss.

Grabbing “The Slugger,” a 1965 Louisville Slugger, which Nonna kept in the umbrella stand, Harley tiptoed toward the door. Growing up with a roadie for a father, Harley knew how to handle herself. She might be afraid of commitments, but an amateur intruder didn’t rank on her list of things to run screaming from.

Choking up on the bat, she waited until the door opened and leapt out of the shadows.

“Yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker!”

“What the hell?” the intruder screamed as an elephant-sized attack dog raced into the house barking and growling. “Take whatever you want. Just leave.”

“She said a bad word,” Pocket-Person One said, while another pocket-person jumped between the adults. “And so did you, Mommy.”

One hand out like a crossing guard, the other on her hip, her cape flapping in the wind, Pocket-Person Two shook her head—just once, but Harley immediately lowered the bat.

“Lily says to get back or else,” Pocket-Person One informed her and that’s when a sinking feeling churned in her stomach. Those two pocket-people were her nieces. And standing behind them was the one person in Pacific Cove Harley had gone to great lengths to avoid.

Her sister.

“Jesus, Harley. Why are you attacking me and my kids?”

Yup. It was Teagan, her—same parents, different last name—older sister who thought she ruled the world.

“Why are you sneaking up on me?” She rested the bat against the wall.

“Hard to sneak when it’s my house. Wait.” Teagan paused. “Why are you here?”

“Um, because Nonna said I was always welcome.” And she was hiding out.

“Nonna Rose is in heaven,” Pocket-Person One, aka Poppy, informed her.

“Well, an invite now requires some advanced notice or a courtesy call.” Teagan entered, and the girls shot into the house, running in circles around the adults, who were also circling.

Harley pulled her phone from the robe’s pocket, dialed her sister, and Teagan’s phone rang.

“Cute.” Teagan sent her to voice mail. “Why are you here, Har?”

Part of Harley, the part who missed her big sister, ached at her childhood nickname. The other part of her went into combat mode. Teagan might technically own the house, but it was Harley’s home too. Or at least it used to be for a month every summer and rotating Christmas breaks. Harley had a lot of memories of growing up, but her favorite ones were made right here in this house, with Nonna and her mom—and yes, Teagan too.

“Why are you here?” she countered. “You don’t come until July and—” Harley glanced at her nieces. “Why are your kids naked?”

“Self-expression,” Poppy said, likely repeating a phrase that was one hundred percent Teagan.

Then the toddler raced into the house, her hands out like Superman. Her mirror image followed—her hands dug firmly into her hips, lips pu. . .